Christ as Prophet, Priest and King

Extract

Christ as Prophet, Priest and King
A. W. Pink

The Prophetic Office of Christ

The general office with which our Redeemer was invested by His Father is that of Mediator between God and men. To discharge that great office, it was necessary that He become incarnate, that He should take into union with His divine person a holy and perfect humanity. The manner in which He was fitted for the discharge of His office was by His “anointing,” by receiving the Holy Spirit without measure. The character of His mediatorial office involved the threefold functions of the prophet, priest, and king, which was typed out in Old Testament times by the anointing of prophets, priests, and kings—none other being formally and officially anointed. These three functions are not three separate offices, but are the varied activities of the one office of Mediator. Nor are they separate functions capable of successive and isolated performance. “They are rather like the several functions of the one living human body—as of the lungs in inhalation, as of the heart in circulation, and of the brain and spinal column in innervation. They are functions distinct, yet, interdependent and so, together constitute one life. So the functions of prophet, priest, and king mutually imply one another. Christ is always a prophetical Priest, a priestly Prophet, and He is always a royal Priest and priestly King, and together they accomplish one redemption, to which they are equally essential” (Archibald A Hodge, 1823-1886).

The exercise of this threefold function of the mediatorial office was requisite for the complete deliverance of Christ’s people by the circumstances in which the Fall had placed them. In other words, the moral condition, in which they lay as sinners, makes it evident that not one of the three branches of His mediatorial office could be dispensed with. His people were immersed in ignorance, guilt, pollution, and bondage. “Their ignorance is removed by the discharge of His prophetic office, their guilt by His priestly, and their pollution and bondage by His kingly office. As a Prophet, He dispels the darkness of their understandings. As a Priest, He atones for their sins. As a King, He delivers them from the bondage of depravity. He reveals God to us as a Prophet. He brings us near to God as a Priest. He renews us after the image of God as King” (John Dick, 1764-1833). Therefore are we …