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“THE LORD your God will
raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers.
You must listen to him.” Over the next three weeks I want
to look at Jesus in his three leadership roles as prophet, priest
and king.
There are many people in the
world who will gladly tell you that Jesus is a prophet.
For the Muslim religion, Jesus is the great prophet who came
to stop the Jews from being so legalistic.
For many Christians today, Jesus is the prophet who stood for
justice and compassion in a world where neither was valued highly.
For many in the world, Jesus was a great prophetic teacher in
the same tradition as Elijah or Isaiah.
There is no reason why we should
not view Jesus as a great prophet. That is how the Bible sometimes
describes him, and it is a role he took on from time to time.
The problem is when people view him as no more than a prophet.
The problem is when people try to capture Jesus and make him
the kind of prophet they want him to be.
Jesus is a Prophet, because he is greater than all the prophets.
He is a Priest because he is superior to all priests. And he
is a King, because he is King of all Kings and Lord of all Lords,
who shall reign forever and ever!
There has been some controversy
at Sydney University lately, because a number of members of academic
staff have put their names to an advertisement urging people
to consider the claims of Jesus.
I was thinking about the lecturers I had. Several were Christians,
one or two were atheists, there was at least one Hindu, several
Marxists and some people of indefinite faith.
One I got on particularly well with was a German tutor who was
a Marxist. We had a lot in common. As Christian, I had a desire
to see wrongs righted, to see justice done. He, as a Marxist,
also had similar attitudes. But he thought the problem could
be solved by class struggle and revolution, I thought they could
be solved by personal and corporate repentance. We had some good
conversations. It certainly didn't cause anyone any harm that
we knew the views that inspired out lecturers and tutors.
It struck me that the Marxists are very much in the mould of
the great prophets of ancent Israel. They call out with Amos,
...Let justice
roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!
That is a call we need to hear
repeatedly. Our world needs to rediscover justice and righteousness
and covenant love.
JESUS TEACHES AS A PROPHET
Maybe you don't think of Jesus primarily as a prophet. Saviour,
yes. Lord, yes. But prophet? The answer is a resounding, “Maybe.”
Let’s take a brief look at a couple of key passages, beginning
with Luke 4. You might like to open your Bible and read along.
The first is found in Luke 4, where Jesus preaches in the synagogue.
We read,
LK 4:16 He went to Nazareth,
where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went
into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read.
17 The scroll of the prophet
Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where
it is written:
18 “The Spirit of
the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 Then he rolled up the
scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes
of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, “Today
this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
We often think of prophets as
preaching a message of judgment and doom. And they often did.
But they also proclaimed release and hope for those who repent,
joyful acceptance for the unwanted who turn to the Lord.
“Comfort,
Comfort my people,” says Jahweh. “Speak comfort to
Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended.”
What is Jesus preaching in his
opening sermon in Nazareth?
¨ Good news for the poor
¨ Freedom for prisoners
¨ Sight for the blind
¨ And end to oppression
¨ Favour from the Lord.
It sounds pretty much along the prophetic line to me! God is
going to do good for his people: they had better be ready to
receive the blessing!
But sometimes prophets preached judgment, too, just as Jesus
did in Matthew 23.
Listen to Jesus lashing out against the Pharisees:
MT 23:33 “You snakes! You
brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
34 Therefore I am sending
you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will
kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and
pursue from town to town. 35
And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been
shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood
of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple
and the altar. 36 I tell you the truth,
all this will come upon this generation.
What was Micah’s message?
...because of
you,
Zion will be plowed like a field,
Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble,
the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets. (3:12)
Is Jesus’ message any less
strong?
Then we can see what Jesus said about himself, in places like
John 2:
JN 2:18 Then the Jews demanded
of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your
authority to do all this?”
19 Jesus answered them,
“Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three
days.”
20 The Jews replied, “It
has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going
to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body.
22 After he was raised
from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then
they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
If there was one message that
Jesus repeated over and over, it was that he would be killed
and would rise again in three days.
I could go on even further, and mention how he foretold the destruction
of the Temple in Jerusalem, an event that occurred nearly 40
years after the crucifixion. And we know that most of the Christians
escaped that terrible time of destruction because they fled to
Syria and other nearby areas when they saw the Romans coming.
But we need to know why it is important that Jesus should be
a prophet. The answer is found in Deut. 18 and in Deut.34.
THE PROPHET LIKE MOSES
Deuteronomy 18 promises that God would send to Israel a prophetic
leader like Moses:
15 The LORD your God will
raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers.
You must listen to him.
Some people will tell you that
Jesus was very unlike Moses. After all, Moses was married and
Jesus was single; Moses led Israel into the land, and Jesus was
rejected by Israel; Moses was a warrior, and Jesus on a donkey
proclaiming peace.
But when you turn to the very end of Deuteronomy, where the writer
sums up Moses life, we find a very clear presentation of what
we are meant to find in Moses’ character and quality:
DT 34:10 Since then, no prophet
has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,
11 who did all those miraculous
signs and wonders the LORD sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh
and to all his officials and to his whole land. 12 For no one has ever shown the mighty
power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight
of all Israel.
It is not a matter of the superficial
aspects of Moses’ life, but the spiritual core is what we
need to look at.
Think about Moses, think about Jesus. There is a closeness of
relationship between Moses and God which no other prophet knew.
God spoke marvellous things to many prophets, but only Moses
approached God on the mountain and saw him face to face.
Yes, as Paul points out, the glory Moses displayed as he came
down from that mountain was a glory that faded. But it was real,
and it was unique. When Jesus came down from the Mount after
speaking to Elijah and Moses, his face shone, too, with a glory
which never faded — and the voice from heaven said, “This
is my beloved Son: listen to him!”
In the meeting of prophets, Jesus was declared pre–eminent
by the voice of God himself.
As John reminds us at the beginning of his gospel,
In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was face to face with God [pros ton
theon], and the Word was God.
Moses was face to face with God when he went up on the
mountain; Jesus was face to face with God before the universe
began.
Moses performed signs and wonders in Egypt; Jesus
performed signs and wonders in Israel. He caused the blind to
see and the cripple to walk — yes, he did! He drove out
demons and defeated the works of the evil one. Moses "caused"
plagues, Jesus brought about blessings and healings.
Yet, in the desert, Moses disobeyed God and destroyed
God’s picture. Jesus never disobeyed God; he never
destroyed God's picture.
You know what I'm talking about. You know about how the Israelites
needed water, and God told Moses to strike a certain rock with
his staff, and it broke the rock open, and water flowed out.
God was painting a picture of how Jesus would be smitten and
the blessings would flow forth. As we read in the Bible,
...that Rock
was Christ.
But you know that Israel was
thirsty again. So God showed Moses a rock and said, “Speak
to the rock, and you will receive water.” But Moses
was angry with the people and struck the rock again. Water flowed
out, but the picture was destroyed. Jesus didn't have to suffer
again and again. He died, once for all, the just for the unjust,
to bring us to God. Now he is our loving Saviour, to whom we
speak in prayer to receive the blessings.
Jesus never spoilt the picture: he represented God in his fulness;
he is the exact representation, the ‘character’ of
the Father.
Jesus was the one from among the brothers of those who heard
Moses; he was the one face to face with the Father; he was the
one who performed all the signs and wonders that God gave him
to do.
RESPONDING TO A PROPHET
I believe that one of the great failings of today's church is
that we don’t take the supreme prophethood of Jesus seriously.
We like him as a teacher, because we respond differently to teachers
from the way we respond to prophets. A teacher guides and suggests,
a prophet confronts and demands.
If Jesus says, “How blessed are the peacemakers,” we
love to hear it. It is a nice idea, that making things a little
more peaceful will have benefits for ourselves as well.
People often speak of Jesus as a great teacher. And he is. If
a teacher says,
Go, sell all
that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure
in heaven,
I say, “I like that idea.
I’ll have a garage sale and get rid of the surplus stuff
I've accumulated, and I can give a good tithe of my profits.
What next?” And, when I have built up the full picture,
I'll decide which bits to put into practice and which ones to
forget about until some convenient time.
Do you do that with a prophet?
A prophet says the same thing, and it’s a word from God
the Father about what he expects us to do right away, without
question. Yes, we need to interpret what is being said, but the
principle remains: God speaks through the prophet, and we obey
or suffer.
There’s a sad little story
in I Kings13. God sent a prophet to King Jeroboam to speak against
the evils of his rule and the idolatry he had allowed. God backed
up the word with signs and wonders, and Jeroboam was forced to
acknowledge that the word was from God. The prophet went safely
on his way. But the word of the Lord had spoken to that prophet,
and he warned him not to eat or drink, not to turn back, but
to keep on his way home.
But an old man who was also a prophet wanted fellowship, and
rode after the younger prophet, and called him to come back to
have a meal at his home. He said that God had revealed to him
that the younger man could come and eat at his place before he
travelled on, but it was a lie.
So, when the young man travelled on, a lion met him and killed
him, because he had disobeyed the word of the Lord, even though
he had been persuaded by a lie. The word of prophecy is to be
obeyed, or consequences will follow.
Think about this: if Jesus preached
the Sermon on the Mount as a teacher, it is in our hands to select
which of the blessings we will take on ourselves. I might say,
“I will be one of the meek: I like inheriting the earth.
I will be pure in heart, because I want to see God. But you can
do peacemaking, because I don’t care all that much about
that kind of thing.”
But, if he preached it as a prophet,
then every bit applies. These are the characteristics God looks
for in his people, and we are to cultivate those characteristics.
If the teacher, Jesus, told about
the labourer finding a treasure in a paddock, or the merchant
finding an invaluable pearl, we have options about how hard we
go after the Kingdom of God; it the prophet Jesus told these
things, they are mandatory for us all.
CONCLUSION
Jesus is the greatest of all prophets, the pattern around whom
all prophecy finds its shape.
We are obliged to listen to what he tells us. As God says,
This is my beloved
Son: hear him!”
or, as we read in Deuteronomy
18,
You must listen
to him.
Let’s obey the word of the
Lord.
AMEN |
