LECTURE XXI.

What offices doth Christ execute as our Redeemer?
How doth Christ execute the office of a Prophet?

YOUR attention will be occupied in this lecture, by two answers of our catechism-The first is "Christ, as our Redeemer, executeth the office of a prophet, of a priest, and of a king, both in his estate of humiliation and exaltation."

This answer is chiefly to be regarded as introductory and preparatory, to the three which immediately follow it, in which the offices of Christ are distinctly and particularly explained. There are however some things, of a general nature, which may, with more propriety and advantage, be considered here than elsewhere.

You will observe then, in the first place, that it is in his mediatorial character, that our Lord Jesus Christ is to be considered as exercising all the offices which have been specified. The mediatory office of Christ may be considered as a general one, which he always and invariably sustains, and of which the others are only particular and constituent parts; that is, the office of mediator is never laid aside or suspended, but is always exercised by our Redeemer, when he acts as prophet, priest and king of his church.-"There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus."

Observe in the next place, that there is a clear foundation for these several offices of the great Mediator, both in the scriptures and in the reason and nature of things. This has sometimes been denied, and even treated with contempt; as if to speak of Christ as the prophet, priest, and king of his church, was no better than theological jargon. Nothing however can be farther from the truth than this. Christ was expressly predicted to the ancient Israelites under each of these characters; and he actually sustains them in the work of our

salvation. Moses foretold the coming of our Lord, under the character of a prophet.-"The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet, from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me: unto him shall ye hearken." Accordingly our Saviour was recognised as being he of whom Moses spake. When the people had seen one of his miracles, they said "This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world:" and Peter, in the Acts, expressly applies the prediction of Moses to Christ.

Our Lord is also distinctly predicted as a priest, in the 110th Psalm-"The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, thou art a priest forever, after the order of Melchisedeck." This prediction is quoted and applied to Christ by the author of the epistle to the Hebrews; and a considerable part of that epistle is employed, for the very purpose of showing in what a superior manner our Lord sustained and performed the office of a priest.

Again. In the 2d psalm, which is a continued prediction of the Messiah and his acts, Christ is represented as the anointed and reigning king of Zion-"I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion." Under this character the Messiah was, and indeed still is, looked for by the Jews-sadly mistaking, as they did and do, the nature of his kingdom, in supposing he was to be a temporal, and not a spiritual prince. Hence it was, that on one occasion they were about "to take him by force, and to make him a king."

You will be careful to notice that these offices of Christ, as mediator, relate to the state, character, and situation of mankind, as sinners-The nature of our salvation required that it should be revealed by him as a prophet; purchased by him as a priest; and applied by him as a king. His prophetical office, therefore, respects our ignorance; his priestly office our guilt; and his kingly office our pollution, defilement, and thraldom in sin: Accordingly, as a prophet he is made of God unto us wisdom; as a priest righteousness; as a king sanctification and complete redemption.

So also, in regard to the promises of God made to his peo

ple-They are revealed by Christ as a prophet; confirmed ́ by his blood as a priest; and effectually applied and fulfilled, by his power as a king.

And here it may be proper just to mention, that all these offices did never centre in any one person but in Christ alone -In order, as it would appear, to show the unequalled dignity of our blessed and glorious Redeemer, none of those who were typical of him, under the Old Testament, were ever clothed with them all. Melchisedeck was a king and a priest; Moses was a ruler and a prophet; Jeremiah was a priest and a prophet; David was a king and a prophet; but Christ alone was prophet, priest and king.

It is only necessary farther to remark on the answer before us, that Christ did and does execute these several offices, both in his estate of humiliation on earth, and in his state of exaltation in heaven. Having done on earth whatever these offices here required, he has gone to heaven, there to sustain them in the kingdom and temple of God above. The manner in which this is done, is explained in the three following answers-to the first of which we now proceed.

"Christ executeth the office of a prophet, in revealing to us, by his word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation."

The office of a prophet is, to reveal and teach the counsel and will of God. Of the nature of prophecy in general, it would lead me too far from the subject immediately before us, to speak particularly. Yet it is an important subject in itself, and does not occur again in the very compendious system of theology given in the catechism. In Buck's Theological Dictionary, a work to which you may easily have access, under the word prophecy, you will find an extremely well written article, which I would recommend to your careful perusal. In the mean time, some leading ideas on the subject, will naturally mingle themselves in the discussion before us.

My children, we owe it entirely to our Lord Jesus Christ, in his prophetic character, that we have a Bible. "He exe

cutes the office of a prophet, (says the catechism) by revealing to us the will of God for our salvation"-in the first place, "by his word." The Holy Spirit, the third person in the adorable Trinity, is the immediate agent in making prophetic communications inwardly to the minds of men. Hence says the apostle Peter-"The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."-But the blessed Spirit, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, is specially considered, in this work, as the Spirit of Christ. This is expressly taught, or affirmed, by the very apostle just quoted-Attend carefully to the following passage. "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace which should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." Here we see that it was the Spirit of Christ, which was in those holy men of God; who, in old time, spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

You must observe that there have been three dispensations of the covenant of grace, Patriarchal, Mosaick, and Christian. Revelations were made to prophets and holy men, from the very time of the first apostacy. We are not told of the precise manner in which a communication was made of the threatening and doom pronounced on the tempter, nor of the gracious intimation given to our first parents immediately after the fall, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head: Yet we are explicitly informed of the fact, that these communications were made; and we have reason to believe, as already observed, that the faith of our first parents in the intimation of a Messiah to come, was effectual to their salvation. We are expressly informed, in the New Testament, that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, was a prophet; and a part of his prophecy, or the subject of it, is given us. Divine communications, after this, were made to Noah, to Melchisedeck, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to

Joseph, and it is probable to several others, till the time of Moses.

Moses was the most eminent prophet of the dispensation to which he has given name. He wrote the first five books of the Bible, which from their number are denominated the Pentateuch. He has given us the history of the creation, of the fall of man, of the antediluvian world, and of the church up to his own time. It is of no consequence to know, if it were possible to know-which it is not-how much of this early history Moses might be able to give from authentick tradition; which, before the use of letters and during the long lives of the antediluvians, was doubtless much more aceurate than with us at present. That much of these things was then known by tradition to others, as well as to Moses, there is no reason to question. But we are sure that the history of the creation itself could not be known to any mortal, but by a revelation from God: And if revealed, as it no doubt was, to Adam, Moses, who wrote under the guidance of inspiration, was preserved from all error, in the account he gave both of this and of subsequent events. In whatever manner his information was acquired, whether by tradition or revelation, or both, the portion that has come down to us. was just as much as God saw meet to be put on record. The whole, I repeat, was at least verified by an unerring revelation to Moses; so that all errors of tradition, if errors there were, were corrected; and an account free from all inaccuracy, was thus secured, for the use of the church to the end of time.

After Moses there was a succession of prophets-with some intervals between the death of one and the appearance of another-till the time of Malachi; which was about 400 years before the birth of Christ. Prophecy then ceased, till the time of John the Baptist.

In so common a book as Cruden's Concordance, under the word prophet, you may find an account of the order and times in which the prophets of the Old Testament appeared, and of the standing, as to authority, which they had among the Jews.