Sidney B Sperry on the Nature of Prophecy and Revelation

What is the Nature of Revelation? Prophecy. Prophecy includes the idea of revelation. The word revelation means to unveil, or make known something that is hidden or kept secret, whether that be in the past, present, or future sense. Such revelation may be given in a dream which is sometimes called apocalyptic as in the Book of Daniel (Dan. 7:1). Again, it may be in waking vision such as Moses (Exo. 33:9-11) or Isaiah (Isa. 6:1) experienced. Some messages Jehovah dictated word for word (Isa. 7:3-9); others were inspired but the prophet was left to express them in his own language (Dan. 2:27-45). In such cases, the Lord, through the medium of the Holy Spirit, planted the ideas in the mind of the prophet and these were expressed as the word of God. In still another way the prophet, being inspired, reasoned from already established facts and persuaded the people to righteous living. Being the representative of God, the will of the prophet in such cases is also the will of Jehovah. Under inspiration, the intellect and spiritual faculties are quickened beyond the natural tempo, and with penetrating insight the inspired can unveil the unknown and make clear the obscure. The principal difference between inspiration and revelation lies in degree rather in kind . . . Prophecy is Not a Mechanical Process. When a man prophesies he is by no means a mere recording instrument. Truly, the Lord may move him to say the thoughts desired, but the voice and words are those of the prophet. He may either utter the message or keep silent. The prophet in such cases thinks, under the Holy Spirit, the thoughts of God and these he repeats in the vocabulary and language at his command. Were that not so, we would not have all the diversities of vocabulary, sentence structure, figures of speech, and style that are found in the Old Testament. (Sidney B. Sperry, The Spirit of the Old Testament [2d ed.; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1970], 124, 129)