There were three major offices among the people of Israel in the Old Testament: the prophet (such as Nathan, 2 Samuel 7:2), the priest (such as Abiathar, 1 Samuel 30:7), and the king (such as King David, 2 Samuel 5:3). These three offices were distinct. The prophet spoke God’s words to the people; the priest offered sacrifices, prayers, and praises to God on behalf of the people; and the king ruled over the people as God’s representative. These three offices foreshadowed Christ’s own work in different ways. Therefore, we can look again at Christ’s work, now thinking about the perspective of these three offices or categories. Christ fulfills these three offices in the following ways: as prophet, he reveals God to us and speaks God’s words to us; as priest he both offers a sacrifice to God on our behalf and is himself the sacrifice that is offered; and as king he rules over the church and over the universe as well. We will now discuss each of these offices in more detail.
A. Christ as Prophet
The Old Testament prophets spoke God’s words to the people. Moses was the first major prophet, and he wrote the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. After Moses, there was a succession of other prophets who spoke and wrote God’s words. But Moses predicted that sometime another prophet like himself would come.
The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed—just as you desired of the LORD your God… And the LORD said to me…. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” (Deuteronomy 18:15 – 18).
However, when we look at the gospels we see that Jesus is not primarily viewed as a prophet or as the prophet like Moses, though there are occasional references to this effect. Often those who call Jesus a “prophet” know very little about him. For instance, various opinions of Jesus were circulating: “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (Matthew 16:14). When Jesus raised the son of the widow of Nain from the dead, the people were afraid and said, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” (Luke 7:16). When Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well something of her past life, she immediately responded, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet” (John 4:19). But she did not then know very much at all about him. The reaction of the man born blind who was healed in the temple was similar: “He is a prophet” (John 9:17). Therefore, “prophet” is not a primary designation of Jesus or one used frequently by him or about him.
Nevertheless, there was still an expectation that the prophet like Moses would come (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18). For instance, after Jesus had multiplied the loaves and fish, some people exclaimed, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!” (John 6:14). Peter also identified Christ as the prophet predicted by Moses (see Acts 3:22 – 24, quoting Deuteronomy 18:15). Jesus is indeed the prophet predicted by Moses.
It is significant that in the Epistles Jesus is never called a prophet or the prophet. This is especially significant in the opening chapters of Hebrews, because there was a clear opportunity to identify Jesus as a prophet. He begins by saying, “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Hebrews 1:1 – 2). Then after discussing the greatness of the Son, in chapters 1 – 2, the author concludes this section not by saying, “Therefore, consider Jesus, the greatest prophet of all,” or something like that, but rather by saying, “Therefore, holy brethren, who share in a heavenly call, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession” (Hebrews 3:1).
Why did the New Testament epistles avoid calling Jesus a prophet? Apparently because, although Jesus is the prophet whom Moses predicted, yet he is also far greater than any of the Old Testament prophets, in two ways:
1. He is the one about whom the prophecies in the Old Testament were made. When Jesus spoke with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, he took them through the entire Old Testament, showing how the prophecies pointed to him: “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). He told these disciples that they were “slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken,” showing that it was “necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory” (Luke 24:25 – 26). The Old Testament prophets looked forward to Christ in what they wrote, and the New Testament apostles looked back to Christ and interpreted his life for the benefit of the church.
2. Jesus was not merely a messenger of revelation from God (like all the other prophets), but was himself the source of revelation from God. Rather than saying, as all the Old Testament prophets did, “Thus says the LORD,” Jesus could begin divinely authoritative teaching with the amazing statement, “But I say unto you” (Matthew 5:22). The word of the Lord came to the Old Testament prophets, but Jesus spoke on his own authority as the eternal Word of God (John 1:1) who perfectly revealed the Father to us (John 14:9; Heb. 1:1 – 2).
In the broader sense of prophet, simply meaning one who reveals God to us and speaks to us the words of God, Christ is of course truly and fully a prophet. In fact, he is the one whom all the Old Testament prophets prefigured in their speech and in their actions.
B. Christ as Priest
In the Old Testament, the priests were appointed by God to offer sacrifices. They also offered prayers and praise to God on behalf of the people. In so doing they “sanctified” the people or made them acceptable to come into God’s presence, albeit in a limited way during the Old Testament period. In the New Testament Jesus becomes our great high priest. This theme is developed extensively in the letter to the Hebrews, where we find that Jesus functions as priest in two ways.
1. Jesus Offered a Perfect Sacrifice for Sin.
The sacrifice which Jesus offered for sins was not the blood of animals such as bulls or goats: “For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). Instead, Jesus offered himself as a perfect sacrifice: “But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26). This was a completed and final sacrifice, never to be repeated, a theme frequently emphasized in the book of Hebrews (see 7:27; 9:12, 24-28; 10:1-2, 10, 12, 14; 13:12). Jesus fulfilled all the expectations that were prefigured, not only in the Old Testament sacrifices, but also in the lives and actions of the priests who offered them: he was both the sacrifice and the priest who offered the sacrifice. Jesus is now the “great high priest who has passed through the heavens” (Hebrews 4:14) and who has appeared “in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24), since he has offered a sacrifice that ended for all time the need for any further sacrifices.
2. Jesus Continually Brings Us Near to God.
The Old Testament priests not only offered sacrifices, but also in a representative way they came into the presence of God from time to time on behalf of the people. But Jesus does much more than that. As our perfect high priest, he continually leads us into God’s presence so that we no longer have need of a Jerusalem temple, or of a special priesthood to stand between us and God. And Jesus does not come into the inner part (the holy of holies) of the earthly temple in Jerusalem, but he has gone into the heavenly equivalent to the holy of holies, the very presence of God himself in heaven (Hebrews 9:24). Therefore, we have a hope that follows him there: “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever” (Hebrews 6:19 – 20). This means that we have a far greater privilege than those people who lived at the time of the Old Testament temple. They could not even enter into the first room of the temple, the holy place, for only the priests could go there. Then into the inner room of the temple, the holy of holies, only the high priest could go, and he could only enter there once a year (Hebrews 9:1 – 7). But when Jesus offered a perfect sacrifice for sins, the curtain or veil of the temple that closed off the holy of holies was torn in two from top to bottom (Luke 23:45), thus indicating in a symbolic way on earth that the way of access to God in heaven was opened by Jesus’ death. The author of Hebrews can make this amazing exhortation to all believers:
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary [literally ‘the holy places, meaning both the ‘holy place’ and the ‘holy of holies’ itself by the blood of Jesus . . . and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. (Hebrews 10:19 – 22)
Jesus has opened for us the way of access to God so that we can continually “draw near” into God’s very presence without fear but with “confidence” and in “full assurance of faith.”
3. Jesus as Priest Continually Prays for Us.
One other priestly function in the Old Testament was to pray on behalf of the people. The author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus also fulfills this function: “He is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Paul affirms the same point when he says Christ Jesus is the one “who indeed intercedes for us” (Romans 8:34).
Some have argued that this work of high priestly intercession is only the act of remaining in the Father’s presence as a continual reminder that he himself has paid the penalty for all our sins. According to this view, Jesus does not actually make specific prayers to God the Father about individual needs in our lives, but “intercedes” only in the sense of remaining in God’s presence as our high priestly representative.
This view does not seem to fit the actual language used in Romans 8:34 and Hebrews 7:25. In both cases, the word intercede translates the Greek term entygch-ano. This word does not mean merely “to stand as someone’s representative before another person,” but clearly has the sense of making specific requests or petitions before someone. For example, Festus uses this word to say to King Agrippa, “You see this man about whom the whole Jewish people petitioned me” (Acts 25:24). Paul also uses it of Elijah when he “pleads with God against Israel” (Romans 11:2). In both cases the requests are very specific, not just general representations.
We may conclude that both Paul and the author of Hebrews are saying that Jesus continually lives in the presence of God to make specific requests and to bring specific petitions before God on our behalf. This is a role that Jesus, as God-man, is uniquely qualified to fulfill. Although God could care for all our needs in response to direct observation (Matthew 6:8), yet it has pleased God, in his relationship to the human race, to decide to act instead in response to prayer, apparently so that the faith shown through prayer might glorify him. It is especially the prayers of men and women created in his image that are pleasing in God’s sight. In Christ, we have a true man, a perfect man, praying and thereby continually glorifying God through prayer. Thus, human manhood is raised to a highly-exalted position: “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).
Yet in his human nature alone Jesus could not of course be such a great high priest for all his people all over the world. He could not hear the prayers of persons far away, nor could he hear prayers that were only spoken in a person’s mind. He could not hear all requests simultaneously. In order to be the perfect high priest who intercedes for us, he must be God as well as man. He must be one who in his divine nature can both know all things and bring them into the presence of the Father. Yet because he became and continues to be man he has the right to represent us before God and he can express his petitions from the viewpoint of a sympathetic high priest, one who understands by experience what we go through.
Jesus is the only person in the whole universe for all eternity who can be such a heavenly high priest, one who is truly God and truly man, exalted forever above the heavens.
C. Christ as King
In the Old Testament, the king has authority to rule over the nation of Israel. In the New Testament, Jesus was born to be King of the Jews (Matthew 2:2), but he refused any attempt by people to try to make him an earthly king with earthly military and political power (John 6:15). He told Pilate, “My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not from the world” (John 18:36). Jesus did have a kingdom whose arrival he announced in his preaching (Matthew 4:17, 23; 12:28). He is in fact the true king of the new people of God. Jesus refused to rebuke his disciples who cried out at his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 19:38).
After his resurrection, Jesus was given by God the Father far greater authority over the church and over the universe. God raised him up and “made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come; and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church” (Ephesians 1:20-22; Matthew 28:18; 1 Corinthians 15:25). That authority over the church and over the universe will be more fully recognized by people when Jesus returns to earth in power and great glory to reign (Matthew 26:64; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10; Revelation 19:11 – 16). On that day, he will be acknowledged as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16) and every knee shall bow to him (Philippians 2:10).