"How to recognize a false prophet"

I'm going to comment on some claims by Nathan Busenitz:

http://thecripplegate.com/strange-fire-modern-prophecy/

The Need to Test ProphetsThroughout history, there have been many people who have claimed to be prophets, who have claimed to speak for God. But all Christians—whether charismatics or cessationists—would agree that at least some of these prophets were false prophets.

Agreed. That said, our criteria need to be consistent with Scripture, not undercut Scripture. 

How to Recognize a False ProphetAll of this raises a critical question for believers to ask: “How can we recognize a false prophet? How can we know when a person who claims to be prophesying for God, who claims to have received new revelation from God that he or she is now reporting to others … how can we know when that person is telling the truth?”The Bible articulates three objective criteria for evaluating self-professed prophets. If a so-called prophet fails on any one of these three points, he shows himself to be a false prophet.

Are these in fact Biblical criteria? 

What are these three tests? Let me just state them briefly, and then we will look at them each in more detail:

1. Doctrinal orthodoxy – Because God is a God of truth, those who truly prophesy on His behalf proclaim doctrines that are right and true. Conversely, any self-proclaimed prophet who deceives people by leading them into theological error is a false prophet.

On the face of it, Busenitz overlooks some obvious counterexamples to his hasty generalization:

i) Didn't Caiaphas truly prophesy in Jn 11:50-51? Was Caiaphas doctrinally orthodox? Weren't the high priests at that time Sadducees? Didn't the Sadducees have heretical views on angelology and the afterlife? Likewise, by the standards of 1 John, the Christology of Caiaphas was heretical. He denied that Jesus was the Messiah, much less God's Son Incarnate. 

ii) What about Balaam? In one respect, we might classify Balaam as a paradigmatic false prophet. He was a pagan diviner (Josh 13:22). Yet he prophesied truly under divine inspiration (Num 23:7-10,18-24; 24:3-9,15-24). He's paradoxical in that regard. 

Both Balaam and Caiaphas prophesied truly in spite of themselves. 

iii) Scripture also records pagans who received prophetic dreams (Abimelech; Pharaoh, the Egyptian baker, the Egyptian cupbearer; Nebuchadnezzar, the Magi, Pilate's wife). 

Were all these pagans doctrinally orthodox? 

iv) We need to draw some distinctions which Busenitz fails to draw. 

a) We might distinguish between a true prophet and a true prophecy. 

b) A prophecy is false if the content of the prophecy is heretical.

c) Even if the content of the prophecy is true, the speaker is a false prophet if he exploits the true prophecy to lead the faithful astray.

2. Moral integrity – God’s true prophets are those who not only proclaim His truth, they also live out His truth. Any self-proclaimed prophet who lives in unrestrained lust and greed shows himself to be a false prophet. So again we see that false prophets can be identified by their lifestyle. As Jesus said, we can know them by their fruits. And when we see the fruit of gross immorality and impurity in someone’s life, we can be confident that he is a false prophet no matter what he might claim.

Well, that's very high-minded, but once again, Busenitz seems to overlook some obvious counterexamples to his hasty generalization:

i) Saul was said to be a prophet (1 Sam 10:6,10-11). Yet Saul later murdered Jewish priests who gave David sanctuary when David was on the run from Saul. And Saul resorted to necromancy.

ii) Wasn't David a prophet? Aren't the Psalms of David inspired? Don't some of them contain Messianic prophecies? 

Yet according to 1 Chron 3, David fathered sons by at least 8 different wives. Then there's the Bathsheba incident, which involves at least three major transgressions:

(a) The adulterous affair itself; (b), the coverup, in which he engineered the death of her husband, (c) and, relatedly betraying a soldier (Uriah) under his command. 

iii) Wasn't Solomon a prophet? On traditional views of authorship, he made significant contributions to the OT canon. Yet his lifestyle wasn't exactly distinguished by frugality or sexual restraint. 

3. Predictive accuracy – Because God knows the end from the beginning, a true prophet declares divine revelation regarding the future with 100% accuracy. Or to put this in the negative, if someone claims to speak prophetic revelation from God about the future (or about secret things), but then those predictions do not come to pass, the Bible declares that person to be a false prophet.

That is, indeed, the classic, and most direct, test of false prophecy. However, the application of that criterion is complicated by the fact that it isn't always easy to discern fulfillment. Scripture itself contains cases of apparent prophetic nonfulfillment. Conservative exegetes spend a lot of time defending these. 

Take one well-known case: on the face of it, Jeremiah's oracle regarding the destruction of Babylon (Jer 50-52) wasn't fulfilled as he envisioned it. There are different ways of finessing that issue. Maybe it remains to be fulfilled. 

As one commentator notes:

The conclusion must be that in some cases the reputation of the prophet established the truthfulness of his words (rather than the truthfulness of his words established his reputation). M. Brown, Jeremiah, REBC (Zondervan 2010), 7:565.

There are, of course, examples, especially in the case of short-term predictions, where a claimant's forecast was clearly wrong. But it's not always that straightforward. 

As is often the case in my experience with MacArthurites, their opposition to the charismatic movement betrays them into using arguments which, if applied consistently, would sabotage the Bible. 

It's striking that men like Busenitz don't even pause to consider obvious Biblical counterexamples to their strictures. What does that say about their insular mindset? 

The problem, of course, is that Scripture isn't their frame of reference. Rather, the charismatic movement is their frame of reference. Rather than Scripture, they begin with what they oppose, then concoct ex post facto tests to discredit continuationism. But the end result is to discredit Scripture in the process. MacArthurites do this routinely.