The Spirit of Prophecy

This note is interpretation, not translation. It reads one sentence of this book, “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (19:10), in its Greek and its setting, follows the phrase through Revelation and the rest of scripture, and sets it beside Paul’s chapter on prophecy in the assembly. Everything in it is quoted; where the note reads, it says so.

The scene. Near the end of the book John falls at the feet of the messenger who has been showing him these things, to worship him. “And he said to me, Don’t do that. I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold the testimony of Jesus. Bow to God — because the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (19:10). The Greek of the last clause is hē gar martyria Iēsou estin to pneuma tēs prophēteias. It is given as a reason, gar, “because”: the messenger refuses worship because what he carries is not his. He brings Jesus’ testimony, and so does John, and so do the brothers; all of them are servants of it, and worship goes to God. The scene happens again at the end, in the same words, and there the fellow servants are named differently: “I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this scroll. Bow to God” (22:9). So those “who hold the testimony of Jesus” at 19:10 are “the prophets” at 22:9. Holding His testimony is what makes someone a prophet in this book.

Whose testimony? “The testimony of Jesus” can be read two ways in Greek: the testimony Jesus gives, or testimony given about Jesus. The words alone do not decide it, and the book does. Martyria, testimony, is used nine times in Revelation. Its first use defines it: “the unveiling of Jesus the Anointed, which God gave him to show his servants … and he made it known by sending his messenger to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus the Anointed, everything he saw” (1:1–2). The chain runs God, Jesus, the messenger, John; the testimony of Jesus is what Jesus showed. He is “the trustworthy witness” (1:5) and “the trustworthy and true witness” (3:14), and at the end He says, “I, Jesus, sent my messenger to testify to you about these things for the assemblies” (22:16), and is “the one who testifies to these things” (22:20). Believers “hold” it, echontes, as something given (12:17; 19:10). And where the testimony is their own, the book marks it so: “they conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (12:11, tēs martyrias autōn); “the testimony which they held” (6:9). This note reads it the book’s way: the testimony of Jesus is His own testimony, which His people receive, hold and speak, even to death (1:9; 20:4). The other reading is not wrong so much as second in order: what He testifies becomes what they testify about Him.

“The spirit of prophecy.” This too has two readings. Read one way, it is the Holy Spirit who speaks in prophecy, and who testifies to Jesus. Read the other way, it is the heart, the breath and substance, of prophecy. The Greek allows both and the book holds both together: John is “in the Spirit” whenever he is shown something (1:10; 4:2; 17:3; 21:10), and every letter ends “listen to what the Spirit is saying to the assemblies” (2:7 and six more), while each of those letters opens with the words of Jesus (2:1, 2:8 and the rest): what the Spirit says to the assemblies is what He says. Either way the clause says the same thing about prophecy: at its centre is Jesus.

This book, and every prophet. In the first place the phrase means this book. Revelation calls itself prophecy seven times: “the words of this prophecy” (1:3; 22:7, 10, 18, 19), and the two witnesses who “prophesy” (11:3, 6); and John is told “you must prophesy again about many peoples and nations and languages and kings” (10:11). But 19:10 does not say “the spirit of this prophecy”. It states a rule, and the rest of scripture states it of all the prophets. Peter: the prophets searched “what time the Spirit of the Anointed in them was indicating, when it testified beforehand to the sufferings of the Anointed and the glories after them” (1 Peter 1:11), where the verb is promartyromai, to testify beforehand. Peter again: “prophecy never came by human will, but people spoke from God, carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). Jesus: “you search the scriptures … and it is they that testify about me” (John 5:39); on the road to Emmaus, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them in all the scriptures the things about Himself” (Luke 24:27); and “everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled” (24:44). Peter at Cornelius’s house: “to Him all the prophets testify, that everyone who trusts in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name” (Acts 10:43). And Hebrews: God spoke “long ago, in many parts and many ways, to the fathers by the prophets; in these last days He has spoken to us by a Son” (1:1–2). The Spirit that spoke in the prophets was His Spirit, and what it testified to was Him.

Given to all His people. Moses wished it: “would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put His Spirit on them” (Numbers 11:29). Joel promised it: “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy” (Joel 3:1 in the Hebrew, 2:28 in English). Peter said it had come: “even on my male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they will prophesy” (Acts 2:17–18). This book says the same in its own way: the fellow servants who hold the testimony of Jesus are the prophets (19:10; 22:9). How far this reaches: it does not make every believer a prophet in the sense of Paul’s list, “are all prophets?” (1 Corinthians 12:29); it says that the testimony every believer holds is the very thing prophecy is about.

Paul’s chapter on prophecy. Paul writes: “pursue love, and desire the spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. For the one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God, for no one understands; in the spirit he speaks mysteries. But the one who prophesies speaks to people building up and encouragement and comfort” (1 Corinthians 14:1–3). Two of his phrases are found in only one other book of the New Testament, and it is this one. “The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets” (14:32, pneumata prophētōn); and “the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his messenger to show his servants what must soon take place” (Revelation 22:6, tōn pneumatōn tōn prophētōn): the phrase is used in these two verses only. And Paul says that when the assembly prophesies, an outsider is convicted, the secrets of his heart are laid bare, “and so, falling on his face, he will worship God, declaring that God is really among you” (14:24–25); falling, face and worship stand together in one verse only there and in Revelation 7:11 and 11:16, where the messengers and the elders “fell on their faces and worshipped God”. That is where true prophecy leads, and it is the instruction John is given twice: “Bow to God” (19:10; 22:9). Mysteries go the same direction in both. In a tongue a person speaks mysteries to God that no one understands (14:2); in prophecy they are opened to people, and Revelation does exactly that: “the mystery of the seven stars … the seven stars are the messengers of the seven assemblies” (1:20); “I will tell you the mystery of the woman” (17:7); “the mystery of God is finished, as He announced to His servants the prophets” (10:7). Paul’s order is love first, then gifts (13:1–3; 14:1), and the first letter of this book has the same order: Ephesus tested false apostles well and left its first love (2:2, 4). How close this is: the two phrases are shared wording; the rest is shared subject. Paul’s three purposes, building up, encouragement and comfort, are not words this book uses, though it does all three.

The same shape as the spirit of faith. Paul has a phrase built the same way: “having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, I trusted, therefore I spoke, we too trust, and therefore we speak” (2 Corinthians 4:13). The spirit of faith speaks what it trusts; the spirit of prophecy speaks His testimony. Both end in speech, and both are about Him. That verse has its own reading on this site, What Is Faith?, anchored at the same words.

What this note reads, and where it stops. The note’s reading is that “the testimony of Jesus” is first His own testimony, held and then spoken by His people, and that the clause states what all prophecy is: His testimony, by His Spirit. What carries it is the book’s own use of martyria (1:1–2; 12:11; 22:16, 20) and the parallel of 19:10 with 22:9. What the text leaves open: whether “spirit” names the Holy Spirit or the heart of the thing, and how far the rule of 19:10 is meant to reach beyond this book, though Peter, Jesus and Hebrews say it of the whole. The note does not say every believer holds the office of a prophet, and it does not use the clause to test any modern claim to prophecy; the test it gives is only the one in the verse, whether the word bears Jesus’ testimony and sends the hearer to worship God.