Mature faith is faith that continually grows in understanding and in conformity to the Christ who is revealed in the whole Bible. This faith transcends belief in the Christ of a few favorite texts and rejects any sentimental adherence to the pale shadow of the one whose prophetic, priestly, and kingly roles are revealed in all of Scripture.

Every Christian needs to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:18). The knowledge of Christ includes understanding his person and work in all their multifaceted characteristics. From earliest times the church has characterized the work of Jesus as involving the offices of Prophet, Priest, and King. The Protestant Reformers, especially Calvin, used this Old Testament-based schema to spell out the parameters of Jesus’ work for us as the mediator of salvation. At the pastoral level, the Reformed doctrines of the perseverance of the saints and assurance of salvation are closely linked with this kind of analysis of what it is a believer trusts in, what constitutes mature Christian faith. Crises in faith often stem from a failure to comprehend the perfection of Christ’s person and work and his power to save to the uttermost.

Jesus is the self-declared fulfillment of the Old Testament promises, a statement that is amply corroborated by the apostles and other New Testament authors. While “Jesus died for my sins” is one expression of saving faith, no Christian can grow toward maturity on such a basic diet. The meat or solid food that the writer to the Hebrews speaks of (Heb. 5:11-12) is expressed in the full-orbed approach of this Epistle to the comprehensive nature of the person and work of Jesus. Thus we constantly need to study the Old and New Testaments, their witness to who Jesus is, and what he has actually achieved for us. In Reformed theology, the three offices of Christ are seen to embrace the totality of his being and doing. The offices intersect at many points and embrace other roles, such as “the wise man” (Matt. 7:24-29; 1 Cor. 1:24, 30). I want to briefly examine these from the perspective of biblical theology.

Jesus as Prophet: The Mediator of God’s Word

That Jesus is the prophet is attested to in the New Testament in a number of ways. First, there are the situations in which Jesus himself owned the title directly or by implication (e.g., Luke 4:24; Matt. 5:17; Mark 6:4). Second, there are the occasions when others, including the Gospel writers, asserted that he was a prophet or opined that he must be. Third, there are those places in the text that demonstrate that the apostles and other New Testament authors were convinced that Jesus fulfilled the prophetic promises of the Old Testament and thus expounded their ultimate meaning.

Given these testimonies, we must ask about the Old Testament antecedents within redemptive history that give us a deeper understanding of the prophetic role of Jesus. Although Abraham is the earliest biblical character to be designated a prophet (Gen. 20:7), we really learn the function of a prophet from the definitive role of Moses. But even with Moses we already see some indications of the prophet engaging in both priestly and ruling ministries. This anticipates the drawing together of the three roles in the one person, Jesus. It is important to note that distinction does not mean separation. Moses not only mediated God’s revealed words, but he also mediated the redemptive grace of God in the Passover. The nation was “baptized” into him in the Exodus (1 Cor. 10:1-4), a phrase that Paul uses to indicate the union the people of Israel had with Moses in their flight to freedom. Moses mediated the rule of God in a way that foreshadowed the kingship to come.

Moses is seen as the definitive prophet in Deuteronomy 18:15-18, and he foreshadows a prophet like himself who is yet to come. The epilogue to Deuteronomy that tells of the events surrounding Moses’ death indicates that this promise, at the time of writing, has not yet been fulfilled. Yet there were prophets from Moses’ time onwards: we find prophetic ministry in Judges 6:7-10 with the characteristic indictment of Israel’s faithlessness (v. 1), and there were false prophets who proclaimed their own word and often clashed with God’s true prophets. Jeremiah condemned false prophecy and referred to the true mediator of God’s word as one who “had stood in the council of the Lord” (Jer. 23:18-22). When we look at the overall message of the canonical prophets of Israel, we see three major aspects to their message. First, in speaking the word of God they pronounced the indictment that Israel and Judah had broken God’s covenant. Second, they brought the threat of judgment or declared that past and present misfortunes were God’s judgment. Third, they gave some message of hope based on the faithfulness of God to the covenant. To sum up: The true prophet was sent by God to mediate his word concerning the covenant of grace and the implications of this covenant for the life of his people.

The failures of the prophets of Israel are rectified by the coming of Jesus as the true prophet of God. He not only mediated God’s word and gave the definitive interpretation of that word; he was the Word of God (John 1:1-6, 14-18). Thus he fulfilled the prediction of Moses of the prophet who was to come and who knew God face to face. As the Word of God come in the flesh, he provides in his being and doing the definitive interpretation of every true prophetic word from God. He also brings to light every lying word of false prophets. He is the demonstration of judgment and its substitutionary bearer, and the word of grace for salvation.

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