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If there is one section of the Bible that is more neglected than the others, it would probably be the Old Testament prophets. Without doubt, they can be difficult to understand, let alone apply in our lives. As we will see in Lesson 4, one way to overcome this obstacle is to read them in their larger covenantal context.

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The prophetic writings from Isaiah to Malachi lay out in detail the coming judgments upon Israel and Judah because of their repeated disobedience to God’s covenant requirements. These prophetic writings are dominated by the fourth section of ancient covenant structure in which the sanctions or consequences for obedience and disobedience are described. This section is crucial for understanding their message.

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We will also see that the prophets had a special assignment from God as messengers of his revelation. While the mediators in Lesson 2 were messengers, the prophets brought forth a different message: a warning of coming judgment. Yet, God was patient and forbearing. He would not just send judgment without giving plenty of opportunity to repent. Also, as a God of justice, he would conduct his case against them in a legal process called a “covenant lawsuit” (Hebrew: rîḇ). The prophets were chosen to be the prosecutors of this process. Their onerous task was to gather and present the evidence in the lawsuit.

With 250 chapters in the prophet writings, we cannot study them all in a survey like His Story. So, we will summarize them in five parts reflecting their audience and time period.

 

Before we can examine the five messengers of the lawsuit, it will help us to spend a few more moments understanding the special place of sanctions in God’s covenant. Recall that sanctions are the fourth section of ancient covenant structure. They follow the requirements in which covenant obligations are detailed. As sanctions, they are blessings and curses for obedience and disobedience. They are also signs and witnesses of the covenant itself.

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Initiating the Sanctions

 

After David and Solomon, the history of God’s people took a cataclysmic turn. Though Solomon inherited a peaceful kingdom (his very name meant “peace”), it would not last. Solomon disobeyed God’s command and took 1,000 pagan wives and mistresses who brought idolatry into the nation (1 Kings 11:1). He even built a temple to the pagan god Chemosh next to the Temple of Yahweh (11:7).

 

There is good reason to believe he later repented of his sin (see Ecclesiastes). However, great damage had already been done. When his son Rehoboam ascended the throne (around 931 BC), civil war between the northern and southern tribes was imminent. The “Shabbat Shalom” God intended for his people was lost. The civil war split the nation and with a few exceptions most of the kings that followed took the fragments further and further into idolatry.

It wasn’t too long after this that God began raising up prophets to warn the people of judgment and their flagrant violations of the covenant.

 

About fifty years after the civil war, a diabolical king named Ahab took the throne in Israel. Even worse than Ahab was his wife, Jezebel. God raised up a nonwriting prophet named Elijah as his messenger.

 

Elijah was not the first prophet of Israel. However, he did have a new function in the prophetic office. The LORD was about to begin a covenant lawsuit, a criminal case against the people. The lawsuit was the formal legal process through which God would demonstrate Israel’s failure to do what they promised and had agreed to in the days of Moses.

Think carefully about this interchange in the days of Moses:

 

3 Moses came and told the people all Yahweh’s words, and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words which Yahweh has spoken will we do.” 4 Moses wrote all Yahweh’s words, then rose up early in the morning and built an altar at the base of the mountain, with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 He sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of cattle to Yahweh. 6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. 7 He took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, “We will do all that Yahweh has said, and be obedient.” (Exodus 24:3–7)

 

Israel entered into a blood-promised oath to obey the requirements of the covenant. By the days of Elijah, it was time for God to hold them to it.

 

Beginning with Elijah, the prophets were the prosecutors in the cosmic courtroom. Their messages were legal testimony, and what they delivered was evidence for God’s case. In covenant structure, they were the messengers announcing sanctions. The sanctions were not just predictions of the future but, in a covenant context, were signs and witnesses that became the visible evidence in the court case. Since the signs were so significant in all the prophets, it is important we know four things about them.

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The Prophetic Period: Signs and Sanctions

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• Visible testimony of the existence of the covenant

• Required patterns of action

• Obedience or disobedience become evidence for future sanctions

• Steps for restoration after failure

 

Visible testimony of the existence of the covenant

 

The covenant prosecutors were called to bring evidence of God’s charges against the people. As such, they enumerated specific examples of covenant transgressions. The requirements of the covenant were clear. So were the violations. The details of their transgressions thus bore witness against them in a visible and indisputable way.

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This points to a larger truth about covenants in general: they are attended by signs. In our lessons, I have not emphasized it as much as I could have, but since Adam, signs have always been important to the ratification of the covenant itself. The existence of the signs was set forth as evidence that the covenant was in place. This is how we studied the historical period in Lesson 2. The five mediators received signs of the covenant that provided proof of the promise itself.

 

Why would we need signs of God’s covenant? Because we are prone to forget! The old saying is, “out of sight, out of mind,” and that was often the case in the Bible as well as our own times.

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Required patterns of action

 

When God gave signs to bear witness of the covenant, they were not mere decorations. The sign itself required a response of obedience. Thus, when Adam taught his sons about animal sacrifice, part of the instruction involved faithful obedience to God’s command:

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“Without the shedding of blood there could be no covering of sin” (Leviticus 17:11).

 

Abel did as he was told, bringing a blood sacrifice in his worship. Cain refused by bringing vegetables. The very response to the sign demonstrated patterns of action that bore legal testimony in the lawsuit. It is vital we understand this purpose of the signs, or we will be confused about the faith of God’s covenant people.

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In the time of Moses God revealed even more signs. In Lesson 2 I discussed the Book of Leviticus with its five types of sacrifices and how each pointed to specific details of the way the coming seed would crush the head of the serpent:

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Obedience or disobedience becomes part of the covenant sanction for the future

 

How did the Old Testament saints please God? Growing up, I was taught that they pleased God by obeying the law, including all the feasts and sacrifices and rituals. But I have since learned the truth: if pleasing God depended on their obedience, they would never have pleased God. That is true for us also. This is why the Bible says there has always been and always will be one way for us to please God:

 

“Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6).

 

It is not their obedience that pleases God or saves sinners. It is the faith that God has provided an obedient savior!

The Old Testament saints pleased God just as we can: through faith. And that faith is not in our obedience but in the obedience of the Savior. This doesn’t mean obedience is optional though. Thus, in Old Testament times, God’s people were given covenant administrations. They included information about the coming Seed of the woman. But they also included signs of the promise. The signs are what theologians call “means of grace” (or “sacraments”). Obeying the sign is not what pleased God because even that obedience could never be perfect. Rather, it was the faith in God’s promise. And practicing the sign, even imperfectly, was what pleased God. As Paul said about Abraham and the Old Testament sign of circumcision:

 

1 What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 4 Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed. 5 But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness (Romans 4:1–5).

 

None of the saints of old could please God by their obedience–even their adherence to the covenant signs (like circumcision). If they could have pleased God that way, they would have something to brag about! No. It was their faith in God’s word–the sign was that word to them.

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Steps for restoration after failure

 

It can be difficult to understand how obedience to the signs could accomplish restoration. How could a “curse” like death with blood become a source of blessing through obedience? The answer is found in the covenant concept of a Self-Maledictory Oath. “Malediction” is literally a curse. It pronounces evil upon someone because of their failure to do what is legally required.

Malediction is itself a covenant sanction. However, in God’s eternal covenant, it is also a covenant blessing because it means there is payment (atonement) for the sin. Moses said,

 

“Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin” (Leviticus 17:11).

 

The Hebrew word for “covenant” (BE’RIT or BEˉRI^T) literally means, “to cut.” The sign of sacrificial cutting is self-maledictory. Not only does it pronounce a similar consequence (“may one who fails to obey be cut”), it points forward to a redemptive process. If someone is “cut,” the sin can be covered.

 

This is the most extraordinary part of God’s plan in history. The Self-Malediction means that God pronounces a curse on himself because of the transgressions of others. Because of his sinless perfection, he can legally pay the debt with his own sacrifice.

 

The Self-Maledictory Oath is the most extraordinary feature of God’s covenant. It is unlike anything found in other ancient covenant documents. Other kings pronounced maledictions on those who failed to obey the requirements. However, no other sovereign ever pronounced judgment on himself for the failures of the subjects!

As we will see next, the prophets not only proclaimed judgment but promised blessing. The blessing was grounded not in some unlikely perfect obedience of the people but in the fulfillment of the promise made at the beginning that he would bring forth a Seed who would crush the head of the serpent, though he himself would suffer to make it possible (Genesis 3:15).

With this important legal framework in view, it is now time to examine the covenant lawsuits themselves as delivered by five of God’s prosecutors. To assist in our understanding of the prophetic purpose, we will single out one particular covenant theme for each of them.

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