Swiss Reformed theologian Emil Brunner, writing on the nature of prophets and prophecy, and the relationship of such to the “Word of God” and the Christ event, Swiss Reformed theologian, noted:
The prophet only possesses the Word, he is not the Word itself. He has it—in the simplest and most austere sense of the word. This is what constitutes his position of authority. At the same time this means that his authority is limited. He is not himself the authority. The person who is here, and the cause for which he is here, are still two separate things. Hence in him the Word is not really present. He must point forward in his prophetic utterance to a Word which will take place, and he must wait with expectancy for this fact of revelation. The prophet is not himself the place where the revelation takes place; properly speaking, this process takes place in a higher sphere. He himself is subordinate to the Word, like all other men. It is true, of course, that in contrast to other men his “word” is an authoritative utterance. But he himself is only a means, only an impersonal instrument. He is not himself the mediator in person.
Hence through all prophecy there runs a golden thread which points forward, more or less clearly, to a manifestation of the presence of God in which alone the meaning of the prophetic revelation will be finally fulfilled. Prophecy is Messianic. Whether the prophet as a psychological individual is himself conscious of this or not, his message points forward to the future where the Word and the Person will not be separated, where the mediator of the revelation will not possess the Word outside of and above Himself, but within Himself, because He Himself is the Word. What is mean is the event in which the Person of the Mediator is the actual source whence the authoritative Word is proclaimed without having to be “given,” first of all, a Person who, when He asked concerning His authority, will no longer need to point away from Himself, but may rightly point to Himself. It was the aim of the last of the prophets to prepare the way for Him “who was to come.” With a passionately humble gesture he pointed away from himself towards Him whose shoe-latchet he felt himself unworthy to stoop down and unloose. This gesture manifests his insight and his fidelity. The prophet knows that he is not the ultimate, the real, definitive, final revealer, who need wait no longer, one who does not need to wait to receive anything else, who need no longer point forward, the One in whom all prophecy is fulfilled, The One to whom all the speech of the prophets has pointed, the One who is Himself the Word of God, a new category, not merely a maximum amount of that which had existed previously—not a final and still greater prophet, but the Word Itself, the Word which all the prophets have foretold, present in His own Person, uttering His own message. As a human being the prophet himself has no authority. The ultimate truth of his message is not bound up with his personality. No one has authority save the God who Himself speaks to us. God does not delegate His authority. Here are no intermediate courts of appeal. (Emil Brunner, The Mediator: A Study of the Central Doctrine of the Christian Faith [trans. Olive Wyon; London: The Lutterworth Press, 1934], 225-26)
Elsewhere, on the nature of Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament and its relationship to the Christ event, Brunner offered the following insightful comment:
People usually overlook the fact that the Messianic claim as such, and still more the Messianic claim of Jesus Himself, includes everything which the prophecy of the Old Testament had predicted about the eschatological nearness of salvation, of the nearness of God, of reconciliation and redemption. To be the Messiah did not mean merely to be a figure which either accompanied or interpreted the great process of redemption, but the Messiah was the decisive active Person, in whom the reality of this process is incorporated, in which, indeed, it is realized. The unique character of the Person of Jesus, as compared with all the prophets—who yet, on their part, were already mediators of the divine revelation and the divine grace—does not only increase the mediatorial claim in exactly the same proportion, but—just because of its uniqueness—only then allows it to have its full meaning. He in whom the Kingdom of God has “come upon you” (εφθασεν), He in whom the Kingdom of God “is among you (in the midst of you),” stands, therefore, as the Mediator of that which is coming from God, between God and man, as the One in whom is the condition of a share in the new era. It is He in whom the old aeon with its curse is ended, it is He in whom the new aeon with its salvation has dawned, and is actually present. All this must be remembered if we wish to understand the fact that Jesus Christ did not teach forgiveness as a general truth, but actually forgave sinful men with authority, and proclaimed forgiveness as God’s will and God’s act. (Ibid., 540)
