Jesus as Prophet
Several world religions recognize Jesus as a prophet and that’s appropriate because the Bible makes it clear that, indeed, He is a prophet. That’s one of the ways that God reveal Him to us. In Acts 3:22, Peter names Jesus as the fulfilment of Moses’ prophecy when he said, ‘The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you.’
In John 6 we read of the response of those who had witnessed the feeding of the 5,000. They “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”
In Luke 4, Jesus referred to Himself as a prophet. In the account, the local people were surprised and offended at what Jesus was teaching in the synagogue of Nazareth. Toward the end of the exchange, Jesus said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.” Shortly after which they dragged Him out of town with murder on their minds.
Other passages also make it clear that Jesus was a prophet. In light of this, we have to ask ourselves how knowing this might deepen our understanding of Him. To answer that question, it would be a good idea to consider what the role of a prophet is.
Dictionaries generally agree that the central idea associated with the word “prophet” is that this person speaks directly for God. There have been many self-identified false prophets through the years. On occasion, God has touched an individual and given him or her a message to deliver directly to a specific group of people.
Every time God has done that, the delivery of the message is associated with an opportunity for the specific audience to respond. If they respond positively, God’s blessing ensues. If they respond negatively, or even ignore the message, God’s judgment falls. For a positive example we can turn to the occasion when the people of Nineveh accepted the prophet Jonah’s message and turned away from their sin, they were spared the immediate judgement of God. For a negative one we can think of how God’s ancient people of Judah ignored repeated prophetic warnings until God finally sent judgment in the form of the Babylonians who carried them off into captivity.
The key idea associated with the role of the prophet is response. When a prophet declares his message, he is looking for a positive response to it. Mere acknowledgement of the message, even acknowledgement that the message is a divine one, is not enough. A discussion of the character of the prophet or interaction on the fairness of the message will not do. Only a positive response matters.
This is what we need to keep in mind as we consider Jesus in the role of Prophet. Christians see Him as the ultimate message from God, so in a sense He was not just the messenger, but the message itself. But as the messenger, the prophet of God, He delivered a message to humanity that demands a response.
On one hand, if you look at the life of Jesus, you would observe that it would take a long time to adequately consider what God was communicating to us through Him. On the other hand, the message can also be summed up completely and precisely with great economy of words. At its core, the message that Jesus delivered to us was very much like the message that every other prophet had ever proclaimed. Boiled down to its essence it is “Respond positively to God.”
Both Jesus life and teaching were devoted to amplifying that basic message so that we would know what it looks like. Responding positively to God involves turning away from sin, acknowledging the death of Jesus as payment for our sin, living righteously, showing mercy, in short, being as much like God, Himself, as we can be while still clothed in our mortal bodies.
When we think of Jesus as Prophet, the key to understanding how this should affect our life, is in the idea of response, specifically positive response. His teaching and His life call us to abandon ourselves and embrace God.
Ron Hughes
© August 2006
