Laying The Confessional Foundation

Prophet, Priest, and King!  Take a minute and think about the first thing that comes to your mind when you see those three words.  Begin with the prophet, maybe the words, old, wise, or someone who speaks with and on behalf of God.  However, what do the sacred writings say about prophets?  Words like warning, exhortation, conviction, prayers, sorrow, anger, ridicule, martyred/killed, prosecutors, and witnesses are among some of the descriptions the Bible uses to describe these men and women. (1)  In this article, we will explore and hope to gain insight into these men and women to see their amazing and impactful role in the lives of God’s people.  The Westminster Confession of Faith assembly met in 1643-1649 and in the shorter catechism asked and answered four questions on the three offices of mediator.

Westminster Shorter Catechism:
Q#24: “How does Christ execute the office of a prophet?”
A: “Christ executes the office of a prophet, in revealing to us, by his Word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation.” 

The next word is Priest.  Again, take a second and contemplate what comes to mind when you read that word.  Some thoughts might be prayer, sacrifice, Roman Catholicism (confession), fancy and colorful garments, forgiveness, worship, and blood. Once again, we ask, “What does the Word of God say?”  From scripture, we see words like, representative, set apart, atonement, or as Westminster would say satisfaction, and guardians of God’s sanctuary. (2)  The priestly office teaches us how to approach and worship our Creator.  Because of our rebellion against Him, the role of priesthood shows our need for a mediator that satisfies God’s holy and righteous demands for our sinful rebellion against Him, 1 Chronicles 16:4-28, Hebrews 7:23-25.

Westminster Confession of Faith Shorter Catechism
Q#25: “How does Christ execute the office of a priest?” 
A: "Christ executes the office of a priest, in his once offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession for us.” 

 The final word in our list of three is King.  Thoughts that come to mind when contemplating Kingship, could be rule, sovereignty, authority, strength, dominion, and conquest.  While all of these describe a king, the scriptures use words like righteousness, justice, and wisdom as well to describe the character of the king and how the king is to rule (Proverbs 8:15,16, 16:12, 25:5, 29:4; 2 Samuel 23:3; Isaiah 32:1).  The earthly king’s reign is established by God and he should subordinate his rule to God (Daniel 2:21). (3) It is through the wisdom of the Lord that the ruler is to dispense justice on behalf of God’s people (1 Kings 3:9).  Through kingship we understand God’s righteous justice and enforcement of His laws in our everyday lives, and also in defending His people against His/our enemy(ies) (Proverbs 20:8, Psalm 110:1-4, Deuteronomy 32:4, Psalm 62:5-7, Exodus 14:14, 1 Corinthians 1:24,30).

Westminster Confession of Faith Shorter Catechism
Q#26: “How does Christ execute the office of a king?”  
A: “Christ executes the office of a king, in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.” 

The roles of the Prophet, Priest, and King are crucial in the scriptures—each of the three offices functions in some way as the mediator.  The prophet brings the Word from God to His people.  The priest represents the people before the Holy God.  Finally, the king is to protect God’s people and exemplify the character of God. It is through the fulfillment of the three-fold office of Mediator accomplished in the person and work of Jesus that God reveals His plan of redemption and accomplishes the redemption of His people.  By fulfilling these roles Jesus is revealed as our ultimate prophet, priest, and king.  In question #23 the shorter catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith firmly teaches the office of redeemer expressed in terms of prophet, priest, and king.  

Q: 23, “What offices does Christ execute as our Redeemer?” 
A: “Christ, as our Redeemer, executes the offices of a prophet, of a priest, and a king, both in His state of humiliation and exaltation” (Deuteronomy 18, Isaiah 61:1, and Psalm 110:1-4).

The Biblical Foundation

We have looked at the doctrine of the three-fold office of prophet, priest, and king from the Westminster shorter catechism. The doctrine taught and cemented in the reformed confessions is never made up or expressed unless the ministers believe the Word of God implicitly or explicitly teaches that doctrine.  For the ministers/teachers who labored to give us the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Word of God was “the only rule for faith and life”.  So the question before us now is where and how do the scriptures teach and reveal such a three-fold office?  We believe we should start to explore the three-fold office from the very beginning of the Scriptures (Genesis)

Genesis 1:26-28:

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

The portions of the verses that are highlighted point you to the offices we are studying in this section of this article. “God said..” emphasizes His prophetic word, and “dominion” emphasizes rule or kingship. So God created mankind in His image and revealed through His Word the purpose for creating them, namely “to have dominion”, “subdue”, and “fill the earth” with progeny who reflects His image.  Ancient Egypt’s Pharaoh and Babylon’s king constructed grand monuments of themselves to signify that they had dominion over the land in which they conquered.  God creating image bearers signifies His dominion over all of creation.  

Genesis 2 goes into detail about how Creator God formed His image bearers (vs.7) and in vss. 8-14 describes a lush and beautiful garden sanctuary.  Vs. 15 tells us that God takes the man and puts him in that established sanctuary called Eden. (4)

Genesis 2:15:  “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”  

Interestingly most believe that “to work it and keep it” means that God put His image bearers into the garden to be His gardeners, however, the Hebrew words mean, “to serve” and “to guard” respectively, and are used of God’s people in Exodus, when He tells Pharaoh to let them go “to serve” Him,(5) and of the Priests in the tabernacle/temple “to guard” against anything unclean coming into God’s dwelling to defile it. So Adam and Eve were to serve their Creator and guard against anything outside God’s garden sanctuary from coming into defile or deceive! However, that is exactly what happens in Genesis 3 and they allow the serpent into the dwelling of God and he deceives them into disobeying their Creator’s command.

From Genesis 1 and 2 we find the beginning of the offices of prophet, priest, and king in God making image bearers to teach and proclaim His commands(prophet) to the next generation as they begin to expand God’s dwelling, and to serve and guard that dwelling against anything that would profane it(priest), and to subdue and have dominion(king) over God’s world.  

Now we need to discuss a foundational pillar when examining the threefold office of our redeemer, Jesus Christ, that is the concept of anointing. The word anointing is derived from the Hebrew word “מָשִׁיחַ mâshîyach”, (6) which literally translates to “to spread a liquid over” and is most commonly translated in scriptures of the Old Testament as “anointed”, or “Messiah”. The Greek word is “χριστός”, from which we get the title for Jesus used more in the NT than any other title, Christ.  We will discuss this title in more detail below in subsequent sections of this article. 

So, what does anointed mean? Anointing or the act of anointing is specific objects consecrated or set apart for sacred/holy purposes within the Tabernacle or temple. Also, to set apart individuals for particular or special duties. These responsibilities were primarily undertaken by prophets, priests, and kings to direct God’s people toward His redemption through the forthcoming of The “Anointed One.” 

Now that we know what and why things or individuals were anointed (7) in scripture we need to ask the question “How is a person anointed”? A person is anointed in various ways. (8) It could occur as a personal appearance of God with the person (theophany) as He did with Abraham, e.g., Gen. 12, 15,17, etc.  YHWH also appeared to Isaac, Jacob, Samuel, Moses, and the prophets.  (9)

Some unique and specific individuals were anointed by the Holy Spirit.  These chosen individuals had distinctive roles in the construction of the Tabernacle and temple, as seen in Exodus 31:1-3 and 1 Kings 7:13. This anointing or consecration by the Holy Spirit will be significant as we further explore the office of the prophet, to be fulfilled in Jesus the Christ.

Interestingly Samuel serves God’s people as prophet, priest, and judge (king). With Saul and David, Samuel anointed them with the outward sign of oil to be king over the nation of Israel.  Saul also prophecies (1 Samuel 19:23-24), and David does things congruent with all three offices like Samuel. (10)

In 1 Kings 19:19 Elijah “anoints” Elisha by passing by him in the field Elisha was plowing and throwing his mantle over him. This was done to “anoint” Elisha as his successor.   

So the anointing is the setting apart or consecrating of individuals or things for specific tasks.  For individuals, it is the LORD setting them apart for His service to His people.  For things such as altars, utensils, lavers, etc. and their being set apart for holy use in the house of God or tabernacle/temple. It was the priests serving in the YHWH’s house who anointed the instruments for the worship of God.  We will see shortly how Jesus is also anointed to do the works of the Father in bringing salvation to His fallen creation and building His temple (church) on earth.

 To summarize where we have been, God through Jesus the Christ (anointed one) has provided His rebellious and sinful image bearers a mediator/redeemer and is executed through the offices of, 1.) priest, 2.) king, and 3.) prophet.  In Genesis 3, our first parents Adam and Eve allowed the serpent into the garden sanctuary of Eden, as a consequence, Eve is deceived and she and her husband rebel.  This brings the curse of death upon all humanity and our need for reconciliation.  In chapter 3:15, God promises a redeemer who will execute the commands of God to be a prophet/priest/king in perfect obedience. We end this first section of the article on Jesus as a Great, Ultimate prophet with the words of Psalm 150:1:

“Praise the LORD! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance;

praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!”

Footnotes
1. 1 Kings 17:13,14; 18:13; 2 Chronicles 24:18,19; 2 Chronicles 25:16; 36:16; Jeremiah 9:1; 20:7-8 Jonah 4:9; Micah 6:1-2; 1 Corinthians 14:3
2.  Leviticus 8:33, 16:30-34; Exodus 28:29; Numbers 3:7,8
3.  This is of course true of queens!
4.  See Ezekiel 28:13, in which the prophet describes Eden as God’s garden.
5.  The Hebrews are “abad” and “samar”, see Exodus 3:12, 4:23 for “to serve”, and Leviticus 8:35; 1 Chronicles 9:19 for “to guard”
6.  In the Old Testament the word “mashiyach” is used 39x.  The Psalmist uses it 10x.  Psalm 2:2, 18;50, 20:6, 28:8, 84:9, 89:38,51, 105:15, 132:10,17.
7.  For more details on the anointing see Dr. Michael Barrett’s book “Beginning at Moses, A Guide to Finding Jesus in the Old Testament”, specifically chapter 1.
8.  I am thankful to Dr. Jerrard Heard for our many conversations on the subject of anointing!
9. Genesis 26:2-3, Genesis 35:9-19, Exodus 3, Isaiah 6, and it was to Samuel a very young boy in the care of Eli the high priest that the LORD revealed Himself and called him to be his judge and prophet and priest, see 1 Samuel 3.
10. King David prophecies of the Messiah in many of his messianic Psalms 2, 18,110 among others.  He wore the “ephod” of the Levites, 1 Chronicles 15:27.