We sometimes talk about a president taking office or leaving office, office meaning a particular

role of authority. In the same way, theologians sometimes speak about the offices of Christ,

particular roles of authority that Christ fulfills. In fact, Jesus is often spoken of as holding a threefold office. If you want to be

really flashy, the theological Latin is munis triplex. So, what are the three offices of authority

that Jesus Christ holds? They are prophet, priest and king. Jesus' title, Christ itself,

points towards this. Christ means anointed one. And in the Old Testament, prophets were

anointed with oil. Priests were anointed with oil, and kings were anointed with oil too so the Christ the

anointed one anointed for this unique threefold office of prophet priest and king

no one in the Old Testament held these three offices together. But Christ does. The idea of the threefold

office goes all the way back to the fourth century writer Eusebius of Cizarea, and it was fleshed out

later by John Calvin and other reformed theologians. They pointed out that these three offices,

prophet, priest, and king, were a kind of connective tissue,

linking the history of Israel in the Old Testament with the work of Christ in the New Testament.

Just as God's people in the Old Testament had their prophets, priests and kings,

so in the New Testament God's people finally meet their ultimate prophet, priest and king, Jesus Christ. He's the summit of a long line of prophets, priests,

and kings, even the very best of whom were flawed and fallible, and none of whom were all three

at once. But Jesus was the fulfillment.

The prophet, priest and king, par excellence, as the French would say. The earlier prophets, priests and

kings, were mere shadows. Christ is the reality to whom they were all pointing.

First, Jesus is the ultimate prophet.

One of the main roles of a prophet in the Old Testament was to declare the Word of God.

But Jesus not only declared the Word of God, according to John chapter 1, he is the word of God. He is literally God's word incarnate,

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