Faith Based Justice Part 5: The Spirit, Has Spoken Through the Prophets

Prophets are important when considering how social justice grows up from Christian belief.  I had a eureka moment a few years ago when Micah 6:8 became a significant part of what shapes worldview.  I had another moment like this a few of days ago when I started thinking about this post.  What I will call The Micah Statement – that God expects his followers to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly – is not exclusive to the prophet Micah.  I can just as easily refer to The Isaiah Statement (1:16-17), The Jeremiah Statement (22:3), The Ezekiel Statement (45:9), The Hosea Statement (12:6), The Amos Statement (5:15), or The Zephaniah Statement (2:3) and communicate the same thing.  Why is this so?  The Creed proposes an answer: This idea did not begin with the prophets.  Instead, they drew from a common source, namely The Holy Spirit.  I believe that the Holy Spirit speaks through the prophets.  This is why I am an advocate for social justice.

It is important here to suggest a definition and then to provide a bit of personal information.  First is the definition.  Prophet is a confusing word because it can mean a few things when Christians use it (and even more when other voices join the conversation).  When hearing the word “prophet,” it is perfectly valid to think of the final section of books in the Old Testament.  You will notice most of my biblical references in this post will be from this group of writings.  When I refer to “a prophet”, however, I do not necessarily mean one of the men who wrote these texts.

Instead, by prophet I mean anyone that God uses to deliver a message*.  This broader definition includes earlier Old Testament figures like Moses or Elijah, New Testament figures like John the Baptist or John the Apostle, people throughout church history, and even people today.  The New Testament often uses “prophet” in this way (see 1 Corinthians 14 or 2 Peter 2 as examples).

Next is a personal comment about why I believe in the God of the Creed and, in particular, in the Holy Spirit.  It is important that I explain this if I am going to make dual bold claims – the Spirit speaks through prophets and we should follow the Spirit's words. 

In my mid-twenties, I suspected that my religion was irrelevant short of Sundays and a few other days of the year.  I had to pick between ignoring or embracing the God of my youth.  It took a while but I picked embrace.  I did so skeptically, however.  I then encountered N. T. Wright and his book Simply Christian.  Reading this book convinced me that Jesus did live, did die, and did resurrect.  I thought that if I believe this about Jesus, I should take the fellow seriously.

In my late-twenties, I started coursework at Regent College hoping to take off a bit more of my skepticism.  I read David Adams Richards for the first time**.  The apologetic value of God Is. is that it does not try to convince me of anything.  It proposes an idea, that God exists, and explains how the author interprets life events with this view.  This helped settle some nagging doubts that I had about whether the God I believe in is communicative. 

I believe in Jesus, his life, his death, and his resurrection.  This means believing and following his words***.  I therefore believe in the Father and the Spirit.  This means I can confidently turn to the prophets for guidance, inspiration, and direction.

Christianity has a rich prophetic tradition.  As mentioned above, the Christian Old Testament has an entire section dedicated to the writings of prophets, while other sections identify more people as prophets.  The New Testament likewise identifies prophets.  Jesus and Paul look to the future of prophecy.  Jesus warns his followers to beware of false prophets, while Paul instructs his readers on how to distinguish between genuine and false prophets.  Throughout church history, some Christians have been marked out as prophets.  This still happens today.  (We may be lax in heeding the warnings about false prophets, however.)

This is where justice enters the conversation.  I believe that the words of prophets are the words of the Spirit.  When we listen to the Spirit, it is hard to avoid that the Spirit wants people to be just. 

I want to conclude with some of the lessons the Spirit gives us about justice****.

Isaiah 1:2-20: This prophecy begins with a list of the sins of Judah, a description of the country’s character, and a note about what Judah is doing to rectify its sin.  God then explains how to actually address sin.  Among the requirements is seeking justice – defined as correcting oppression, protecting the rights of the fatherless, and defending widows.  

Amos 5:1-17: This is a lamentation.  God grieves Israel’s sin.  He wants Israel to follow him, but it instead follows others.  Israel destroys justice, which looks like trampling the poor, unfairly taxing the poor, owning property that you have no use for, accepting bribes, and refusing to meet the needs of the poor.  Right response to injustice is to set community standards by justice, seek and love goodness, and hate and reject evil.

Micah 3: God expects Israel’s rulers to understand what justice is.  Instead, the leaders hate good, love evil, abuse their people, and encourage people to reject God’s teaching.  God will reject the calls of Israel’s leaders and prophets who are unjust.  These leaders attain power by killing, attain power by structuring society to treat people unequally, have a legal system swayed by bribes, and alter teaching based on who is paying the prophet or priest.  Despite such injustice, the leaders and prophets assume they are acting with God’s protection.  God rejects this assumption.

*The IVP Bible Dictionary gives some added clarity on this way to use “prophet”.  In particular, see sections V.d and V.e in the entry Prophecy, Prophet.

**I grew up a couple of hours, and in some cases minutes, from where Richards sets his books.  I never read him before moving to the other side of the country before picking him up.

***This includes acknowledging that I sometimes do not follow his words.  I then must ask for forgiveness and repentance.

****For the sake of brevity, I will look only to the Old Testament prophetic books, and then a very small sample from these.