The whole of Isaiah 60 is not about the Apostasy. I never said that it was. Isaiah 60 is about the redemption of Zion in the latter days. “Thee” in verses 1 and 2 refers to, or addresses, Zion in the latter days, which we identify with the Restored Church. Verse 2 says that this restoration, or redemption, will take place at a time when “darkness shall cover the earth,” which refers to the state of the world in its apostate condition.
The torture to which you subject this verse by reading it in reference to a restored Christian Church after a period of complete apostasy is seen from its immediate preceding context:
And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD. As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever. (Is. 59:20-21)
Verse 59:21 should make it very hard to read a total apostasy into 60:1-2, because it teaches of the proclamation of Christ throughout all generations. While that does not in itself formally contradict the Great Apostasy, it does put constraint on whether we should jump to the conclusion that any form of total loss should be read into the very next verses. We are here reminded of God’s covenant fidelity, of the persistence of the gospel message through all time, and should interpret the following verses in that light. Given such context, why is it natural to understand the “darkness” in 60:2 in referred to a complete lack of priesthood authority or anything else for that matter? Since we have just been assured that the darkness will
not eclipse the proclamation of the coming messiah, there is no warrant to assume that is
does eclipse anything else, let alone the priesthood, which is not even a topic of discussion here.
Of course, to even make the above argument grants you more than you deserve, because there is specific evidence in the rest of the preceding context to interpret the darkness in reference to pre-Christian Israel, in Isaiah’s own time, who speaks as follows to the Israelites of his day:
Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. (59:1-4)
After a few more verses of this kind of teaching, Isaiah explains the darkness:
Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but* we walk in darkness**. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men. * (59:9-10)
The darkness then, which the coming of the Redeemer dispels, is not a future apostasy, but a present state of ignorance. Despite the strength of the language used to describe Israel’s present darkness, it is evident that a state of total apostasy is not in existence, for the simple reason that Isaiah is there prophesying these things. The text tells a story not just about an apostasy, but about an authoritative teacher living during the apostasy, a teacher whose words do not fail.
Even if we granted you the liberty of applying this verse typologically to the Christian Church – which is a valid possibility – consistency would demand a typological application of the Isaiah’s active presence during the apostasy as well, thereby undermining the LDS argument. In fact, the citation of Is 60:2 in D&C 112:23 refers in the present tense to a time *after *the Restoration, in which a prophet is alive as well.
Amos 3:7 implies that God chooses to always work through His prophets to operate among mankind; and where there are no prophets, an apostasy of some kind has taken place. Hebrews 1:1-2 does not mean that God has done away with prophets. It means just what it says: that whereas up to that time God had spoken through His prophets, at that time God has sent someone greater than previous prophets, which was His Son. It didn’t mean that there should be no more prophets. Jesus also was a prophet, as well as being someone greater than a prophet.
You overstate the Catholic position. What Hebrews 1:1-2 shows is not that there are no more prophets (since more books of the Bible were written after Hebrews) but rather that Jesus, by virtue of being the Son, fulfills all prophecy in his very person, simply by being the Son of God among us. That is the sense in which he is the definitive prophet, not because he receives the greatest revelation for us, but because he himself is the thing revealed, embodying all revelation and literally showing us the Father. This brings to an end the period in which the diverse speech of prophets is a normative way for God to speak, the period in which Amos lived. It is thus a false standard to assume that continuance of prophecy is a
necessary element in the human administration of the Church. That the Pope does not claim to be a prophet is hence not evidence against Catholicism. Christ’s headship of the Church in itself constitutes the fullness of prophecy.
