Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
2 Cor.3:4-6
There is no question that the great majority of OT prophecy confronts the sin of the nations and God’s intention to severely chasten and/or destroy those people who refuse repentance. Isaiah 24:5 speaks of the peoples of all the earth having broken ‘the everlasting covenant’. The chapter is frightening to read for it speaks of a curse that ‘consumes the earth’ (vs. 6) and predicts a time when the earth will have ‘utterly collapsed’ (vs. 19). It would be easy to suppose that this was because salvation by faith in Jesus Christ had not yet been revealed and that men could not yet be made a new creation from within. Therefore, we might reason, men were incapable of any real change.
But in spite of every effort the Church makes to evangelize the world the Apostle John is shown in the vision of the book of Revelation that mankind (with the exception of the remnant church) will at one point in the future collectively turn away from the Lord.
Isaiah 25 gives us the great hope of the salvation of the Lord for all peoples (vs 6), of the removal of death from the earth (vs. 7-8), how He will ‘wipe away the tears from all faces’ and ‘remove the disgrace of His people’ (vs. 8).
Certainly the New Covenant heralds the grace of God for repentance and salvation. The emphasis is that men everywhere are to repent and believe the good news. Is there ever a time when a prophet of God today would declare God’s judgment on a nation(s) collectively, or are those revelations no longer a part of God’s working in human affairs?
I believe I was given a picture regarding how prophetic revelations concerning salvation and judgment work together. As I read Isaiah 24 I ‘saw’ a vine trellis with the poles of the trellis starting at the earth and fanning out upward to the heavens. I believe the trellis represents the unchangeable revelation of the OT prophets regarding the trajectory of human history culminating in the final judgment of God on all humanity. It is fixed and cannot be changed.
Then I ‘saw’ a vine that grew on the trellis, representing the growth and development of the people of God; first Israel and then the Church. The vine, while living and not under judgment itself followed along the trajectory of the trellis as it twisted around the poles on its path up toward the heavens. Its destiny is intertwined with the revelation of the OT prophets.
The vine reached to the top of the trellis fully grown, flowering and bearing fruit. This is a picture of the saints, both Messianic Jews and gentiles coming to a place of full maturity and fruition on the earth.
The OT prophets pronounced much judgment, but also planted the seedlings of the revelation of the Christ’s salvation. They outlined both the salvation and the judgment of the Lord. Both Jesus and the Apostles drew from their revelation and expanded upon it.
Peter quotes Joel 2:10 in Acts chapter 2 when preaching salvation, and in that chapter Joel brings the same revelation as Isaiah does in chapter 24:23, while promising the outpouring of the Spirit and the salvation of men.
It would seem that prophets today can do the same- so long as they continue to emphasize that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but desires men everywhere to repent. After all, we are heralds of the good news of a New Covenant; one that gives life, restoration and light in the midst of death, destruction and darkness.
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