The offices of Christ

Christ Our Prophet

Jesus Christ is our Prophet because he reveals God to us and speaks God's word with perfect authority. A prophet is one who speaks for God, carrying his message to the people. Jesus does this and more, for he is himself the Word of God made flesh, the fullest and final revelation of the Father. Moses promised that God would raise up a Prophet like himself, and Jesus is that Prophet, who does not merely bring the message but is the message.

The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;Deuteronomy 18:15 (KJV)

What it means to call Christ our Prophet

A prophet in Scripture is not first a foreteller of the future but a forth-teller of God's word, a man sent to speak what God has said. Prophets stood between heaven and earth, receiving the word of the Lord and delivering it to the people, often beginning, Thus saith the LORD. They revealed God's character, called the people back to him, warned of judgment, and promised mercy. The prophet was God's mouth to the world.

When the church confesses Christ as Prophet, it means far more than that Jesus foretold things to come, though he did. It means that in him God has spoken his last and clearest word. The prophets before him received the word; Jesus is the Word. They spoke of the light; he is the light. This is the first of the three offices the church has long used to understand him, Prophet, Priest, and King, and it answers the deepest human question, the question of what God is truly like.

As Prophet, Christ reveals God to us. He does not describe a distant deity from the outside but makes the Father known from within the very life of God, for he came from the Father's side. To hear Jesus is to hear God. To see him is to see the Father. That is why his teaching carried an authority the scribes never had, and why the crowds said no man ever spake like this man.

The Old Testament expectation of a coming Prophet

The office of prophet runs through the whole Old Testament, from Moses to Malachi. But at the very founding of the nation, Moses himself pointed beyond his own ministry to another who would come. Standing before Israel, he gave a promise that the people never forgot: The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken. God confirmed it, saying he would put his words in that Prophet's mouth, and that whoever would not hearken would answer to God himself.

This promise created a longing that lasted for centuries. Israel waited for the Prophet like Moses, one who would speak with God face to face, who would lead a greater deliverance than the exodus, and who would give a greater covenant than Sinai. When John the Baptist appeared, the priests sent to ask him plainly whether he was that Prophet. The Samaritan woman at the well spoke of the Messiah who, when he came, would tell them all things.

The prophets who followed Moses were true messengers, but each was partial and passing. They died, and their word was given piece by piece over long ages. Scripture itself says that God at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets. The very manner of their coming, many voices across many years, was a sign that the full word had not yet been spoken. The nation was being prepared to hear one final Prophet in whom all the others would find their yes.

How Jesus fulfills the prophetic office perfectly

The Letter to the Hebrews opens by setting Jesus above every prophet who came before. God, having spoken of old by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. The prophets were servants who carried a word not their own. The Son is the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person. He does not point to the light from a distance; he is the radiance of God shining into the world.

So Jesus fulfills the office of Moses and surpasses it. Where Moses veiled his face, Jesus is the unveiled glory. Where the prophets said, Thus saith the LORD, Jesus said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, speaking with the authority of God in his own name. He revealed the Father not only in words but in his whole life, his mercy to sinners, his tears at the grave, his welcome of children, his death for his enemies. John writes that no man hath seen God at any time, but the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

This is the perfection of the prophetic office. Every earlier prophet knew God partly and spoke of him partly. Jesus knows the Father completely, for he shares his very life, and so he declares him completely. Philip could say, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write. In Jesus the long line of prophecy reaches its goal, and the message and the messenger are one and the same.

This is why the New Testament calls him the Word. A word is the making known of a mind, and Jesus is the eternal making known of God, God's own heart spoken into a human life. Every earlier prophet held the word like a lamp carried in the hand; Jesus is the light itself. He needed no vision or dream to receive his message, for he came from the Father's side and spoke what he had seen and heard there. So his revelation is not only fuller than all that came before but final, the last word God will speak, complete in itself, with nothing left for any later prophet to add. To look for some further word beyond Jesus is to turn away from the Son in whom God has already said everything he has to say.

What Christ our Prophet means for us

Because Jesus is the final Prophet, we are not left to guess what God is like. The great uncertainty that haunts the human heart, whether God is near or far, kind or cruel, is answered in a face and a voice. If you want to know God, you look at Jesus. He is not one opinion about God among many; he is God's own self-revelation, and God has no further word to add beyond his Son.

This means our first duty toward Christ the Prophet is to hear him. God said of the Prophet like Moses, unto him ye shall hearken, and on the mountain of the transfiguration the Father said of Jesus, This is my beloved Son, hear ye him. To follow Jesus is to sit at his feet as the one Teacher who cannot mislead us, to let his word correct our thoughts about God, ourselves, and the world, and to trust that what he says is true even when it cuts against us.

It also means we can come to God with confidence. We do not have to climb up to heaven to find out what he thinks; he has come down and spoken. The word that once came in fragments now stands whole and personal in Jesus, and that word is still speaking through the Scriptures and by his Spirit to everyone who will listen. To receive Christ the Prophet is to say, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.

There is deep rest in this. We are not left to assemble a picture of God from our fears and guesses, nor to hope that our idea of him happens to be true. God has shown himself plainly in his Son, and we may simply look, and listen, and trust. When our thoughts of God grow dark, we come back to Jesus and let the true light correct them, remembering that the God who made the worlds has a heart like his, patient with the weak, tender toward sinners, and full of grace and truth. To sit under Christ the Prophet is to be taught by the one Teacher who can never mislead us, and to find that the God he reveals is better than we dared to hope.

A note for all traditions: the threefold office of Christ, Prophet, Priest, and King, is a historic and non-denominational way of understanding Jesus, shared across the Christian church. Every verse above is quoted from the King James Version and can be read in its own context. In every tradition there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, and the invitation of this page is simply to know him.

Related: Christ Our Priest · Christ Our King · The threefold office together · The offices of Christ