The Spirit of Prophecy in the Church
By D. H. Kress
RIGHTEOUSNESS is right doing. No man can be righteous who is not a right doer. In the past God's people have been reproved for wrong-doing by prophets sent from God, but in many instances they refused the message and messenger, claiming to be right, or righteous, and not in need of the warning or correction. Jeremiah was cast into a dungeon because he dared to tell the king of Israel that his ways were not right. John was beheaded for the same reason. Many are led astray by trusting to impressions. This is never a safe course. A self-satisfied spirit is no surety or evidence of being right. How, then, may we know whether we are right or wrong? There need be no uncertainty about this: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” If our impressions or actions are not in harmony with both the law and the testimony of God's Spirit, we may rest assured that they are wrong and not to be relied upon; for the righteousness of God is “witnessed by the law and the prophets.” Rom. 3: 21. If our course is right, the law will witness to it, and so will the spirit of prophecy. Anciently, when the people did evil before the Lord and forsook the law unconsciously, thinking they were doing right and keeping the law, the record says: Thou “testifiedst against them, that thou mightest bring them again unto thy law.” Neh. 9: 29. This reveals both the object and the need of the spirit of prophecy in the church, “that thou mightest bring them again unto thy law.” The law could not witness that they were right until they believed the prophets. The remnant which keep the commandments of God have the testimony of Jesus Christ to witness to God's righteousness. Without the testimony of Jesus Christ there is danger of deception, danger of mistaking our own righteousness for God's righteousness, and being satisfied with it. Man may claim to be right, but if the righteousness which he claims is not witnessed by the law and by God's Spirit in his prophets, it is not God's righteousness; it can be nothing more than self-righteousness. The children of Israel claimed to keep God's law, they claimed to be righteous; but when they were corrected, instead of acknowledging that they were wrong, they went about justifying their course or establishing their own righteousness, and stoned the prophets because they would not witness to it. God still, as anciently, corrects his people by his Spirit in his prophet. To all who will take heed and refuse to trust in their impressions, or their own righteousness, and will do according to all God commands, it will be said, as it was to Noah, “Thee have I seen righteous.” The Lord, through his law and the spirit of prophecy, will witness to his own righteousness still. When in possession of it, there can be no condemnation. We know we are righteous, not because we feel righteous, but because God pronounces our course righteous. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?”