Back in November of 2013 Sam Storms came to the defense of
the modern fallible prophecy movement in the charismatic churches. In that
defense, he lists ten arguments that he is convinced refutes John MacArthur’s “Strange
Fire” assessment of the practice and Doug Wilson’s criticism of it as well. I
am going to provide some condensed posts in response to what I see as a surplus
of fallacies in Storms’ arguments. You should keep in mind, however, that my
criticism is not necessarily a defense of MacArthur and Wilson’s view as much
as it is of my own, which may or may not be slightly nuanced in comparison to
the former men.
Mr. Storms begins with the following statement:
First, this view fails to reckon with what would undoubtedly
have been thousands of prophetic words circulating in the first century, none
of which are part of canonical Scripture and thus none of which are binding on
the conscience of Christians throughout history.
Storms makes this statement in response to the view that
such prophecies equal divine revelation and as such are the authoritative word
of God and should be included in the canon. Storms takes the curious and
fallacious position that there is a distinction in the authority of God’s word
included in the canon and that word that never made it into the canon.
My mind travels back to that time when Moses was commanded by
God to strike the rock once! This word was not part of the canon, the Torah,
and yet Moses suffered the judgment of God for not obeying God’s personal word
to Him. I am also reminded of Saul, whom Samuel told to destroy everything from
the Amalekites. Saul disobeyed and lost the kingdom. These words were not part
of the Torah nor were they given to everyone in Israel. They were given to
Saul. God’s word is by nature authoritative. God’s word was just as authoritative
prior to canonization as it is now that we have the canon. The canon does
nothing to make God’s word more or less authoritative. In addition, putting God’s
divine communication in writing does not add to its authority, nor does it
diminish it in any way. God’s word is authoritative precisely because it is God’s
word, not because it takes a particular form.
Since God’s word is by nature authoritative, it only follows that the
recipient of that word is under absolute obligation to obey it. Refusal to obey
God’s word, regardless of its form, is a serious sin. God’s word is not more or
less authoritative depending on its form or its messenger. Storms makes no
effort to demonstrate why anyone should think otherwise. He simply assumes we
should take his point to be the gospel truth so to speak.
Finally, Storms makes a serious error in his presumption regarding the number and content of NT prophecies. Storms says, “there would undoubtedly
have been thousands of prophetic words circulating in the first century.” This
may or may not have been the case. The truth is that we do not know how often
this gift was engaged in the ancient church. Nevertheless, even if Storms is
right in his speculation on this point, he is likely wrong in his speculation on
the latter one. Storms presumes that the content of these numerous prophecies
during the ancient church never made its way into the canon. How does he know
this? Indeed, how could he possibly know this to be the case? The fact of the
matter is that he does not. The truth is that these prophecies could have very
well been a combination of Old Testament and New Testament Scripture in
prophetic form. The ancient church represents the most interesting transition
periods in all of human history. That God would be doing unique work during
such a unique period should not surprise us in the least.
In summary then, Storms basic presupposition is that
canonical revelation is more authoritative and normative than personal,
prophetic revelation. This point of view is completely lacking exegetical
warrant. Second, Storms view that there were thousands of prophetic words in
the NT is based upon sheer conjecture and speculation. Even if it was true, and
it may be, it is entirely irrelevant to the argument. Third, Storms’ contention
that these prophecies contained divine revelation that is not contained in the
Scripture is without exegetical warrant. Moses and Saul were given direct personal
revelations from God, they both disobeyed, and they both suffered grave
consequences as a result. The fact that these NT prophecies could have
contained OT revelation not previously disclosed to Gentile audiences or NT
revelation that would eventually make it into the canon is enough to accuse
Storms of fallacious reasoning.
I conclude that Storms then must be wrong about his view
that these NT prophecies were on a different authority scale than the NT canon
and that the content of these prophecies never made it into the canon. On the
former there is exegetical proof that Storms is wrong. On the latter, it is far
more congruent with Christian theology to presume that whatever these prophetic
revelations were in this transition period, they were based on the very same
principles and even content that did make it into the canon.
