PROPHECY IN THE REFORMATION TRADITION
Willem Berends
Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics
By the Reformation tradition this study means to denote that movement
within Christ's Church of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which
was based on the recognition of the Bible as the unique, complete and
authoritative Word of God, sufficient for all matters of the Christian life
and doctrine. This recognition of the sufficiency of Scripture came with
the firm conviction that, after the apostles and prophets had laid the
foundation for the Christian Church, the canon of Scripture was forever
closed. The present article concerns the question whether this
conviction leaves room for the possibility of post-canonical prophecy as
a form of revelation that is subordinate to God's revelation in the
Scriptures.
It is not the purpose of this article to answer the question raised, but
rather to investigate how some of the leading theologians in the
Reformation tradition have answered this question. Somewhat
anachronistically we will begin with Augustine, not only because he was
among the first post-canonical theologians to clearly formulate the
doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture, but also because of his great
influence on Reformation theologians. From Augustine we move to
Martin Luther, who based his call to Reformation on the unique
authority of Scripture. Next we will look at the views of John Calvin, as
representing the early Reformed approach, and of William Perkins, who
taught most of the Westminster Divines. We will study the works of
George Gillespie as one who represented the Divines, and then turn to
John Owen, who is credited with the first comprehensive theology of
the Holy Spirit. It should be noted that these authors were selected on
the basis of their attention to the matter at hand, and the availability of
their works, and not because they favoured a particular viewpoint.
Augustine of Hippo.
We will begin with Augustine because he, more than any other early
theologian, was used by the Reformers to guide them in their
development of the Reformation doctrines. Polman has demonstrated
that the doctrines of the necessity, perspicuity and sufficiency of
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Scripture can all be found in the works of Augustine.1 In rejecting the
claims of mystics to a direct revelation from God Augustine firmly
taught that the Scriptures contain "all matters that concern faith and the
manner of life".2 Polman's studies also show that Augustine recognised
the role of the Holy Spirit in illuminating God's Word.3 In this way
Augustine anticipated the Reformation emphasis on the unity of Word
and Spirit.
Yet there is also another strain in the writings of Augustine. In his
Confessions he describes how he came to conversion because he
heard a voice like a child's which sang: Tolle lege, "take up and read."
He explains that, since he could not think of any song or game where
these words occur, he took the words to be a message from God
himself. Taking up his Bible he was brought to repentance and faith in
the Lord.
Throughout the rest of his life Augustine remained open to the idea of
prophetic leading by means of dreams, visions and voices. At one time
he desired to lay a question before a monk named John, who was
gifted in the discernment of spirits, and to whom he also attributed
various prophecies.4 But here we must keep in mind that, for
Augustine, such an approach did not amount to seeking a further
leading of the Holy Spirit, for he held to the popular belief that such
prophets were guided by angelic spirits. Prophecies from such sources
were believed to be much more limited in their authority than God's
infallible word. Any vision, revelation or prophecy of this nature was
therefore always subject to testing, to see if the prophetic spirit was of
God.5
Martin Luther.
In his defence before the Diet of Worms Luther stated:
Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture or evident
reason ... I am bound by the scriptural authorities cited by me,
1De Doctrina Christiana, II, 14. Cited from A.D.R. Polman, The Word of God According to St. Augustine
(London: Hoddon and Stoughton, 1961), 66-74.
2Cited from Polman, 73.
3Ibid., 154-159
4F. Van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop (New York: Harper, 1961), 535.
5More recently E. Earle Ellis has again suggested that "the spirits of the pneumatics, the inspired speakers,
are in fact angelic powers." In Prophecy and Hermeneutics (Tübingen: Mohr, 1978), p. 27, cited in T.L.
Wilkinson, "Tongues and Prophecy in Acts and 1st Corinthinans", Vox Reformata 31, Nov. 1978, 14.
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and my conscience is captive to the Word of God; I will recant
nothing and cannot do so, since it is neither safe nor honest to
do ought against conscience. Here I stand! I can do no other!
God help me. Amen.
With these words Luther firmly set the Reformation on a course which
recognised only one fully authoritative standard for God's people: the
Word of God. In doing so Luther rejected two other claims to authority
that had grown in importance since the days of St. Augustine, the
traditions of the Church and the words of the Pope. The renunciation of
these false authorities was summed up in the Reformation slogan, Sola
Scriptura.
As the Protestant Reformation developed Luther found it necessary to
denounce the claim to a further alternative to God’s authoritative
leading: direct communications from the Holy Spirit. Various
"enthusiast" movements, many of them of an Anabaptist variety,
claimed to be led directly by the Spirit of God. Against this the
Wittenberg theologians replied that "God gives no one his Spirit or
grace except through or with the external Word" (Augsburg Confession,
Art. XVIII.). This view was elaborated by Luther himself in his Smalcald
Articles where he explained:
In these matters which concern the external, spoken Word, we
must hold firmly to the conviction that God gives no one his
Spirit or grace except through or with the external Word which
comes before. Thus we shall be protected from the enthusiasts
- that is, from the spiritualists who boast that they possess the
Spirit without and before the Word and who therefore judge,
interpret, and twist the Scriptures or Spoken Word according to
their pleasure. (Part III, Art. VIII)
Thus, from the beginning, the Protestant Reformation followed
Augustine in his teaching of the unity of Word and Spirit.6 Later
Lutheran theologians sought to make the bond between the Word and
the Spirit even stronger by insisting that the Spirit came in the Word (in
verbo), and not just through the Word (per verbum).7 In other words,
not only was there no Spirit apart from the Word, but neither was there
the Word apart from the Spirit. Reformed theologians rejected this
formulation, both because it did not do justice to their conception of the
6Note that in the Apology to the Confession of Augsburg, written the year after the Augsburg Confession,
Melanchton backs up the article cited above with a reference to Augustine.
7Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (London: Banner of Truth, 1958), 611.
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freedom of God's Spirit and because it lent support to the Lutheran
view that the Spirit’s application of the God’s grace was resistible. They
preferred the formulation that the Spirit came with the Word (cum
verbo).
John Calvin
John Calvin also saw the leading of God's Spirit in terms of the
illumination of God's Word. He regarded the testimony of the Spirit as a
persuasive confirmation of, rather than an addition to, the inscripturated
Word of God. It is the Holy Spirit who both convinces man of the
authority of God's Word and enables man to give heed to it:
For as God alone can properly bear witness to his own words,
so these words will not obtain full credit in the hearts of men,
until they are sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit.
(Institutes, I, vii, 4)
Like Augustine and Luther, Calvin stressed the unity of Word and Spirit.
Commenting on Is. 30:1, where the Lord speaks out against those who
ignore his Word and Spirit, Calvin writes:
Let it be observed that two things are here connected, the word
and the spirit of God, in opposition to fanatics, who aim at
oracles and hidden revelations without the word. (Commentary
on Isaiah, 347)8
In other writings, too, the reformer takes firm issue with the enthusiasts.
Denouncing those who claimed that they were directly led by the Spirit
of God Calvin writes:
... whatever delusions Satan suggests to them, they
presumptuously set forth as secret revelations from the Spirit.
Such are the Libertines, and other furies of that stamp.
(Commentary on Galatians and Ephesians, 299)
The "fanatics", "libertines" and "other furies of that stamp" John Calvin
was faced with were the same sects that the Lutherans opposed in their
confessions. Such groups not only claimed the inner leading of the Holy
Spirit, but professed to have all the spectacular gifts of the Spirit. With
respect to such claims Calvin comments:
8All references to Calvin's commentaries are from the Eerdmans edition (Grand Rapids, 1955)
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It is notorious that the Gifts of the Spirit, which were then [in
apostolic times] given by the laying on of hands, some time
after ceased to be conferred. Whether this was owing to the
ingratitude of the world, or because the doctrine of the Gospel
had already been sufficiently distinguished by miracles of nearly
an hundred years, is of no consequence to the present subject.
[Tracts III, 290]
In view of the above it is perhaps surprising that Calvin is not prepared
to fully include the gift of prophecy among those gifts that have passed
away. Calvin held that the more extraordinary gift of predictive
prophecy was no longer in evidence.9 But he also distinguishes
another form of prophecy, the forth-telling of God's Word, and this is a
gift which he believed continued in the church today. In commenting on
the gifts mentioned in Rom. 12:6 Calvin observes:
Hence prophecy at this day in the Christian Church is hardly
anything else than the right understanding of Scripture, and the
peculiar faculty of explaining it, in as much as all the ancient
prophecies and all the oracles of God have been completed in
Christ and his gospel. (Romans, 460, cf. 269)
For Calvin prophecy in this sense is an ordinary gift, for he continues:
And it does not appear that Paul intended here to mention
those miraculous graces by which Christ at first rendered
illustrious his gospel, but, on the contrary, we find that he refers
only to ordinary gifts, such as were to continue perpetually in
the Church.
A point worth noting here is that Calvin interprets the qualification that
one gifted to prophesy must do so "in proportion to his faith" to mean
that his explanation must be in conformity to the faith, i.e. "the first
principles of religion."10
Very similar explanations of the gift of prophecy are given in Calvin's
commentaries on First Corinthians and Ephesians. In commenting on
Eph. 5:19 Calvin explains, "Let, therefore, prophecy, in this passage, be
understood as meaning - interpretation of Scripture properly applied,
8 Elsewhere Calvin writes: "God does not at this day predict hidden events; but he would have us to be
satisfied with the Gospel." [Commentary on Jeremiah III, 372,373]
10Commentary on Romans, 461.
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according to the time, persons, and things present."11 He adds that
"the Spirit of God illumines chiefly by doctrines."12
While Calvin clearly links the extraordinary gifts with the extraordinary
offices which were present during the foundational years of the church,
he nevertheless is reluctant to fully limit the exercise of these offices
and gifts to that period of the church's history. Commenting on the
offices of apostles, prophets and evangelists he wrote:
The Lord raised up the other three [apostles, prophets and
evangelists] at the beginning of his kingdom, and still
occasionally raises them up when the necessity of the time
requires. . . those three functions were not instituted in the
Church to be perpetual, but only to endure so long as churches
were to be formed where none previously existed, or at least
where churches were to be transferred from Moses to Christ;
although I deny not, that afterward God occasionally raised up
Apostles, or at least Evangelists, in their stead, as has been
done in our time. For such were needed to bring back the
Church from the revolt of Antichrist. The office I nevertheless
call extraordinary, because it has no place in churches duly
constituted. (Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV, iii, 4)
In writing about the presence of the prophetic office in his own time
Calvin observes that either "none such now exist, or they are less
manifest." In other words, Calvin does not know of any such prophets,
but he does not rule out the possibility that they might be there. (Later
we will see that George Gillespie appeals to this passage in Calvin's
writings to defend his view on the continuation of prophecy.)
William Perkins
Many of those who became known as the Westminster Divines had
their theological training under William Perkins. Perkins built on the
teachings of John Calvin and advanced the cause of Reformed
theology through his lectures at Cambridge. He influenced not only the
churches in Britain, but also those on the continent, where his books
were widely read. He continued in the high view of Scripture which saw
the Bible as the only normative and sufficient guide for Christian life
11 Commentary on Ephesians, 299; the italicised is taken from the French translation given as a footnote.
12 Ibid.
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and doctrine. Commenting on Gal. 3:8 he observes that the Scripture
authors wrote "all the counsell of God", and adds:
This being granted (which is a certain truth) two maine
conclusions follow: One, that the Scriptures alone by
themselves, without any other word, are abundantly sufficient to
salvation, whether we regard doctrines of faith, or manners. For
he that delivers any doctrine out[side] of them, & beside them,
as necessary to be believed, is accursed. The second
conclusion is, that unwritten Traditions, if they be tendered to
us, as a part of God's word, and as necessarie to salvation,
they are abominations, because they are doctrines beside the
Gospel that Paul preached. (Original spelling and emphasis)13
Perkins was not against tradition as such, but against presenting
tradition "as necessary to be believed." There is no contradiction,
therefore, in Perkins' recognition of the value of tradition for a better
understanding of God's will. What is important is that one should
identify the "right tradition," i.e. the tradition that stretches back to Christ
and the Apostles. For Perkins this tradition is not to be identified with
the inscripturated Word of God, rather it serves to interpret Scripture.
Nor is it to be identified with the mere word of man, since it has its
source in Christ. Right tradition has its origin in both divine and human
sources:
. . . the doctrine of the Church in Sermons, and the decrees of
councils, is both the word of God and the word of man: The
word of God, as it agrees with the writings of the Apostles and
Prophets: the word of man, as it is defective, and as it is
propounded in termes devised by man.14
Perkins' concept of the right tradition stands very close to his concept of
prophecy, as this comes to expression in the public ministry of the
pastor. He regarded prophecy as revelation which had its source in
Christ, but had an admixture of the words of men in a way that brings
out the meaning of Scripture without adding to it or contradicting it:
Prophecy (or Prophecying) is a publike and solemne speech of
the Prophet, pertaining to the worship of God, and the salvation
of our neighbour. . . . There are two parts of Prophecy,
13William Perkins, The Works of that Famous and Worthy Minister of Christ in the Universitie of Cambridge,
the Second Volume (London: John Legatt, 1631), 167
14Ibid., 159.
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Preaching the Word and Conceiving of Prayers. . . . And every
Prophet is partly the voyce of God, to wit, in preaching; and
partly the voyce of the people, in the act of praying. 15
Like Calvin, Perkins distinguished between ordinary and extraordinary
gifts and offices. The ordinary gift of prophecy was expressed in the
preaching of the Word. The extraordinary gift of prophecy was
expressed by those who had direct inspiration:
Revelation is two-fold: One ordinary, the other extraordinary.
Ordinary is, when Christ teacheth men by the word preached,
and by his Spirit. In this sense the holy Ghost is called the Spirit
of Revelation, Eph. 1.17. Extraordinary is without the word
preached, and that in foure wayes. First by voice, . . . second by
dreames, . . . third is vision, . . . The fourth is instinct, when God
teacheth by inward motion and inspiration.16
Perkins' distinction between those having extraordinary revelation and
those having ordinary revelation is paralleled in his distinction between
those who have an extraordinary calling and those who have an
ordinary calling to ministry. The extraordinary calling came directly from
God, and was given to those who those who received God's immediate
revelation. This method of call was more typical of the apostolic period.
The ordinary calling comes through the mediacy of men, i.e. the
church. While the ordinary call is the norm today, Perkins nevertheless
believed that God might continue to call men in an extraordinary
manner in situations where the church has become apostate. Such a
call might come by way of an "immediate voice", or an angelic or
human messenger of God, or by instinct (an internal voice). While the
implication is that those thus called have some special gift of prophecy,
Perkins stops short of stating so. He does say that where such an
"extraordinary teacher" was in evidence he was to be ordained "as
other ordinary ministers."17
In summary we can say that Perkins continued in the Augustinian
tradition which recognised the unity of Word and Spirit: "the Spirit works
in, and by the word of God"18. He limits direct inspiration to those who
had a direct calling from God, and regards this as typical of the
15Ibid., 646, cf. 159
16Ibid., 172.
17Ibid., 171.
18William Perkins, The Works ..., 325.
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apostolic period. Nevertheless he follows Calvin in maintaining that
God m
ay yet make use of the extraordinary offices in extraordinary
circumstances. Moreover, where such a call to an extraordinary office is
extended it comes directly from God by extraordinary means.
George Gillespie
George Gillespie came out of the much persecuted covenanter tradition
of Scotland. Since the Lord had used John Knox to bring the Reformed
faith to his people the Scottish church had known no peace. Many a
Scot died a martyr's death, and many others were continually in flight
trying to elude their persecutors. In these trying circumstances God
constantly showed himself to be near to his people, sometimes helping
them and encouraging them in a very direct manner. There are
numerous accounts of miraculous escapes, many of which are
attributed to dreams, visions and prophecies received by those who
were persecuted. 19
Not all prophecies were given to allow people to escape the enemy.
Some prophecies did no more than predict the martyrdom of God's
saints. These were given to remind the people that God was in control,
no matter how bleak the situation. Thus there is a well documented
tradition that at the ordination of Richard Cameron, in the Scottish
Church at Rotterdam, it was prophesied that he would lose his head in
the service of his Lord, and that his head would be exposed to sun and
moon. Years later this "Lion of the Covenant" was decapitated, and his
head was placed on the city gate for all to see.20
George Gillespie makes direct reference to these kinds of events when
he addresses the matter of prophecy. He writes:
And now, having the occasion, I must say it, to the glory of God,
there were in the church of Scotland, both in the time of our first
Reformation, and after the Reformation, such extraordinary
men as were more than ordinary pastors and teachers, even
holy prophets receiving extraordinary revelations from God, and
foretelling divers strange and remarkable things, which did
19See, for example, D.C. MacNicol, Robert Bruce, Minister in the Kirk of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Banner of
Truth, 1961) and the books listed in the footnote following.
20See John Howie, The Scots Worthies (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier, n.d.), 423, 424; and J.K.
Hewison, The Covenanters (Glascow: John Smith and Son, 1913), 326.
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accordingly come to pass punctually, to the great admiration of
all who knew the particulars. Such were Mr Wishart the martyr,
Mr Knox the reformer, also Mr John Welsh, Mr John Davidson,
Mr Robert Bruce, Mr Alexander Simpson, Mr Fergusson and
others. . . . [A]lthough such prophets be extraordinary, and but
seldom raised up in the church, yet such there have been, I
dare say, not only in the primitive times, but amongst our first
reformers and others; and upon what scripture can we pitch for
such extraordinary prophets, if not upon those scriptures which
are applied by some to the prophesying brethren, or gifted
church members?21
Gillespie's closing statement here is aimed against those
"independents" who would interpret the prophesying in passages like 1
Cor. 12:28; 14 and Eph. 4:11 as speaking of a gift of preaching
exhibited by those who were not ordained to the preaching office (p.
27).22 In contrast Gillespie maintains that these passages speak of
"extraordinary prophets, immediately and extraordinarily inspired by the
Holy Ghost, and that they are to be reckoned among these other
administrations which were not to continue, or be ordinary in the
church".23 The latter statement would appear to contradict Gillespie's
claims that he knew of prophets in his own days. However, it is clear
that Gillespie only means to indicate that the office of the prophet was
not a perpetual office in the church. On this point he appeals to John
Calvin, who wrote that the Lord, who raised the extraordinary offices for
the beginning of his kingdom, "still occasionally raises them up when
the necessity of the times requires".24
While Gillespie believed the prophets to be directly inspired by God's
Spirit, he also held that they needed to be tested because they were
fallible in reproducing their prophecies. At times they mingled their own
human insights with the divine message. Thus the prophets who
foretold Paul's impending imprisonment in Jerusalem added their own
fallible advice that Paul should refrain from travelling to that city. 25 No
doubt this was one of the reasons why Gillespie, together with the other
authors of the Confession, insisted that no word of prophecy could be
added to the Scriptures. The Bible was unique not only because of its
contents, but also because it alone was infallibly inscripturated.
21The Works of George Gillespie, vol. 2, (Edmonton: Still Waters Revival Books, 1991), 30.
22Ibid., p. 27.
23Ibid., p. 28.
24 Ibid., 39. Cited from John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV, iii, 4.
25Ibid., 35
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However, as far as Gillespie was concerned, the inscripturation of
God's Word and the closure of the canon did not preclude the
possibility that God continues to give prophetic guidance in
extraordinary situations through the words of present day prophets.
John Owen
The Puritan John Owen is sometimes recognised as the first theologian
to have published a comprehensive study on the person and work of
Holy Spirit. He wrote three books on the subject, and according to
Abraham Kuyper, these books have remained unsurpassed.26 Owen's
views on the gifts of the Spirit continue to find a wide following in
Reformed theology today.
As a Congregationalist Owen fully subscribed to those Westminster
articles which dealt with the sufficiency of Scripture.27 He strongly
opposed claims to a continuing revelation, especially as this was taught
in Roman Catholicism. Owen argued that direct revelation belonged to
the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit which were given to those who
held an extraordinary office of the church. Since the extraordinary
officers were directly appointed by Christ or his apostles, these offices,
together with the gifts associated with them, ceased with the passing of
the first generation of Christians.
Owen did not fully include the gift of prophecy with the extraordinary
gifts. For him the gift continued on in the preaching ministry today, both
by those ordained to the preaching office, and some outside it.
Commenting on the Scripture's use of the term prophecy he wrote:
But the names of prophets and prophecy are used variously in
the New Testament: for, -1. Sometimes an extraordinary office
and extraordinary gifts are signified by them; and 2. Sometimes
extraordinary gifts only; and 3. Sometimes an ordinary office
with ordinary gifts, and sometimes ordinary gifts only. And unto
one of these heads may the use of the word be everywhere
reduced.28
26A. Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, "Preface of the Author".
27On these points the Savoy Declaration of the Congregationalists are identical to the Westminster
confession. For Owen's views on the sufficiency of Scripture see The Works of John Owen (Edinburgh:
Banner of Truth, 1965), vol. 14, pp. 243-257.
28The Works of John Owen, vol. 3, p. 451.
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As examples of these various categories he mentions Agabus as
representing the prophetic office. The second category is represented
by the daughters of Phillip and those mentioned in 1 Cor. 12:28 and
14:29-33. They had "revelations from the Holy Ghost occasionally," but
did not hold to any office. Gifted preachers, as mentioned in Rom. 12:6,
and Eph. 4:7, represent the third category, and this category continues
on today.
Yet Owen was unwilling to conclude that the recognition that God gives
ordinary gifts today implied the end of all divine miraculous activity. For
he continued,
It is not unlikely but that God might on some occasions, for a
longer season, put forth his power in some miraculous
operations; and so he yet may do, and perhaps doth
sometimes. . . . [A]lthough all these gifts and operations ceased
in some respects, some of them absolutely, and some of them
as to the immediate manner of communication and degree of
excellency; yet so far as the edification of the church was
concerned in them, something that is analogous unto them was
and is continued.29
Conclusion
While it is clear that all the men we studied were firmly committed to
the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture, none of them was prepared
to rule out the possibility of some kind of prophecy continuing after the
close of the biblical canon. But here we must keep in mind that there
was no agreement about the nature of such prophecy as might still
occur today.
We saw that Augustine attributed such prophecies as occurred in his
time to the work of angelic spirits, whether good or evil. He regarded
such prophecies as inferior to the divine revelation of Scripture, and in
need of testing by God's Word. None of the Reformation leaders
appear to have followed this interpretation of prophecy, although all
followed Augustine in his high view of Scripture.
We also noted that the Reformation leaders built on Augustine's
doctrine of illumination, insisting that the Spirit speaks to man through
God's written Word. But whereas Lutheran theologians tied the Word
29Ibid., vol. 3, p. 475.
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and Spirit together by insisting that the Spirit is present in the word,
Reformed theologians rejected this formulation as not doing justice to
the freedom of God's Spirit, and insisted that the Spirit came with the
Word.
Since Calvin we find, therefore, a recognition among Reformed
theologians that the Holy Spirit does not always work according to the
norm, that is, according to ordinary channels. Calvin makes the
distinction between ordinary gifts, given to those holding ordinary
offices, and extraordinary gifts, given to those holding the extraordinary
offices of Apostles, Prophets and Evangelists. While on the one hand
he holds that the extraordinary gifts and offices belonged to apostolic
times, he nevertheless maintains that such offices and gifts may again
be used of God "as time requires".
Perkins and Gillespie follow Calvin's lead in counting the extraordinary
offices and the gifts associated with them as belonging to the
foundational stages rather than the perpetual order the Church. Yet
they, too, are open to God's use of extraordinary methods in
extraordinary times. Gillespie goes so far as to identify the turmoil of
the Reformation in Scotland with such extraordinary times, and gives
various examples of the gift of prophecy being exercised by men he
has known.
In the works of John Owen we see the fullest development of another
thought that was present with Calvin, Perkins and Gillespie, namely
that the gift of prophecy could be recognised in the ability of some
preachers to make God's word relevant to the people. It is Owen who
most clearly elucidates that the word "prophecy" covers a number of
different meanings in Scripture, explaining that today the gift of
prophecy is no longer present with the degree of excellency it had in
the time of the apostles. But if God's people no longer have the same
excellency of gifts displayed in apostolic times, Owen rejects the view
that this implies that God has ceased his own miraculous works on
earth.
In closing we note that all the Reformation scholars we consulted were
firmly committed to the closure of the canon and the unity of Word and
Spirit. While this led them to reject the claims to direct divine revelation
made by the enthusiasts, none of them was prepared to say that all
prophecy of any kind had ceased since apostolic times. All agreed that
prophets did not belong to the perpetual offices of the church. However,
some maintained that God might raise up prophets in extraordinary
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circumstances even today. Others held that the prophetic office had
ceased, and that only a form of the prophetic gift continued on today.
Where the continuation of such a gift was recognised it was mostly, but
not exclusively, linked to the preaching office.
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