Jesus Christ the Virgin-born Incarnation, What We Believe, Part 7

The Ministry’s Purpose and the Value of a Thorough Doctrinal Statement

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Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport, where we provide Biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Well, welcome to The Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rapoport, joined by my good friend, Pastor Jim Osmond from Kootenai Community Church up there in Idaho, Northern Idaho. How are you, Jim?

Yeah, doing very well. Thanks for having me on the program. Glad to be here replacing Bud for a couple of weeks or a couple of programs, however long this takes. I mean, you guys are working through the doctrinal statement.

I don't know what kind of false doctrine Bud was spilling out while he was your co-host, but I'm here to mop it up.

Well, maybe what it is is we wanted to let you come in so Bud had something to mop up when he came back. Could be. So, we're continuing in on our series that we're doing on what we believe. This is from the doctrinal statement at strivingforeternity .org.

And if you want to read along with the statement, not if you're driving, please. If you're driving, keep two hands on the wheel. But if you're home and you just want to read along with us, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Under the About section is something, just look at the little arrow, you drop that down, and it says, What We Believe. And that's what we're going through, is the doctrinal statement of striving for eternity.

This is an ongoing series we're going to do so we can dig into, you know, you read a doctrinal statement and maybe you don't realize how much is packed into the words that are trying to be really concise, really articulate, really precise, and having use of words that have a great amount of meaning.

And we're trying to ward off a lot of error as well. And so, doctrinal statements are very important, and a lot of people don't put a lot of time into doctrinal statements. And so what we want to do is go through our doctrinal statement for a couple reasons.

One, so that you see how much is behind the scenes in what we're saying. In other words, the more you study theology and you start reading doctrinal statements, you start seeing things go, Oh, oh, that's what they're trying to say.

They're trying to say that's wrong and this is right. As we go through this, you hear us talk about all these different groups and individuals who have a theology that would be wrong or an error compared to scripture.

And that's what a systematic theology is going to do, is provide the way we look at all of scripture. And here we're going to categorize everything into different theological categories, and that's what systematic theology does.

And a doctrinal statement is a really concise version of a systematic theology. And if you get a one-pager, it's not going to give you as much detail as ours. I think ours is about 12 pages.

Yes. Andrew, I don't know if you covered this at the very beginning when you were going through this with Bud, but the more thorough a doctrinal statement is for a church, the better. And that's actually counterintuitive for most people.

Did you guys cover this at all in any detail? Go for it. Well, listen, when I first took over pastoring at Kootenai Community Church, our doctrinal statement could fit on an 8 .5 by 11 sheet of paper, just one of them, with lots of white space and really big font and big spaces between the lines.

And we quickly came to the conclusion that what we needed was a more thorough, more robust, more specific and precise doctrinal statement than what we had. And so we changed it. It's now 17 little mini pieces of paper long, very thorough, very robust.

And the reason that is, and it's always good to look for a church with a very precise, very well laid out, very thorough doctrinal statement. And the longer, the better, because most churches, what they instinctively want to do is have a boned down version of a doctrinal statement that's very thin, where we can all agree.

We're just going to state the essentials, right? We believe that God exists as a trinity. We believe in the deity of Christ. We believe the deity of the Holy Spirit. We believe in seven or eight non-negotiable essential doctrines stated generically.

And they think that in doing that, they're going to be getting all kinds of unity around these things. So many people come in, there'll be so much unity, and actually the exact opposite happens. What you have happening is all these people who can sign on to that bare minimum united statement.

But then these people who can all agree to this very thin doctrinal statement, surprisingly end up having all these various beliefs on all of these other issues. And they bring all of that with them. They think that that doctrinal statement unites us because it's so generic.

So we're all united on this, but actually what you are united on that very thin layer of doctrine, but then you are divided on everything else. And if you have a robust doctrinal statement as a church, and everybody signs on to that, then you find out that, look, we're united not just on the thin stuff, but we're united on all of these other issues where we all think alike.

And if we all think alike on so many things, we're going to think alike on a lot of stuff out of that. So you actually end up weeding out division, and when people want a robust doctrinal statement, when a church puts in place a robust doctrinal statement, a lot of people think that's going to divide the church.

Well, if we take a stand on all this, it's going to divide the church. No, it's going to create unity, because everybody that signs on to that is going to be there, and the people who sign on to that very specific doctrinal statement are going to be so united on so many other things, you actually weed out and prevent division, and that's a very important thing to remember.

Yeah, I mean, I recently was talking with someone, and I was asked to research a church. And I looked at their church. Their doctrinal statement was six lines.

It told me absolutely nothing. Yeah, stay away. Stay away. Don't walk. Run. Run.

Yeah, because, look, folks, doctrine divides. That's not a bad thing. Doctrine also unifies. It divides from error and unifies on truth, and that's what the purpose of doctrine is. And so don't be afraid of doctrine.

That's why we have—you know, our doctrinal statement in Striving Fraternity is 12 pages long, because we want to answer these things, and that's what we're digging into here and doing with you guys, so that you see how much is in this.

So what we're doing this week is we're continuing on the doctrine. If you go to the What We Believe section at Striving Fraternity, so go to strivingfraternity .org, and then What We Believe, there's a little—all the doctrines are there.

Just expand the one on God, and we're looking at the second section under there, God the Son. Now, the last episode, we looked at our first three paragraphs, and today we're going to try to take on the next three paragraphs.

The Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, and the Purpose of Christ’s Coming

So, Jim, if you wouldn't mind reading for us, starting with Jesus is virgin-born.

All right, Jesus Christ is virgin-born, Isaiah 7, 14, Matthew 1, 23, and 25, Luke 1, 26 -35. He is God incarnate, John 1, and verse 14. And the purpose of the incarnation was to reveal God, redeem men, and rule over God's kingdom.

Psalm 2, 7 -9, Isaiah 9, 6, John 1, 29, Philippians 2, 9 -11, Hebrews 7, 25 -26, and 1 Peter 1, 18 -19. Paragraph 2, in the incarnation—or the second paragraph we're dealing with, I should say— in the incarnation, the second person of the Trinity laid aside his rights to the full prerogatives of coexistence with God, assumed the place of a son, and took on the existence appropriate to a servant, while never divesting himself of his divine attributes, Philippians 2, 5 -8.

Paragraph 3, Jesus Christ accomplished our redemption through the shedding of his blood and sacrificial death on the cross. His death was voluntary, vicarious, substitutionary, propitiatory, and redemptive, John 10, 15, Romans 3, 24 -25, and 5, verse 8, and 1 Peter 2, verse 24.

Okay, so there's going to be a lot here that we're going to say that is repetitive from last week on purpose. One of the things, folks, that I try to do is the repetition is good for learning, and that's why I'm going to say things that I know we're going to get to later in the statement, but they tie into some of what we're saying here.

I do that on purpose because for some of you who this is new to, you need the repetition. To those of you who know some of these terminologies, then you just rejoice in hearing the truth. So it's good for all.

So let's start with Jesus Christ is virgin born. We looked at this in the last episode in the importance of this, but let's start with Isaiah 7, 14. As we look at Isaiah 7, 14,. Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Behold, a virgin will be with child, and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel. So let's deal with some issues here that people come up with, Jim. Some people say that that prophecy really isn't about a virgin, someone that's never had sexual relations, that that's not really talking about.

This just means a maiden, an unmarried woman, and this was something that was a prophecy in his day. So it really wasn't prophesying that Jesus was going to be born of someone who never had intercourse.

What's your thoughts? There are people who make the claim that the word that Isaiah uses there, Alma, actually just refers to a young maiden, and that is true, the assumption being that the young maiden was a virgin.

So the word includes the idea of it being a young maiden, that is a young unmarried woman, and therefore she was a virgin. So it doesn't just mean a woman who's young in age, but there could be a promiscuous prostitute.

The idea was a woman who is of a young, marriable age, but was also a virgin. And of course, though the word could just refer to a woman who was young, it doesn't only refer to a woman who is young. So in the book of Matthew, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Matthew gives us the interpretation of that passage, where the Spirit is then indicating that the passage is to be interpreted as a virgin, one who was not with child, because Matthew and Luke are both very specific that the one who was born of Mary, the Lord Jesus Christ, was born prior to any sexual intercourse on Mary's behalf, and he was born without a human fatherly seed from this world.

So therefore, Matthew's telling us that that interpretation, the interpretation is that Isaiah was speaking there in terms of a woman, and there was a sign, a partial fulfillment of that sign in Isaiah's day, but not necessarily the full fulfillment of that sign in Isaiah's day.

So yeah, there was a way in which that sign was given in Isaiah's day and fulfilled in Isaiah's day, but Matthew, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is saying that there is a greater fulfillment of that, that really what the Spirit of God had in mind was yet a future fulfillment of that in the Lord Jesus Christ and in Mary being pregnant with child without any sexual intercourse.

And that's important, because you're saying Matthew by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, right? Because a Jewish person is not going to accept the New Testament, and that's the problem. But anyone who accepts that the Bible is inspired, that therefore we look at this and say, no, God is giving us the further revelation.

But being virgin born is very important in another matter as well. That is the fact that as we look at this, we mentioned this last week, the fact that sin, according to Romans 5, verses 12 to the end of the chapter, makes it clear that sin is passed on from father to child.

And we said, dad, sorry, but if your wife blames you when the kids misbehave, she's being theologically accurate. Okay, it is your fault. You passed on that sin nature from you to your child. It goes from Adam to his children.

So we take that to say that it is from the father to the children. That is the importance of being virgin born, that he had no human father. So the sin nature was not passed on to Jesus. And so he doesn't have that.

He has a nature that isn't tainted with sin, that is not enslaved to sin. And that becomes the importance of virgin born. You know, here's an interesting thing, Jim, most people maybe don't know. I think this audience is pretty educated and they like to study the scriptures, so I think they probably know this.

But, you know, most religions, where you have a religion that you're born into a religion, say Islam, if you're born where the father is a Muslim, you'd be a Muslim. Now, you'd have to say the thing to be a proper Muslim, but most religions are based on the father's religion, and not so with Judaism.

Judaism is the only religion based on the mother that I know of. And so it's very interesting. The question, if you're Jewish, was your mother Jewish, not whether your father is Jewish? Can't prove this in scripture, so I'm saying this is my hypothesis.

Could it be that that's the case because Judaism would be passed on to Jesus through his mother and not his father? Hey, you know, all the religions of the world, they always focus on the male being the leader, and here you have one that's focused, why is this one different?

I think it could be because God knew Jesus was going to come born of a virgin. But, you know, there's something else we have to deal with with this. That is a different view of a virgin birth. There's another group, Jim, that agrees that Jesus was born of a virgin, but they have a different view of Mary being a virgin, and that would be the Roman Catholics.

Because what they would say is that he was born of a virgin and that Mary was a perpetual virgin, that she remained a virgin, which then presents some problems in scripture because we see other people mentioned as Jesus' brothers and sisters.

Yeah, the Catholics would say that they were his cousins.

That's exactly right, and a lot of people don't know that. I remember talking with some Catholics, and that was the argument. These young teenagers, and they said, well, there's no Greek word for cousin, and so they use the term brother to mean cousin.

And I went, really? What do we do then with the word for cousin? That we see in Colossians 4 .10 used for Barnabas' cousin Mark. Catholics really hate that when the scriptures just don't work with their theology.

Yeah. But when we talk about Christ being virgin born, we have to understand that it means that Jesus Christ was conceived in a supernatural way. He had no earthly father. So we have to remember that when we talk about this issue.

It means that it doesn't mean Mary was always a virgin. Another thing that Catholics will teach when we speak of virgin born, and this is why we're saying, and I've actually thought about changing this to virgin conceived, because actually, technically, he was born the same way everyone else is.

Yeah, that's true. It's the conception that is supernatural, not the birth. And so it's really a virgin conception. But the thing is that some people will argue, Roman Catholics, that in order for Mary to give birth to God, she had to be sinless.

And this is what some people will, Catholics will refer to as the immaculate conception. Now, many non-Catholics think the immaculate conception is dealing with Jesus' birth, and it is not. It actually has to do with Mary's birth.

They believe that in Mary's birth, she was conceived without a sin nature affecting her, and so she was perfect so she can give birth to perfection. Now, in case you ever come in contact with Catholics and discuss this, let me give you a simple way of arguing that.

I remember being, I was in a Catholic church at this time, and I had all these teenagers that were Catholic missionaries that are talking to me, and I'm evangelizing them, and there's three priests over at the side, and I asked them this question, because this came up, and they said, well, Mary had to be perfect to give birth to perfection in Jesus.

And I said, really? Then what about Mary's mother? And there was a silence, and one kid goes, I've always wondered that. And so the kids start getting nervous, and one kid turns to the other and goes, go talk to the priest over there and ask him.

So he walks over, talks to the priest, and then the priests leave, and the kid comes back. Now, I'm thinking they're either leaving to call the police on me, which they really shouldn't since they invited me in, but they abandoned the kids to me is what they actually did.

And the kid comes back, and all the kids are like, what did they say? What did they say? And the kid goes, they said, we don't know. Because there is no answer to that. See, if Mary had to be perfect to give birth to perfection, then her mother had to be perfect, and so on and so on and so on, you're going to have to go all the way back to Eve.

You see, the real miracle is not Mary being born, because there's nothing special about Mary. Sorry, Catholics. There's something special about Jesus, and I already gave you why Jesus could be born of a woman without having a sin nature.

It's because she didn't have a father. See, Scripture has answers for this, but cultic groups do not. And so when we talk about virgin born, this is all what's meant in the virgin born, is that he was conceived, Jesus conceived in a supernatural way without a human father.

The importance of that is because of the fact that he didn't have the sin nature passed on to him. There was nothing special that we needed about Mary. So Jesus is virgin born. He is God incarnate. Now, we looked at this in detail last episode.

We're going to go into it more here. God incarnate means God becoming a man. As it says in 1 John 1, God became flesh. The Word became flesh. He took on flesh, took on those attributes.

Yeah, incarnate just means in the flesh, is what it means. Like carnal, the idea of flesh, carnal, incarnate, it means in the flesh. So when we talk about God being incarnate, we're talking about God taking upon himself human flesh.

Which is an amazing thing to think about. Like, I don't know about you guys. Have you ever sat and thought about that? Like, how does God take on flesh? I mean, he's a spirit. He took on flesh. Like, it's so hard for our human minds to conceive these things.

But this is where we go back to what Scripture says and say, well, this is what Scripture says. And we accept it, even if our minds can't comprehend it. But let me give you an encouragement with that.

God is greater than our ability to understand. This is one of the things I do with Muslims all the time. I have Muslims that will tell me that the Trinity is wrong. And the reason they say it's wrong is because they can't comprehend it.

How could God die? They can't comprehend it. So one of the things I'll ask with a Muslim early on in a conversation is, is God greater than your ability to understand him? And they always go, yep. Okay.

I tuck that away for the conversation. Then when we get into discussing the Trinity or how God could die on the cross, and they go, that makes no sense. I say, that's right. And that's why we know your religion is a man-made religion and the God of the Bible is not.

Because your religion you can understand. A human mind can understand it. But we've already agreed that the God that exists is greater than our ability to understand. We're not going to understand everything about him, just like the Bible says.

Very good. As we look at it, not just that he became incarnate, but the next part is, and the purpose of the incarnation. So now we know the purpose. Now we're going to get the purpose. What are we saying is the purpose of incarnation?

The purpose of the incarnation was to reveal God, redeem man, and rule over God's kingdom. There's a lot there. Let's start with the reveal God. And we looked at this as well last week. But if you look at Philippians 2, verses 9 all the way down to 11, you're going to see that this is saying that Jesus Christ revealed himself as God.

In verse 6, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. So this is something that we have to recognize. We saw it in Hebrews chapter 1, that he is representing God.

He is the best representation we have of God. When we look at it, Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers, in the prophets, in many portions, in many ways, in these days he has spoken to us in his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the world.

So what we end up seeing is that this is the best representation of God.

That's what Jesus meant when he said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. He wasn't saying that I and the Father are the same person, but rather I and the Father are the same substance. So that all that you could see in the Father, you have seen in me.

His eternal power, his Godhead, his grace, his love, his kindness, his wisdom, his power, his strength, his majesty, his glory. The disciples had seen all of that revealed in human flesh over the course of those three years.

So that everything that they could hope to see in the person, in getting a visible representation of the Father, they could see visibly in Christ. So that if one were to look upon Christ and to gaze upon him, you see everything that there is to see in the Father, if you were able to look at the nature and substance of the Father.

You see it manifested in human flesh. And so that's better than actually looking upon attributes from a distance, as it were. If we were to just gaze upon God and his nature and his character, we would see certain things about, there would be certain aspects of his nature and character which would be invisible to us to the naked eye or to be able to see him.

But to see Christ live that out in human flesh was to see the nature of the Father incarnate, incarnate in the flesh. So that is exactly what Christ did in revealing God to us. He revealed it in a way that could only come in incarnation, through incarnation.

Yeah, I just finished up my devotions going through John. I just finished up John. And what is it that Jesus says when they ask him, show us the Father? He says, have I not been with you so long? What is he saying?

You've seen me, you've seen the Father. You've seen me, you've seen the Father. Because he's saying that you've just seen the essence of the Father. So what he did was he revealed God to man in a way greater than ever before.

In a way that we would never understand before. And so not only did he come to reveal God, but he came to redeem men. You see this in 1 Peter 1. He redeemed us more precious than gold or silver. He did what no man could do.

Why? This gets back to what we looked at last episode, because he's eternal God. Being eternal God, he could pay an eternal fine. Only Jesus, only the God-man can redeem men. This is important. As a man, having never broken the law, he can be a substitute.

As God, being eternal, he can pay an infinite fine. And so he has to be both. Otherwise, we have no salvation. So this becomes important. This is why the incarnation is so important. Because he's God, he becomes a man.

Then he can be that substitute. He can be that sacrifice for us and redeem people. But a third purpose that he has in the incarnation that we argue is to rule over God's kingdom.

Now, we get into the kingdom. Is this where we get to talk about premillennialism and postmillennialism and amillennialism? Or is that later?

Oh, no. We could talk about that now and let folks know the scriptures. I mean, by the time we get done with this, people will look at the end of the statement and realize where I land, right? I'm premillennial, pre-tribulational.

But this is something there's lots of discussion on. And maybe Bud didn't want to stick around. He took some time off because he knew this was going to come up, and he figures, hey, I don't want to, he doesn't want to let his views of end time.

But no, I mean, and we have different, there are differing views. This is the view that we would have. But one thing that all are going to agree to is Jesus Christ is the prophesied Davidic king. Okay?

We all agree on this. That it was prophesied in the Old Testament that there would be a king that would have an eternal kingdom that would live forever, that would be a kingdom forever. And in that, Jesus Christ is the fulfillment.

Now, there's differing views. Some people say he's ruling that kingdom now through the church. There's others, I think the more biblical position. I'm sorry, I just think it is. You could disagree and tell me you think your position is more biblical.

But I think he will rule in a literal way, just as scripture had said, for a thousand years, just as the scripture says in Revelation 20, that he will rule for a kingdom. Now, he is the fulfillment of the Davidic kingdom.

And so he is that king that's eternal. But I do believe that part of the incarnation is also so that he can rule in an earthly way. Now, Jim, I'm going to let you talk about this in a minute, because I know we've actually, on Apologetics Live, you've done one of the podcasts on the Christian podcast community is your sermons from Kootenai Community Church.

You just happen to have an offhanded comment, which is just so funny that your sermons are so rich that your offhanded comments just become something that we got to dig into, study, and research. And we ended up doing a you ended up you and I did a whole two hours on it.

Then Drew from Matter of Theology, another one of our podcasters, he did a show, an hour show, responding to you, and then the two of you got together and did a two-hour Apologetics Live discussing it.

And so there's a lot here. But suffice it to say that I'm going to argue that the incarnation is necessary for Jesus to be that Davidic king to rule in a physical way in a kingdom. And therefore, I would argue, based on that, that the incarnation is necessary for that, and it has to be an earthly human kingdom.

There we go. There we go. Now you can preach. That's exactly right. Because if amillennialism is true, and if postmillennialism is true, then the incarnation is not necessary to their eschatology. It is it's in their eschatology.

I'm not saying that they deny the incarnation, but it's not necessary to the fulfillment of their eschatology. Whereas if there's only one eschatological position that believes that the incarnation is essential for its fulfillment, and that's premillennialism.

Likewise, there's only one eschatology that believes that the resurrection, the bodily resurrection of Christ is essential for its fulfillment, and that's premillennialism. So, if it can be shown that the incarnation and the bodily resurrection of the Messiah are necessary from Scripture for the literal fulfillment of the promises to David, then only premillennialism is true.

And postmillennialism and amillennialism cannot be true. That's going to be the subject of one of my books eventually.

I can't wait to not read that one.

So, Drew Van Ida, man, a great guy, great young man. I got to meet him at G3, which was fantastic, and we finally got to connect, touch base there. A great guy, and just gracious, and even though he and I would disagree on eschatology, we did have a very good measured maybe you can include the links to it in the show notes of this episode, but a very good measured discussion on that very issue, which I think demonstrated how Christians should be able to talk about areas like this where we disagree.

But anyway, yeah, you're exactly right. If the incarnation of Jesus Christ is necessary for the fulfillment of David's promises, then postmillennialism and amillennialism cannot be true. Only premillennialism would require that.

Now, that is, again, not to say that postmillennialists and nonmillennialists deny bodily resurrection. They don't. It's not to say that they don't believe in bodily resurrection. They do. It's not to say that they deny the incarnation.

They don't. And it's not to say that they feel that the incarnation is nonessential to our salvation. They don't believe any of that. But they would have a hard time arguing that these things are essential qualities for the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant, specifically the promises, the sure and certain promises made to David.

Yep. And I think that's, it's an argument, I really think, you know, I focus here in the doctoral statement on the incarnation. Your sermon focused on the resurrection. And I think that that is two very good, strong arguments for premillennialism.

Now, folks, if you disagree with us, the email address is info at striving for eternity dot org. Info at striving for eternity dot org. I'll send them all to Jim and let him know.

Something else that we should point out there, Andrew, is that in your statement it says that the purpose of the incarnation was to reveal God, redeem men, and rule over God's kingdom. That is really three offices of Christ, prophet, priest, and king.

To reveal God is to function as a prophet. To redeem men is to function as a priest. And to rule over God's kingdom is to function as a king. So you've got the threefold office of Christ there in that doctoral statement.

Prophet, priest, and king. A prophet mediates between God and men by revealing God to men. A priest mediates between God and men by functioning on behalf of men in things pertaining to God. Offering sacrifices, prayers, interceding, etc.

Representing men to God. And a king mediates between God and men in ruling over men on behalf of God. And Jesus Christ as the incarnate God-man is able to do all of that. As God is perfectly able to represent God to us, as men He is perfectly able to stand in and represent us before God.

And as the God-man, He is perfectly able to rule over men as men in behalf of God as God. So it is just incredible how all these doctrines now just come to fruition, to fulfillment here in the person of Christ.

You see now why the humanity of Jesus is absolutely necessary. Why the divinity of Jesus is absolutely necessary. Why the combining of these two things into a being whose essence, whose natures in humanity and divinity are indivisible.

But must coexist in the same person at the same time in functioning in all of these ways. His humanity, His human nature, and His divine nature come into that threefold office of prophet, priest, and king.

Which accomplishes the revelation of God, the redemption of men, and the mediation of the ruling on behalf of God over man in the kingdom. So all of it, past, present, future, it all just comes together right there in a perfect package in the person of Christ.

You can see the necessity of all of those doctrines which we've covered so far, as well as the way in which all of them relate to one another and function together in the same person.

And it's because of the Incarnation that only Jesus can do this. Because if you look in the Old Testament, priests and kings are two separate groups. You can't have, in fact, Saul got in trouble for acting like a priest because he can't do that.

Yeah, and there was a prophecy in the Old Testament, I think it's in Zechariah, where it refers to the priest who is king or the king who is priest. And that is that looking forward to the Messiah was the only time that the Jews could ever expect the combining of those two offices.

For the sake of, and because of human depravity, those two offices were kept separate. So as not to be blurred, the last thing you wanted was an average human, a normal sinful human, functioning as both prophet and king.

Sorry, or prophet or priest or king altogether, because then the nature would be blurred. Only the God-man, the perfect sinless God-man who's infinite and perfect, only he could actually function as prophet, priest, and king.

And the same person at the same time without messing up all of those offices. So therefore, in the Old Testament, God kept those separate and distinct so as to not confuse the roles. But in Christ, we see him beautifully performing all of these functions in perfection without ever confusing the roles and the distinctions there in him.