The Prophet, Priest and King
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 16 June 2024
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 declare glory to God. Angels were the heavenly messengers sent to declare that the Savior had arrived, and that He was Christ.
The Old Testament promised a Savior, a Redeemer, a Deliverer, a Servant of the Lord, Messiah, the Anointed One. When Christ arrives, the Anointed One has arrived. Now in the Old Testament there were three particular people who were anointed for unique 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. In 1 Chronicles 16:22 it says, “Do not touch My anointed, and do My prophets no harm.” The second group were priests. In Exodus 29 you have Aaron and those who were in the Aaronic priesthood, instructed to be anointed. In Exodus 40:15 the sons of Aaron were to be anointed again as priests to God.
And the third group was that of the king. First Samuel 10:1 says that Saul, the first king, was anointed. First Samuel 16 says David was anointed. And again, this symbolizes the outpouring of heavenly blessing on one who is called to uniquely heavenly tasks. The promise of God in the Old Testament was that there would come the ultimate Prophet, the ultimate Priest, and the ultimate King.
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 unique priest, and that’s repeated again in Zechariah 6. 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.
The announcement of the angels that this is Christ, “This is the Promised Anointed One who is the ultimate Prophet, the ultimate Priest, and the ultimate 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 as you are waiting for the arrival of this all-powerful Prophet, Priest, and King.
And when the fullness of time came, He was born. This was the most monumental day in Israel’s history since the promises of the Old Testament were finally wrapped up in the last of the 39 books. They had waited even beyond that for hundreds of years; but now in Bethlehem, the Messiah has arrived, the Prophet, Priest, and King above all prophets, all priests and all kings.
The disciples knew He was the Promised Messiah. He declared that Himself. In John 11:25-26 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, even He who comes into the world.’”
The message of the Lord Himself was that He is the Messiah, and He has arrived to fulfill the promises. This is affirmed by the apostles and the disciples. This becomes the subject of their preaching in the book of Acts. Acts 3:18 says, “The things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.”
Hebrews 1:1-3, “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 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 God.”
Now we know that the natural man cannot understand the things of God, 1 Corinthians 2:14 says, “They are foolishness to him. The god of this world has blinded his mind, lest the light of the gospel would shine unto Him.” We could not know God if He did not speak; and He did. The true God spoke, not an idol, not an impersonal cause, which means He is a person. And that is why the Bible is called the Word of God.
The Old Testament was in a sense, incomplete. The revelations that compose the 39 books of the Old Testament, separate books, are stretched over a millennium, written by many different authors; and it was progressive, it was incomplete. God was increasing our understanding as revelation continued. No prophet got the full revelation of God, not until we see in verse 2 that God spoke unto us in His Son.
No prophet ever grasped the full truth of God, only Jesus was the full truth revealed. In Him, God did not display some facets of Himself or His truth, but fully revealed Himself. No longer in diverse manners and diverse ways, but singularly through Christ. Look at John 1:1, “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.” Verse 18, “No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—Christ has revealed 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.
And the people said they’d never heard a man speak like Jesus spoke. It was clear even to Nicodemus, a teacher in Israel, that Jesus was a teacher sent from God. In fact, He says He only spoke what God wanted Him to speak. In John 5:25 He says, “Truly I tell you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”
His words are so powerful they not only created the entire universe, they not only sustained that universe, but they’re so powerful that He will raise all the dead in the end. Verse 26-27, “For just as the Father has life in himself, so also He has granted to the Son to have life in himself. 27 And He has granted Him the right to pass judgment, because He is the Son of Man.”
Verse 28-29, “Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done good things, to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked things, to the resurrection of condemnation.” Christ speaks, and the dead are taken out of their graves, given a body suited for heaven or a body suited for hell.
In Acts 3:17-20, the apostles say, “And now, brothers and sisters, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your leaders also did. 18 In this way God fulfilled what he had predicted through all the prophets—that his Messiah would suffer. 19 Therefore repent and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped out, 20 that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”
You go to the Old Testament and you see bits and pieces unfold. To Abraham, we find the nation of Messiah. In Jacob, we find the tribe of Messiah. In David and Isaiah, we find the family of Messiah. In Micah, we find the town of Messiah. In Daniel, we find the time of Messiah. In Malachi, we find the forerunner of Messiah. Again in Isaiah, we find the death and resurrection of Messiah.
But each writer only knew in part; and Peter says they looked at what they wrote to see who this really would be. But when Christ arrived, the writer of Hebrews tells us, “He speaks for God.” He wants you to understand that even in a deeper way, and so listen to what the writer says. Hebrews 1:2 says, “He is the heir of all things. He is the one who made the world. He is the radiance of God’s glory.
He is the exact representation of His nature, and Christ upholds all things by the word of His power.” Jesus Christ is the ultimate Prophet. No prophet has ever had words that are as powerful as His. He possesses the right to absolutely everything. In Revelation 5, you see this illustrated when the Lamb of God comes out of the throne and picks up the sealed book, which is the title deed to the universe.
Verse 6-7, “Then I saw one like a slaughtered lamb standing in the midst of the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent into all the earth. 7 He went and took the scroll out of the right hand of the one seated on the throne.” And all of heaven bows down to worship Him as He unrolls the title deed to the universe.
Christ is the rightful heir to everything that God possesses. Yes, for a while He was lower than the angels. But He is much better than the angels; He is the King of angels. He is the one who will inherit everything because He created it. With the agency of the Son, God the Father created. “Everything was made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made,”
Colossians 1:16 says He created absolutely everything. He created it all by word. He spoke it into existence. He speaks with such power He could create the universe in six days. He’s the author of all that exists in history. He’s the author of the material world and the immaterial world as well and how it all interacts. He is the Creator of the ages and all that they embody.
Verse 3 says, “He’s the radiance of God’s glory.” He’s the heir of all, He’s the creator of all, because He is the Light of all. 2 Corinthians 4 says, “He is the shining forth of God’s glory.” We see the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus. Just as the radiance of the sun reaches the earth and lights and warms, give life and grows, so Christ is the glorious Light of God shining into the hearts of men.
The writer of Hebrews says, “He’s the exact representation of God’s nature.” He is the authorized exact duplication of God in nature, substance and essence. Colossians 2:9 says, “In Him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells.” Not only that, “He upholds all things by the word of His power.” This is speaking about His power to sustain everything that exists. Everything is held together by the word of His power.
If He has this much power to speak the universe into existence, to uphold the universe until time for it to be replaced by a new heaven and a new earth, if He is the heir of all that God possesses, if He is by nature God Himself, then we can say there is no other who could so speak for God as this one. He directs all the people movements of the ages by the power of His word.
Christ is not only the Prophet who reveals God, but He is the Priest who reconciles to God. 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. Jesus offered the only sacrifice that could take away sin forever.
Every priest would go back every day and do what he did in the morning again at night, and again the next day. There was never any end to it. But 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 to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” He offered a sacrifice that satisfied God.
Hebrews 4:14 says, “We have a great high priest, Jesus Christ the Son of God. 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, “So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but God said to Him, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.”
To the Jews the cross was a stumbling block, and that’s why the apostles had to preach that the Christ, the Messiah, must have suffered. But He came to be the Priest, to offer the ultimate sacrifice, and to be that 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.”
And thirdly, He is the King. Verse 3, “When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” Priests never stopped offering sacrifices. It was impossible for them to sit down. Sacrifices in the morning, in the afternoon, day after day, year after year, decade after decade, century after century. But Jesus sat down because He was not just a priest, He was a King.
As Revelation says, He became King of kings and Lord of lords. So the writer of Hebrews introduces us again to the Christ: the Prophet who speaks for God, reveals God; the Priest who reconciles us to God; and the King who reigns with God. Verse 4, “Having become much better than the angels. For to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You’re My Son, today I have begotten You’? Let’s pray.