A case for Prophetic Revelations

For most Christians, especially in the western world, the question of whether prophetic visions and revelations are relevant  and needed for today’s Christian is usually a foregone conclusion, depending on the denominational affliation.  There is the camp that argues that no visions and spiritual revelations are valid anymore since we already have the closed canon

of the Holy Scriptures – the bible.  Whereas, others, usually from the Pentecostal camp and the like, maintain that visions and revelations are still valid and needed today. And there is perhaps an uncategorized minority of believers who are just clueless about the matters of prophetic visiions and revelations.

However, beyond just arguing for or against the validity of visions and spiritual revelations for today’s Christian, this article seeks to explore one major purpose of visions and revelations in the first place, from which point it should be easier to conclude on their validity or invalidity for today’s Christian.  To this end, we’ll expound a passage of the bible: Prov. 29:18 - “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but happy is he who keeps the law.” The two key words that warrant our attention in this verse are “revelation” and “restraints”.  The Hebrew word translated vision is the word chazon, which means prophetic revelation, vision, vision in the night, divine communication in a vision, oracle, or prophesy.  The second word “restraint” is from the Hebrew word para, which means let go, let alone, let loose, go out of control, remove restraint from (people).  So restated, this passage says something like this: “without divine communication in a vision or prophetic revelations, people let loose or remove restraints.  In other words, in the absence of direct, divine, and revelatory communications from God to His own people, they unwittingly cast off restraints; they go out of alignment.  So from this passage, it appears that at least one primary function of divine prophetic revelation and vision is to guide children of God and to keep them in line before God, so that they don’t stray from laid down principles of godliness. 

Now, here is a good place to remember the cliché, "To err is human." Naturally, humans deviate from God’s righteous standards. We need not make any effort to move away from the center God’s laws; we just do it by default. This is one of the negative consequences of the fall (into sin) of Adam, the first man. Since that single most momentous event back in Eden, all humans became naturally bent toward missing the mark of God’s holy statutes and principles. In fact, it is telling that the Hebrew word mostly used for “sin” in the bible is chata, which literally means to miss the mark, or miss the way. In other words, when the scripture declares that all men are sinners, and that every man is conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5), it is actually declaring that men are not just creatures prone to missing God’s righteous mark, but by nature (which we acquired from Adam) we will miss the mark - all of us. This innate corruption of human nature is what theologians call "depravity".

Now back to Prov. 29:18.  As we saw earlier in the meanings of "vision" and "restraints", this scripture asserts that visions and revelations, which are divine communications from God, are necessary to preventing deviation from God's ordinances. The question now is, "is this Prov 29:18 passage saying that in addition to the written word of God, (the graphé), we Christians need divine prophetic revelations and visions to keep us aligned?  If that is the case, does that not suggest insufficiency, perhaps even inadequacy of the bible? The answer to the first question is "yes, this passage is affirming our need for the divine revelations, although we have the written word of God." And no, it doesn’t suggest insufficiency or inadequacy of the bible. Let me explain.

From many passages of the bible, it is clear that Old Testament saints, beginning with Joshua’s generation had written scriptures to guide them (Joshua 1:8). The scriptures also grew in volume as history progressed (Daniel 9:2). However, there are numerous instances of divine prophetic communications by which God guided or corrected the saints from their errors, even though they had scriptures available to them. For examples, God sent Prophet Nathan to correct David when he had cast off the restraints of morality, truthfulness, and repentance (2 Samuel 12:1-15). God raised and sent His prophets - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah, Habakkuk, Malachi, etc, to warn and correct the entire nation of Israel on so many occasions when they cast off and totally abandoned all godly restraints, although the OT scriptures where there to instruct them. Now, one could make the argument that all of these examples were in the OT - they needed more written revelations to complete their knowledge. Granted. However, the same phenomenon actually continued in the New Testament.

A vision was given to Apostle Peter in order for him to break the salvation-for-Jews-only mentality (Acts 10:5ff). But did Peter not hear it when Jesus said He had other sheep not from this [Jews only] fold (John 10:16)? Of course He did. Wasn’t it recorded in the Hebrew OT bible that Gentiles shall seek Him [Jesus] (Isaiah 11:10)? Certainly! What about the written prophecy of Joel 2:28, where God promised to pour out His Spirit on all flesh (emphasis added); or the one in Isaiah 9:1-2 that stated that the light of God’s salvation would shine upon the Gentiles in Galilee beyond the Jordan? Of course all of these were written in the OT scriptures which Peter had, and He also heard Jesus verbally promise salvation to the gentiles. However, a prophetic vision was what God used to correct his lack of understanding of the scriptures and to eventually bring him to the proper understanding of what was already written in the scriptures: “Then Peter opened his mouth and said: "In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. "But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him” (Acts 10:34-35). For Apostle Peter, the vision God gave him did not replace or improve upon the written scriptures, it clarified and affirmed them.  Prophetic visions and revelations do not replace the scripture, nor are they on par with it. Instead, they compliment and elucidate it. 

Another example of the vital role of prophetic vision is found in the letters to the churches in Asia Minor, given to John the Revelator in Revelations 2-3. Of all the examples above, these churches had the greatest amount of written word available to them. In addition to the Old Testament scriptures, they had the gospels - Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John; and they were themselves participants of some of the events of the book of Acts. In fact, some of these churches were the recipients of the epistles of Paul, and some, if not most of them, were directly founded by Apostle Paul himself. What an incredible blessing to have been that close to the earthly life and ministry Jesus, and to have been founded by the finest apostle! But still, within a few decades, all of them, except for one (the church in Philadelphia), had deviated from the center of God’s will. God then sent them instructions to warn, correct, and get them back on track through prophetic visions given to Apostle John. Let’s think about it - entire congregations, both large and small, all who once started right, deviated from God’s way! How could this have happened so quickly, on such a massive scale? Consider how close to the earthly life and ministry of Jesus the churches were (all less than 70 years removed from Jesus’ resurrection); and how close to the original writings of the apostles they were; and the fact that they were for the most part eyewitnesses of the events of the new testament; but in spite of all that, they had managed to deviate from God’s will, and had cast off righteous restraints. Definitely these believers were not short on written scriptures; they themselves were a part of the written scriptures. But in just a few short years, they had cast off godly restraints. However, did God send them another volume of new scriptures? No. Instead, He sent prophetic visions through John the Revelator to correct their spiritual misalignment.

Are Spiritual Visions Spooky Satanic Spoofs?

No, prophetic vision is not some spooky or spurious satanic spoofs, practiced by some weirdos, as many who do not believe in present day true supernatural manifestations of God often incorrectly depict it. It is authentic, divine revelations via visions or prophetic words to believers, just as God did throughout the scriptures.  If God spoke to countless individuals both in Old Testatment and the New Testament, what stops Him from speaking to believers today?  If He gave visions to people from prophets to kings to ordinary individuals, even to those who were yet to know Christ (Conelius, Acts 10:1-7), why can't He give us Christians visions today? In fact, one could make the argument for us having more visions today than earlier times in biblical history, based on the prophesy of Joel in Joel 2:28-29:  " And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions.  And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days" (emphasis added).  Apostle Peter said this prophesy refers to the "last days."  Are we not living in the last days? Certainly!  Without doubts, prophetic visions and revelations belong in these present days in which we live.  Of course, where there is the real thing, the counterfiet can almost always be expected. As a result, there are numerous manifestations of counterfeit, demon-inspired visions and revelations.  But that was present throughout the biblical times as well.  

There were many instances of false prophets in the Old Testament.  One example was Hananiah in Jer. 8, whom Prophet Jeremiah had to confront.  Elijah had to contend with 400 plus prophets of Baal.  In fact, God gave His people a litmus test for distinguishing a true prophet from a false one - Deut 18:21-22; Deut 13:1-3.  Simon Bar-Jesus is one example of a false prophet in the New Testatment, whom Paul withstood and rebuked (Act 13:6-11).  However, the presence of these false prophets did not invalidate the real prophets of God, from Moses to numerous others, whom God gave prophetic revelations and utterance to, so as to instruct, guide, correct, restrain, and inform His own people.  That hasn't changed.  Unfortunately, due to  counterfiet visions and revelations, some have concluded that there is no place for authentic divine vision and revelations in the church of God anymore.  This is a tragic error.  As the saying goes, "you don't throw out the baby with the birthwater." God still speaks to His children through visions and revelations. God still corrects, guides, instruct, and restrains His people through prophetic visions and revelations, just as He did throughout the scriptures.  Of course, it is our responsibility to check visions and revelations to make sure they align with the written word of God, the bible. And they must! Visions, revelations, and prophesies are not substitues to the divine closed canon of scripture; they are illumantory and complementory to it. 

If They Needed it, How About Us?

Sadly the situation of the churches in Asia minor is the plight of so many Christian circles and mainline denominations today. How we need prophetic visions today in our churches! We are over 2,000 years removed from Jesus’ earthly life. Many errors and false doctrines have systematically crept into, permeated, and extensively hijacked the true doctrines of the scriptures. The church of God has been assaulted by Satan and the world system for so long that it has lost so much of its true identity. Many wrong teachings and interpretations of the scriptures have become enshrined in the denominations and in theology textbooks. Much, if not all, restraints have been cast off, so much so that we have become desensitized to blatant scripturally unacceptable practices to the point that we can hardly tell what offends or violates God’s holiness anymore. If there ever was a time that divine prophetic visions and utterances were needed, it is now. And what doesn’t help is that many, if not most of the mainstream churches have either relegated or even prohibited the prophetic ministry. Of course, that is the masterstroke of Satan, to cut God's people off from divine means of correction, that we may freely cast off all restraints, to our detriment.

Are prophetic visions and revelations for today's Christians? Absolutely! As humans, if we intend to remain at the center of God’s will and ordinances, if we intend to be spiritually guided and preserved from the undectectable deadly spiritual landmines with which Satan is increasingly rigging our world, and if we intend to be shileded from the craftily couched and disguised heresies that are being manufactured in seminary classrooms and dispensed from church altars and on the airwaves today, we need divine visions and revelations from God.  The dilution, compromisation, and corruption of the truth is so subtle and surphisticated in these endtimes that successfully deciphering things on our own is nearly impossible without constant revelations and guidance from the Holy Spirit. Like Peter, a well-meaning, biblically knowledgeable person can be in error without knowing.  Like the churches in Asia minor, a whole congregation, or even an entire denomination can be on a deviant path without knowing it. Just as God did throughout biblical history, He uses prophetic visions and revelations to instruct, guide, correct, direct, and curb His people.  They do not sideline the bible; rather they reiterate it, if they are genuine. Visions and revelations are have always been, and still are God-ordained restraint and directive measure for congregations of believers and individual believer. It is so easy to veer off the line that one or an entire congregation may not notice it, even those well-intentioned. Prov. 29:18 is indeed true: Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraints, but happy is he who keeps the law.  Do you desire that God would give you visions and revelations?  He wants to, if you believe, desire, and pray for them.  They are meant to be God's means of guidance and revelations for His children. 

I find the lyrics of the hymn below apropos to this subject:

“O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be
Let that grace now, like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here's my heart, O take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above.”