No. 5. >> Hello, Professor Lessing. It is very nice to meet you. I have heard great things about your teaching. So I'm looking forward to our study. In response to Joshua's question, you just gave us a picture of a prophet. I'm not sure I understand how it was that Isaiah or any of the other prophets received their information about God's plans. Where did prophets derive their theological understandings? When a prophet like Isaiah wrote, was he in a kind of trance under the control of the Holy Spirit? How did all of this work? It. >> In an earlier age in the study of Old Testament prophets, there were many people who believed that Old Testament prophets simply derived their messages out of the blue. That they were beginning an entirely new movement and a new Word from Yahweh, the God of Israel. However, within the last 30 or 40 years or so, prophetic scholarship has helped us understand that these men like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, really didn't have a completely new Word from God. They were building their messages upon Israel's earlier events and earlier texts. That is to say that Isaiah simply didn't start preaching under the inspiration of God and have all of these new ideas for his day. Rather, he is taking from the past and applying those ideas for his new situation. Let me be more exact and specific by giving you at least two examples. The first example is going to come from Isaiah Chapter 9. And we will look at this text in terms of preaching it during the Christmas season. So I won't go into a lot of the details now. We'll save that for later. However, in Chapter 9 Verse 3 Isaiah describes these great events. People walking in darkness will see a great light. That's Verse 1. And Verse 6, there will be a child called Wonderful, Counsellor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. But within Verse 3 of Chapter 9 of Isaiah he says: This will be like -- there is a huge word -- the day of Midian. Well, so where does he get his ideas? He gets his ideas based upon whatever the day of Midian was. Well, what is that? I'm so glad you asked. The day of Midian has to do with the ministry of Gideon, which we see in Judges Chapters 6, 7 and 8. My children, if you can allow me to digress momentarily, were once in a Christian musical called: Giddyup Get Along Gideon. And some of the lyrics to one of the songs go like this: They're crop destroyin', plague deployin', quite annoyin' mighty menacin' Midianites. They're fond of fightin', strike like lightnin' and, man, they're frightnin', mighty menacin' Midianites. They kill, steal, and destroy every man, woman, girl and boy. They are mighty menacin' Midianites. Well, these Midianites come to Israel during the time of Gideon. And Gideon has this great deliverance. Remember that? A sword for the Lord and for Gideon in Chapter 7 of the book of Judges. And these Midianites, who were crop destroyin', plague deployin' and quite annoyin' are finally defeated. So Isaiah is reflecting upon these chapters in the book of Judges. He's reflecting on the great light that happened when Gideon instructed his 300 Abiezerites who lapped water like dogs to break the lanterns, so to speak. And there would be this huge light, these torches, lit up at night as they attacked the mighty menacing Midianites. And this all happened in the northern part of Israel and was a very humble way for God to enact his victory over these crop destroyin' and plague deployin', quite annoyin' Midianites. Okay. Well, enough of all of the rhyme, rhythm and song. But what I'm trying to say is Isaiah looks at what God is going to do in the future with this Wonderful, Counsellor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And he says all of that will be like the day of Midian. So where do prophets get their ideas, their oracles, their messages? They are simply reflecting upon God's earlier events in the life of Israel. And saying: Now God is going to do a new thing. Well, that gets us to another way to understand how prophets, specifically Isaiah the prophet, works. In Chapter 43 Verse 16 through Verse 20, Isaiah says: Forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past. See, the Lord is doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it? It springs up in the desert. And Isaiah goes onto use desert imaginary and chariot imaginary and water imaginary to say that God is going to enact a new thing. Well, what's the new thing? The new thing is a new exodus. We will see new exodus themes in Chapters 11, 12 and 35 in our discussion of Isaiah 1 to 39. But at this point I want you to understand that how does Isaiah work? How do prophets work? Not only looking at the day of Midian. But also looking at the exodus. Again, they are not just having oracles and revelations out of the blue. They have been meditating and thinking and studying prior texts. And in this case, the text of the exodus. So Isaiah says: God is going to do a new thing. God reactualizes. He fulfills. He uses what is old to do something new. With Gideon. With the exodus. With Moses. With David. It goes on and on throughout the book of Isaiah. Let me just pause here and give you a theological term for what I'm talking about. It's called typology. God takes older events and institutions and people and he says in the new day these events, institutions and people will be fulfilled. And they will move to a higher level. We see this all over the Old Testament. And even within the New Testament. Let me give you an example from the New Testament. In Matthew Chapter 12, Jesus says three times that one is greater than the temple. One is greater than Solomon. And one is greater than Jonah. You see, so Jesus uses typology, as well. He sees these Old Testament events and institutions and people. And he says: One greater than all of that is right here. So Jesus isn't, again, making stuff up or just having visions and revelations. Neither are the prophets. Typology moves from Old Testament to New Testament. I think I probably taught you about that in our introduction to the Old Testament course. But typology also moves and is used within the Old Testament itself. That's where the prophets get their ideas. From the day of Midian. From the exodus. And we will see this over and over again in our study of Isaiah. Now, let's look at the second part of the question. And that is specifically: Were they in a trance? How did all of this work? This is a great question. And we can only provide some sketchy details for an answer. Perhaps the best text to understand this would be in I Kings Chapter 21. Where a prophet called Micaiah ben Imlah tells us he received God's Word and revelation as he was in the prophetic council that was taking place in heaven. So Micaiah says that through his meditation on the Word of God, he was taken up into this heavenly council whereby he heard the Lord talking with his angelic attendants speaking about what the prophetic message would be for the days of Micaiah ben Imlah. Another good text would be in Amos Chapter 3 Verse 7. Where Amos says: God doesn't do anything unless he reveals it to his servants, the prophets. And God let's the prophets into his heavenly council. That's the same imaginary that we have with Micaiah ben Imlah. So what does all of this mean? It means that the prophets were taken into, spiritually speaking, this council of angelic hosts. And there they were given God's Word for their day. Indeed, for the days of the New Testament. Indeed, as they point to the last day of Christ's second coming. So let's review. Where do Old Testament prophets the get their messages? They get them from earlier texts and events and people in the Old Testament themselves. How did they get this? They were taken into a spiritual mode whereby God communicated specifically what this word would be for their day and time. II Peter Chapter 1 puts it nicely in summary form that prophets were inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak God's very Word for their day. Indeed, for the days of this present world.