Its Benefits by J. O. Corliss

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 25, 1911

Its Benefits

By J. O. Corliss

Tracings of the Prophetic Gift — No. 3

Its Benefits

J. O. CORLISS

SEVERAL conspicuous differences may be noted between the offices of prophet and priest. The priesthood was maintained from the descendants of a single family, without regard to individual character, while prophets were selected promiscuously, according to personal fitness. It was therefore the office, or institution, of the priesthood that was honored, rather than the individuals connected with the service. Descended from a warrior ancestry, it is not strange that certain priests should be found registered as military commanders. Gen. 49: 5-7; 1 Chron. 11: 23, 24; 12: 28; 27: 5.

It must be that the priestly service had in some way been perverted from its original design; for it was instituted with a divine title, and its servants were called priests “of the most high God.” It was also divinely said unto them: “Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy.” Lev. 19: 2. But as we view that order under the kings of Israel and Judah, with all its magnificence and venerable usages, it could not possibly foreshadow the glory of him who was to be, and who now is, the great High Priest of all nations. This probably was one principal reason why our Lord dealt such heavy blows against the system during his earthly ministry. John 2: 14-16; Matt. 21: 12, 13. As it was, the Jewish priesthood, with its family caste, passed away, and the universal priesthood of Christ succeeded it. Heb. 9: 11.

Not so, however, with the prophetic office. That reaches over from the Old Testament into the New, to be continued throughout the history of the Christian church. 1 Cor. 12: 7-10, 28. While the priests were required to consult the urim and thummim for their oracles, the prophet was favored with direct communion with God in visions and dreams. Num. 12: 6. More than this, the inspiration of the Hebrew prophets was positive and universal. It was not confined to some specific order, as to a founder of a religion, but was open to every fit person. This may be gathered from the rebuke administered by Moses, when Joshua asked him to require Eldad and Medad to cease prophesying in the camp of Israel. Said he: “Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them!”

We find the great apostle also uttering a similar sentiment. He instructs all to desire gifts of the Spirit, but gives preference to that of prophecy, stating thus his reason therefor: “He that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort.” Therefore prophesying, he goes on to say, is a greater gift than speaking with tongues, because of its much greater benefit to mankind. See 1 Cor. 14: 1-5, 24, 25, 31.

The prophetic gift is from a distinctly divine source. The Hebrew prophets were conscious of this, and were therefore impelled to speak to any or all in reproof or counsel. “Woe is me, if I preach not the gospel,” said the inspired apostle. 1 Cor. 9: 16. God spoke to the fathers by, or more literally in, the prophets. Heb. 1: 1. God himself spoke by the mouth of men, thus making their appeals more startling and impressive. “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me,” says the psalmist, “and his word was in my tongue.” 2 Sam. 23: 2. The words of a prophet’s mouth, therefore, were not his own words, but the words of God. When uttered, the responsibility of them was the Lord’s, and so the prophet need not enter any defense for himself, when the authority of the word spoken was questioned.

The reason why God chose thus to use men is not far to seek. Having made man in his own image, with the attributes essential to direct communication with heaven, it was necessary to man’s best interest, even though he had separated himself from God by sin, to communicate directly with him, in order to provide proper help in time of perplexing emergencies. Man having lost, through sin, the power to discern clearly the underlying principles of God’s character, as traced in the tables of stone, these could be best elucidated before him, and applied to specific duty under peculiar circumstances, by God speaking positively and personally to him through some chosen human instrument, that is, by some one using a language in common with the individual to be communicated with.

In this way the purity of service to the one true God could be preserved as by no other method. Had spiritual instruction been left to man, unaided by the Spirit, but a short time would have elapsed before all knowledge of Jehovah and his ways would have been eliminated from every sinful mind. In such case, man would have passed beyond redemption, and creation would have proved abortive through Satan’s attitude of enmity to the divine will. But the eternal love that gave man existence, again provided a medium of heavenly communion with him, though he had forsaken that first love. As Satan tried to thwart the first plan by which God might commune directly with his created image, so it might be expected that the arch-enemy would continue his attempt to defeat the improvised system of speaking to men through his chosen prophets. Heb. 11: 36-38.

It was only by the impulse of Jehovah’s mind, speaking by human tongue, that suitable impressions could be made upon the heart of man,—the seat of love and all the tender emotions,—and cause it to vibrate in response to heavenly strains. As the stream does not rise higher than its fountainhead, so fallen humanity could not, by personal influence alone, lift man above its own station. And as the fulness of the stream is the glory of its fountainhead, it must be that for man to lift another to the intended height, he must first be filled with fulness from the source of heavenly supply, in order to render glory to the name and strength of him from whom flows eternal salvation.

All this was to keep under heavenly control those who willed to have it so. By this means, man could walk with God in a sure way, in the face of every obstacle. It was, indeed, the binding together of men’s hearts in the mystic intimacy of a theocracy, or God-rule. This word theocracy seems to have been invented by Josephus, to express an idea for which ordinary Greek could furnish no adequate term. Speaking of the annals of his people, this Jewish historian says: “Our Lawgiver had no regard to monarchies, oligarchies, democracies, or any of these forms; but he ordained one government to be what by a forced expression may be called a theocracy.” This was not a government of earthly priests, as opposed to kings, but a government by God himself, in which he spoke directly to his subjects through his chosen prophets as his mouthpieces.

From the very nature of such an organization, it seems almost useless to assert that God must, in the very course of his unchangeable nature, continue his original method of governing his own people. But through some mysterious influence the modern church has fallen into the habit of each one doing what seems right in his own eyes. This has brought in complicated conditions, in which many are wandering in darkness, having no certain guide, because their blinded minds do not comprehend the voice of God in his written Word, and they recognize no human instrument through whom the Lord’s speech is directed. It seems as true now as in olden times, that “where there is no vision, the people perish,” or, as rendered in the Danish Bible, the people “become reinless.” Prov. 29: 18.

Mountain View, Cal.