It's not essential. Somebody stole my dollar store at laser pointer, but that's okay. Shall we pray? Father, we're thankful that we can come this morning to reflect upon the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ as we consider his offices this morning.
May your spirit enlighten us and encourage us and give us a good perspective for the coming week in this first day of the week. We ask that grace may abound and guide us and strengthen us as we look ahead in Jesus name, amen. Today I would like for us to consider the offices of the Lord Jesus Christ. The offices of the Lord Jesus Christ are prophet, priest, and king and we often say it in that order.
But I'm going to go through it in a reverse order perhaps and the part of the Bible which often gives us some riches and portrayals, portrayals, hypological portrayals of these offices of Christ is a period of time that's sometimes referred to as the monarchical period or the Monarchy Old Period and that would be within the dispensation of the law. It is generally accepted by many evangelical believers though not all that there are seven dispensations and the two that everyone can agree on and perhaps can relate most to the fifth and the sixth, the dispensation of the law and the dispensation of grace before Christ. Men were living under the law of Moses. After the sacrifice of Christ, men were living, oh thank you, under grace or at least one can say that the possibility of being saved and living under grace existed.
In terms of perhaps flicking through as we go through the Old Testament, this is a diagram that Mr. James Campbell developed some years ago and that I worked on a little bit. So we have through the Old Testament creation and patriarchs bondage in Egypt, wanderings in numbers, conquest in Joshua and cycles of success and failure in judges. And that ends about a thousand B.C.
and the thousand B.C. is here followed by three well-known kings, Saul, David and Solomon. After Solomon there is a civil war and the northern kingdom comes under a man named Jeroboam and the southern kingdom comes under a son of Solomon, Rehoboam. And that was sort of the beginning of disaster.
The period of time in which we see the monarchial period would be from 1 Samuel to the end of 2 Chronicles and it has much instruction for us. There is a period in which the kingdom is united and the latter part of it in which the northern and southern kingdoms are divided. What about king, priest and prophet in the monarchial period and beyond? When you look at the monarchial period, it's built on the word monarch.
What do you see? Kings, kings, kings. So kingship was a very obvious office during this period. However, the office of high priest was also clearly in existence and the system of worship that had been laid out by Moses did continue, although sometimes with great chaos and discontinuity.
And we can say that the priesthood actually predated the office of king, the office of high priest, predated the office of king. The third office that we can clearly see, in fact, so then we begin to see all three. The third office is clearly seen under the law, this dispensation of the law, is that of profit. And this person is often referred to as the man of God.
It occurs more frequently in 1 Samuel to 2 Chronicles and in any other part of the Bible. And for example, 1 Kings has two unnamed men of God. And these are prophets who are coming to, in fact, often speak to the king. Why?
Well, because during this period you not surprisingly have, what might call ordinary human beings, they're just as human as you are. They are fallen human beings just as we are. They are therefore imperfect just as we are. And the realization of these offices therefore tends to show various imperfections.
But at the same time, you can look at these offices and see positive things that speak of the greater king, the greater priest and the greater prophet. And that is the Messiah, that is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who in fact would in one person bring these offices together and realize them and fulfill them in a way that no one had even imagined. In a marvelously glorious and complete way, our Savior, the Lord Jesus, bring these offices under himself and into himself as one person. So as we read through for Samuel to 2 Chronicles, I do hope you read your Bible and expose yourself and remind yourself of the various parts of the Bible to help you have a picture of it.
As we read through this section of the Bible, then we can have this in mind. How does this king or this priest or this prophet speak to me about the Lord Jesus Christ? What about a king? I mean, in many ways, the Israeli king, the king of the Jews in the very temporal sense is a king in the temporal sense.
He's a head of government. He's a head of state. His purpose is to provide suitable government. Hopefully, godly leadership, godly temporal headship and political leadership of this nation's state.
For example, Solomon was very, very into this prone to this, taxing your citizens. Solomon taxed the daylights out of his citizens. How do you think he paid for everything? He taxed his people very heavily and he gets to do that because they are his subjects and they are subject to his leadership and headship.
Often we see that the king will consult people. For example, when David killed Goliath, Saul said, who's the dad? Who's the father of this young youth? He's referred to as a youth.
Who's the father of this youth that just brought this giant low and killed him? His minister of defense, we might say, Abner said, is Jesse. Jesse, the guy with eight sons and this is the youngest one who's done this. Oh, Saul takes note of this after consulting his chief of defense.
The king, of course, would make pronouncements on things that are, in some sense, worldly. For example, we are going to war. This king, as kings do, sits on a physical throne. He sat on a throne and he is arguably the person in the nation state with the highest profile.
His name is very well known. To the point you might even say, the king of this is the throne of David. This is Solomon's throne. This is the name that's connected very directly.
You can see the idea of the crown in Canadian politics. This is called a metonymy in literature. It's directly connected to the person. So the name of the person in his office kind of go together.
And when you get to be king, you kind of expect, I think, to receive automatic respect. You actually might be a rotten king, but you still tend to demand automatic respect. And if you are a good king, you might get adulation. And this might go to your head.
Where did the king live? Well, King's living palaces. His place was a palace. He wore expensive clothing that was very splendid as the world might measure splendidness.
And the king with his throne and his clothing and his palace, one would think that he might be very secure, as I use that word, maybe in the emotional sense we talk about people being a bit insecure. But my sense is when I look at the various kings that some of them are actually quite preoccupied with what people think of them. A little too preoccupied worried about what people think of them. Does that sound familiar?
I don't think we have any Canadian politicians who are worried about that, do we? What did he concern himself with? We might use the word fear. What did he fear?
Well, the sort of on the ground fear that he often had to deal with or be prepared to deal with on a day to day basis was the enemy, the physical enemy, the guy next door with the chariot and the sword. He was concerned with that. In fact, he was often overly concerned with that. He did not give the presence of God with these people enough credit.
We do know that most of Israel's neighbors were not friendly to the state of Israel, and there were internal problems as well. What are the king's actions supposed to speak of? Well, the keyword, I think, is power and very often in the earthly sense. So we have sometimes when we have the navy, you look over the bridge and you look in the harbor and you say, well, let's see.
That's one of our frigates. That's another frigate. That's our supply. Wait a minute.
What's all that? That's a little darker gray over there. It could be NATO exercises. It could be an entire naval exercise.
I believe an American aircraft carrier visited us this summer, and I was on a town, I greatly regretted not being able to see it. The exercise of power, the show of power, the sort of proof that we are able to deal with our enemies as part of the king's responsibility, and sometimes it comes to war. It is not an exercise, it is not a display, it is an outright exercise of war, and the king will decide to do that. Interesting to contrast that type of office with the priest, specifically the high priest.
He would prescribe offerings and lead correct worship. That is, he would try to make sure that the way that the ceremonies and rituals and festivals and feasts were carried out was precisely according to the hand-down instructions from Moses. This was actually quite demanding. When you read the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, especially the latter four, and you look at the sacrificial system in all its diversity and facets and complexity, you realize that this is a very involved and complex religion.
This is a very religious religion. It has a lot of symbols, it has a lot of ceremonies, and it needs to be done correctly. The detail with which it's done is also such that rather than prescribe, you know the word pro-scribe, you do it this way, you never do it that way, you never do this, you must do it this way, and this way, and this way, and over, and over, quite demanding. We might think of a body of citizenry being subject to a king, but the high priest was a kind of a spiritual head, he took over temporal headship of many souls, these are the earthly children of God.
If you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are a citizen of heaven, and you are a child of God by virtue of your salvation who happens to live on earth. The pronouncements of the high priest were actually very few, and they don't tend to be discretionary, whereas the king would sit on a throne and represent Kingly authority. It is interesting that in the key execution of his duties, the high priest was not allowed to sit down. There was various forms of furniture in the tabernacle, there were no chairs, various forms of furniture, but regardless, he was expressly forbidden from sitting down.
This reminds us that if you're going to set up a religious system under the law, it's going to be onerous, and it's never going to be finished, never done. His work was never done. We do know the names of the various high priests, but nobody remembers them. I mean, you might remember Aaron the first one, but then, you know, I've been a dabbin, the various high priests that do we sort of can we rhyme them off?
Not really. The name of the king has a lot higher profile. It appears that in Jewish society, the high priest is his name is almost incidental to the operation of that religious society, if I can use that phrase. Unlike the king's clothing, which the world would say, whoa, look at what he's wearing, look at the robe, look at the carless, impressive throne.
This individual had clothing of a very specified design that was rather otherworldly. It spoke of some other things. It spoke of other things. This is not a worldly get-up.
This is a set of clothing and layers of clothing that were specified as part of the religious system, whereas the king might be very concerned about what the subjects were thinking about him on any given day. I would suggest to you that the high priest was far too preoccupied to care, to give any thought to what people were thinking about him personally. His place was not the palace. It was the temple, or previously to that, the tabernacle, the temple of Jehovah God.
That is his key place of operations. And whereas the king might often be thinking about the enemies, the high priest feared God. He feared God. And I would include in that a sense of flat-out terror.
When you read the Old Testament and you read the precision with which God required this highly religious system to be executed, it is also portrayed under the law that there is no leeway. Should that surprise us? I don't think that should surprise us. Under the law, there is no leeway.
People who were fast and loose with the execution of these things, sometimes they dropped dead on the spot. I would suggest to you that the high priest in going through his complex duties and making sure that everything is available had a sense of respect of God and often outright fear. What were his actions to speak of, the king's actions in a way of himself or to speak of the power of the state and hopefully a power that is underwritten by God if he is a righteous and good king? The priest's actions and protocols were to speak of divine holiness, set apartness, purity, glory, and beauty and holiness.
And his focus was on these things. The earthly children of God were outside and he was responsible for making sure on the day of atonement that everything was done exactly correctly, a very preoccupied man. What about the profit? It's amazing how you can go from one extreme to the other and along the way, touch upon an office like the priest, which is rather otherworldly.
And you go from, for example, with regard to the clothing, splendid clothing, to otherworldly clothing, to a person who actually defies everything. This profit, often the man of God with no name. What was his job? Was it to show political leadership?
Was it to satisfy the religious demands? No, it was to tell the truth. Tell the truth when and where as needed. The true truth.
Isn't it sad that we live in a time when people actually feel the need to say true truth? Well, I thought truth was true. But apparently in this day and age it's necessary to put the adjective true in front of truth. So I'll do that too and I'll say that the prophet's job was to speak true truth and in a very timely manner to whoever, whomever, God told him to tell it to.
He was a, I like this construance, fourth teller. When we use the word profit, we often think of someone who foretells, who tells something about the future. And the first king's 13, man of God, said that Josiah is going to be king a couple of hundred years from now. He didn't say a couple of hundred years, but it came true.
That was a prophecy. He was foretelling the mind of God in a dark day. But the beautiful idea of to be a fourth teller of the mind of God is actually in many ways more important and is more readily transferable to the modern age of grace, where in fact the New Testament teaches us that we as believers are priests and kings and engage in prophecy and the fourth telling of the mind of God. That's wonderful, very important.
The prophet, the king had a throne. The priest was forbidden to sit down in a temple that had furniture. The prophet was a person who had nowhere to sit. He had no official profile or status within the society.
He had no, often no house to call his own. And the final prophet, as we read in the Bible, was John the Baptist. John the Baptist was a man who wandered in the wilderness like some of his predecessors. If they needed to live in a cave in the wilderness, they lived in a cave in the wilderness.
This was part of their life. And as I say, they often had actually no personal name. So on the, you know, to contrast again, you have statements like the throne of David. This is this is a guy with nowhere to sit down who has no name.
It's the opposite extreme. So he had no official location. The king is in a palace. The priest is in a temple.
Where's the prophet's venue? Doesn't have one. They would appear sometimes kind of like out of nowhere, say something or do something, then disappear. You can read about this, for example, Elijah in chapter 17 of first kings.
Elijah, the Tishbite was from Gilead. What? And he starts doing stuff. What?
Who? So they would appear, they would bring the mind of God and the verdict of God, often the judgment of God to the situation. And they may disappear for a few chapters. They seem to be a person who is a gat about, might also use the word gat fly, gat about and gat fly.
The word gat fly, as you know, has the sense of sort of bringing suitable irritation to perhaps the political leaders of the day. Sometimes members of the opposition are gat flies and reminding the politician, yeah, but what about? But what about? This is not resolved yet.
What about? Being a bit of a gat fly. But you know, these things are not at that trivial level. The things that the prophet of God, that the man of God would bring would be very, very serious and would often deal with the spiritual viability, the spiritual health or lack of health of the nation.
The prophet might wear very unpresentable clothing. At the beginning of Second Kings, there is an incident in which Elijah judges men coming from Amaziah or Ahaziah, Amaziah, I think. They're killed. They're just killed.
And the king says, what did he look like? Who's this guy doing this? He's a hairy guy. He's hairy.
Yep. I know what that is. It's Elijah. He's back.
John the Baptist. Honey, Locust, camel hair. You can imagine his beard. So by the standards of this world, these prophets, we might say, are very unpresentable.
And they absolutely don't care. Their purpose is to bring the truth of God in a timely manner in the right place and the right time to God's people. They're the exact opposite of a king who might politically be concerned about what the citizens are thinking. This prophet would say things that were often extremely unpopular.
If you wanted to be a prophet, you had to be very courageous. Some of the prophets, Jeremiah and some of the prophets, they kind of, you get the sense that, oh no, I have to say this. I know what's going to happen. I have to say it anyway.
I know what's going to happen. And bad things happen to them, to them. So they have to be men of tremendous spiritual power, conviction, and courage, and live often in poverty. The king might have a lot of fear for the neighbors, for the enemies.
The priest has a lot of fear for God. The prophet walked with God. He feared no one. He, especially, often didn't fear the king.
He would often have to point out to the king what was wrong with the nation's state. He often actively hated evil and his action and function were actually quite indistinguishable from his office, the operative word being judgment. When you think of a king, you think of someone who hopefully deserves adulation, who hopefully honors the throne that he sits on. After the Civil War, in which Jerobo went to the north and Ria Bo went to the south, and you had the ten tribes in the north and the two tribes in the south.
Do you know that after that point, the northern kingdom did not have one single good king, not one single one. So people like Amos would go to the north to Bethel and speak. Same thing as for Kings 13. A man of God would go to the north to Bethel and he would speak against, in that case, in 13, Jerobo and Elijah brought fire down from heaven against the prophets of Baal.
So the prophets, keyword perhaps, is judgment. Judgment. Whereas the king, by contrast, may in fact be a rotten king who dishonors the throne that is there for him from God. He dishonors that throne.
It's an evil guy like Ahab. So you say, well, there's the king office and then there's the king. The prophets office and function are the same. He doesn't have a place.
He doesn't have a venue. What he is and what he does is all the same. Does that remind you of anyone? So when we think about the dispensation of the law compared to what we are under grace and what the Lord Jesus portrays for us, we can see that under the law, these offices are all external.
Whereas under grace, they're not external. They're internal. Under the law, you had three separate offices that were executed to varying degrees of success by fallen human beings. Under grace, these offices are all unified and in the Lord Jesus Christ, perfect.
Under the law, you see discontinuity. Due to might have a good king, bad king, bad king, good king, discontinuous kind of function sometimes. Where's the law? We lost the law.
What do we do now? Oh, here it is. Let's restart the temple worship. So there's sort of a discontinuity that's not unusual from 1 Samuel to 2 Chronicles.
Under grace is continuous because the Lord Jesus is in charge of it. And one day, you may say, well, my life's a bit of a roller coaster. I know, me too. One day, this walk of grace will be perfected.
The Lord Jesus will reign. He will actually reign. And your life won't be a roller coaster anymore. Nonetheless, I think it's fair to say that these Old Testament offices have aspects of them that are typologically predictive.
And that is what I would probably want to explore in my next message or two. So coming to the end at 12 noon or trying to, what about the Lord Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the historical person, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He unified these aspects of king and priest and prophet in one person, in one person and in himself.
We can see that in his life and his person and his work on the cross. And he did so not only by what he did, but by who he was, he was the second person of the treaty. He was God in the flesh. And as the son of God, in his person, he was all of these three things.
Not only that, he redefined them. You thought you knew what a king was. Oh, come again. You thought you knew what a high priest was.
Oh, come again. The Lord Jesus redefined these things and surpassed the, what you might say, ancient or historic definitions as we see them in the Old Testament. Not only that has he surpassed them, he has permanently fulfilled them. And I say, or will fulfill because I hope that he has the king of your heart today.
I hope that is true. And that is a fulfillment of his kingly office. One day he will reign. He will reign here.
He is the fulfillment of these offices. I just want to look at some scriptures that point to the fact that the Lord Jesus is these three persons and offices in a single perfect individual. And when I started to do this, I said, you know, I know how the time goes. And I said, well, that would be good.
And that's really beautiful. And that's a wonderful truth. Oh, so many, so many, you know, my advice to you this morning, read the whole thing. You got to read the whole thing.
You got to read from Matthew to Revelation to really grasp the wonder of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ in so many facets and in so many ways, he will show himself to you as prophet, priest and king. For example, John 434, let's say, I thought of them, my means to do the will of him that sent me to finish his work. The king was supposed to be a godly king involved in seeing that God's will was executed in the doings. The Lord Jesus said, my will is the same thing as God's will.
He said, I can't of my own self do nothing as I hear a judge. And my judgment is just because I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. This is a king who is not to say that he is in tune with God is an understatement. His will and his judgment and his desires and everything about him is one with God.
That is an amazing king. The priest should make it possible for there to be right worship of God. Hebrew seven, you could take half a dozen passages from Hebrews. The book of Hebrews, Hebrew seven says, for such an high priest became us who is home, holy, harmless, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners and made higher than the heavens, who needeth not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins and then for the peoples.
For this he did once when he offered up himself. And in the first verse of Hebrews it says, he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God on high when he purged our sins. As for prophet, prophet should convey God's words and God's thoughts. For example, John 663, it is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh, propheteth, nothing.
The words I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. The words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. Such is the word of this prophet with a capital P, the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Do you want spirit to a life?
Take in the word of God, take in the teachings of Christ. Now for some personal applications, we should endeavor to put on Christ's robes. We should endeavor to be like our king. The subjects should emulate their perfect king.
Romans 1314, put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's an entirely different kind of clothing. I was talking a bit about clothing.
Here's a different kind of clothing. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 424, that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. That's a very different kind of clothing, isn't it?
We're to put that on because that's royal clothing. That's the clothing of the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect king. We should seek to walk. Christ's priestly walk, which is a walk of faith.
Hebrews 12, wherefore, seeing we also are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin with dust so easily beset us and let us run with patience, the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and to set down at the right hand of the throne of God. What a wonderful instruction to lay aside the garbage and the baggage and the other things that hinder us and to walk in the steps of the high priest of the book of Hebrews, which is the Lord Jesus. Thirdly, God doesn't ask us to foretell the future, but the Lord Jesus gave us what we call the Great Commission.
That is a fourth telling of Christ's message, which is the gospel. Though we therefore teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age. There's a job, the fourth telling of the truth of God, the central truth of God is the gospel. I have some questions for you.
If, as it says in 1 Peter, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, I'll put myself in the peculiar category, peculiar people, a set-apart people that you should show forth the praises of him who have called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. If that's true, then you can ask these questions as you read from 1 Samuel 2 Chronicles and from Matthew to Revelation. Who's on the throne of my heart? Am I concerned that like an earthly king with the land and the acquisitions and how the acquisitions are doing, how the tax is doing, how's the money going, how's the cash flow going?
Is that my concern? Is that what's in my heart all the time? I hope not. A person who is a believer, a child of God, should be concerned with the lordship of the king who resides in his heart.
Who'll be my king? I trust that you can say, I want the Lord Jesus to sit on the throne of my heart. The Lord Jesus should be my king. What about priestliness?
Is my heart like a place of worship? Do I rely on some kind of a thing in that religious protocols are going to cut it? They don't cut it. Or do I worship Christ himself in my own heart?
That is our gift that comes with salvation. The ability to worship the Lord Jesus Christ, to worship God in our own hearts in a sense to be our own priests because we have such a high priest who has settled the matter for us. What about the realm of prophecy? Do my heart and mind know the guidance of God, God's guidance and God's comfort?
It's a lot about that. John 14, about the paraclete that comes beside you to guide you. Do you know what to say? Do you have a word in season?
Do you know the comfort of God when the roller coaster hits a low point? I hope that you do. I hope that you do. It's a remarkable thing that with all his, he basically had a PhD in Catholic theology.
And in some ways it just goes to show you what a useless thing a PhD is. Martin Luther, he comes along and he's, how many times has he read the Bible? Who knows? A lot.
Romans 814. What? For his many is are led by the Spirit of God. They are the sons of God.
What? That isn't me. It just isn't me. I need to be saved.
I don't know what this is talking about. And that's where it started. And that's where the gospel became clear and went out. And the 95 theses went on the door of Wittenberg Castle.
And he got clarity because he realized that he was outside of God's guidance and comfort. But shortly thereafter he came to faith and salvation. And he had such power to speak what was necessary in that day. We can take encouragement from these things.
Until the Lord come. Shall we pray? Father in heaven, as we depart we pray that you would bless our time together over the meal that is here. We thank you for the food that we are about to receive.
And as we look forward to the coming week, we pray that these things in your word would come back to us, to empower us, to guide us and strengthen us. We thank you for redemption and the gift of salvation and the presence of your spirit in our hearts. If there's anyone here who does not know anything about these things, we pray that that person might come to personal faith in the person and work of Christ. In his name, we pray.
Amen. Thank you for your attention.