Was Jesus a prophet?

The Lord Jesus was emphatically 'the prophet of God,' whose coming was foretold in Deut. 18:15, 18. When on earth He said that the works which He did, and the words that He spoke, were not from Himself, but were what He had seen and heard of His Father. John 14:10, 24. He was the perfect exponent of God's mind to the Jews (Acts 3:22; Acts 7:37), and the proclaimer of God's grace to a guilty world. Luke 14:15-24; 2 Cor. 5:19.

Again, the prophets were anointed with oil (1 Ki.19:15). Christ, as the Prophet (Luke 4:18), was anointed with the Spirit – as we learn the very first time we read of Him preaching in the synagogue. He opens the Scripture about Himself (Isa. 61:1): ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor’ and then He told them that that Scripture was fulfilled that very day. What abundant testimony we have in Scripture that the Christ was the Prophet (see Luke 24:19; John 3:2; 4:19; 6:14; 9:17; 7:40; Acts 2:22; 3:22). Now, a prophet was known by two things – what he said, and what he did. Never man spake like Christ. He spoke as one who had authority; His word was always with power. Never man did such miracles as He did.

So, as we have seen, our Lord was frequently spoken of as a prophet. He Himself spoke of John the Baptist as "a prophet, and more than a prophet" (Matt. 11:9). And after John's imprisonment He took up the same prophetic work, "Repent ye, and believe the gospel" (Mark 1:15). He was indeed more — how much more! than a prophet; but His ministry of mercy and grace was ever connected with the solemn witness of the sin of the people to whom He had come. Particularly did His constant witness to the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and leaders of the people show the garment of goats' hair. For Him, too, it was the garment of sorrow, for the stern rebukes of sin and warnings of judgment came from the tenderest and strongest heart that ever beat, if we may compare the Lord and Master with even His most faithful servants. Jerusalem, which had heard His warnings, was also the subject of tears and lamentations: "He beheld the city and wept over it"; "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not" (Luke 13:34). Thus both characteristics of the prophet are manifest in Him — the faithful and complete rebuke of sin and the spirit of mourning. In how many cases is this manifest: grace, purest grace, is seen in dealing with the woman of Samaria, but her sin was not condoned in the slightest degree.

But up to the then present moment, what was the fruit of His labours? Jehovah's Servant had spent His strength in zealous and loving ministry among the lost sheep of the house of Israel, doing among them works such as man had never seen before. Truly God had anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power. The Great Prophet had preached the good tidings of peace, and had gone about doing good and healing all that were oppressed with the devil, God being with Him. What degree of conviction had this unique service of word and deed wrought upon the hearts of men? How did the people regard this Man approved of God unto them by the mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by Him in the midst of them?

Now, in what follows, the Lord is in the character of prophet according to the word of Moses, "A prophet shall the Lord thy God raise up unto thee of thy brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things" (Deut. 18:15; Acts 3:22). Due weight should be given to the capacity in which our Lord is here speaking, for the chapter before us is really prophecy, as defined in its nature as that of Isaiah, Ezekiel, or Daniel.

Then he presses on them some scriptures. Jesus was the One to whom all the prophets gave witness; Moses had said to the fathers, "A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up to you of your brethren, like to me; him shall ye hear in all things, whatsoever he shall say to you." Even on the mount of transfiguration God had said concerning Jesus, "Hear ye him," but alas, they did not. Yet see how grave are the issues that hang upon hearing the voice of this Prophet, "And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people." Now, that Jesus was this indicated Prophet is plain, for Peter goes on to say, "Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days." Everything depends, he says, on how you hear Him. Nothing could be plainer. To hear Jesus is to secure salvation. To deafen the ear, and harden the heart against Him, is to seal the soul's eternal doom.

The Prophet. — To hear His sayings and do them would be to build on a sure foundation. To hear them and to refuse obedience to them must land the individual in irrevocable disaster. His sayings (or more correctly, His words), He calls attention to. For He was the prophet foretold by Moses, to whom Israel were to hearken (Deut. 18:15-19). As such He addressed His hearers on that day. The people, hitherto shut up to the law given by Moses, were now to hearken to the prophet like to Moses (Deut. 34:10). For God, Moses declared, would put His words into that one's mouth, and He would speak all that God should command Him. Blessing, then, henceforth depended on men hearkening to Him. No wonder that people discerned a difference in Him, who taught, they said, as one who had authority, and not as their scribes (Matt. 7:29)! The prophet He was, but more than a prophet, He was God, the Son of God. He spoke not like those of old, with a "Thus says the Lord." He spoke indeed with authority, indicative that what He uttered was to be received as the voice of God speaking to them.

In John 4 we have One like unto Moses, the blessed Lord Jesus, the Christ of God. What a Prophet He was! Just for the sake of brevity look at verse 19, "The woman says to him, Sir, I see that thou art a prophet"; and He was. A prophet gives forth the mind of God and "God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets, at the end of these days has spoken to us in [the person of the] Son, whom he has established heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds" (Heb. 1:1-2a). This is the One God speaks through, all that He has to say has been said through His Prophet. When the Lord Jesus spoke they were not His words and the works which He did were not His works, they were those of Him who sent Him, they were the Father's words and works.

We often limit the idea of a prophet to one who foretells future events. The main idea of the prophet is that of a forth-teller, as well as a foreteller. The Prophet brings his hearers into God's presence as to their state before Him. How fully Christ carried this out. "Sir, I perceive that Thou art a Prophet" (John 4:19), cried out the startled woman at the well of Sychar, as in three or four brief sentences the Lord laid bare the secrets of her guilty past. It is ever so. The prophet to be effective must reach the conscience of his hearers. The prophet, whether addressing a sinful nation, as Isaiah and others did in their day, or those, who prophesy in this dispensation (Rom. 12:6), must aim at the conscience to be effective. It is true that truth enters the mind through the conscience rather than through the intellect. The intellect grasping the truth without the conscience being affected becomes "knowledge [that] puffs up" (1 Cor. 8:1).

Now turn to Luke 24:17, and you will find it even stronger there. The two disciples are going to Emmaus, and talking of the things which had happened, and Jesus Himself drew near and went with them, though they knew Him not. "And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?" Their hearts were heavy; they had left Jerusalem, they were going home, it was all over on earth. I think that Luke 24 is one of the most touching of scriptures, if you put yourselves in the position of the disciples for a moment. Their backs were upon Jerusalem, they had satisfied themselves that His body was not in the tomb, their faces were to Emmaus, it was the third day, and it was all over. No wonder their hearts were sad. "What manner of communications," says the blessed risen One to them, "are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? And the one of them whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?" Suppose you had been only a few hours in Jerusalem, is it possible that you could be ignorant of the crushing sorrow that has fallen upon us in consequence of all that has happened there? He replies (how skilful His love is in drawing out their hearts), "What things?" Well He knew, but there is nothing so skilful in this world as love, nothing. "And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people;" now you get the sense of how much they knew, and what their hearts were connected with as to His Person. He was "Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him; but we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to-day is the third day since these things were done."