Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 180:719 (Jul 2023)
Article: From The Editor
Author: Glenn R. Kreider

From The Editor

Glenn R. Kreider

In his second epistle, Peter declared, “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:20–21, NIV). Scripture is “God-breathed” (2 Tim 3:16), written by human authors “carried along by the Holy Spirit.” When prophets interpreted reality, they were not giving merely their own interpretations; they were speaking the very words of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth.

The Lord defined a prophet as one who is his mouthpiece: “I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him” (Deut 18:18). Because God is Truth, his Word is Truth. God does not speak or affirm what is not true. Thus the Lord issued this warning: “A prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death” (v. 20).

God’s prophets speak God’s words, and those words are always true and authoritative; they never lead people astray from the God who is Truth. We can trust the words from prophets to be sufficient for the purpose for which they were given, because they are the words of a trustworthy God.