이 정석 교수의 신학 문답 Q&A

1. Three Offices of Jesus Christ

 

(i) To study three offices munus triplex of Christ officium Christi has been regarded as a fruitful and biblical method to understand the work of Christ. His three offices are three major categories of His work reported in the Bible. John Calvin, its major proponent, said that “in order that faith may find a firm basis for salvation in Christ, and thus rest in him, this principle must be laid down: the office enjoined upon Christ by the Father consists of three parts. For he was given to be prophet, king and priest.”(Inst, II.xv.1)

 

(ii) This concept is based on the comprehensive title of Jesus, i.e., Christus meaning the Anointed, or the Appointed officially by God, for in the theocratic society of Israel three offices had been anointed and appointed for the people of God, i.e., king, priest and prophet. In Jn 4.18-21, Jesus declared the fulfillment of Is 61 which prophesied the coming of the Anointed. Jesus as the Anointed performed all of three offices with the perfect achievement. Otto Weber pointed out its important implication that “Christ does not act on his own authority. He has a commission.” Therefore, His work confirms to be official both for the Father and His people, not accidental or arbitrary, and also representative for the community of God. It differentiates Him from all the human self-proclaimed saviors. He is totally the Obedient to the commission of the Father.

 

(iii) The work of Christ cannot be separated into three independent offices like the humans anointed. So, some prefer to state one threefold office rather than three offices. The unity of three offices grounds on the unity of His person, as His person and His work are inseparably related. His incarnation to be true God and true man vere Deus vere homo made His work of atonement possible. The impersonal separation of three offices results in the misunderstanding of Christ, as Berkouwer warned.

 

(iv) This understanding of Christ has a significant benefit for the Churches and Christians to appreciate the comprehensive work for them and follow Jesus in a balanced and abundant way. For all the Churches and Christians who confess and recognize Jesus Christ as their Head and Lord have obligation to continue His work, not their own work, it will serve as a guideline as well as awakening for them.

 

 

2. The Prophetic Office of Jesus Christ

 

(1)   Jesus Christ as the Perfect Prophet

 

(i) In Acts 3.17-26, Peter preached that Jesus Christ was the realization of the prophecy given to Moses in Deut 18.59: “…the Christ, who has been appointed for you--even Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. For Moses said, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from among his people.” It means that Jesus is the eschatological and perfect Prophet. The Father appeared both in the baptism and transformation of Jesus and confirmed it, saying that “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”(Mt 17.5)

 

(ii) Jesus had a strong self-consciousness that He was a prophet, when He said that “Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward”(Mt 10.41a), “Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”(Mt 13.57), “In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day--for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!”(Lk 13.33) Even though they are indirect statements, His self-identity as a prophet is undoubtedly clear. When Jesus pointed out the self-contradictory and hypocritical behavior of the Jews to the true prophets in Mt 23.29-39, it implies their murder of the True Prophet, i.e., Himself. Also, He was called Rabbi and recognized as a prophet by the contemporary Jews(Mt 21.11, 46, Lk 7.16, 24.19, Jn 3.2, 4.19, 6.14, 7.40, 9.17).

 

(iii) As a true prophet, Jesus said only what the Father committed him to speak: “I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.”(Jn 8.28), “I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.”(Jn 12.49)

 

(iv) For all the prophets of the Old Testament focused their prophecy on the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all the prophecy. Therefore, now no prophet is needed any longer: “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.”(Heb 1.1-2) _And Christ as the Word and Wisdom of God was behind them and it was He who prophesized through them(1Pet 1.11). For Christ is the Word who speaks word, He is the Perfect Prophet. All other prophets as His shadowy type had to receive words from God to speak, but Jesus was different for He is the Word of God. Even though He also received from God, it means the perfect agreement with the Father because of the Trinitarian perichoresis: “The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.”(Jn 14.10) Jesus was the holistic prophet of word and deed, speaking through His life and teaching. The separation between word and person/life was overcome by Him. So, His formula of speaking was different from other prophets who began with the phrase “God says”. Rather, Jesus began with the phrase like “I say”. Jesus declared that “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”(Jn 14.6) and “the Light of the world”(Mt 4.16, Jn 1.4-9, 8.12, 9.5, 12.35-36, 46).

 

(1)   The Work of Prophet

 

(i) In the Old Testament, prophet and priest functioned as two pillars of religious life. As seen in 1Sam 9:9, “Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, "Come, let us go to the seer," because the prophet of today used to be called a seer,” prophet is a relatively later development. Seer <ha,ro>, derived from <ha'r'> meaning to see, who received revelations from God in the form of visions was followed by prophet <aybin'>, meaning spokesman or speaker, who delivered message of God to the people. In the New Testament, as Christ finalized prophecy by its full revelation, no prophet was needed. Therefore, prophet profhthj now means to speak forth rather than speak beforehand. The fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy in the coming of the Holy Spirit empowered all the saints to be prophet.

 

(ii) The duty of prophet was to reveal the will of God to the people in the form of instruction, admonition and exhortation, glorious promises, or stern rebukes. Leon Morris listed seven characteristics of true prophet: the divine calling, historical consciousness, social ethical concern, political criticism, symbolical and liturgical expression, mediation between God and people, and prophetic proclamation. Therefore, it was a dangerous calling, so often suffered imprisonment and even death. Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled the functions of prophet and condemned to death because He spoke the truth.

 

(iii) Christ and His Church forms the total Christ totus Christus, and He continues to function as the Prophet through His bodily Church with the help of the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Truth. So, when the Church obeys to her Head and Lord, she becomes active in the prophetic function, speaking in preaching and teaching to the saints as well as witnessing in evangelism and missions. Also, the prophetic task includes her courageous voice of love to the unjust and sinful world, i.e., political participation, economic welfare, cultural criticism etc.

 

(2)   The False Prophet

 

(i) As a prophet was called by God privately and Satan counteracted with the similar form, there have existed many false prophets inside and outside of the Jewish religion. While prophetic ecstasy and professionalism were the major signs of false prophets in general, the Old Testament teaches some clear standards to distinguish false prophet from true prophet in Deut 13, Jer 23 and Ezek 13: leading to spiritual idolatries, moral evildoing, speaking out of one’s own imagination and thinking, and prophecy of unconditional peace.

 

(ii) In the New Testament, as the Kingdom advances, Satan raises more false prophets in order to destroy the Church. So, the eschatological appearance of false prophet is prophesized with warning. False prophets may be recognized by their fruits, i.e., their life and practice rather than power or word(Mt 7.15-29). Jesus warned that “many false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect,”(Mt 24.24) promoting egoistic natural and mystical religion to lead away from the cross-bearing for the Kingdom. And, false prophets and false teachers “will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up.”(2Pet 2.1-3a) For they are performing by the power of some spirits, it is commanded to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.”(1Jn 4.1-3) The denial of the divinity of Christ and His incarnation is a sure sign of false prophet. Another test is the subjection to the control of fellow-prophets and most of all to apostles(1Cor 14.29-33, 36-38). As the Old Testament prophets subjected to Moses, the New Testament prophets should subject to the Apostles.

 

 

3. The Kingly Office of Jesus Christ

 

(1)    Jesus Christ as the King

 

(i) In the Old Testament, the Messiah was prophesized to come as the king (Num 24.17, 1Sam 7.16, Ps 2.6, 45, 72, 110, Is 9.6-7, Dan 7.13-14, Mic 5.2, Zech 9.9): “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.” Angel said that the prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus: “The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”(Lk 1.32-33) He was regarded as a seed of David in genealogy and born in Bethlehem.

 

(ii) Jesus had a strong self-consciousness that He is the king. His coming for liberation was the inauguration of the Kingdom, as He is the King (Mt 4.17. 23, 12.28 et al). Since He came as the King of the Jew, Jesus was persecuted even when he was a baby and executed by the Roman official. To the question of Pilate, Jesus made it clear that He is the King, though His kingship was differentiated from an earthly king, which He rejected to be (Jn 18.36, 6.15). In the Palm Sunday, Jesus entered to Jerusalem as a humble king. However, Christ was not an ordinary king, but “the King of kings”(Rev 19.16).

 

(2)    The Work of King

 

(i) The kingship of Christ is classified as regnum potentiae, i.e., rule by power over the universe and regnum gratiae, i.e., rule by grace over His bodily Church. His mediatorial kingship regnum mediatorium was bestowed by God as He accomplished the redemption and reconciliation. As the Head kefalh of the Church, Christ is the Ruling King basileuj of the Church (1Cor 11.3, Eph 1.22, 4.15, 5.2, Col 1.18, 2.19). His rule as God regnum Dei is subservient to His rule as Christ regnum Christi.

 

(ii) His mediatorial kingship was an extraordinary gift of God as the exaltation of His Son upon the perfect obedient fulfillment of the redemptive mission: “God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”(Eph 1.23) His full kingship which require the subjection of all will be accomplished at His parousia: “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”(Phil 2.9-11)

 

(3)    The Kingdom of God

 

(i) The teaching of Jesus is centered on the Kingdom of God basileia tou qeou, as He said that “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God…, because that is why I was sent.” (Lk 4.43) Even in the forty days after resurrection, it is reported that He taught about the Kingdom of God (Acts 1.3). Nobody but the regenerated can enter to the Kingdom(Jn 3.3, 5). It is neither external nor earthly, but spiritual and heavenly. So, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven basileia twn ouranwn are interchangeably used in the Gospels. It rules the heart of the people who accept the rule of God with “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”(Rom 14.17) As Jesus replied to the Pharisees, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you”(Lk 17.20-21), it is invisible and spiritual.

 

(ii) However, the Kingdom is organized with its citizens and soldiers, and its citizenship is co-extensive with the membership in the invisible Church. Both as the Head of the Church and the King of the Kingdom, Christ gathers, governs, protects and perfects His Church, which is “the most important, and the only divinely instituted, external organization of the Kingdom”, though the Kingdom is wider than the Church in their field of operation. The Kingdom controls all the realms of life. Therefore, the Church must serve for the progress of the Kingdom, not against it.

 

(iii) The earthly king and kingdom as autonomous sovereignty violates the Kingdom of God. When the Jewish people asked to have a king like one of neighboring countries, God understood it as their rejection of the divine kingship: “it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king”(1Sam 8.7). While God recognizes and authorizes king, his humble subjection to God as his King is strongly demanded(Deut 17.14-20). The visual prophecy in Dan 2 reveals the destiny of earthly empires such as Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome that they will be destroyed and replaced by the eternal Kingdom of Christ. It is ever growing and expanding like a living stone, mustard seed or leaven in the dough.

 

Dan 2.36-44

This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king. You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; in your hands he has placed mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold. After you, another kingdom will rise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron--for iron breaks and smashes everything--and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay. In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.[While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them… But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth, 34-35.]

 

In this context, all the collective egoism like nationalism, imperialism or colonialism are destined to be destroyed by the Kingdom of God, for they attempt to prevent and replace it.

 

(iv) The Kingdom of God was revolted by Satan and humanity united in the Fall but restored by the redemption and liberation of Christ. Therefore, the Kingdom penetrates and sanctifies all which was affected and polluted by sin in the way to recognize the ownership and sovereignty of God. All the walls of division and discrimination will be overcome by the effect of redemption and everything in the universe will be united in Christ. Sin divides but redemption unites again. Barth called Gal 3.28 “the Magna Carta of humanity”: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Any discrimination by race, people, nation, gender, class, wealth, power, knowledge, body etc must be terminated in the uniting Holy Spirit, and the Church has obligation to be instrumental for it, not against it. For it, the Church itself must achieve oneness (Jn 17.20-23, Eph 4.1-6, 1Cor 1.10-13). Our participation in His kingship is possible by the merit of its restoration by Christ, i.e., the original endowment in Eden. Christ shares His kingdom with us: “I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me.”(Lk 22.29)

 

Eph 1.9-10, 2.14-26

And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

 

 

4. The Priestly Office of Jesus Christ

 

(1)   Jesus Christ as the Great High Priest

 

(i) As it is pointed out in Heb 10.11, “Day after day every priest stands and performs

 his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.” Christ is the fulfillment of all the prophets in the Old Testament, for “Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all evfa,pax when he offered himself.”(Heb 7.27). So, He is called the Great High Priest avrciereuj me,gaj (Heb 4.14), Eternal Priest(7.21), Permanent Priest(7.24) and Perfect Priest(7.28).

 

(ii) The priesthood of Christ is “one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron”(Heb 7.11), as prophesied in Ps 110.4. The inherited priesthood of Aaron (Ex 28.1, 29.9, 40.15) was continued until the times of Jesus, though it was limited as the order of Zadok by Solomon(1King 1-2). High priest was elected every year among priests for the task of annual sacrifice of atonement in the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. However, because Levitical priesthood was imperfect and incapable for eternal atonement, another special order of priesthood had to be introduced(Heb 7.11). Christ was anointed as eternal priest in heaven by God Himself with oath(Heb 7.20-21).

 

(2)   The Work of Priest

 

Priest was appointed to offer the gift and sacrifice for the atonement of sin: “In this way the priest will make atonement for him before the Lord, and he will be forgiven for any of these things he did that made him guilty.”(Lev 6.7) Christ came to the word as the Lamb to be sacrificed for the sins of human race, and He was the priest to sacrifice Himself as the perfect and acceptable offering to God. Even after the perfect sacrifice finished once for all, He continues the priestly work of mediation and intercession between God and His people. In the heaven, He intercedes for us as the Perfector of our salvation(1Jn 2.1, Heb 7.25).

 

(3)    The Priesthood of All Believers

 

(i) Against the Roman clericalism, Martin Luther insisted the priesthood of all believers allgemeinen Priestertums that prayer and worship is not limited to clergy but open to all believers, as Christ is the only Mediator between God and us. The children of God has “a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”(1Pet 2.5) and “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”(Heb 4.16) Over-dependence to clergy and lack of direct communication is a regrettable denial of our right and duty as the children of God the Father.

 

(ii) The baptism of the Holy Spirit functions the anointing of believer as a priest. Therefore, it is our duty to offer sacrifice in several ways. Following Jesus, sacrifice of self is demanded continuously(Rom 12.1). Sanctification is a continuous self-sacrifice, i.e., self-mortification and self-denial. It may be expressed in the sacrifice of worship, prayer, thanksgiving and hymn. Service of love for neighbors is another priestly task, for it involves self-sacrifice. Also, evangelism and mission is “the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.”(Rom 15.16) The forgiveness of sins for our neighbor including enemy is enabled for us as right as well as duty.