I Corinthians 13:8 Charity never faileth: but whether [there be] prophecies, they shall fail; whether [there be] tongues, they shall cease; whether [there be] knowledge, it shall vanish away.

I am a Baptist who likes to get emotional about my relationship with God.  As any good Baptist knows you must not trust in feelings, therefore I found myself hanging around the Charismatics because they like to feel and get all emotional about God. Although these Charismatics do have some strange ways.  One I would like to address is this business of personal prophecy. You can’t hang around the Charismatics very long before someone lays hands on you and starts to say words like: “The Lord wants you to know He has everything under control, you are very near you’re breakthrough.” Some of the more advanced prophets will say that the Lord has a great ministry for you, you will find a job that will pull you out of debt etc.  I have had so many prophesies said over me I would have to live three life times to have them all fulfilled.  Most the time, however,  these prophecies are harmless and if you buy into them, they can be of real encouragement.  I, however, being raised a Baptist was told that such personal prophecies do not exist today.  I Corinthians 13:8 is the poster child of Scripture to back this up. My Baptist friends will say, “Lookie here, prophecies cease.”  The KJV says they will just fail which is the  usual defense.  That is that prophesies will not cease it is just that sometimes they fail.

The word used in the Greek for fail or cease as many modern translations translate it is katargethesontai which comes from the root word katargeo which means to bring to naught, abolish, annul, make of no effect.  Our English words cease and fail fit nicely into these definitions.  Although I am sure Paul wrote this in the Greek, the Aramaic word used in the Peshitta is betel which means to cease or bring to an end.  I think the odds are in the favor of the Baptist on this one, Paul is saying that prophesies will cease. Of course we can still argue that Paul meant it will cease at the end of time.  And the music goes around and around and I most certainly cannot hope to offer any conclusive answer on this  if those who are much smarter and more skilled in the Greek than I am cannot offer a conclusive answer, so I would just like to take another approach.

I would like to check out the Talmud and see if we can find some help there.  Most Christians do not even know what the Jewish Talmud is.  Many equate it with the Kabbalah and call it a mystical book which the Talmud is definitely not. The Babylonian Talmud is called Babylonian because it was compiled by Jews in Babylon and has nothing to do with Babylonian paganism.  For the sake of understanding let’s just call it a Jewish commentary, which is highly inaccurate and I know I will be hearing from a few of my Jewish friends for calling it that, but I do need to put this into terms that Christians understand. It is fifty two volumes of comments, opinions and musing of literally thousands of Jewish rabbis and sages.  Now before you throw rocks at the Jews for studying and researching the Scriptures using the input of earthly teachers and scholars, let me throw out a few names like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Calvin, Wesley, Tozer, Scofield and I can continue with more names that Christians feel are the authoritative and final word on interpretation of Scripture.  We have our rabbis and sages too that we revere. I’ve sat through many sermons where I have heard, “Scofield says this and Wesley says that and of course let’s not forget the old sage Augustine.”   Of course we call Augustine a church father not a sage and Scofield a teacher and not a rabbi.

Some people will say, “Why go to that Jewish literature when we have a library full of Christian teachers to learn from?”  My answer to that is that I do not find that our Christian teachers have all the answers. Besides that, why not go to the source of Old Testament knowledge. Christianity was birthed from Judaism.  The first Christians were Jews, Jesus was Jewish, the Bible is a book about the Jews.  The Jews are the masters of the Hebrew language and the guardians of the Old Testament. I have found their insights and musings have cleared away a lot of the cobwebs of misunderstandings in the Bible that our Christian fathers could not. So just let me go into this study and present to you something for your consideration. Maybe there is merit to it maybe not.

The Talmud in Yoma 9b and Yoma 21b tells us something very interesting.  There were five things in the first temple that were not in the second.  They were the ark of the covenant, the Shekinah, the fire from heaven and two other rather surprising things, the Holy Spirit and the Urim and the Thummim.  The Talmud further teaches that after the death of the latter prophets which would be Haggai, Zachariah and Malachi the Holy Spirit was removed from Israel.

The Holy Spirit would not return until the Messiah was glorified. Look at John 7:39 “(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet [given]; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)”  The Holy Spirit would not be given or return to Israel until Jesus was glorified.  What does that mean that Jesus was not yet glorified?  According to what I have read in Jewish literature the Messiah must suffer humiliation and pain, death, resurrection, ascension and be established on the throne of His kingdom before the Holy Spirit will return to Israel.  Jesus suffered humiliation, pain, death, resurrection and ten days after his resurrection he ascended to heaven.  Jesus died on Passover and fifty days after Passover is the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost or the first fruits where the Jews celebrate the beginning of a new season with their produce to God the first of their harvest as an offering.  This first fruit could very well be a symbol of Jesus.  This might explain why Jesus told his disciples to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Forty days after his ascension to heaven was the Feast of Pentecost where the offering of the first fruits were accepted by God.  Pentecost would have completed the glorification of Jesus and thus allow the Holy Spirit to return.  We are all familiar with what happened in Acts 2.

Note I Corinthians 6:19: “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” Our bodies are now the temple. When the Holy Spirit who dwelled in the temple returned, He returned to the temple, our bodies.  When the presence of God which rested upon the Ark of the Covenant returned it returned to the temple, our bodies. When the Shekinah returned it was to our bodies when the fire of God (symbolically) returned, it was to our bodies. When the Urim and Thummim returned to the temple it returned to….wait a minute.

What were the Urim and Thummim.  Urim means lights and Thummim means innocence, allegorically they mean revelation and truth. We are not exactly sure as to what form they took, but we do know they were used by the High Priest to determine the will of God or the direction of God.   In other words to determine the very things that my Charismatic friends try to do when they say they are prophesying over me.

Come on just grant this old professor his ponderings, and that of course is all that this is, I am not creating now doctrine, dogma or revelation, just musing like many of the old rabbis and sages. But indulge me a little here, could it be that my Baptist friends are right, that prophesy really did cease at Pentecost or when we obtain our completed canon of Scripture? But then in its place we  received the Urim and Thummim, the light and revelation of God.  What the Urim and Thummim was meant to accomplish is now in this new temple, our bodies. What my Charismatic friends call prophesying is not prophecy at all, like the prophets of old, but is really using the Urim and Thummim that once dwelled in the temple but now in all of us who are in Christ Jesus who have the Spirit of God, the fire of God and Shekinah dwelling in us along with the Urim and Thummim light and revelation of God.

Ok, don’t listen to me, I am just an eccentric old professor, but I tell you what, the next time one of my Charismatic friends prophesies over me I am not going to think he is a prophet, nor am I going to think prophecy.  I will be thinking Urim and Thummim the light and revelation of God that once dwelled in the first temple and now dwells in the new temple, our bodies.