We open the Bible to Genesis 1. We will start our scripture reading at verse 26. Then we will continue reading into chapter two up to verse 20. So Genesis 1.26 through Genesis 2.20, let us hear the word of God. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree-yielding seed. To you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat. And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work, which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day. from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew, For the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison, that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. There is delium and onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon. The same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel. That is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. And the Lord God took man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him and help meet for him. And out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found and help meat for him." Thus far we read in the Holy Scriptures. We turn to the Heidelberg Catechism. We are up to Lord's Day 12 on page eight. This morning we're going to consider question 31. Why is he called Christ that is anointed because he is ordained of God the Father and anointed with the Holy Ghost, to be our chief prophet and teacher, who has fully revealed to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption, and to be our only high priest, who by the one sacrifice of his body has redeemed us and makes continual intercession with the Father for us, and also to be our eternal king, who governs us by his word and spirit, and who defends and preserves us in the enjoyment of that salvation he has purchased for us. Beloved in the Lord, the Heidelberg Catechism is leading us through the second article of the Apostles' Creed. Which summarizes for us the Bible's teaching concerning our Savior. Last time we looked at the personal name of our Savior, Jesus. And the blessed meaning of that name, Jehovah's Salvation. We took note of the fact that that name given to our Savior was a revelatory name in that it shows us precisely who our Lord is and what he came to do for us. This morning we come to another name of our Savior Jesus Christ. One so often joined to the first that we often Consider it one name, Jesus Christ. We focus on that second name, Christ. Christ is the official name of our Savior. That is, it's his title. It's a name that designates the office to which God appointed him and called him. The name Christ literally means anointed one. Jesus is our anointed one. Christ is the Greek form of the name, anointed one. And in the Old Testament, that name is Messiah. Christ and Messiah mean the same thing. That's something, children, you can remember. Often in church, you hear the name Christ and you hear the name Messiah. Both of those names mean the same thing. They're both talking about Jesus and the special calling God gave him. The work God gave him to do. For example, in John 1 verse 41, Andrew says to Peter, we have found the Messiah, which is being interpreted Christ. Christ and Messiah mean the same thing. And thus, the name Christ is equally revelatory. Jesus is Jehovah's salvation. And the name Christ reveals something about Jesus as well. And this especially, the name Christ shows us how Jesus fulfills the meaning of his personal name. The name Christ shows us how our Savior carries out Jehovah's salvation. Jesus performs Jehovah's salvation by carrying out the work of the Messiah, the work of the Christ, the God-given office of prophet, priest, and king. Jesus is ordained to be, as Lord's Day 12 teaches us, our chief prophet, our only high priest, and our eternal king. And as Jesus fulfills the work of each of those parts of his one office of mediator, he completes Jehovah's salvation. And so that's what it means that Jesus is the anointed one. He is the one ordained of God the Father to the work of prophet, priest, and king. by which he accomplishes Jehovah's salvation. One last point of introduction. A moment ago, it was mentioned, Christ, Messiah, means anointed one, and there's symbolism in that name. You recall that in the Old Testament, when someone was put into a special office, prophet, priest, or king, they were anointed with oil. Aaron and his sons were put into the priesthood with an anointing of oil. David was designated as the next king of Israel when oil was poured upon his head from Samuel's horn. That oil pictured God's setting apart of that person for a special work and pictured the qualification of that person by the Holy Spirit to do that work. Christ, of course, was never actually anointed with physical oil. He didn't need to be. He didn't need the picture because he possessed the reality. He was eternally ordained by God the Father to his office. 1 Peter 1 verse 20 says that very thing. Of Jesus, it says, verily he was foreordained before the foundation of the world. And when our Lord came in our flesh and began His public ministry, it was then that He was anointed with the Holy Spirit, anointed without measure, and that took place at His baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove. And Jesus was anointed with the Spirit in His human nature to strengthen and equip Him for the work of the Christ that was before Him. He is the anointed one, the one ordained, equipped, qualified by God to be our mediator to do the work expressed by the name, Jesus. So this morning we are going to look at the name Christ and what it means. See, it's as beautiful a name as the name Jesus. Christ, that's the theme, Christ. And we'll notice that Christ is our prophet, our priest, and our king. Those are the three main aspects of the meaning of the name Christ, prophet, priest, king. Now, going back to the scripture reading, that we had a few moments ago, perhaps it struck us as a bit unusual to read out of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 in connection with a sermon on Lord's Day 12. And from a certain point of view, that is correct. It is an unusual passage to read in connection with Lord's Day 12. But the reason for reading this passage is that in Genesis 1 and 2, we find the first historical appearance of the offices of prophet, priest, and king. And so in the sermon this morning, we're going to take a historical approach and look at these offices as God put them in place in the beginning and trace what happened to those offices with the fall and how the Lord Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of those three offices. Now, though Genesis 1 and 2 sets before us the first historical appearance of these three offices, we must understand, of course, that Christ's office is first. Every human office bearer, a prophet, priest, or king is really just a picture, a reflection, a shadow of the office bearer, Jesus Christ. Jesus is eternally ordained our prophet, priest, and king. He's our eternal prophet, for he is the eternal word, as John 1 verse 1 teaches us. He is our eternal priest, the lamb slain before the foundation of the world, Revelation 13 verse 8 teaches us. He is the ruler whose goings forth have been from everlasting, Micah 5 verse 2 says. He is our eternal king. And so we mustn't think about these offices as something of human origin that then Jesus comes later to fulfill. No. Jesus is the office bearer of God. He is the prophet, the priest, and the king. And wherever these offices appear throughout history, they are pictures pointing to Him. But now, in the beginning, when God first made humankind, God made man in a three-fold office. prophet, priest, and king. And man was to serve God in that threefold office. And so we begin now with prophet. In the beginning, God made human beings his prophets in the creation. A prophet is simply an organ of divine revelation. A preacher, a teacher, a confessor, a witness, a light in the midst of the world. A prophet is a person to whom God gives his revelation. A prophet receives the Word of God. He hears that Word and he internalizes that Word. But a prophet is not merely a keeper of God's Word. A prophet is a speaker of God's Word. It must come out of him. He must proclaim and confess that word in the world. Perhaps you know that the Hebrew word for a prophet in the Old Testament literally means to bubble or boil over, like a pot on the stove that bubbles and boils over. The idea being that the word of God once put in the prophet and internalized by the prophet cannot stay there, but must come out. a keeper of the word, a receiver of the word, and a speaker of God's word. In the beginning, God created man to be a prophet, to stand before him and receive his word. And this office of prophet fits with the first part of the image of God. Remember, the image of God, strictly speaking, is true knowledge of God, true righteousness, and true holiness. Knowledge. God made man with true knowledge of himself. Able to receive his word, able to speak his word in the creation. And that's what we find when we read Genesis 1 and 2. We see Adam and Eve as God's prophets in creation. For example, Genesis 2.17. God gave his word. to our first parents. He gave them that command of life concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They received that word of God. And then, later in Genesis 2, we read about Adam naming the different animals that God brought before him, and that was an exercise of Adam's prophetic office. The idea is not that God brought the animals before Adam and then Adam just pulled something out of his own mind and said, well, I'll call this creature that, and I'll call this other creature something else. No. When Adam named the animals, he perceived the true name of each creature. The essence of each creature as defined by the creative Word of God that made that creature. As an unfallen man, Adam was able to perceive clearly the Word of God that defined each creature and Adam named each creature its proper name according to the Word of God. He received the Word of God and he spoke the Word of God. That was Adam as prophet. But then came Genesis 3, the fall. And the fall into sin turned mankind into a race of false prophets. It turned man into a rebel prophet. It's interesting, if you look at the fall of man, in the fall of man you can see a misuse of all three parts of man's original office. We'll see that this morning. involved in the fall was a misuse of man's prophetic office. Our first parents gave ear to the word of the devil instead of giving their ears to the word of God. And they internalized, they took in that word of the devil. They believed that word of the devil. And then they began acting on that word of the devil. Living out that word, speaking that word of the devil. They were slain by Satan's lie, and thus became prophets of the lie. And they would have remained so. except for the wondrous grace of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. That fall of man, which in part was a misuse of his prophetic office, resulted in the complete loss of the image of God. Our first parents and the human race descended into darkness. That true knowledge with which they were created became horrible darkness. And that loss of the image brought about a complete reversal of man's office with which he was created. Man became a creature that loved darkness and loved the lie and suppresses the knowledge of the truth and twists it. He spins his own lies. He now speaks his own word. And by speaking his own word, he seeks to fashion his own world and view of life. And you see that yet today, do you not? Fallen man is still a prophet. but he is a fallen prophet, enslaved to the devil. And rather than hearing the word of God, He listens to the whispers of the devil through his own sinful nature, and he fashions his own word. He fashions his own version of truth. He calls darkness light, and he calls light darkness. He thinks himself wise, but in fact he is steeped in blindness of mind, horrible darkness, vanity, and perverseness of judgment. Mankind is still a race of prophets, but a race of fallen prophets. And that explains every false religion, every philosophy of man, every world and life view that is contrary to the word of God. It is man exercising his prophetic office as a fallen creature now in the service of sin. And that adds a dimension to the misery of man. We talk about how fallen man is a slave to sin. He's an office bearer enslaved to sin and enslaved to the devil, which means he exercises that office with which he was created in the service of sin to his own destruction. Man by nature is a prophet of darkness. That's our misery. That's every sinner by nature. By nature, we're fallen, sinner prophets. And God, in His wonderful grace, gives us the Christ. And that's the gospel truth that Lord's Day 12 is going to impress upon us. The wonderful reality of the Christ. And who the Christ is. And how the Christ, our Chief Prophet, our only High Priest, our Eternal King, is the complete Savior who rescues us fallen office bearers. The Christ is the perfect Savior Prophet. For us fallen sinner prophets. Our chief prophet comes to be the light of the world, to save us from the horrible darkness of our own making. That was the gospel promise throughout the Old Testament that God would send the prophet to save his people, a savior prophet. That promise was found throughout the scriptures, that promise was set forth in a very visible way when God sent all of those Old Testament prophets to bring his word. The catechism calls Jesus our chief prophet, and that's an important point. What that means is Jesus is the one real prophet. He's the head prophet. That doesn't mean he's the best of many good prophets. It means he ultimately is the prophet, and every other prophet was simply a reflection of a picture of him. And that makes sense. John 1 verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. Jesus is the eternal Word. He is the prophet. He is the revelation of God. And the word was made flesh. And the word made flesh receives the revelation of God and brings that revelation to us, God's people. Jesus is the prophet. He is the word and he is the substance of every word of God, which is brought to us. by whatever means God is pleased to use. An Old Testament prophet, the scriptures, the substance of it is Christ the word. This comes out in a very fascinating New Testament passage, 1 Peter 1 verses 10 and 11. 1 Peter 1 verses 10 and 11, the apostle Peter has set forth to the scattered believers to whom he writes, the wonder of their salvation and the hope that they have. So great is this salvation, Peter says, that the prophets of old desired to look into it. And then Peter says this in verses 10 and 11. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you, searching what or what manner of time The Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when it, and it there is the Spirit of Christ, when the Spirit of Christ testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. Truth that comes out in that passage is that all of the Old Testament prophets prophesied by the power of the spirit of Christ. And the word that they brought was the word of Christ. Think of all the prophets that God has caused to be in the scriptures. They prophesied by the spirit of Christ and the content of their prophecy is the word Jesus Christ. Jesus is the prophet. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel were but the organs that Jesus used to bring his word. Until God's appointed time, when the Savior prophet came into the world and the eternal word was made flesh, the perfect prophet. The coming of Jesus Christ is the coming of our prophet, the coming of the light of the world to banish the darkness that otherwise enshrouds God's people and would enshroud them for eternity. And when you look at the ministry of Jesus Christ as it is described and recorded in scripture, you see so very clearly it is the ministry of the perfect savior prophet. From his birth to the cross. When Jesus was yet a baby, brought to the temple in Jerusalem, cradled in Simeon's arms, prompted by the Spirit, that old man said, Mine eyes have seen thy salvation, a light to lighten the Gentiles. Our chief prophet who saves us from the darkness of our making. Jesus said the same thing of himself after he had begun his ministry and went to his hometown of Nazareth and stood up in the pulpit of the synagogue there and opened the Isaiah scroll and read Isaiah 61 verses 1 and 2 and said, in your hearing this word is fulfilled. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. I am he, that prophet sent of the Lord. And though the Nazarenes did not believe in him, they could not help but wonder at him. As Luke 4 verse 22 says, wonder at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. That was Jesus' ministry, a ministry of revealing God, bringing the gospel Matthew 9 verse 35 says, Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. As the people listened, Matthew 7 verse 29 says, they noticed how Jesus taught them as one having authority, not as the scribes. Indeed, after hearing Jesus preach and teach, John 7 verses 40 and 41 says that many people said this, of a truth, this is the prophet. And others said, this is the Christ. Long, long before, Deuteronomy 18. Deuteronomy 18 verse 15. Moses, prompted by the Spirit, had said this, The Lord thy God will raise up to thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken. The Christ prophet. Go to the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter, James, and John hear that voice from heaven. Matthew 17 verse 5, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him. You hear God referring to those words of Moses' prophecy? Moses had said, unto him ye shall hearken. And now God says, this is my beloved son, hear ye him. There, Jesus is being designated as the savior prophet coming to the world. And we could keep going. The scriptures set before us Christ as the chief prophet. And it is by his work in the office of prophet that he saves us from our sins. The catechism says this, that he is ordained of God the Father and anointed with the Holy Ghost to be our chief prophet and teacher. And this is his work. This is his saving work as our prophet and teacher who has fully revealed to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption. God's revealing himself to us is part of his saving work. Salvation involves knowing God. Knowing God's counsel concerning our redemption. God's secret counsel is His eternal plan to save elect sinners in Jesus Christ. His will is His good pleasure, His desire to save those elect sinners. And that adds some warmth to God's counsel. When we think of God's counsel, His eternal decrees, sometimes that can seem a cold thing, but it's not. God's eternal counsel, His hidden secret counsel concerning our redemption is His plan, His will to save His people from their sins. There's nothing more warm than that. It's a secret counsel in that it would be hidden and forever unknown to us except God be pleased to reveal it. And He reveals it. In Jesus, our chief prophet, who is the image of the invisible God, the revelation of the will and counsel of God. In Jesus, God discloses to us the inner thoughts of his heart, his plans, his purposes for us. And that is a warm saving act of our God. To use the words of Jeremiah 29 verse 11, For God says, I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end. That's what Jesus fully reveals to us. He reveals to us the heart and the mind of our God, the thoughts God has towards us, not thoughts of evil, but thoughts of peace. and to give us that expected end, that hoped for end, eternal salvation. Jesus fully reveals this. That doesn't mean that Jesus reveals everything that there is to know about God. That's not possible. Our human brains can't hold all of that. It means that Jesus reveals everything we need to know for salvation. He makes God known. He makes salvation known. He makes Himself known. He who is the way, the truth, and the life. You can summarize it no better than what we read in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Christ saves us as our prophet. And now, though Jesus' whole life and ministry was a prophetic ministry, it culminates at the cross. is Jesus' greatest prophetic work. See Calvary. Christ on the cross. There is the Word made flesh, fully revealing unto us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption. There on the cross is the revelation of the depth of our sin. There is set before us the judgment our sins deserve. There is revealed the heart of God, the boundlessness of His grace and mercy towards His people in Jesus Christ. There we see the self-sacrificial love of God for His people. On the cross, Jesus declares the Word of God as the prophet. As He sank into the deepest darkness of hell, He who is the light of the world, dispelled our darkness. He is the prophet. The perfect chief prophet. Who has brought light to save us fallen sinner prophets. But now we understand that this is only the first part of Jesus' office in his work as the Christ. He is not only eternally ordained and anointed with the Spirit to be our chief prophet, but as the scriptures teach and as our catechism goes on to explain, he's also ordained and anointed to be our only high priest. And now here we're going to follow the same historical pattern as we look at the second dimension of our Lord's office. In the beginning, God created man to be his priest in creation. A priest is simply someone consecrated to God in order to lead others into the presence of God. That's the work of a priest. He's consecrated, devoted to God, and his work is to bring others into the presence of God through the offering of sacrifices. And part of the priest's office is also to bring others to God in prayer. A priest is an intercessor. The basic biblical idea of priesthood is consecration. And that big word, consecration, simply means devotion. A priest is one who is devoted to God with all his heart. And bound up in the idea of consecration is holiness. Being set apart from sin, separate from all that is sinful and against God. and being devoted to what is good, what is pleasing in God's eyes. A priest was someone who is consecrated, separated from sin and pollution, and devoted to God in holiness. And the work of the priest then was to offer sacrifices and to bring others into the presence of God. Hebrews 5 verse 1. captures all of these ideas of priesthood very nicely. In Hebrews 5 verse 1, the Bible says, God made humankind, in the beginning, to be his priests. God made Adam and Eve holy. They were separate from sin. And in the beginning, their hearts were full of love for God. They were perfectly devoted to their God. They were holy. And this office of priest corresponds with the second part of the image of God. The image of God is true knowledge of God and also holiness, consecration, complete consecration to God. Now when you read through Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, you're not going to find explicit references to priesthood, but you see it here. What did God do with Adam and Eve? He put them in the Garden of Eden. What was the Garden of Eden? The Garden of Eden was God's earthly sanctuary in the beginning. It was the place where He dwelt. The Garden of Eden was the first holy of holies in this creation. And God put Adam and Eve in the Garden as His ministers, as His servants, as His priests. And there they stood before His face, they served Him, they were devoted to Him, and they led all of creation in the praise and the glory of their Creator. They were priests in Eden, devoted to their God. But then came the fall. And just as the fall involved a misuse of man's prophetic office, so too the fall involved a misuse of man's priestly office. Man who was supposed to be consecrated to God became consecrated to another. The devil wormed his lie into the hearts of our first parents and turned their hearts from the love of God and obedience to God to the love of self and to the love of sin. So that they who had been created separate from sin transgressed the boundary of God's law and became consecrated to sin and separated from God. By giving ear to the lie of the devil, their hearts were turned from God and turned to the devil and turned to sin, and they became the slave priests of the evil one. They who were created to be separate from sin and to be the friends, servants, and ministers of God in his sanctuary in Eden, they joined affinity with the author of sin And the image was lost and the holiness of the image of God was twisted into its opposite, into complete pollution and corruption and depravity. And the hearts of our first parents that once throbbed with love for God and delight for obeying his law began to beat with hatred for God and self-will and a desire to consecrate all things in the creation to their own lusts. Man became a fallen priest, and that's part of mankind's misery now. Man is still a priest. He has a heart that must be consecrated to something. But man, by nature, devotes himself to sin. He is separated from God. He hates his God. He runs from God and pursues The lusts of his flesh. And thus we see, fallen man is a sinner priest. And sinner priests need a holy high priest, a savior priest, to save them and redeem them from their corruption. And that's Jesus. That's the Christ. He came to be our Savior prophet and He came to be our Savior priest. And He's the only High Priest that meets our desperate, desperate need. Just like the Old Testament prophets, the Old Testament priests were pictures that God put in place to point to the coming High Priest and to point out our need for that priest. The Old Testament priesthood and all of those animal sacrifices were not an end in themselves, but they were a picture of something better. And they pointed out our need for something better because the blood of bulls and goats could never wash away sin. Our sins are scarlet. Think of your little child taking a bunch of red Sharpie markers and scribbling all over your new countertop, all over the walls. You take a napkin and you try to scrub that sharpie off and it's not going anywhere. No matter how much you rub, no matter how much you scrub, that red sharpie isn't going anywhere. That was what the Old Testament priesthood was like. The Old Testament priesthood and those animal sacrifices were like a napkin trying to scrub off sharpie marker. Couldn't do it. But they pointed to the one who could. spotless white lamb God, shedding of whose blood takes our scarlet sins and makes them whiter than the snow. We need a Savior who is able to wipe away all of those scarlet marks of our sins, which are an offense against the most high majesty of God. We need a priest who is able to offer the sacrifice that can actually take away sin. Only Jesus. Only Jesus can do that. That's the catechism once again as it explains our high priest. Jesus is ordained and he is anointed. to be our only high priest, who by the one sacrifice of his body has redeemed us and makes continual intercession with the Father for us. God's justice demands sin be paid for. We've looked at that in preceding Lord's days. Sin can't be winked at. Sin can't be covered up. Sin can't be just let off the hook. God is just. Payment must be made. Atonement must be made. Meaning, the full penalty that sin merits, that has to be born. That has to be carried to the end. It must be suffered so that the demands of justice are met. And God's justice demands that the same human nature which sinned must bear that penalty for sin. God will not punish some other creature for man's sin. We need a Savior who is a priest, who is one of us, who can offer a perfect sacrifice that meets every demand of God's justice. And that's Jesus. Here is the center of that secret counsel of God concerning our redemption that Jesus as our prophet reveals to us. The center of it is Jesus comes to be our priest. And he is both our high priest and the perfect sacrifice. The Word was made flesh, not only to reveal God to us, but the Word was made flesh so that in our flesh He might bear our iniquities and pour out His soul unto death so that by His stripes we might be healed. That He might be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And that's what Jesus did at Calvary. There is our only High Priest offering Himself as the only perfect sacrifice. And the shedding of His blood wipes away, makes white the scarlet markings of every single one of your sins and mine. As prophet, our Savior reveals the way of salvation. As priest, He paves that way of salvation. He makes that way of salvation. He brings us into the very presence of God. Think about what happened the moment Jesus commended His Spirit into the hands of His Father, The veil of the temple was rent in half, exposing the most holy place. That's what our high priest does. He shreds every barrier to our being with God. He cuts that veil in half and he brings us back into the most holy place by covering our sins with his precious blood. Work doesn't stop there. He continually intercedes for us as the catechism points out. Jesus now stands in the most holy place as our intercessor at God's right hand. He prays for us. He speaks on our behalf. He pleads our cause. And his intercession is effectual because he has a perfect case. A perfect case for God to bless us. He points continually to his finished work as our high priest. His work on the cross. by which he has merited for us all spiritual blessings. We have a perfect intercessor. And now as a redeemed people, as we live as priests, consecrating ourselves to God, even our best works are still tainted by our sin. But our works, our prayers, our worship, are covered in the blood of Christ. That's our assurance. When we worship, when we pray to God, those prayers only reach God through our intercessor at his right hand, who presents them to the Father for us. Oh, what manner of consolation we have in this. Jesus abideth forever, our High Priest. Well now, lastly this morning, Christ is our eternal King. In the beginning God created man to be king. To be king over creation under God himself. A king is someone who is given authority to rule and who is called to protect those whom he rules. The work of a human king is to rule over a people and to maintain righteousness and justice in the realm over which he rules, and to go to battle to protect the citizens of his realm. A king who is a good king does not rule whimsically, he does not rule according to the desires of his own heart, but he rules by a just law. And man, as created was king under God, meaning man doesn't make his own laws, but man is a king who rules according to God's royal law, the word that is given him. Man in the beginning was a prophet-king, receiving God's word and then ruling the creation according to that word of God. You see that all over the place in Genesis 1 and 2. God created man as his image-bearer. An image-bearer is a representative, one who spiritually looks like God. When creation looked at Adam and Eve in the beginning, they caught a glimpse of God. Because Adam and Eve were God's representatives in the creation. King and Queen underneath God, the King. God gave all creation into Adam and Eve's hands. They were to exercise dominion over it, rule over it, cultivate it. That was their kingly office. But now, when the fall took place, once again, there was a misuse of this kingly office. Adam and Eve rebelled against their king and sought to usurp the kingship of God. Was that not at the heart of their sin? They desired to be like God? to take his place, to determine for themselves what is right and wrong, not ruling anymore according to God's word, but ruling according to my word, they became rebel kings. And as rebel kings, they formed an alliance with the devil and became his slave rulers. And as rebel kings then, mankind deserved a rebel's execution. God, in mercy for his elect people, sent Christ the King. We fallen kings need a Savior King, one who is capable of defeating the devil, destroying the power of sin and its hold on us, and then defending and preserving us in the salvation which he has won for us, and that's what Christ does. That's what the catechism describes. All of those kings that God put in place in his Old Testament church, the Old Testament kings, they're just pictures. They're just pointing to our need for the king. Even the best of them, you think of David, the mighty warrior king. Pictures the kind of king Christ is. The king who conquers our enemies. Solomon, the wise king, the king who brought peace and prosperity, pictures Jesus Christ, who is the wisdom of God, and who rules us by the very wisdom of God, and who through his work brings us true peace and all of the riches of everlasting life. David and Solomon were fallen kings. Their sins marred their kingship. Their rule did not last. Christ, the King. He is the eternal King, whose kingdom shall have no end, whose rule cannot be overthrown. And in the fullness of time, God sent the King, Christ, into the world. It's a thread you find throughout the entirety of the Scriptures. The Messiah will be the King. That's what Gabriel said to Mary when he announced that she would bring forth the promised Christ. He said, he will sit upon the throne of his father David, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. You look at Jesus' whole ministry and you see him as the king. You see his kingly power, not only as he preached, but as he healed the sick, as he cast out devils, as he brought salvation. kingly power to overthrow the devil, to conquer sin, to liberate his people. He was a king. Very different from the kind of king the people wanted in that day. He was a king not of this world, whose kingdom is not of this world, whose kingdom is not advanced with the swords of this world. He was a king who came riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, lowly, yet bringing salvation through his lowliness and through his humility. And that gets to the wonder of his greatest kingly work, which is the cross. There he conquered. There he is our redemptive conqueror. There he crushed the head of the serpent. There he destroyed principalities and powers. There he redeemed us from the grip of sin by giving himself to the death of the cross. He's our gracious ruler. who governs us by his word and spirit, who sets up his rule in our hearts, who mightily defends us so that he keeps us in the salvation which he has obtained for us, a mighty king. That's how Jesus fulfills the meaning of his name, Jehovah's Salvation, by doing the work of our prophet, our priest, our king. As our prophet, he reveals the way of salvation. As our priest, he obtains salvation. And as our king, he powerfully applies the salvation he has obtained and preserves us in it unto perfection. By his kingly power, performing that good work in us until the day of his return. And so the concluding application is this, beloved. Trust and rest in Christ, your prophet, priest, and king. In the warfare of the Christian life, there is much hardship, there is much pain. In our warfare, indeed, much can be destroyed, but our salvation can never be undone. Much can be lost in terms of the things that we have in this world, and yet the victory that we have in Christ can never be lost. No enemy is strong enough to conquer our King. So we have nothing to fear. Christ is our eternal King. And every seeming defeat in this world, and there are many, there are many times the cause of God seems defeated. Every seeming defeat is like the cross. The cross was a seeming defeat, but in that seeming defeat, Christ conquered Every seeming defeat of the church is like that. It's a seed that falls to the ground, but blossoms in victory. We are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Amen. Faithful God and Father, we thank thee for the blessed gospel contained in the name Christ. Help us to put our trust in the one who is our prophet, priest, and king, our complete Savior, Jehovah's salvation. Amen.