Section IV.—The Offices Of Christ.
The Scriptures represent Christ's offices as three in number,—prophetic, priestly, and kingly. Although these terms are derived from concrete human relations, they express perfectly distinct ideas. The prophet, the priest, and the king, of the Old Testament, were detached but designed prefigurations of him who should combine all these various activities in himself, and should furnish the ideal reality, of which they were the imperfect symbols.
1 Cor. 1:30—“of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.” Here “wisdom” seems to indicate the prophetic, “righteousness” (or “justification”) the priestly, and “sanctification and redemption” the kingly work of Christ. Denovan: “Three offices are necessary. Christ must be a prophet, to save us from the ignorance of sin; a priest, to save us from its guilt; a king, to save us from its dominion in our flesh. Our faith cannot have firm basis in any one of these alone, any more than a stool can stand on less than three legs.” See Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 583-586; Archer Butler, Sermons, 1:314.
A. A. Hodge, Popular Lectures, 235—“For ‘office,’ there are two words in Latin: munus = position (of Mediator), and officia = functions (of Prophet, Priest, and King). They are not separate offices, as are those of President, Chief-Justice, and Senator. They are not separate functions, capable of successive and isolated performance. They are rather like the several functions of the one living human body—lungs, heart, brain—functionally distinct, yet interdependent, and together constituting one life. So the functions of Prophet, Priest, and King mutually imply one another: Christ is always a prophetical Priest, and a priestly Prophet; and he is always a royal Priest, and a priestly King; and together they accomplish one redemption, to which all are equally essential. Christ is both μεσίτης and παράκλητος.”
I. The Prophetic Office of Christ.
1. The nature of Christ's prophetic work.
(a) Here we must avoid the narrow interpretation which would make the prophet a mere foreteller of future events. He was rather an inspired interpreter or revealer of the divine will, a medium of communication between God and men (προφήτης = not foreteller, but forteller, or forth-teller. Cf. Gen. 20:7,—of Abraham; Ps. 105:15,—of the patriarchs; Mat. 11:9,—of John the Baptist; 1 Cor. 12:28, Eph. 2:20, and 3:5,—of N. T. expounders of Scripture).
Gen. 20:7—“restore the man's wife; for he is a prophet”—spoken of Abraham; Ps. 105:15—“Touch not mine anointed ones, And do my prophets no harm”—spoken of the patriarchs; Mat. 11:9—“But wherefore went ye out? to see a prophet? Yea, I say into you, and much more than a prophet”—spoken of John the Baptist, from whom we have no recorded predictions, and whose pointing to Jesus as the “Lamb of God” (John 1:29) was apparently but an echo of Isaiah 53. 1 Cor. 12:28—“first apostles, secondly prophets”; Eph. 2:20—“built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets”; 3:5—“revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit”—all these latter texts speaking of New Testament expounders of Scripture.