Jesus: God's Supreme Revelation

While we often think of Christ as a priest or king, we do not usually picture Him in the role of prophet. Josephus considered Daniel to be "the greatest of all the prophets," but Josephus was wrong. Christ is "the greatest of all the prophets"!

Elbio Pereyra is an associate secretary of the E. G. White Estate, Washington, D.C.

The first three verses of the book of Hebrews constitute a magnificent and well-fitted introduction for such a Christ-centered book. "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power" (R.S.V.).

The basic thought is that God spoke; He did not keep silent. He revealed Himself, and He revealed all things necessary for human salvation. He spoke by the Son. This unique Son of God is presented as having six impressive characteristics: (1) He is heir of a final, universal destiny; (2) He is Creator, the agent in bringing all things into being; (3) He is divine, like God the Father, reflecting His glory; (4) His nature is divine; (5) He governs, guides, preserves, and controls what He created; and (6) He is Redeemer. The last point suggests His priesthood, mediatorial work, and final exaltation. Think what would happen to us poor sinners if God had not spoken as He did, if Christ had not come to earth as He did, if Christ had not spoken and revealed God as He did!

The text suggests that there was a divine revelation "of old," and that there is also a revelation "in these last days," by which the author means the very days in which he was living.

The revelation "of old to our fathers" was fragmentary. The Greek gives the idea of a partial, given-in-portions revelation that was bestowed bit by bit as needed and as the recipients were able to receive it. The Scriptures themselves demonstrate that this is what happened. Genesis 1:28-30 constitutes the first recorded fragment of revelation or divine communication by God to man. It consists of a blessing and certain commandments given to our first parents. In the next four books of Moses (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) the expression "God spoke to Moses," or similar words, appears approximately 180 times. Exodus and Numbers have some 70 percent of the total of such references. Deuteronomy, because it is a repetition of previous materials, has about 7 percent. The book of Jeremiah contains the expression "Thus saith the Lord" more than four hundred times. Therefore, it is certainly true that God has spoken many times, or in many portions in the past.

However, God spoke not only at different times but also in "various ways" (or "divers manners," according to the K.J.V.). This suggests that God speaks not only when He wants, what He wants, and through whom He wants, but the way He wants.

At times He spoke personally, face to face, through voices from heaven. The Bible records such theophanies or appearances of God. He also spoke through His creative works and His many acts in history. Sometimes He spoke through objective elements, as in Jeremiah 18. He made use of Urim and Thummim, visions, dreams, psalms, parables, laws and rituals, ceremonies, types and symbols, and even through the providences and circumstances of life. Musicians were inspired by God when interpreting melodies played by different musical instruments, as in the cases of Asaph, Jeduthun, Heman, and even David (see 1 Chron. 16:37-42; 25:1-6; 2Chron. 35:15).

But the most common way that God spoke was through prophets and prophetesses. Abraham was the first individual that God Himself called a prophet. He was the first to receive visions from God and also the first of whom it is said that "the word of the Lord came unto ..." (Gen. 15:1; 20:7). One hundred prophets that were contemporary with Ahab, Jezebel, and Elijah are mentioned in 1 Kings 18. Prophets are mentioned twenty-six times in 2 Chronicles, with twenty names specifically given in addition to the unidentified "seers," "messengers," and "men of God." If we had lived in Palestine at that time, we might have lived next door to a prophet or been related to one! The word "prophet" appears thirty-one times in Acts and fourteen in the writings of Paul. The verb "prophesy" is used thirty-eight times in Acts and eleven in the writings of Paul, most of them in Corinthians.

Prophets were not only spokesmen for God; in a sense, they were mediators between God and men. When a true prophet speaks through inspiration, by the Lord, it is God who speaks. This is what the Thessalonians believed about Paul's words and what Paul himself believed (I Thess. 2:13).

But following these fragmentary and varied revelations of God, when the time was ripe, this world became the object of a new revelation. Not a spoken or written word, but a "living Word," the Son of God Himself. The coming of Jesus introduced the Messianic kingdom, and the Messianic kingdom is the beginning of the end, the consummation of human history as it is under the dominion of sin.

The author of Hebrews used an expression variously translated as: "in the last days"; "in this final age"; "now at the end of the present age," Similar terms appear also in Peter and Jude's writings (1 Peter 1:20; 2 Peter 3:3; Jude 18). The author of Hebrews contrasts the old, fragmentary, portion-by-portion revelation with the new revelation by the Son. The new is more comprehensive; it is original, more effectual, authoritative, and inerrant. Luther, who did not hold to the inerrancy of the Bible, once said that Jesus is the essential Word of God, that He only has no error. God the Father Himself announced: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him" (Matt. 17:5). It is significant that these words were spoken when Jesus was talking with two prophets, Moses and Elijah.

Jesus is the greatest of the prophets. In fact, the word "prophet," as applied to Jesus, means much more than what is implied generally in the word. He is the prophet, the best interpreter of Divinity, the supreme revelation of God, the final revelation, not in point of time, but in quality.

He is the true prophet of God, the best spokesman, interpreter, and mediator between God and man. All other prophets, even the prophets who came after Jesus, were only a shadow of the greatest of the prophets. Jesus is the true antitypical prophet foreshadowed in the Old Testament prophetic institution—the PROPHET in capital letters and par excellence.

Many humble, uneducated, but Spirit-illuminated people recognized His prophetic office. Herod the king thought that Jesus was John the Baptist risen from the dead, but the people, with clearer insight, declared that He was a prophet (Mark 6:15, 16). After Jesus performed the resurrection at Nain, the people reacted by saying: "A great prophet is risen up among us." "God hath visited His people" (Luke 7:16). On the Sunday that Christ was resurrected, Cleopas and his companion told the Master what had happened to "Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people" (chap. 24:19). The woman at the well declared with conviction: "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet" (John 4:19). When Jesus multiplied the fish and bread in Galilee, the people said: "This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world" (chap. 6:14). On "the great day of the feast," in Jerusalem, many people said: "Of a truth this is the Prophet" and "This is the Christ" (chap. 7:37, 40, 41). And the blind man, when requested by the Pharisees to tell what his position was regarding Jesus, firmly answered: "He is a prophet" (chap. 9:17).

The ordinary people repeatedly expressed their conviction that Jesus was a prophet, but the scribes, priests, leaders, and theologians of the day did not recognize Jesus as the prophet because of their maneuvering for power and earthly authority. What a tragedy for leadership! The common people of the streets, unlearned fishermen, "sinners," a woman of objectionable and dubious behavior, a blind man—all these recognized Christ as the prophet. But the leaders accused Him of being in league with the prince of devils! What a paradox!

The author of Hebrews does not identify himself. Apparently he has no concern for acknowledgment or self-identification. He moves immediately to his subject: Jesus! His prophetic superiority is the first contrast presented in the book of Hebrews.

Jesus is superior to all the prophets, even to the great Moses (chapter 3). He is superior to the angels, even the most glorious of them (chapters 1 and 2). He is greater than Aaron, the first and great high priest. His priesthood is much better (chapters 7 and 8). His sanctuary, unlike the Old Testament shadow, is the very reality in heaven (chapter 9).

Josephus, the Jewish historian, called Daniel "the greatest of all the prophets," and that phrase has been used for the title of a book on Daniel. But I suggest that Josephus was wrong. Daniel is not "the greatest of all the prophets." Jesus is! The common people, the Samaritan woman, the blind man, the fisherman, the "sinners," were right. Jesus is the Prophet par excellence.

At Sinai the need for a mediator between God and man was manifested. It was there that God Himself announced the Incarnation in a most marvelous promise and prophecy. In recounting the events of Sinai, Moses later reminded the people, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed—just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb [Sinai] on the day of the assembly, when you said, '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 have rightly said all that they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him'" (Deut. 18:15-18, R.S.V.). It was this Prophet that the common people of Jesus' day identified with the Nazareth carpenter.

At Sinai there were thunders, lightnings, and noise of trumpets. The mountain was smoking and in flames, covered by thick clouds. Moses spoke, and God answered audibly. The reaction of the people was: "Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die" (Ex. 20:19). It was then and there that Jesus the Prophet and Mediator was announced. What a contrast between Sinai and the mount on which Jesus gave His memorable sermon! No boundaries were set, no thunders, lightnings, frightened people, or distance between God and men. Man had free, unrestricted access to God through the revelation of His Son.

God designed human beings to learn, to trust, and to obey. To learn, we need a teacher; to trust, we need a friend; to obey, we need a leader. And God provided us with all three. Jesus is the great Teacher, the Prophet who rightly interpreted God. Moses is the model. Jesus is the great Friend of all mankind, the true Priest who introduces them to God and represents them before God. Aaron is the model. Jesus is the great Leader, the King. David is the model. Thus in Jesus we have the supreme revelation of God—Prophet and Teacher, Priest and Friend, King and Leader. All three in one!

He is the Prophet who reveals God as nobody else can, the Priest who mediates before God as nobody else can, and the King who leads and guides us as nobody else can. In Old Testament times prophets, priests, and kings were anointed for their tasks. So in Christ we have the anointed One par excellence. And more than that: He is God. He not only established a kingdom; He established a kingdom within us. He is the ideal Teacher, Friend, and Leader—and our marvelous God. All this is only a part of the incomparable revelation of God designed to save us to the uttermost.

In Acts 3:23 Peter quotes what God the Father Himself had said through Moses about this unique prophet to come: "And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people." Thanks be to God! Because we have the Son, we are not to be destroyed. As John has expressed it, "He that hath the Son hath life." And if we have life through the Son, we shall keep listening to God by means of Jesus. God declared on the Mount of Transfiguration, "Hear Him."

How good it is that God spoke and that He spoke by the Son! How good it is to listen, to learn, to trust, to follow this kind of spokesman, "the greatest of all the prophets," the supreme revelation of God.

* Scripture quotations marked R.S.V. are from
the Revised Standard Version of the Bible,
copyrighted 1946, 1952 © 1971, 1973.

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Elbio Pereyra is an associate secretary of the E. G. White Estate, Washington, D.C.

September 1983

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