The Prophet, Priest and King
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2023 · 17 December 2023
Turn to Luke 2:10-11, “But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: 11 Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” And then, the angelic hosts appear to declare glory to God in the highest. When we think about Christmas we always think about angels.
They appear kind of on the fringes of Christmas cards. They’re loveable creatures, but they don’t seem to play a major role, at least not in the sentimental Christmas of most people. But that is not the case in the real story. Angels were the heavenly messengers sent to declare that the Savior and the Lord had arrived, and that He was Christ. Look at that word “Christ” which is not Jesus’ last name.
We see that word so often but miss the significance of it unless we look more closely. Both the Old Testament word “Messiah” and the New Testament word “Christos” mean the Anointed One, and it’s drawn from the Old Testament where God anointed certain persons for special responsibility in His kingdom. The Old Testament promised a Savior, a Redeemer, a Deliverer, Messiah, and the Anointed One.
So His name is Jesus, His nature is Lord, and His title is Christ the Anointed One. In the Old Testament there were three particular people who were anointed for unique elevated service in the kingdom. Oil was poured on their heads as a symbol of they are being set apart to God. First it was the prophets. We see this in 1 Kings 19:16 where Elijah is told to anoint his successor the prophet Elisha.
Secondly were the priests. In Exodus 29 you have Aaron of the Aaronic priesthood, instructed to be anointed. In Exodus 40:15, the sons of Aaron were to be anointed as priests to God. In Leviticus 8 you see the same thing with Aaron being anointed. And thirdly who received anointing was the king. In 1 Samuel 10:1 Saul, the first king, was anointed. 1 Samuel 16, David was anointed.
The Messiah would be all three. According to Deuteronomy 18, He would be a prophet like Moses. According to Psalm 1:10, He would be a priest; and that’s repeated again in Zechariah 6. He would be a unique priest. According to Psalm 2, and then again in 2 Samuel 7, He would be King. He would be the King in David’s line. Psalm 2 says He would rule all the nations of the world.
When you see the announcement of Christ, the angels are saying, “This is the Promised Anointed One who is the Prophet, Priest and King. And from Genesis 3 where God pronounces curses on man and woman and the serpent, we are told that there would come One who would crush the serpent’s head. The anticipation builds as you are waiting for the arrival of the Anointed One.
This is God’s plan and promise. It didn’t happen, centuries went by, until, as Paul says in Galatians 4:4, the fullness of time came. Luke 2:11 says, “Today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Messiah, the Anointed One, and the Lord.” This was the most monumental day in Israel’s history. After Jesus was born, eight days passed, and it was time for Him to be circumcised.
Look later what He says about Himself. Luke 4:16-21, “He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As usual, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written, 18 The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. 20 He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.”
The anointed One is here, He is the ultimate Prophet, Priest, and King. Hebrews 1:1-4, “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. 4 So He is superior to the angels, just as the name He inherited is more excellent than theirs. In fact, He is the King of the angels. But Hebrews 2:9 says that, when He came into the world He was for a little while made lower than the angels, in order to suffer death, then be crowned with glory.
So Hebrews 1 is introducing us to the Anointed One. He is the Prophet who reveals God, He is the Priest who reconciles to God, and He is the King who reigns with God. Let’s look first at the Prophet who reveals God. Now we know that the natural man cannot understand the things of God, 1 Corinthians 2:14 says “they’re foolishness to him.” They are unable to discern the truth.
In the Old Testament we’re reminded that He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many ways. Through direct revelation, indirect revelation, inspired writing, visions, dreams, types and symbols. But He always spoke to the people through the prophets. Some of that is history, some poetry, some law, some prophecy, but all of it is God speaking through His Word.
But it was incomplete. The revelations that compose the 39 books of the Old Testament, are stretched over a millennium, written by 40 different authors, but incompleteness marks the Old Testament. No prophet got the full revelation of God, not until we see that God spoke to us in His Son. No one ever grasped the full truth of God, only Jesus was the full truth revealed.
In Him, God fully revealed Himself. No longer in diverse ways, but singularly through Christ. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” speaking of the Son of God. John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Full truth is revealed in Him. Verse 18: “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” In Jesus God is fully revealed, and the New Testament is written about this full revelation. The four Gospels describe the arrival and the ministry of Jesus. The book of Acts describes the apostolic preaching concerning Jesus.
The Epistles lay out the significance of His life and death and resurrection and implications in the world. And the New Testament culminates in the book of Revelation with His glorious return. The New Testament’s all about Jesus Christ who is the full revelation of God. “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” says Paul. In Jesus, they’d never heard a man speak like that.
In the Old Testament you see this unfolding of revelation. To Abraham, we find the nation of Messiah. In Jacob, the tribe of Messiah. In David and Isaiah, the family of Messiah. In Micah, the town of Messiah. In Daniel, the time of Messiah. In Malachi, we find the forerunner of Messiah. And in Isaiah, we find the death and resurrection of Messiah. But each writer only knew in part.
But when Christ arrived, He is the complete, full revelation of God. He’s going to define Christ in some magnificent terms. He is the heir of all things. He is the one who made the universe. He is the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” He is the ultimate Prophet. No prophet has ever had words that are as powerful as His.
John 1:3 says, “Everything was made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made,” He spoke it into existence. He’s the author of all that exists in history. He’s the author not just of the material world, the immaterial world as well and how it all interacts. As such also, verse 3 says, “He’s the radiance of God’s glory.” He’s the creator of all, because He is the Light of all.
Christ is the ruler of all: “He upholds all things by the word of His power.” This is speaking about His power to sustain everything that exists. Everything in the universe has to be held together, and it is held together by the word of His power. Notice that, “the word of His power.” He speaks, and the universe is created. He speaks constantly, continually, and the universe is sustained until the end arrives.
In John 11:25, “Jesus says to Martha, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, and He who comes into the world.’” She is declaring that He is that Promised Messiah, the Prophet.
Secondly, He is the Priest who reconciles people to God. Go back to verse 3: “When He had made purification of sins.” This introduces us to His priestly work. That what priests did. They went before God in the prescribed way to offer the necessary sacrifice that God required to pay for the sins of the people. That’s what Jesus did. He offered the only sacrifice that could take away sin.
There was no priest like Him. Every priest would go back every day and do what he did in the morning again at night. There was never any end to it. But the writer of Hebrews wants us to understand there’s never been a priest like this one. Hebrews 2:17 says, “He became a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”
The message of the Lord Himself was that He is the Messiah, and He has arrived to fulfill these promises. This becomes the subject of their preaching in Acts. Acts 3:18 says, “The things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that this Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.” So the apostles had to preach that it was promised by God that Messiah would suffer.
He offered a sacrifice that satisfied God. No priest ever did that. Hebrews 4:14 says, “We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, but without sin.” Hebrews 5:5 says, “So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but God said, ‘You are My Son, today I have become your Father.”
Verse 6 says, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ Verse 9, “After He was perfected, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.” Hebrews 9:11-14 says, “But Christ has appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come. In the more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, 12 He entered the most holy place once for all time, not by the blood of goats and calves,
But by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow, sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify temporarily for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we can serve the living God?
He’s not just a priest, but He is the Priest who offered Himself as the sacrifice. Peter says, “We’re redeemed not with corruptible things like silver and gold, but the precious blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb without blemish and without spot.” He was the perfect sympathetic Priest. He was the perfect sacrifice. He was man, and He substituted for man; He was God and had the power to defeat death.
Thirdly, we meet Christ who is the King. The end of Hebrews 1:3 says, “After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” Priests never sat down. They never stopped offering sacrifices. But Jesus sat down because He was not just a priest, He was the King. He sat down at the right hand, the power side of the Majesty on high; He took His rightful place.
Revelation says, He became King of kings and Lord of lords. And from the moment He ascended into heaven, He reigns as the eternal King. The evidence of His sovereign royalty is verse 4, “So He became superior to the angels, just as the name He inherited is more excellent than theirs.” Verse 5, “For to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You’re My Son, today I have become your Father’?
And let all the angels of God worship Him.’” Go back to Luke 2:11-14, the angel of the Lord appears and says, “Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 13 Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: 14 Glory to God in the highest heaven.” The angels don’t need a prophet. The angels don’t need a priest.
The angels do have a king; He has always been their King: Jesus, King of angels, King od men and heaven’s Light. Charles Wesley understood that when he wrote, “Hark! The herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King!’” The holy angels have always worshiped Him, and they worship Him as the ultimate Prophet, Priest, and King: God’s Promised Anointed Redeemer. Let’s pray.