Monday, November 1, 2021

Wayne Grudem (Protestant Theologian) Teaching "Follow the Prophet"

  

To Disbelieve or Disobey Anything a Prophet Says is to Disbelieve or Disobey God

 

If prophetic words are viewed as God’s words in the Old Testament, then we would expect to find some indications of moral obligations placed on the hearers, obligations to hear these words and unquestioningly believe them and obey them. In fact, several indications of this sort are found in the Old Testament.

 

According to Deuteronomy 18:19, the Lord says of the coming prophet who would be like Moses: “Whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him” (Deut. 18:19).

 

When Saul disobeyed Samuel’s command to wait seven days at Gilgal “until I come to you and show you what you shall do” (1 Sam. 10:8), Samuel rebuked him: “You have done foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which he commanded you … now your kingdom shall not continue … because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you” (1 Sam. 13:13–14). To disobey the prophet’s words is to disobey God.

 

In 1 Samuel 15:3, God spoke through Samuel and commanded him to destroy the Amalekites, and to “utterly destroy all that they have.” Again when Saul disobeyed, Samuel asked, “Why then did you not obey the voice (qôl) of the Lord?.… Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king” (1 Sam. 15:19, 23).

 

To disobey a command of one of “the sons of the prophets” who is speaking “by the word of the Lord” (1 Kings 20:35) is to disobey “the voice of the Lord,” and can lead to sudden death (1 Kings 20:36). When the people demand a king instead of Samuel the prophet, God says to Samuel, “They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Sam. 8:7): To reject God’s prophet is to reject God.

 

The parallelism in 2 Chronicles 20:20 indicates an equivalence between obeying God’s prophets and obeying God:

“Believe the Lord your God,

 and you will be established;

believe his prophets, and you will succeed.”

 

In fact, to reject a prophet’s words is to invite certain destruction by God (2 Chron. 25:16; Isa. 30:12–14; Jer. 6:10–11; 16:19; 36:29–31).

 

In summary, the words that a prophet speaks in God’s name are throughout the Old Testament said to be words that God also speaks. What the prophet says in God’s name, God says. To disbelieve or disobey anything a prophet says in God’s name is to disbelieve or disobey God. (Wayne A. Grudem, “Scripture's Self-Attestation and the Problem of Formulating a Doctrine of Scripture,” in D.A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, eds., Scripture and Truth [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1992], 24-25)

 

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