13 - The Ministry of Jesus Christ

Well, welcome back to the Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Systematic Theology. We are so glad to have you with us this week for another lesson in our School of Systematic Theology. We would like to welcome all of our new students that are with us.

We are thankful that you come alongside and help us and support us as those who have enrolled. And for those of you who are enjoying these classes online free of charge, we are glad that you are here.

We hope that you learn a lot. We hope that you will go back on the classes you missed and catch up because as we go through these lessons, they're actually building upon the previous lessons. So it's actually a really good thing to go back and watch them in order.

Finishing the Previous Lesson and Introducing the Ministry of Christ

And you can always do that on the YouTube channel because on the YouTube channel, we actually have them in a playlist and they're in order and you can just mark it to watch the whole playlist in order.

That way if you stop at one point, you just pick right up and keep going. So that's something you can always do. One of the things from last week though, we were talking last week and before we get into this week's lesson, I need to actually finish something up.

And that was last week we talked about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and a little bit about not only His crucifixion, His death and also His resurrection. And we were talking about some of the theories and sometimes people have when they think about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, they have the notion that He was nailed to the cross in the palms of His hand.

And when they talk about it, they think of a nail. And so they think, gee, that doesn't make a very big hole. This was not the nail that they would have used. When you think about Jesus Christ being crucified on a cross and hanging there, don't think of a little nail like this because that's not what they would have used.

They would have used a nail like this. This is what they would have used. Hammered probably in right about there, you know, here would probably rip through, but right about here probably to have Him hang on a cross for three hours.

Hands and feet with something like this. And some people think that He just kind of passed out, woke up, moved a 2 ,000 pound stone and walked away after having something like this, holding Him on a cross.

See, something like this will hold your feet up and hold your hands up. This is meant to hold heavy things. This is what you should think of when you think of the nails that held Jesus Christ on that cross in the crucifixion, all right?

So that was from last week just to finish up. But for this week, I'd like you to get your syllabuses out. Those of you who are enrolled in the Academy, that's one of the benefits of being a student of the Academy.

As a student, you get to get the syllabus. And so in the syllabus, we are in lesson number nine. Lesson number nine. And we are starting off with, in lesson nine, with the ministry of Christ. The ministry of Jesus Christ as He walked this earth, as we see what ministry He has.

The Three-Fold Ministry of Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King

When we look at this, we got done looking at His deity. We got done looking at His humanity and the issues that arise between those two. Now what we want to look at is His ministry. What function, what's the purpose of Jesus Christ coming to earth and what ministry does He fulfill now?

And after examining the person of Jesus Christ through His deity and humanity, it'll be a great encouragement to now study the ministries of Christ. And as we see, a three-fold ministry. And if you're in our Facebook group, you would have already seen, because we already posted about tonight's class, that the three-fold ministry of Jesus Christ is Jesus as a prophet, as a priest, and as a king.

And we're going to talk about these things. And keep in mind that only Jesus Christ could fulfill all three. You can go through your Old Testament and you're going to see many people who acted as a prophet for God.

They spoke for God. We're going to look into what a prophet is in a little bit more detail. We see some like David and Saul and Solomon and many others that were a king for God. So they acted as a king over the nation of Israel.

We see some that were priests, the Levites. Actually, as I'm told, that my family is actually a Levitical family, that I'm from the line of Korah. So we would actually be from the family that would take care of the temple, if there was a temple.

But I don't think they would let me in anymore. Just saying. But anyway, we see that these people had different functions. There were some priests. Those priests were not prophets and they were not kings.

You see that there were some prophets, but they weren't priests and kings. You had some kings. And think about it. There was a king that tried to act like a prophet or a priest and what happened? He got in trouble.

Right? Saul. He tried offering the sacrifice for the people. And what happened? Well, he got the kingdom taken from him. Yikes! God takes it serious because there was only one man in all of history that could fulfill all three, prophet, priest, and king, and that's Jesus Christ.

So let's dive into this today and let's start with Jesus Christ as prophet. Jesus Christ as prophet, okay? And as we look at this, first let's give a little bit of a definition, alright? And if you have your syllabus there, you'll see some blanks and we have a lot of blanks for you to fill in.

So it means some of you are going to have to stop typing in the chat room to actually pay attention in class. Who am I fooling? I know that you're just going to re-watch it on YouTube because I know the chat room.

For those who watch live, if you're not watching live, you actually probably should just watch live just to get in the chat room and see what goes on. I hear about it afterwards. I think they think they're going to distract me and yeah, not going to happen.

I can stay on topic, alright? All you chatters, I'll tell you. But when we discuss Christ's ministry as prophet, we're talking about His work of revealing God to man. So revealing God to man, that is the ministry of the prophet, okay?

The prophet would be the one to declare what the Lord has said and He is going to be the one that's going to get out there and say, thus says the Lord, which is a scary thing. You better be right. When people say it, you know, this is a thing, you want to caution people.

We have some problems in our Christian-ese, you know, that Christian language we use and we don't really mean what we're saying sometimes and sometimes we don't even know what we're saying by the language.

But a lot of people say, well, the Lord said to me, the Lord told me, and then they say such and such. You know, if the Lord is telling you, you're acting as a prophet and you're revealing God to man, that God is telling you something, you better write that down.

That's scripture. I mean, seriously, that's what you're saying, thus says the Lord. And when you say God says something, you have to be 100 accurate. And so there's a lot of people nowadays, they're saying the Lord told them this and the Lord told them that, and yet when you look at what the Lord told them, it doesn't meet up with scripture.

We would call that person a false prophet. Why? Because a true prophet of God had to be 100 accurate. And that's what they did. Let's take a look. You're going to see in your syllabus, Jesus Christ was designated as a prophet in the Old Testament.

And Moses in Deuteronomy 18 verses 15 to 19, that's your blank there. I have that as a blank because I want you to remember where to find this. Deuteronomy 18 verses 15 to 19. Let's read that. I know this is a long one, but it says, and then we're going to look back to the blanks here in your syllabus, but the Lord, your God will raise up for you a prophet like me.

This is Moses speaking. From among you, from your brothers, it is to him you shall listen, just as you desired of the Lord your God at Hebron on the day of the assembly when you said, hear me, 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 will speak to them, and 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. So you see that God is saying that he is going to send a prophet like Moses. So Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 18 verses 15 to 19 predicted that God would raise up a prophet for Israel.

And Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, had confirmed this by Peter when he recorded the fulfillment. And this is in Acts chapter 2, sorry, Acts chapter 3, got that wrong, Acts 3, 22 to 24. So that's your second blank there, Acts 3, 22 to 24.

Let's read that. It says, Moses said, the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.

And all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and those who come after him also proclaimed these days. This is speaking of Jesus Christ. So Jesus, letter A there in your syllabus, was designated in the Old Testament to be a prophet, remembering that a prophet is someone who speaks, who reveals God to man.

He comes and says, thus says the Lord. So this is what the prophet would do. Now let's look a little bit further, we're going to look into, we're going to get into some things that a prophet does that people question in today's day.

But first let's take a look at letter B there, that Jesus Christ was declared as a prophet in the New Testament. And we see this, first he declared himself a prophet in Luke 13, 33, when it says, nevertheless I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.

Now this is Jesus speaking of himself and he calls himself a prophet. Not only did he call himself a prophet, but others called him a prophet. We see that others declared him a prophet such as, if you have in your syllabus, the multitudes, is your first blank there, the multitudes refer to him as a prophet.

We can look at Matthew 21 and verses 46, and although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared, this is speaking of the Pharisees, they feared because they held him as a prophet. So you see, the Pharisees were afraid to arrest Jesus during the Passover because they knew that the multitudes of people held him as a prophet.

Matthew 21, just a few verses earlier in verses 11, it says, so the multitudes said, this is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. So you see that the people looked at Jesus as a prophet. So the multitudes are the first group of people that we see that saw Jesus as a prophet.

Your next blank there is out of Deuteronomy, sorry, is Luke 24, 19, and this, for those of you who are very well good students and have already opened their Bible to Luke 24, 19, you'll see that the second group is the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

And this is, in Luke 24, this is dealing with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and it says, and he said to them what things, and they said to him, so this is, I'll give you the background so we get the context, let's switch back, okay thanks.

So this is Jesus Christ, he's walking with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, they're talking, Jesus hasn't revealed himself yet, and so they're discussing the things, and this now is when Jesus is asking them what are the things that happened that they say are you the only one that hasn't heard.

And so they, and he said to them what things, and they said to him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God and all the people. So we have the multitudes that saw that Jesus Christ was a prophet, well first actually we saw Jesus Christ called himself a prophet, but others called him a prophet, the multitudes, we see the disciples on the road of Emmaus, and next we see in John 4, the woman at the well saw him as a prophet when she, in a conversation with Jesus said, the woman said to him, sir I perceive that you are a prophet.

So you have Jesus declares himself to be a prophet, others declare him to be a prophet, the multitudes, the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, the woman at the well, all declare him to be a prophet. So what exactly is a prophet?

Because if he declares the works of a prophet, what are those works? What is the role, what does a prophet do, and how does this relate to the gift of prophecy that we talk about today? Well, let's look into that.

A prophet in the Old Testament times would have a two-fold purpose. Now they may not always fulfill both of these purposes, Jesus Christ did, but they would always fulfill these, at least partially. The first one in your syllabus, you'll see the first blank there, Jesus foretold.

He foretold, and you can see this in Matthew 24 and 25. This is defined as to tell ahead of time. So Jesus in Matthew 24 and 25 would tell ahead of time things that happen. If you read Matthew 24 and 25, you'll see he's telling things that haven't even happened yet.

They're so far in the future that they were beyond 2 ,000 years from his telling of it. Many of the Old Testament prophets would do that. They would tell something that would happen far in the future, but a lot of times, and this is a thing to understand when it comes to prophecy, many prophets would tell a short-term, a near-term fulfillment, and a long-term fulfillment.

And if I do, actually if I do this, now think of this as a mountain range. You see, you can't see from my hand the distance that I have. You can't see how far, if I go like that, my hand is. You see? And so there would be a near-term fulfillment and a future fulfillment.

See now it's further apart, you didn't notice. Why? Because from this angle, you can't tell. Why do I say that? For this reason, this is actually a principle of interpretation when it comes to interpreting prophecies that we see, especially in the Old Testament when it talks about the New Testament.

What we see is sort of like that mountain range. A prophet would tell something short-term, such as, for example, Daniel. Daniel told of the nation of Babylon and how great it would be, and then he discusses the fact that there would be two kingdoms that would form one kingdom that would take over Babylon, and then he mentions another kingdom, he mentions them by name, Greece.

When Greece was like nothing, it was a small city, people were living there, and then he mentions another kingdom that people really didn't know of, Greece, and so he mentions Greece by name, and then he even mentions the one that would come after that, Rome.

And then he mentions that something far in the future, this future kingdom of Rome. Okay? And so what you see there is you see that you have some prophets that would prophesy near-term and long-term.

Now some would do that with Jesus' first coming and His second coming. That's why I show you this mountain range picture, because this mountain range picture, as I can move my hands, you can't see how much distance there is between my hands, okay?

There could be a short distance, or there could be a big difference, and you can't tell it when you're in the middle of this gap, alright? But from this distance, it looks like the same prophecy. That's sort of a way of understanding the way the Old Testament prophets would prophesy, where they would intermix Old Testament, or near-term prophecies that were fulfilled in Christ's first coming, and prophecies of His second coming.

This is why some of the Jews were so confused, because they of course looked to the prophecy that they were really anxious to look for in Jesus' day, when Jesus would come as the king, the reigning king, and take them out of bondage, because they didn't like being slaves to Rome.

They didn't like being a conquered nation. And so, they looked at the prophecies they kind of wanted to be true first, and they didn't see that there was first the suffering servant prophecies, such as in Isaiah 53.

And so, you have to understand when you look at the Scriptures, and you start interpreting, you have to understand that there is that time frame where there could be a gap between the prophecies, such as Jesus' first and second coming.

And when we see that, to the Old Testament writers, they don't see the time difference all the time. We who are in between the first and second coming, we can see this gap that's between them, because we're in this time frame, right?

So I hope that helps. So, we see that one part of a prophet is to foretell the future, foretell the future, to tell something ahead of time, alright? Another one, another purpose or function of a prophet is to foretell, to foretell.

This is defined as to proclaim the past boldly. And if you look up in Matthew 5 to verses 7, this is the Beatitudes, okay, going on actually the Sermon on the Mount, starts with the Beatitudes, but that is telling something that's already said.

Think about what he says there, you've heard it said of old, but I say unto you, so what is he doing? He's taking the Old Testament that was said, and he's expounding on that, he's explaining that. That was the primary thing that a prophet would do.

And so you see that in Matthew 5 to 7, you also see it in Matthew 23. Now, what is the gift of prophecy? Is it still alive and well today? Well, I would say this. Because we see that there's a two-fold purpose to being a prophet, and there's two-fold, in that two-fold purpose, there's a two-fold ministry of a prophet.

The gift of prophecy could be either one of those. Now, I would say that in today's day and age, what we have primarily is men that stand up and proclaim, who foretell, proclaim what's already been revealed.

They declare boldly the past. These are, you know, a gift that you'd see from a pastor, or maybe an open-air preacher or street preacher. A guy who's willing to get up, because if you think about it, the street preacher is really the closest analogy that we have to the Old Testament prophet.

The guy that would stand up and declare, thus says the Lord, speaking of Old Testament warnings and judgments. Now, some of the prophets would stand in the marketplace or in the temples, and they would boldly proclaim the future.

Now, when they would do that, what would we do? We would write it down, because it's Scripture. Now, if you're willing to say that God gave you a future prophecy, or gave you a prophecy and gave you a word just for you, realize that if God told you something and that doesn't come exactly true, you start trying to hedge on it, you're a false prophet.

You know, we kind of had this recently in America, well, actually, unfortunately, around the world, with some guy on the radio who decided to announce, actually, he first announced in 1994 that Christ was going to return.

And then when Christ didn't return the way he predicted, he first said it would be in September, he then said it would be in October, and then he said, oh, no, no, no, it's just that the church age is over.

It may have something to do with the fact that he was kicked out of his church and disciplined out of his church for things that he decided the church age is over, and that's why everyone should listen to him on the radio.

Could be. Don't know his heart. But what we do know is that most recently he proclaimed that this past summer or so, that the earth was going to, that this was the end, Christ was coming back, and again he said, this is the day.

He then corrected that and said, no, no, no, six months later. Now here's the thing, that man is a false prophet. He said that this is from God. Now here would be a slight difference. He did not say God told him.

He said it was from his study of the Scriptures, but he declared very boldly that this was from God, that the Bible guarantees it. And what he's doing with that is he's then having God as his witness to his false prophecy.

That makes him a false prophet, okay? So you've got to be real careful if you're going to say, thus says the Lord. You better know that God told you and it's not just you wishing it, okay? There's plenty of people who think God told them things and they say, God gave me a word, and then those things don't happen.

I remember 20 years ago having a friend of mine and her mother said she got a word from the Lord that she was going to get a million dollars. Well, she's recently passed away and she never received that million dollars.

That was a false prophecy. God did not tell her that, okay? And it's sad that there are people, and we're going to get off topic here a little bit, but it's because this is so prevalent that there are people who are pulled in by these teachers on the TV, on the radio, that are looking to get money from people and they give these false prophecies and then people end up believing them even when the prophecies don't come to pass.

If somebody says that God told them something and it doesn't come to pass, you should not be following them anymore. You should be warning others about them. And I'll tell you how hard this is for some people.

I recently ended up announcing, because there was a woman who said she was getting words from the Lord, God was talking to her and telling her things, things that are unscriptural. Once she does that, she's now identified herself as a false prophet.

People may learn things from her, but a broken clock is right twice a day. You're not going to trust it to tell time. So even though a false prophet may be right once in a while, once they show themselves to be a false prophet, you must flee.

And the most biblical, loving thing you could do is to warn others about a false prophet. Now there's a difference between when I speak and I say something that's an error, and one of you in class email me or contact me or call me and you say, Pastor Andrew, are you out of your mind?

You're wrong. And you show me the scriptures and I'm like, you know what, you're right, I said something that was wrong. And I correct that. That's different than saying, thus says the Lord. If I say God spoke to me and He said something and that doesn't come to pass, you better flee from me.

You better tell everybody to flee. That would be the biblical thing to do. But sometimes people get so enamorated with these celebrities that they defend them even when those people are wrong. And so we've got to be careful.

All right, moving on, because we're going to end up running late in class and I know you students, you start zoning out if we go a minute after class. And I will say that there were some people that were early to class.

They were in the chat room early, one person for sure that is going to be receiving a reward for being a good student, being on time for class. Let's go to the next. So we see that Jesus Christ was a prophet.

He was not only declared as a prophet, but he was declared as a priest. If you look in your syllabus, he was declared as a priest. When we discuss the priestly ministry of Christ, we are talking about his present ministry of intercession, that's your blank there, ministry of intercession.

As a prophet, he speaks on behalf of God to men. As a priest, he speaks on behalf of men to God. So that would be the difference between a priest and a prophet. One speaks from God down to men, one takes men and represents them up to God.

So let's take a look at this. You can see the priesthood in Leviticus 16, that's that book you kind of skip over in your devotions. You kind of think the Bible goes Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

Leviticus is in there. Check it out. Anyway, Leviticus 16 would describe it, but here we have this, is that we see that a priest, the practice of the high priest, when Jesus is the high priest, he's actually a priest in the order of Melchizedek, where he is the only one that's a priest of that order.

We see that in Genesis 15, the order of Melchizedek. I don't have time to go into that in class, but you can read that. It's a king of Salem who is also a priest, okay, in the order of Melchizedek, a man who, he is Melchizedek, he's a man without father, mother, no genealogy.

Many think, and I believe, that this is a Jesus Christ in his pre-incarnate state showing up with Abraham, all right? That's Genesis 15. This is a real reason this becomes such an issue, is if you know someone that's a Mormon as I do, a friend of mine who I went to college with is a Mormon, and they believe that they become priests, and some of them are priests in the order of Melchizedek.

That's blasphemy. I mean, you are saying that you're in the order that only Jesus Christ, God Almighty, is. I don't want to be you on judgment day, please repent, repent. God can still forgive you, even of that, all right?

But the practice of the high priest, as you see in your syllabus, he had access to God. This, you might not think this is, I mean, as Christians, brothers and sisters, we can go into the throne room of God anytime, day or night.

We can sit there and just pray to God. We have this open access. That's not the case in a Jewish mindset of that time. Remember, think of the temple. The temple was a bunch of restrictions. You had the outermost court that was open to Gentiles.

You had an inner court then where the Gentiles were no longer allowed, only Jewish people were allowed, and it was known as the court of the women. Then you go into the inner part where now the women weren't allowed, and by the way, there was no distinction in the Old Testament between the Gentiles and the women, okay?

There was the temple. So, you know, men kind of just like to segregate, but it shows that even in their mindset, though, of the separation they had. Gentiles are out here. So if they believed in God fears, they believed in God, but they weren't Jewish, they had their court.

If they were women, they had their court. Kind of tells you what the Jewish mindset was for women. Yeah, Christ was a liberator of women. Some people in the women's lib movement need to understand that.

But anyway, so you have the court of the women. Then you had the temple. But in the temple where God did declare, you have this area where the Jewish people could come, but then there's an area that only the priests could come.

And within there, there was an area where only the high priest could come once a year. That was the holy of holies. So within the temple you had the holy place where the priests could come, and then you had the holy of holies, which was a place only for the high priest and once a year.

They actually used to tie a rope to the priest's leg and have bells on him in case he died in there so they could pull him out, because no one was allowed to go in but the high priest. Okay? That shows the separation.

This was why when Jesus Christ died on that cross, when He died, if you remember in your New Testament, what happened? The veil between the holy of holies and that holy place was ripped top to bottom.

Why is that important? Because it was God doing the ripping. He was opening the veil of separation between Him and men. Because there was now a man who was going to reveal God, who was going to be this high priest that was going to give us access to God.

That was the role of a priest. The priest would give you access to God. This is sort of what Roman Catholicism teaches, right? They have their priests and you've got to go to a priest to go to God. They're not in the biblical role because we don't need them anymore.

The veil was ripped. We can go directly to Jesus Christ. We don't need Mary. We don't need any man. There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. He is the one that gives us access to God because He is God.

As man, as God, He can be both prophet and priest. So not only does the high priest give us access to God and Jesus in the ultimate way, but number two there, you see, He acts on behalf of the people.

He acts on behalf of the people. The high priest would do a sin offering, an atonement offering on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, and He would give a sacrifice for the people. And that would be for the atonement of the sins.

Jesus Christ was that Lamb. He killed Himself and He put Himself on that cross, ultimately. He allowed His life. He decided when He would die. He rose Himself from the dead to vindicate everything He said, but He became that sacrifice to act on behalf of the people.

He was the fulfillment of that role, okay? So the picture of the high priest, and you can see this in Hebrews 3, 4, you'll see that the priesthood instituted by Aaron and illustrated through Melchizedek clearly pictured the future ministry of Christ as priest.

We also see the presence of a great high priest, and Hebrews emphasizes this, in the priestly presence ministry of Jesus, declaring Him that great and sympathetic high priest. Hebrews 4, 14, Hebrews 5, 1 -10, Hebrews 7, 26, and other places, Jesus Christ is declared that great high priest or the sympathetic high priest, okay?

So we see that Jesus Christ fulfills a role that no one else in history has done, being both prophet and priest. So He's prophet, okay? He's priest, and He's also King. Jesus Christ as King. And this is His present ministry, but also His future ministry.

Christ the King, the Son of Man, and the Coming Kingdom

When discussing the ministry of Jesus Christ as King, we learn of the reality of His dominion and authority, or His sovereignty, and that's the blank there, His sovereignty. Alright? So we see here that this is emphasizing His kingship, emphasizing His sovereignty.

Alright? He is the King. He is the authority. He is the one that has the right to declare what is going to be happening. Why? Because He is King. You know, in America and in some of the other places around the world, we don't really understand the notion of kingship because we don't live under a king.

And so we don't understand what it means to have a dictator who just, He declares and His Word is law. The difference is with Jesus Christ, He's the creator of the universe. His Word really is law. When He declares it, that's it.

There is no higher authority you can appeal to. So we see in the Old Testament, the Messiah was presented as one who would rule His people. We could see that in a passage familiar to many of us in Isaiah chapter 9, Isaiah 9 -6.

For a child has been born for us, a son given, and a son given to us. Authority rests upon His shoulders and His name, now look at the name. His name will be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

So He was declared this Prince of Peace, which is a description of Him as a future king. But let's be more specific and let's turn to Daniel chapter 7. Daniel 7, and you look here in these verses. I saw in the night's vision, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there comes one like a son of man.

So this is speaking of Jesus, future speaking of Jesus in the prophecy. And He will come to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him, and to Him was given the dominion. See the dominion, and glory, and a kingdom that all peoples and nations shall serve Him.

His kingdom is an everlasting domain which shall not pass away, His kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. So you see this is speaking of this future kingdom. So every time Jesus Christ called Himself the Son of Man, yeah that's also a reference to Him being this king that was going to reign forever.

How does someone reign forever? Well they have to be eternal. Okay, He was promising to be this special king. We see this in the New Testament, let's look in the New Testament. And we see that in the New Testament in, let's just go to Matthew 2 verses 1 -6.

You know what, let's not if that's alright. Okay, thanks. Look up on your own Matthew 2, the first six verses. But you're going to see here that Christ as king at His first coming is the revealing, and that's your blank there, the revealing of Christ as king.