A. Christ executeth the office of a prophet, in revealing to us, by his Word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation.

What all did a prophet do in the Old Testament? Here I am speaking about God’s design—not any of the sins of the prophet. Because whatever that includes is designed to say something about Christ’s prophetic role to come. In his book, Prophet, Priest, and King, Richard Belcher offers this simple definition: “a prophet is someone who speaks the words God gives him to speak.”1 One obvious misunderstanding about prophecy is that it is all about some detailed account of the future. But this is never the case among the biblical prophets or the prophetic portions of Scripture. Instead we make a distinction between forth-telling versus fore-telling. 

Although some elements overlap with the other two offices, what comes to the foreground is the ministry of the word. Let’s start with that text that is the foundational prophecy of the Prophet:

“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ And the LORD said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him” (Deut. 18:15-19).

It is no coincidence that the context of this promise is the backdrop of a specific abomination—that of divination (vv. 9-14). Left to themselves, Israel would inquire of the spirits in the same way that their neighbors did in their religions. Saul shut up his ears to Samuel’s words, but then went right to a witch for an omen; all of the ordinary means had been shut up to him: “And when Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets” (1 Sam. 28:6). So this chasing after other voices can become a judgment from having rejected such a clear and present word. 

Christ Speaks TO his Church

Note that the answer says TO US. We are no different today than the Israelites missing the Word. Two Gospel texts immediately link the unbelief of Israel and us to the remedy of the Word that Christ brings. Those two texts are Matthew 4:4 and John 6, both of which point back to the lesson of the manna in the wilderness. Now the incident itself is relayed back in Numbers 11:1-15 (cf. 21:5); however, the punchline was delivered in Deuteronomy,

“that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (8:2-3).

Note that there is a temptation and then the true food God would have for them. The opposite to the Word doesn’t have to be food for the stomach. It can be a method for results. But food is a most basic need. Now look at Satan’s temptation to Jesus and the crowds after Jesus fed them. What is the temptation and response? “‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mat. 4:3-4). What did the crowds not perceive? 

“When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, ‘This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!’” (Jn. 6:14).

So they were able to make that connection; but what follows? The church is the communion of souls who are meant to feed on the word as the body feeds on bread. So the Scriptures use food and drink imagery to describe the word’s nourishment to our souls: e.g. Mat. 4:4, 1 Pet. 2:2, etc.  

But it is ultimately Christ who is this Teacher present to the church: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go” (Isa. 48:17).

As the manna was given to the congregation, so the word that comes from heaven is delivered to the whole congregation. “It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me” (Jn. 6:35); or again, “all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (Jn. 15:15).

Christ Speaks IN his Word

Here is another clarifying question: Can you have Christ as the bread from heaven without the bread of the word? The words of Matthew 4:4 imply that this was always the primal means of grace in the church. So, Brakel divides the administration of Christ’s prophetic office under three heads: “(1) by means of His prophets in the Old Testament … (2) during His sojourn upon the earth … (3) after His ascension.”2 Now as to the Old there is direct scriptural proof. Of the prophets, Peter tells us that they were “inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories” (1 Pet. 1:11). This phrase “Spirit of Christ” calls attention to the pre-incarnation relationship of the mission of the Spirit to the mission of the Son. We will come back to that.

It belongs to the nature of Christ’s mission to preach: 

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn” (Isa. 61:1-2; cf. Lk. 4:18). 

So when he says, “As the Father sent me, even so I am sending you” (Jn. 20:21), it is a preaching mission. It is more than a preaching mission, but it is never less. 

Because the ministry of the word is the communication of Christ’s own words, then it follows that Christ speaks through the church, so that the TO US of the first part of the answer and the WORD aspect, combines to imply a THROUGH the church. This is why the church is called “a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). So he says first to the Apostles, “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Lk. 10:16). 

But how is it that the very Person of Christ speaks through the church’s ministry? We can say that his “word,” that is the Scriptures as the produce of divine speech. But the office of Prophet implies a personal speaking. And our whole question implies a Person acting in an office—How does HE EXECUTE the office? That brings us to the next part.

Christ Speaks BY his Spirit

We don’t often struggle with Christ speaking through the Old Testament prophets, and especially not when he himself walked on earth. But we can easily forget the essentials when it comes to the idea of Christ actually, actively speaking now. Think of the promise that Jesus gave of what the Spirit would do with respect to his word:

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (Jn. 16:13-15).

As John 6 winds down, there was a whole crowd of people who heard Jesus’ words loud and clear; and most left offended or horrified or puzzled. The disciples were not doing much better. But what was the takeaway? “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (v. 63). A very crucial passage is where Paul says,

“Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:12-14). 

As there is a positive spiritual phenomena happening with the Word, so there is a “negative” spiritual phenomena, namely, of a division. The Word is called “the sword of the Spirit” (Eph. 6:17), so that the prophet was called to bring a dividing word. As Moses divided at Mount Sinai, saying, “Who is on the LORD’s side? Come to me” (Ex. 32:26); and as Elijah divided those with the prophets of Baal “and said, ‘How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him’” (1 Ki. 18:21). So it was with Jesus: “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division” (Lk. 12:51). “So there was a division among the people over him” (Jn. 7:43; cf. 9:16); “There was again a division among the Jews because of these words” (Jn. 10:16). 

True words of a prophet are a dividing thing, as light divides from darkness. Belcher says about this, “Through his ministry, Isaiah’s prophecy is being fulfilled. Jesus speaks the truth because words of truth will sift the people, separating out those who are not serious about being his disciples.”3

Taking the function of the word and the Spirit together, Brakel summarizes these are the external and internal administrations of the prophetic office: the external “by the written and printed Word, and by the Word preached by His servants,” and the internal “when by His Spirit He illuminates souls by His ‘marvelous light’ (1 Pet. 2:9).”4

Christ Speaks OF the Divine Will and Salvation

The last words speak of the content of that word: THE WILL OF GOD FOR OUR SALVATION. This is a way of saying that he speaks to the whole of life from the standpoint of eternal life. We know this partly because of the fuller expression in the Larger Catechism:

“Christ executeth the office of a prophet, in his revealing to the Church in all ages, by his Spirit and Word, in divers ways of administration, the whole will of God, in all things concerning their edification and salvation.”5

So it is both gospel and ethics—how we are made right with God and how we may glorify him in our new life. Christ is a whole Prophet who leaves nothing out that is good for us. 

If we reject antinomianism (which we must), then we must at least see in this expression that Christ’s ministry of the word brings both law and gospel. God’s will is that his elect are saved, and in that salvation he would have us be holy and righteous in the whole of life. A true prophet is in agreement with Paul: “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).

Naturally the ultimate content of the word delivered by the Prophet is himself: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (Jn. 1:18). The Greek word used here is ἐξηγέομαι, which ought to sound familiar to preachers. Christ “exegetes” the Father to us. Again in 14:9 of that same Gospel, he says, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” So the heights of both this will and salvation is to be shown God himself: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn. 17:3).

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1. Richard Belcher, Prophet, Priest, and King (Philipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2016), 21.

2. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, I:521.

3. Belcher, Prophet, Priest, and King, 49.

4. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, 521, 22.

5. Westminster Larger Catechism Q.43