Living Prophets and Apostles
When Latter-day Saints explain that we believe God has called living prophets to guide His work today, just as he has always done throughout history, some people are surprised. There are many who believe that the Bible teaches there would be no prophets after Jesus Christ. The reality is, however, that the Bible teaches the opposite: there not only were prophets after Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, but the true Church of Jesus Christ is always built on a foundation of living prophets and apostles (Ephesians 2:20 and Ephesians 4:11 and Amos 3:7).
One of the passages of scripture often used to justify this belief is Matthew 11:13, which is often translated: “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.” This is often interpreted to mean “…until John, but not after John.”
There are two problems with adding the “but not after John” part:
1-The Savior did not say it. We believe it is important not to put words in Christ’s mouth that he clearly did not speak, or we will misunderstand his messages.
2-If the Savior did mean that, then he was incorrect, because there are several passages mentioned in the New Testament times in the period after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that confirm there were still prophets. Latter-day Saints do not believe the Savior was incorrect, but that the verse mentioned above is simply misunderstood.
Below we will include a few of the references below that explicitly teach that there were prophets in New Testament times after the ascension of Christ into Heaven.
Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
And Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves, exhorted the brethren with many words, and confirmed them.
And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judaea a certain prophet, named Agabus.
And when he was come unto us, he took Paul’s girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.
Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;
In addition to these New Testament testimonies that there were prophets, we also believe that this Old Testament prophecy could not be fulfilled if there are no longer prophets:
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. (Malachi 4:5-6)
Since the Bible clearly teaches that there were prophets after the time of Christ, you might wonder why so many people misinterpret Matthew 11:13 or assume there are no longer prophets. In our experience, we have found it is because otherwise, it is difficult to explain why there are no prophets in our day (despite the fact that he is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.”) Latter-day Saints, however, believe the lack of prophets is one of the strong evidences for the Great Apostasy and the need for the Restoration of Christ’s Church. To learn more about those topics, you can click on each of the links above.