Threefold: Priest

This is a transcript of one of our recent podcasts. To subscribe to the podcast using iTunes, please click here. To listen to the podcast without iTunes, please follow this link.

In the Old Testament, God ordained that three offices be established to instruct, to intercede for, and to protect His children. These are the roles of the prophet, priest, and king. In this series, we will look at how Jesus fulfills these three roles, and continues to do so to this day.

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.
-Hebrews 7:25-27

As the Messiah, Jesus took upon Himself three Old Testament roles, and they are offices He holds even now. Francis Turretin tells us, “The threefold misery of men introduced by sin – ignorance, guilt, and tyranny and bondage – required this conjunction of a threefold office.” The second of the Threefold Office is “Priest.”

In the Old Testament, the Priest was called upon to be an intercessor between the people and God. They would pray for the people, bringing petitions from the people to God. They would teach the people, bring doctrine from God to the people. Critically, they would sacrifice on behalf of the people, bringing the blood offering from the people to God for the covering of sin.

Christians do not continue the practice of blood sacrifices. The reason for this is clear to any who read the Book of Hebrews – it is because our once-for-all sacrifice has already been made, and no further sacrifice is needed.

Of the three offices that Christ fills, this may be the most immediately obvious. Jesus is our high priest, and it is a role, the writer of the Hebrews tells us, that He holds forever. We have no need any longer for a high priest to stand between us and God, for Jesus “always lives to make intercession” for us (Hebrews 7:25).

A quick word on why this is important. We looked last time at Jesus’ role as a prophet. As prophet, Jesus told us the will and words of God. He delivered, like the prophets before Him, the commands of God. And he warned us what would happen if we do not obey. Jesus spoke of hell more than anyone in the Bible. He wanted to be clear what would happen to the unrighteous.

The problem is that we aren’t righteous. We are all beset by sin, drowning in our evil actions, words, and thoughts. We sin by doing what we aren’t supposed to do and failing to do what we are supposed to do. We have failed to keep God’s holy law.

When we fail, we sin, and the rightful punishment of sin is death. The writer of the Hebrews tells us that “under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22). This is what those sacrifices of the Old Testament were about. It was a symbol of repentance of the people and the covering of their sins. This covering is called “propitiation,” which means “satisfying or covering.”

But the blood of goats cannot really take away the punishment we deserve because of sin. It is a symbol, but it does not save us in truth. God wrath is not propitiated because we kill a lamb.

That is why we needed Jesus to take this role as our high priest. Jesus was perfect, utterly without sin, and as such He did not deserve to die. He’s the only one who has ever lived that did not deserve to die. And yet He was tortured, beaten, nailed up to a cross, and baked in the sun until He was dead. And even then, just to be sure, the soldiers stabbed Him with a spear to prove He was dead.

The prophet Isaiah tells of Jesus, “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one – to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5-6). Jesus took on our sin upon that Cross and put it to death. For those who would believe on Him, He has paid the debt that we could not pay.

Jesus not only makes the sacrifice for us, but He has BECOME the sacrifice for us. What the blood of goats and bulls could never do, His Blood has done. His death has propitiated the wrath of the Father and satisfied justice.

Now, the priests of the Old Testament had to do this over and over again. They never got to stop, for they were always sacrificing animals for the sins of the people. But Jesus paid it all in His own death. Those who repent and believe in Him will find that their sins were put to death on that very tree where our Savior died.

In three days our high priest rose from the dead, and even today does He make intercession on our behalf. He remains between us and the Father, an advocate on our behalf (1 John 2:1). When we sin, He stands on our behalf, and He also brings us to the Throne of Grace by the work of His righteousness, even though we have failed in our own.

The Old Testament high priest was the only one allowed to go into the Holy of Holies, the innermost room of the Temple, where the Ark of the Covenant was. Only he was allowed, and only once a year, to approach God in that place. But when Jesus died on the Cross, the curtain that blocked off that area was torn in two, and the room was opened.

Because His Blood has cleansed us, we are now able to “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). Because of His work, our petitions will be heard, our repentance will be honored, and our faith will be counted to us as righteousness.

And let us not think of our high priest as someone cloistered off in a high temple, unaware of the struggles of life. No, Jesus took flesh and walked amongst us. He was tempted and tried. Again, Hebrews tells us, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (4:15).

And so our high priest sympathizes with us, and He is ready for us with mercy and grace.

Let us heed the words and warnings of Jesus the prophet. Let us hear Him and understand, that we have all of us gone astray, and that we have failed to meet God’s holy standard. But also has He said, as prophet, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:37-40). It is those people He has purchase by His Blood.

But what has He saved them to? A kingdom. We will look more at this next time, but we are not justified to be lost in a heavenly war over control. No, for Christ is also our King, the ruler of all the universe, and it is a realm He will never lose. It is that to which we have been saved, and we will reign with Him as coheirs to the kingdom for all time.

Threefold: Prophet

This is a transcript of one of our recent podcasts. To subscribe to the podcast using iTunes, please click here. To listen to the podcast without iTunes, please follow this link.

In the Old Testament, God ordained that three offices be established to instruct, to intercede for, and to protect His children. These are the roles of the prophet, priest, and king. In this series, we will look at how Jesus fulfills these three roles, and continues to do so to this day.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
-Hebrews 1:1-2

As the Messiah, Jesus took upon Himself three Old Testament roles, and they are offices He holds even now. Francis Turretin tells us, “The threefold misery of men introduced by sin – ignorance, guilt, and tyranny and bondage – required this conjunction of a threefold office.” The first of the Threefold Office is “Prophet.”

“Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Such was John the Baptist’s frequent refrain as he spoke prophetically to the people of Judea. He stood in the wilderness as a prophet of God, divinely ordained to speak on behalf of God.

This has been the role of the prophet from the beginning. As a prophet, Moses spoke to Pharaoh on behalf of God, warning him to let the Hebrew people go. As a prophet, Isaiah spoke the words of the Lord to try to turn the Jews back to God. As a prophet, Jonah took the message to Nineveh. John the Baptist prepared the way of the Lord in his prophetic office.

It has always been the role of the prophet to teach, to rebuke, and to warn. Moses taught us what God expects of us in the Law. The Apostle John warns us about the Second Coming of Christ, that we should be ready for Him. It is the ignorance of men, the darkness of unbelief, and the wrong ideas about God that the prophet seeks to remedy. Where we do not know, he teaches. Where we ignore, he rebukes. Where we sin, he warns.

The ultimate Prophet of Scriptures is Jesus Himself. We sometimes miss this, because a prophet points to God, and so Jesus’ words may sound slightly different to us sometimes. After all, He is God, and He therefore points to Himself.

And yet, He has come to teach, rebuke, and to warn. We see Him even using John the Baptist’s favorite phrase in
Matthew 4:17: “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

The biblical prophet speaks on behalf of God. He is the mouthpiece of the Almighty, and whatever words he says in the name of God proves true. In fact, the Bible teaches that we can know a false prophet because he gets stuff wrong. God doesn’t get things wrong, and neither does His prophets. So it is when Jesus speaks to us. His counsel is righteous in all ways, His reproof just in every sense, and His warnings should be heeded.

He reminds us even of how He is of one mind with the Father – “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise” (John 5:19).

And if we doubt His role as a prophet, He even speaks of Himself as a prophet in Luke 13:33: “Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.”

So prophet Jesus has come in this office to teach, rebuke, and warn. He teaches us of the nature of God and salvation. Like a prophet of old, He distributed blessings and woes according to what pleases and displeases God. To one group He will say, “Blessed are the pure in heart” (Matthew 5:8), but to another, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” (Matthew 23:13). He gives us analogies of the kingdom of God to instruct. He teaches of sin and judgment. And He teaches of Himself as the way to life.

He rebukes one group for coming to Him for a miracle without believing in who He truly is. To merchants in the temple He rebukes with a whip. The scribes and Pharisees are His favorite target, for they wear their religion like a robe, but not in faith and love, but out of their own self-promotion. It is a warning that we should heed even today, for we often crave credit for our own righteousness. What Jesus would tell us is that we have none.

To all He warns of the wrath to come. “Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41).

The warning of judgment is a true one, for no true prophet, least of all Jesus, spoke falsely. The expectations that God has for us are true. There are many of us who have sought our own ways, but Jesus has told us, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6), and “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). By the words of a prophet we can be assured, that only through Jesus can we be saved.

Jesus continues in this role today. After He rose from the grave and ascended into heaven, He sent His Spirit to be our guide. It is through this Spirit that He still teaches, rebukes, and warns. It is this same Spirit that inspired the writing of the Bible, and in this we have the Word of God. Just as John tells us that Jesus is the incarnate Word of God, we have delivered to us the written Word of God to point and guide us in righteousness, to teach us about God, to banish our ignorance about spiritual matters, and to warn us of the wrath to come if we do not repent and believe.

But Jesus is more than just a prophet, pointing the way to righteousness, but He is also a priest, who has interceded on our behalf with the Father. We will look more at that next time, but we must see that God’s perfect standard cannot be met in this life. When Jesus tells us, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), He was giving us a command directly from God, but it is one that we cannot obey. We need more than a prophet, but also a priest, who can stand for us before God and secure grace for us. Likewise do we need a king who can take us into His paradise for all time.

God spoke through an earlier prophet, Ezekiel, these words. “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:26-28). It is this new heart that is only available through Jesus, because He alone could make atonement for our sins. Only He could pay the price for us for all the times we have failed in our holy duty to obey and worship God in all things. We are not perfect, yet He is. Once He has bought us with His Blood, He also keeps us until the last day and glorifies us in eternity. These are some of His actions as king, for in this way He has authority over us, even our very souls.

We will learn more of that next time, and it would be appropriate now to see Jesus as not just a prophet who would condemn our actions, but also a priest who would take the place of God’s children in the punishment of those actions, and also as a king with authority to keep us until the last day.

Podcast: 1 John: Keeping Away From Idols

This is a transcript of one of our recent podcasts. To subscribe to the podcast using iTunes, please click here. To listen to the podcast without iTunes, please follow this link.

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
-1 John 5:21

John’s final exhortation to his audience here might catch us a little off guard. He’s been talking for a long time about how Christians act, and the power of prayer, and finally the nature of sin. And then he gives this command to keep ourselves from idols.

And this may not resonate very strongly with the modern Westerner. We don’t see many idols around the streets here. In certain parts of the world, we would see idols on street corners, but not here. The closest we get here is seeing the statue of Buddha at the Chinese restaurant at lunch.

So the temptation for us is to just ignore this part. Frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever been tempted to bow down before a statue.

But the biblical definition of idolatry is a little bit more broad. Paul tells us in Romans 1:

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
-Romans 1:22-25

What Paul is telling us is that we are all worshippers. Even the most ardent atheist is a worshipper of something. The question is this – are we worshipping the Creator or the creation? If we are worshipping God, the true God, then we have it right. If we are worshipping anything else, then we have it wrong.

It may be a statue. That figure is part of the creation, and is not worthy of worship. Maybe it’s a false idea about God, birthed out of the minds of men. That too is creation, not Creator. It’s idolatry. Maybe it’s money or sex or fame. All creation. Maybe it’s reputation. Creation.

Maybe it’s more sinister. Maybe it’s the figure you’ve always wanted but could never achieve. Maybe it’s the wife or kids. Maybe it’s getting ahead at work. Maybe it’s the approval of the parent who was always criticizing.

Whatever you are chasing after, that is what you are worshipping. You don’t have to bow before money to worship it. Just ask yourself – what occupies my thoughts, hopes, fears, and time? Is it God the Creator of all things, or is it creation? You may deny that you are worshipping, but whatever it is that controls your life is your god. If your driving passion is sex, then that is what you worship. If you would sacrifice anything for that car, then that is what you worship.

We can see this in church as well. My Roman Catholic friends will bow down and pray to Mary. They say they are not worshipping, but that is the definition of worship. No amount of denying it is going to change that fact. Other churches I have seen put a certain doctrine above all else. It may be a good doctrine, but it has been elevated above the level of a good thing and has become a god thing, so it is no longer good. It could be baptism, or the nature of communion, or a certain eschatology.

John Calvin tells us that our hearts are idol factories. Our hearts seek out things to worship and them make them into little gods. It is part of our fallen nature, that we chase after creation and forget the Creator, just like our first parents did when they ate of the fruit in the Garden of Eden. Even Christians have to guard against this constantly, which is why John mentions it. If we are not on guard, helped by the Holy Spirit, then we will chase after the next thing that comes by. Go to any church near you, and really analyze what they are singing about. Are they singing about God, or themselves? Are they preaching about God, or some felt need in the congregation? If the answer is God, then they are the exception, it seems. Even the churches have turned away from God and to idols under the excuse of making church relevant. Relevancy is a nasty idol. It always wants more; it always demands something different, and it never delivers.

What do you worship? Think through your day. What or who was on your heart and mind? Where did your money go? For what did you sacrifice?

Calvin was right about us. We spend so much time chasing after creation rather than the Creator. We ignore the God who gave us life, breath, and everything, and worship some of those little trinkets that He created. This is a terrible sin and a horrible rebellious crime! Don’t pass this one over. God, by right, has claim over every area of our lives, and in rebellion we try to snatch it away from Him!

In mercy, when we confess and have faith, He is faithful to forgive us. In grace, He will give us eternal life, though we don’t deserve it. Let us look therefore to the Cross, to the place where God died for us. Jesus took upon Himself human form. He lived His life perfectly, never once making some part of creation His idol. And yet He died, taking the rightful punishment of sin upon Himself. This is the death that idolatry has earned. This is the death that should have been ours.

When we look upon the Cross, and we see such love and mercy, it is hard to worry too much about our little idols. When we see Jesus and what He has done on our behalf, it is hard to be anything but grateful and repentant. Let our eyes be focused there then. Let our eyes be turned to the one who deserves our worship, not all the stuff that does not. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.