The Prophetic Office Of Christ

When we consider Christ as a prophet we must remember that His Prophetic Office cannot be separated from or be independent of, His Priestly and Kingly Offices. There has never been a moment since creation that Christ has not exercised all three Offices. Christ made the prophetic announcement concerning the hope of the world through the "seed of the woman" (Gen. 3: 24). He appointed sacrifices by the authority of His Priestly Office. (Gen. 4: 4. See also Heb. 9: 14). As a King He drove out the man, and placed at the east of Eden Cherubims "and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life" (Gen. 3: 24).

The salvation of the Patriarchs, from righteous Abel to John the Baptist, were dependent entirely upon Christ exercising His Prophetic Office, in revealing God and His purpose unto them; for in the richest sense of the word Christ is the only prophet. "Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." (Matt. 15: 27). Christ's Priestly Office is to secure pardon and sanctification. "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many: and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation." (Heb. 9: 28; see also Heb. 9: 14). Christ's Kingly office is to rule and defend His people. "For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our law-giver, the Lord is our King; He will save us." (Isa 23: 22). See also the answers to questions 24, 25, 26 of the Shorter Catechism.

There were many prophets before the incarnation of our Lord, but all the prophets that preceded "God manifest in the flesh" were merely His delegates, commissioned by Him, and without any discretionary power to abridge, enlarge or modify the message given unto them.

In the Old Testament Christ is the centre from which all revelation is drawn. The mode of revelation was such that would be readily understood by the learned and the unlearned, by the peasant or the philosopher. When Noah was commanded to preach righteousness to the men of his generation, he and his family could not misunderstand the justice and judgment of God against the ungodly. (2 Pet. 2:5). When Abraham rose early in the morning "and looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and saw that the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace" (Gen. 19:29), he could not misinterpret the holiness and righteousness of God; nor the generations that came after him, for the Apostle Peter said: "And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly. (1 Pet. 2: 6).

When Christ appeared on this earth as "God manifest in the flesh" His method of revelation was readily understood by the child or the sage. While God is incomprehensible, that does not mean that we cannot know God within the limits of our own understanding. It is not necessary to gaze into the blazing orb of the mid-day sun to appreciate its light and warmth. The goodness of God is revealed by the Son of God proceeding from the inaccessible glory of Jehovah, taking our nature into personal unity with His Deity, and becoming subject to every suffering human nature knows, and He carried that Inconceivable goodness of God to men and angels. As He hung suspended between heaven and earth at Calvary, giving His life for a lost world, He was carrying out the greatest prophetic act in the revelation of God that the universe has ever known.

The Lord Jesus Christ in the exercise of His Prophetic Office revealed God by His own life and action. We refer you to Christ's own words, "he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" (John 14: 9). The words that Christ spoke were God's words. The works that Christ did were God's works (John 14: 10). The very thoughts of God framed in human speech were brought within reach of our understanding. The works were God's works to reveal God's grace and truth, mercy and justice. What Christ said and did was a perfect revelation of the gracious disposition of God.

If we consider our relationship to God, saying, Does God's grace and mercy extend to us? Christ replies, My words and works answer your question. "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" (John 14: 9). When those in distress appealed to Christ, they never appealed to Him in vain. When did Christ ever reproach those that came to Him with the guilt and wickedness that filled them with disease? Did He consider the man of the tombs too vile to speak to, or did blind Bartimaeus cry for mercy in vain? Did He refuse to notice the unnamed woman, whose tears fell upon His feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee? We know that not any who appealed to Christ was turned away unrelieved. He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, cast out devils, and raised the dead. The Lord Jesus Christ did all these things for the very purpose to reveal to us that there is no limit to the power and goodness of God.

The willingness of Christ to cure all manner of physical infirmities indicated His willingness to release man from spiritual death. His readiness te heal the sick and raise the dead was not only equalled but surpassed by His willingness to forgive sins and bestow eternal life on as many as sincerely and truly appealed to Him. When the Scribes murmured against Christ for saying unto the man sick of the palsy, "Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee," He answered the Scribes, saying "For whether is it easier to say thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk" (Matt. 9: 2-6) clearly implying that disease is the effect of sin.

Obedience.

The Lord Jesus Christ as our great Prophet reveals, by His life and death, the obedience that God requires. There is no limit to obedience. The disobedience of our first parents brought death to the whole human race. Christ was not exempt from obedience to the law. "Though He were a son, yet He learned obedience by the things that He suffered" (Heb. 5: 8). The Son voluntarily placed Himself in subjection to the Father's commandment; and from the Father He received instructions how He was to go about His work. "This commandment have I received from My Father." (John 10: 18). "Never did He seek to limit His obedience; though the path assigned to Him by the will of the Father was a path of ceaseless and unexampled suffering, everywhere strewed with thorns and wet with tears and blood, yet it was His meat and His drink to do the will of the Father. (M. Dods, Incarn., p. 63).

During the whole life of our Lord upon the earth it was His delight to do the will of the Father. "I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, Thy law is written within my heart" (Psa. 40: 8; see also Heb. 10: 6, 7). At the opening of His public ministry Christ emphasised the binding obligation to fulfil the law. Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil" (Matt. 5: 17; see also Matt. 22: 35-40; Mark 10: 19; Luke 10: 27).

The law of God has not been relaxed or its demands withdrawn. Christ's obedience carried Him beyond the demands of the law given by Sovereign decree to our first parents and restated by the disposition of angels on Sinai's mount. The law did not require Christ to suffer the excruciating agonies of His death on Calvary's Hill; the law had no claim upon Him, but the commandment of His Father did; as Christ plainly said: "I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again. This commandment have I received of My Father." (John 10: 18). Christ's obedience to the Father's commandment is our redemption. Dr. Thomas Chalmers wrote: "Our obedience to the law is no longer the purchase-money by which heaven is bought - no longer the righteousness by which the rewards of eternity are earned - no longer the title-deeds on which we can knock at the gate of Paradise, and presenting it there, can demand out admittance among the felicities and its glory." (Lect. Rom., p. 229).

The sufficiency of the Atoning Sacrifice of Christ to redeem us from the curse of the law and the power of sin, we will consider when we come to deal with Christ's Priestly Office.

The law still requires the unconditional obedience, that Christ rendered unto it, of every soul who rejects the overtures of God's grace. Dr. Chalmers writes: "Under the Gospel as under the law, the way to heaven is the highway of holiness; still it is true in the present as in the former dispensation, that, without holiness no man shall see God, and if it be no longer the gold by which you buy the inheritance, still it is the garment you must put on ere you are permitted to enter on possession of it." The garment is the Robe of Christ's righteousness, the free gift of grace, "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Cor. 5: 21; see also Gal. 2: 21).

Our great Prophet has revealed to us by His death the uncompromising nature of the obedience that God requires of man. There is no limit to obedience; no place for expediency. The tremendous power of temptation does not sanction disobedience; loss or suffering, trial or care, cannot be presented as a valid reason for our failure to discharge our duty to the law of God. And, though we are free from the condemning power of the law, by the blood of Christ, we are still under commandment. "If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love." (John 15: 10). Christ's complaint is, "Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (Luke 6: 46). There is no excuse for sin, but blessed be God there is a Saviour for sinners.

The Prophetic Office Exercised in Christ's Death

The presence of "God manifest in the flesh" is a revelation of the love of God towards us. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3: 16). The grace and power, goodness and love of God was revealed by Christ, not only to men but to angels that excel in strength. Marcus Dods writes: "When they (angels) saw God willing to redeem from their capivity, and to ransom from destruction creatures whose utter and final perdition could not have affected, in the slightest degree, His happiness or glory, with no less a price than the blood of His own well-beloved Son, it is no matter of surprise that they, delighted to be thus assured, not only that God is good, but His goodness is absolutely infinite, should, as well as the redeemed from among men, celebrate the death of Christ, in the most exalted strains of gratitude and adoration, as we were assured by John in the Revelation, that they do, when he says: "And I beheld, and heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands: saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever" (Rev. 5: 11). The Prophetic Office of Christ is expressed in His death, more clearly and emphatically than anywhere else does He make known the Father. Christ's death exalts His Prophetic Office as well as His Priestly Office.

God is unchangeable, "in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth." While we behold the rectitude of God in all its magnificence, we also have a convincing demonstration of the Prophetic Office of Christ in making known the mercy and grace of God towards sinners, for "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself not imputing their trespasses unto them: and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation" (2 Cor. 5: 19). Paul writing to the Romans shows that the grace of God manifest in the cross of Jesus Christ makes every other gift trivial in comparison. In redemption God surrendered His only well-beloved Son to die; and to die such a death by the imputation of our sins was a gracious act that reveals God's grace and mercy to be in the same category as all His other attributes, incomprehensible. "He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things" (Rom. 8: 33).