Lecture to accompany Essentials: Week 2: Who is Jesus?
Transcript:
In studying the theology of God the Father, the overwhelming truth of his beauty may be simplified to the statement that he is infinitely great and infinitely good. While it may be hard for me to wrap my brain around the reality of infinity, I can at least grasp the theory. His wrath may be difficult for my modern mind to stomach, but seeing it played out while intertwined with his mercy, justice, holiness, and love throughout the Bible demands my fear, worship, adoration, and love. And is somewhat straightforward to articulate.
In turning our attention to this week’s lesson: Who is Jesus?, I was much more overwhelmed. I am not a trinitarian theologian, and the truths of the incarnation humble me with my lack of understanding. Everything true of God is true of Jesus; everything true of man is true of Jesus (except sin). How can that be? How can I articulate the fact that Jesus did not lose anything of his deity (even his omnipresence) when he took on human limitations? The best I could offer would be to repeat what others have said because 1) so many have said it so much better than I could hope to and 2) I would be very afraid of getting something wrong and suggesting a heresy. So if after our discussion this week you want to dig deeper into the doctrines of Christ, may I suggest Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology or the Baptist Faith and Message?
For now, I decided to stick with a less intimidating theme of biblical theology, but one easily overlooked, at least by me up to this point. And it is one I can approach with my favorite Bible study tool: my Bible. The Bible is a unified story. God supernaturally directed about 40 different authors over 66 books and about 1500 years to write one unified story about Himself and his plan for creation. And he used these authors to develop themes that reveal the unity of his plan across the generations of his people. Let’s dig into 3 of those themes as we study: Who is Jesus? Prophet, Priest, and King.
CREATION & THE FALL
In the beginning, God created, among other things, a garden, and everything in it was good. Adam and Eve, the man and the woman he created to tend the garden, were very good, and they lived in shalom, or whole and complete peace, with God. God gave Adam rules to follow and to pass along to Eve; He gave Adam work tending to this place where God fellowshipped with man; He placed him in authority over the whole earth with instructions to care for and rule over it. However, with Adam’s sin and humanity’s banishment from the garden, shalom with God was broken, too. The only hope for restoration or atonement between a sinful people and a holy God was a mediator: a prophet or messenger to communicate God’s law, a priest who could seek atonement for ever-offensive sin, and a good king who could lead his people as fellowship with God was broken.
THE PENTATEUCH
The problem of sin that arose with the first Adam required mediation, but it would be centuries before the Second Adam’s arrival to act as perfect mediator in the three-fold office of prophet, priest, and king. In the meantime, we see imperfect individuals called by God to serve in those individual offices who foreshadow the coming Jesus, either in how they submissively serve God in their role or how they fail, highlighting the need for Someone better. In Genesis 14, Melchizedek, both a king and priest of God Most High, gave Abram a blessing. In Exodus 40, priests had to be anointed and consecrated so they could serve God. According to God’s law, Leviticus outlines how priests offered regular sacrifices on behalf of the people to atone for their sins so they could be forgiven, but they also had to be able to sacrifice for their own sins as sinful people themselves. Deuteronomy 34:10 says that there was no prophet like Moses, “whom the Lord knew face to face”, with all of the signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do. In Deuteronomy 18, Moses said that the Lord would raise up a Prophet like himself. The Lord would put words in his mouth and the people “must listen to him” (v. 15). Deuteronomy 17 gave instructions for when it was time to appoint a king: he was to be someone the Lord chose, who didn’t seek wealth or have a divided heart, who copied the law for himself, kept it always, and read from it all the days of his life. He was to fear the Lord, observe all instructions, have a humble heart, and not turn from God’s commands to the right or to the left.
We know One who is both a king and a priest of God Most High, like Melchizidek. Our Anointed One is holy and doesn’t require ceremony to make himself so. He is both our priest and our once-for-all sacrifice to atone for our sins. He is also sinless, so he doesn’t have to make sacrifices for himself. Like Moses, our Prophet knows the Lord face-to-face and performs signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do. We know a King, chosen by the Lord, who is the Word made flesh, humble and sinless.
OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY & THE PROPHETS
The kings of Israel, starting with Saul and David, led the people with varying levels of faithfulness and submission to God’s law. The kingship of Saul, Israel’s first king, was ultimately taken away because he chose partial obedience (otherwise known as disobedience) when he spared King Agag and his livestock. He had been commanded to destroy everyone and everything (1 Samuel 15:1-3), and when the Prophet Samuel asked him about it, he sidestepped responsibility by blaming his troops, much like Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent for their original sin in the garden (Genesis 3). The consequences of Saul’s disobedience would plague Israel for centuries until a Jewish girl in the court of a pagan king would act as mediator and savior and conqueror on behalf of the people of God. Esther’s actions helped save her people from the descendents of King Agag (Esther).
King David was labeled a “man after God’s own heart” who carried out God’s will (Acts 13:22), and the Lord established a covenant with David, promising him a descendant whose kingdom and throne would be established forever. Subsequent kings struggled to submit to the Lord, to remember his laws, to keep their hearts undivided, to avoid the pursuit of wealth, and many of them didn’t look much different than the pagan kings of surrounding nations. These were characterized by warring, oppression, subjection to fear, pride, ego, and bad counsel from the wise men who attended them, as we know from biblical glimpses into the courts of Pharaoh and the kings who reigned during the times of Daniel and Esther.
Throughout the books of Old Testament history and the books of the prophets, we see God using imperfect people to convey His perfect message and model and proclaim a coming perfect Prophet. Moses led the people out of Egypt, brought them the law from the Lord, and tended to the people (Hosea 12:13). Samuel communicated regularly with the Lord on behalf of the people. Elijah performed miracles; Jeremiah was at times rejected by the people, ignored, and beaten. Matthew 12:39 describes Jonah’s journey in the fish as foreshadowing Jesus’s burial and, 3 days later, his resurrection, after which he went to take good news to a gentile city.
The priests continued to offer sacrifices for the atonement of the sins of the people. Malachi 2:7 says, “the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should desire instruction from his mouth, because he is the messenger of the Lord of Armies.” But they were imperfect and incomplete: sacrifices had to be made day after day, and they couldn’t go near dead people because they would be made unclean. Both their atonement and their holiness was limited. Zechariah offered hope in chapter 3, verses 8-10 of a coming servant, whom he called The Branch, when God would take away the iniquity of the land in a single day. Zechariah 6:13 promises a Priest on his throne, and peaceful council between the Lord and the King-Priest.
While waiting for the foretold Mediator, Israel’s priesthood and prophets had problems: “Priest and prophet stagger because of wine and stumble under the influence of beer” (Isaiah 28:7). “From prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely” (Jeremiah 6:13; 8:10); and “Prophet and priest are ungodly” (Jeremiah 23:11). “The Lord despised king and priest in his fierce anger” (Lamentations 2:6).
OLD TESTAMENT WISDOM LITERATURE
Broken people led a broken people. The willful sin of the mediators appointed to lead and tend to God’s people eventually led to God’s judgement, which took place in the forms of the division of the promised land and the subsequent destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel and the exile of the southern kingdom of Judah. The temple where the priests served and atonement could be made was also destroyed, not to be rebuilt for more than a generation. Psalm 74 laments the loss of prophets, not knowing how long the silence would last (v. 9); it acknowledges God’s rejection and anger and begs the Lord to remember his congregation (v. 1-2); it claims God as its King from ancient times, who performs saving acts on the earth (v. 12).
In Ezra 3, the altar was rebuilt and priests resumed sacrifices, but no kings were crowned, and the canonized Bible dramatically quiets for 400 years.
THE GOSPELS
Matthew 1:1 opens by proclaiming the genealogy of Jesus, the Son of King David. John 1:14 describes him as more than a Prophet, indeed as the Word of God itself made flesh to dwell among us. No longer would a king need a prophet or his personal copy of the law of God; this King was Prophet and Word all at once. Matthew’s accounts of Jesus’s ministry describes people repeatedly asking, “Is this the Prophet?”, whom they had been promised in Deuteronomy 18. In contrast to the again corrupted priesthood, Jesus tended to people’s spirits, forgiving people, and offering eternal life. In Luke 1:32-33, the angel Gabriel tells Mary that Jesus will be given the throne of His father David and that He will reign forever. As King and Prophet, Jesus taught about the kingdom of heaven, his kingdom, previewing its order, in which the first would be last and the last would be first (Matthew 22-25). At the Triumphal Entry, Matthew 21:5 quotes prophecy: “See, your King is coming to you, gentle, and mounted on a donkey.”
We see Jesus’s enthronement as King at birth and death: attended by wise men and heralded by angels, his new order already beginning. The shepherds, the last in the kingdom of this world, were invited first in the Kingdom of Jesus to meet the newborn King. At death, Jesus was crowned and high and lifted up. Jonty Rhodes, a minister in the UK, says, quote, “The cross is Christ’s pulpit and throne as well as altar”, end quote. He is no less king in the manger, no less king on the cross, not made unclean when encountering death. He is the Word of God itself made flesh to dwell among us. Perfect King, Perfect Priest, Perfect Prophet.
THE EPISTLES & THE REVELATION
Hebrews 1:1-3 declares Jesus’s work as Prophet, in that God has spoken to us as his Son. And as fulfillment of the New Covenant, the law is now written on the hearts of believers, too (Jeremiah 29:33), where Jesus dwells (Ephesians 3:17). Hebrews also describes Jesus as our Great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14) in the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 7), King of righteousness, King of Peace, Priest of God Most High. As John shares the Revelation of Christ, he describes an occupied throne (Revelation 4) and a conquering Lamb who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
CONCLUSION
The narrative of scripture is a unified story. Jesus was not God’s Plan B after humanity just couldn’t get it together. He was in the beginning with God, co-creator and sustainer of all things contained by the universe and beyond. As believers, we should be familiar with the completed work of Jesus, the good news for those of us atoned and saved by his once-for-all sacrifice on the cross. But Jesus’s office as mediator, his role as Prophet, Priest, and King, is ongoing. It always was, and it continues today. As believers under the New Covenant, the Law is written on our hearts, but we need Jesus’s help to see and live it out. Understanding God’s Word is not a matter of me climbing the ladder of enlightenment for myself. I need Jesus to help me see and hear each time I open His Word or listen to its preaching. My Great High Priest, who can in every way co-suffer with me because he was and is fully man, can also lead me in the way everlasting faithfully, because He is fully God and without sin. He is not an indifferent figure dealing with me from afar. And even as he resides within me, he is also, in His omnipresence, seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for me (Romans 8:34), indeed He lives to intercede for me (Hebrews 7:25). He is praying for me as I actively battle temptation and struggles.
And my King is actively ruling in perfect righteousness and justice; he is actively building his church, his kingdom; he is sanctifying his people, his temple, helping them to conquer the sin that remains in our hearts as the Good and powerful King that He is.
Knowing who Jesus is, that he mediates for us, should change the way we live. Are you living under the authority of this Good King? If you are a believer, do you rest in the truth that your Great High Priest is constantly interceding for you at the hand of the Father, constantly residing in you, his temple, and co-suffering with you, his adopted brother and fellow man? Do you humbly depend on the Perfect Prophet to open your eyes and ears to the Law that has been written on your believer’s heart?
Hebrews 1:1-3 says, “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways. 2 In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
Thank you for listening. Please check the transcript for scripture references and citations.
Citations:
Beless, H. (Host). (2021, Sept 21). How is Christ our Prophet, Priest, and King? With Jonty Rhodes. [Audio Podcast]. Journeywomen Podcast. https://www.journeywomen.org/episode/offices-of-christ.
Collins, J. & Mackie, T. (Hosts). (2019, Apr 22). Prophets as Provokers. BibleProject Podcast. https://bibleproject.com/podcasts/prophets-provokers.
Crossway Bibles. (2008). Overview of the Bible (p. 26). ESV Study Bible. Crossway.
Guthrie, N. (2024, September 13–14). Biblical theology workshop for women [Workshop].
Ortlund, D. (2020). Gentle and lowly: The heart of Christ for sinners and sufferers. Crossway.
Southern Baptist Convention. (2000). The Baptist Faith and Message. https://bfm.sbc.net.
Kathryn Entrekin 