Happy New Year to all readers! As we continue in our study of the Nicene Creed, it is technically now the "1701st" anniversary year. For simplicity's sake I'll retain the original title of the series. Let's press forward!
In the last post we began to look at the Nicene Creed's confession of Jesus' ascension to Heaven in the statement "and ascended into Heaven" here Growing Christian Resources: Post #22 1700 Years of the Nicene Creed - Part One: "and ascended into heaven"
We noted all the key Biblical texts associated with His ascension. We also observed how major events in the life of the incarnate Son of God (virgin birth, life and ministry, crucifixion, resurrection) function as windows to behold His glory. The ascension caps off all these by giving us the clearest window possible into what was the ultimate trajectory of His humiliation and exaltation.
Christ's humiliation began at His incarnation, carried through His birth, circumcision, humility, crucifixion, death, and descent into Hades. His exaltation began with His resurrection from the dead, carried through His post-resurrection appearances, and culminated in His current heavenly ministry as our ascended Prophet, Priest, and King.
What I want to do in this post today is to begin to explore the details of His current ministry in Heaven on the believer's behalf as our ascended heavenly Prophet.
Christ ascended into Heaven to be our Prophet who speaks to His church through the Scriptures, the Word of God.
Theologians refer to Christ's current heavenly ministry as His "session" (from a Latin term "sessio" meaning "to sit"). When we speak of Christ's session, I think of those old T.V. court shows like the "People's Court". As the show would commence, the Bailiff of the court would say "court is now in session, the honorable Judge so-and-so presiding".
When Christ was ascending to Heaven, He gave final instruction to His disciples concerning the Great Commission and His promise that He would be with them always to the end of the age (Matthew 28:18-20). He also had angels assigned to tell the disciples that He would return in the same manner He left them - a physical, bodily revelation of His glory (Acts 1:9-11). What we see Jesus doing in these passages is the office of Him as our Heavenly Prophet. A prophet "forthtells" or exhorts the people of God to covenant relationship and "foretells" what the people can expect in the future from God.
Jesus as our prophet fulfilled Old Testament prophecy and expectation
When Jesus came into this world, He had fulfilled a major prophetic prediction by God through Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15-17 "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him. 16 This is according to all that you asked of the Lord your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die.’ 17 The Lord said to me, ‘They have spoken well. 18 I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him."
Jesus as the prophet was identified as such in the New Testament
The Apostle Peter specifically tied the Lord Jesus Christ to this prophetic prediction, identifying Him in His Prophetic office in heaven that He occupies as our ascended Lord. We read of this in Acts 3:20-23 "and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, 21 whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time. 22 Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren; to Him you shall give heed to everything He says to you. 23 And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’
In the Old Testament, prophets were anointed for service as a precursor to what would be the prophetic office to which our Savior was anointed (see 1 Kings 19:16). When Jesus began His earthly ministry, the Holy Spirit's coming down upon Him at His baptism was the indicator of His empowerment and enablement as "the anointed one" or as "the Christ". When Jesus came forth to begin His earthly ministry in Luke 4:18, He quoted Isaiah 61:1-2a that had predicted His anointing as Prophet:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed."
The importance of Jesus being the Prophet for His Church in Heaven today
It was the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea that first laid out a systematic exposition of the Biblical data concerning the three-fold office of the ascended Lord Jesus. In his "Church History, Book 1, chapter 3, section 1.8-9", Eusebius notes the following about the significance of Christ's prophetic office:
"And we have been told also that certain of the prophets themselves became, by the act of anointing, Christs in type, so that all these have reference to the true Christ, the divinely inspired and heavenly Word, who is the only high priest of all, and the only King of every creature, and the Father’s only supreme prophet of prophets."
Eusebius then comments:
"And a proof of this is that no one of those who were of old symbolically anointed, whether priests, or kings, or prophets, possessed so great a power of inspired virtue as was exhibited by our Saviour and Lord Jesus, the true and only Christ."
The Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 explains Christ's current prophetic office in its tenth paragraph of its eighth article "Christ Our Mediator":
"This number and order of offices is necessary; for in respect of our ignorance, we stand in need of His prophetical office; and in respect of our alienation from God, and imperfection of the best of our services."
I'm reminded those verses of the Book of Hebrews that tie the office of Christ as our exalted Prophet speaking forth through the Scriptures by the Holy Spirit whom He and the Father sent to illuminate the Church to her calling, identity, and daily living (Hebrews 1:1-3; Hebrews 4:12-16).
The composition of the New Testament by the Apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit serves as the written record of God's revelation of Christ and as the platform through which He instructs His people today, complementing the inspired Old Testament record that infallibly anticipated His arrival in our world (Luke 24:44; John 16:12-15). Jesus Christ as the heavenly prophet was already predicted as such in the Old Testament (Isaiah 42:1; 49:5-6; 61;1-2a) and came to be such in the New Testament as we already mentioned. His role now as our ascended prophet is to guide His Church, His body, by His Spirit and the Scriptures as Christians everywhere await His second coming.
Final thoughts
Joel Beeke, a Teaching Fellow at Ligonier Ministries, notes the following about the application of Christ's heavenly role as Prophet in our lives today in an article he wrote entitled "Jesus' threefold office as Prophet, Priest, and King":
"As the Prophet, Jesus is the only One who can reveal what God has been purposing in history “since the world began” and who can teach and make manifest the real meaning of the “scriptures of the prophets” (the Old Testament; see Rom. 16:25–26). We can expect to make progress in the Christian life only as we heed His instruction and teaching."
When Christians gather every week to hear the Scriptures preached and applied, they are listening to the voice of their Heavenly Prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ. He as the decisive revelation of God, being Himself truly God who reveals and truly man that is the fullness of revelation pointed to by the written revelation, God's Word, the Bible, calls sinners by His Spirit to repentance and faith and believers to live and look forward to His soon return. This is why I need to be in the written Word of God and get the written Word of God into me, so I can hear what the Lord Jesus Christ, my Heavenly Prophet, is guiding me to do by His Spirit. In the next post we will continue expounding the Nicene Creed's phrase "and ascended to Heaven" by noting Christ's heavenly high priestly office.
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