Were the Old Testament Prophets Radical Reformers?

Christians today tend to view prophets as radical reformers offering something new. In fact, in the modern West we have tended to create an antithesis between the Law and the Prophets in the Old Testament-- the Law was about conserving what was whereas the prophets were about moving into new ways into the future. We see this with Walter Rauschenbusch and the social gospel, as one example.

But when one looks at the New Testament, such an antithesis is absent. Jesus is portrayed as having come to fulfill both the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17; Luke 24:27), and the Protestant Reformed reading of Paul's understanding of grace as from the prophets in opposition to the law has been decisively discredited.


The Old Testament prophets were not reformers in the sense that they were calling the people to something new beyond the law, but they were calling Israel back to the law and covenant faithfulness. Scot McKnight in commenting on Aaron Chalmer's book, Interpreting the Prophets, writes the following, notes two major themes in the prophet literature of the Old Testament:

1. Sinai and the establishment of a covenant between the Lord and the Israelite people, and 2. Zion and the establishment of a covenant between the Lord and David (and his descendants).
Chalmers fills them in.

Scot then quotes Chalmers,

The importance of the Sinai Covenant traditions for the prophets is easy to see. The prophets are not essentially radicals or innovators; instead, they are better characterized as traditionalists and conservatives who are responsible for calling Israel back to their covenantal obligations to the Lord. In fact, Fee and Stuart (2003: 184) refer to the prophets as 'covenant enforcement mediators', highlighting the fact that the demands they make and the judgements they announce closely follow the stipulations and curses of the Sinai Covenant (72).

Most equate prophets with radicals and innovators and change-agents, but rather the prophet is a traditionalist calling God's people to be faithful to the covenant.
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The entire post can be read here.