Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the Gift of Prophecy

Was Martyn Lloyd-Jones a continuationist?

“Although charismatics and Pentecostals have both claimed him as an advocate of their views, a careful reading of ML-J establishes that they have misunderstood him.” So states Dr. Eryl Davies in his Themelios article entitled, Dr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: An Introduction.

Davies substantiates his statement (in part) by pointing to a section of Lloyd-Jones’s Christian Unity in which the Doctor (as he is often called) elaborates on the nature of New Testament prophecy.

Here’s what Lloyd-Jones said:

A prophet was a person to whom truth was imparted by the Holy Spirit.  . . .  A revelation or message or some insight into truth came to them, and, filled with the Spirit, they were able to make utterances which were of benefit and profit to the Church. Surely it is clear that this again was temporary, and for this good reason, that in those early days of the Church there were no New Testament Scriptures, the Truth had not yet been expounded in written words. 

Try to imagine our position if we did not possess these New Testament Epistles, but the Old Testament only. That was the position of the early Church. Truth was imparted to it primarily by the teaching and preaching of the apostles, but that was supplemented by the teaching of the prophets to whom truth was given and also the ability to speak it with clarity and power in the demonstration and authority of the Spirit.

But once these New Testament documents were written the office of a prophet was no longer necessary. Hence in the Pastoral Epistles which apply to a later stage in the history of the Church, when things had become more settled and fixed, there is no mention of the prophets. It is clear that even by then the office of the prophet was no longer necessary, and the call was for teachers and pastors and others to expound the Scriptures and to convey the knowledge of the truth.

Again, we must note that often in the history of the Church trouble has arisen because people thought that they were prophets in the New Testament sense, and that they had received special revelations of truth. The answer to that is that in view of the New Testament Scriptures there is no need of further truth. That is an absolute proposition. We have all truth in the New Testament, and we have no need of any further revelations. All has been given, everything that is necessary for us is available. Therefore if a man claims to have received a revelation of some fresh truth we should suspect him immediately.  . . .

The answer to all this is that the need for prophets ends once we have the canon of the New Testament. We no longer need direct revelations of truth; the truth is in the Bible. We must never separate the Spirit and the Word. The Spirit speaks to us through the Word; so we should always doubt and query any supposed revelation that is not entirely consistent with the Word of God. Indeed the essence of wisdom is to reject altogether the term ‘revelation’ as far as we are concerned, and speak only of ‘illumination’. The revelation has been given once and for all, and what we need and what by the grace of God we can have, and do have, is illumination by the Spirit to understand the Word.

(D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Christian Unity [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987], 189-91)

Clearly, Lloyd-Jones’s explanation of New Testament prophecy runs contrary to the continuationist position.

Because his name is often brought up by those who espouse a continuationist position, his description of prophecy becomes especially pertinent in the ongoing conversation about the gifts.

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UPDATE: Some of the commenters below have suggested that Lloyd-Jones was only referring to inscripurated prophecy, and therefore his statements above do not apply to the contemporary continuationist position. However, this is not the case. In a paragraph introducing the above discussion, Lloyd-Jones described the kind of New Testament prophecy to which he was referring:

In the New Testament prophets are generally coupled with the apostles, as in the second chapter of this Epistle: ‘And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone’ [Eph. 2:20]. But though coupled with the apostles, prophets are obviously different.  For instance, it was not necessary that a prophet should have seen the risen Lord. Indeed he need not, in general, have most of the qualifications of the apostle. Essentially a prophet was a man who spoke under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is clear also that sometimes a prophet was a woman. We are told in the second chapter of Luke that Anna was a ‘prophetess.’ Likewise we are told in Acts that Philip the evangelist had four daughters who ‘did prophesy’ (21:9). There are many references to prophets in the New Testament. For instance, in Acts we are told that there were several prophets in the church at Antioch some of whom had come down from Jerusalem (11:27; 13:1). One of them named Agabus prophesied that a dearth was about to come upon the earth and he warned the Christian people about it. There is specific teaching about the prophets in the fourteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.

(D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Christian Unity [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987], 188.)

Notice that Lloyd-Jones sees a distinction between apostles and prophets in Ephesians 2:20. This runs contrary to the common continuationist interpretation of that passage. Also, notice that Lloyd-Jones includes the daughters of Philip, Agabus, and even the congregational prophets of 1 Corinthians 14 under the umbrella of the NT prophecy he is discussing.

Nothing in Lloyd-Jones’s comments (in this particular section at least) suggests that he embraced the two-tiered view of NT prophecy that characterizes the contemporary continuationist position.