The Prophetic Gifts & Office

-A Biblical Perspective

by Steven Lambert, ThD.

“But to each one of us grace (giftings) was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, ‘When He Ascended on High…He gave gifts to men.’ And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors, and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ; UNTIL we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:7-13; emphasis and parenthesis added).

“And God has SET (lit., permanently established) in the Church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers…” (1 Cor. 12:28; emphasis and parenthesis added).

The Ephesians 4 text cited above, indicates that on the Day of Ascension as He was ascending into Heaven to sit down at the right hand of God, Jesus, as the “First-born of many Brethren” and “the Head of the Church,” relegated the Fivefold Ministry Giftings unto the Church, composed at that time of the Apostles of the Lamb whom Jesus had chosen, appointed, and anointed as the preeminent leaders of the Church, and the several thousand disciples converted during Jesus fleshly visitation and ministry. Thus, the Church Age began with all of the Fivefold Ministry Offices in full operation. Moreover, with the phrase beginning with the preposition “until,” the text reveals that all those ministry anointings will continue to be operable throughout the Church Age until its culmination when Jesus returns to claim the fully-matured, glorified, Church as His Eternal Bride.

The second text cited, makes it unequivocally clear that it was GOD who set, or permanently established, within the Church the Fivefold Ministry Offices in the explicit order of preeminence of “first apostles, second prophets, third teachers.” This means that as long as the Church exists and remains on the Earth as the Church (vis-à-vis, the Wedded Bride of Christ pursuant to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb dwelling with Christ in Heaven before returning for the Kingdom Rule of Christ on the Earth), these ministry offices are and will continue to be valid ministry giftings in operation in the Church. Nowhere does Scripture indicate that any of these ministry offices have ever been rescinded or abrogated by the Head of the Church or the Holy Spirit, or ceased to be functional, but rather with these and other contexts Scriptural states categorically and precisely the opposite—that they will continue to be functional and effectual until the Lord returns to claim the Church as His Eternal Bride.

During the 1,200-year spiritual eclipse known as the Dark Ages, in which the Church spiraled downward into all but complete apostasy, the doctrinal and structural foundation upon which the Church was founded was essentially abrogated. Until finally, on October 31, 1517, the sparks that flew from Martin Luther’s hammer as he nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, ignited a spiritual firestorm of reformation and revolution that continues yet today in the 21st Century. In the span of centuries since the Protestant Reformation began, a number of ensuing Divinely-orchestrated “times of restoration.” (Ac. 3:21) have wrought recovery of some of the spiritual ground lost during the Church’s deterioration during the Dark Ages.

Then, in October 1987, 470 years almost to the day after Martin Luther’s “D-Day” (day of defiance), the Head of the Church publicly testified through “the Spirit of Prophecy” at a solemn gathering of prophets that He was at that time commencing yet another restorational movement by which He would restore the prophetic gifts and office back into their proper place of function within the Church He is building. Since the day of that prophetic proclamation, the winds of restoration and reformation have been blowing in the Church, bringing fresh revelation and illumination concerning this previously neglected and greatly misunderstood area of Truth, as well as stirring new interest in the prophetic office and gifts. Ordinary believers and church leaders alike are being motivated by a God-caused hunger to become more knowledgeable of and activated in this powerful realm of the Spirit—the prophetic realm.