In our current series we’ve been going through an old list of questions and answers contained in the Westminster Larger Catechism published in 1648. Today we’re going to start learning about how Jesus is a prophet of God. This week I want to show you that Christ executes the office of a prophet by revealing the will of God.
Due to sin, we cannot know God and what God wants us to do. Our sin has hardened us to the truth about God. Paul describes this phenomena for us: ‘So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts’ (Ephesians 4:17-18).
Thus we need someone to come and tell us about God. And such people are called prophets. As the author of Hebrews says: ‘In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways’ (Hebrews 1:1).
In his ministry on earth Jesus came and told us about God too. Jesus himself said: ‘…everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you’ (John 15:15). Jesus also prays in his prayer before his death: ‘”Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them’ (John 17:25-1).
Jesus not only told humans about God, but also how to be saved through faith in him: ‘I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life’ (John 5:24).
Thus Jesus is rightly called a prophet by his two disciples on the road to Emmaus: ‘He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people’ (Luke 24:19). Notice what they said about Jesus as a prophet, he was powerful in ‘word’. Jesus was a prophet because he spoke God’s word to humans.
So do you recognise that Jesus is a prophet? Have you trusted in him for eternal life?
Joel Radford, Preaching Elder.
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