We have a number of occasions in our explanation of the Catechism turn to Isaiah. We do so again, Isaiah 61. This is the passage of Scripture that Jesus himself turned to and read in his first sermon in his hometown of Nazareth. He read that because this passage establishes him as the Christ. And when Jesus said in response or in exegesis of this passage, this day, this scripture is fulfilled in your ears, and then further applied that to the nation, the result was that they were infuriated and tried to kill him. Keep that in mind as we read this passage. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath appointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn. to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. And they shall build the old wastes, They shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vine dressers. But ye shall be named the priests of the Lord, Men shall call you the ministers of our God. Ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. For your shame ye shall have double, and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore, in their land they shall possess the double. Everlasting joy shall be unto them For I, the Lord, love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering, and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people. All that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness. As a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels, for as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. We read that far in God's holy word. And this morning we consider Lord's Day 12. 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. But why art thou called a Christian? because I am a member of Christ by faith, and thus am partaker of his anointing, that so I may confess his name and present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to him, and also that with a free and good conscience I may fight against sin and Satan in this life, and afterwards reign with him eternally, over all creatures. Beloved in our Lord Jesus, this particular Lord's Day is not there as a mere formality, nor is it there because it's further explaining Jesus as Savior alone, but because of the subject concerning the title or the office that Jesus holds. And even as the previous Lord's Day emphasized that the personal name Jesus teaches that He is Savior and was at pains especially to point out that when we confess the name of Jesus, we are confessing that He is the only Savior. There is no other Savior. And that to have other Saviors or confess other Saviors is to deny Jesus So also, that's the emphasis of this Lord's Day also. The Lord's Day is not merely interested in explaining what it means that Jesus is Christ, that this means He is anointed, that He is a prophet, priest, and king, and what He does in those offices and teach that it's through those offices that he carries out his work of salvation that is indeed taught here. And we must recognize it. We earlier read that Jesus is our Savior, Savior from sin and death. And this Lord's Day is important because it teaches that Jesus saves only as Christ and through those offices of Christ. But the emphasis is also upon the fact that he is the only Christ. No man, no matter how holy he might be, No individual, even though he may be united to Jesus Christ, and therefore may claim, as is done in question and answer 32, to be a member of Christ, may call himself Christ. There is only one Christ. So much is that true that Scripture does not even need, as the title of the sermon does, say that He is Jesus the Christ. The fact that Jesus is the only Christ and that no other may claim to be Christ is why Scripture often simply refers to Him as Jesus Christ, or Christ Jesus. There is no need to add the definite article, the, because there is only one, the Christ. This is why the fact that there is only one Christ, that all of the Gospels warn as a sign of the times and the nearness of Christ's coming, that there will be many who will say, I am Christ. They need not say, I am the Christ, but they will say, I am Christ. And that is a sign that they are a false prophet. And the warning, the sharp warning is given, be not deceived, do not follow them. Even the Gospel of John, where you will not find that particular warning found in the other three synoptic Gospels, points out that John the Baptist, the greatest of all the prophets, we are told, was at pains to tell all who asked him, I am not the Christ. That is why Question and answer 32 doesn't ask, why art thou called Christ? Why art thou called Christ, since thou art a member of him? No, the question is, why art thou called a Christian? The answer could be given, because there is only one Christ, and all who are joined to Christ become followers and disciples of him. The answer could be given that such is our union of Christ and our union with Christ, and the wonder of it that even when one is united with Christ so that he is one with Christ, he does not become one with Christ such that our personal identity is lost. In other words, in such a way that we are absorbed into Christ. That's the heresy of mysticism. Mysticism is an ancient heresy that the church has routinely condemned. And that heresy teaches there is union with Christ, a mystical union, a spiritual union, a real union. Thus far, so good. We believe that too. But mysticism and the heresy or error of it is that one becomes absorbed into Christ. That one becomes so united to Christ that he may no longer say, I believe, or I live, or I do. Christ instead believes. Christ instead does. The I is lost. So much so, that one may say, I therefore am Christ. There is only one Christ. There is only one who is anointed to be Christ so that we who are united to him are Christians. Consider with me this morning, Jesus the Christ. And we're going to look at just two things. his office, and his office bearers. This morning, as we look at this Lord's Day, I want to, and this explains the division only really into two parts, to emphasize the office of Christ, to claim to be Christ is to claim to have the exact office of Christ. It is to claim that he is the Christ, and thus there are more than one Christ. Such is as blasphemous as saying, I am God. One need not say, I am the God, in order to blaspheme God, but simply to claim to be a God, another God, alongside the one true God, is blasphemy. We want to concentrate upon the offices, both with regard to Christ and with regard to us, because that's the point in calling Jesus Christ. That term simply means anointed. And everyone, saints in the Old Testament and saints in the New, never took that title upon themselves. Never. Because all knew. All knew. The Scriptures were too clear that there is only one Christ, one called Messiah, that is one who is anointed. So before we even look at the threefold aspect of that office, and thus you see that the term Christ is a title, even as we would say King Jesus, or Jesus the prophet, or Priest Jesus, so we say Christ Jesus, or Jesus Christ. But to look at especially the notion of office itself. And that because it's impossible to recognize the salvation Jesus works without recognizing the office through which He works. Now, an office simply refers to the fact that someone is ordained by God to certain official work. There is an office, and there is official work that is ordained by God to that office. And God anoints someone. He chooses someone. He selects someone for that work, and thus that office. And then God qualifies that person for that work. That is, God gives to them that which they require to do. That's the fundamental idea of office. And there were three particular offices in the Old Testament that were highlighted in order to show that the Messiah, the Christ, would hold all three of those offices, and those offices were highlighted by the fact that they all involved the selection of an individual by God through the anointing of oil. Now, all of that was a picture that there would be a Messiah. There would be a Christ. one whom God had appointed, appointed not simply in time by speaking to, say, a prophet like Samuel, saying, go anoint this man Saul, but chosen in eternity, appointed by God to be the one, the one among all men, the one among all prophets, priests, and kings, one in all the earth, in all of heaven and earth, the one among men and among angels, who would be chosen to do official work. That work is the work of saving His people. God not only chose Jesus to be this Christ, but appointed people to belong to Him, to be His body, to be members of Him, to belong to His kingdom, to be priests or to be individuals that He would provide the services of priests and prophesy. So God not only appointed Christ, work to do with regard to others. God then called Jesus in time. What God does in eternity must be carried out in time. Otherwise, God's appointment, election, and choosing is vanity and worthless. And God called him and qualified him by an anointing, only not now with oil, but by the Holy Spirit. The amazing thing is that Scriptures emphasize that qualification. In fact, the question could be asked, when exactly was Jesus qualified as the Christ? And one could point perhaps to His own conception and birth, which we know was by the Holy Spirit. But it's especially when he takes up that work officially that we see his anointing. And the Scriptures teach us that the Spirit descended upon him as a dove as he is to be anointed with the baptism of John. Then also is the revelation of God triune the Son being baptized with the Spirit, and the Father pronouncing His blessing upon that qualifying baptism, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. We emphasize that this morning because part of the apostasy of the church has always been and continues to be the rejection of the reality of office. This was always a sign of apostasy in the Old Testament. When one wanted to assess the condition of the nation of Israel, then one need not do that simply by counting the number of idols that were found in the homes and in the streets and even in the temple of God, but by examining the attitudes and the behavior of the people toward the offices God appointed. And you could see the apostasy by the fact that Israel would at times hire its own priests. In fact, at the time of Jesus, The great darkness that had settled in over the Jewish nation was evident by the fact that the high priests in office at the time were not Levitical. They had nothing to do with the tribe of Levi anymore. Also, with regard to kings, The man on the throne at the time of Jesus is a descendant of the apostate Esau, whom God hated. You say, how could that be? Because Israel showed its apostasy by its attitude toward the king. What kind of king did they want? The one God wanted for them, but their own king according to human standards to make them glorious among the nations. When God gave them the king of his own heart, repeatedly they rebelled against him, King David. When the nations split, king after king is assassinated. and others put in their place, and how does Jesus Himself characterize all their attitude toward the prophets? Was it this, that when I sent my prophets, you all waited with bated breath and heard their word and received it and repented at their word? No, no. A stubborn and stiff-necked generation that stoned and killed them. This is, by the way, what got the ire of the citizens of Nazareth when Jesus preached. When he showed he was the Christ because the Spirit of God had descended upon him. And he was going to accomplish the official work, the amazingly gracious official work of binding the wounds, of loosing captives, of opening eyes of people that were blind. How could they kill such a one who brought such a wonderful message? Because in that message, he convicted them of their sin. He reminded them of their own apostasy as a nation, how often they rejected God's office bearers so that, in the time of Elijah, there were many widows, but God set his prophet only to one in Zarephath, that is, to a Gentile. And in the time of Elisha, there were all kinds of lepers, lepers who deserved, in the eyes of the Jewish nation, the attention of the miracles of the prophets, but Elisha healed only one, again a Gentile. And so the apostasy of the nation showed itself when they tried to kill God's Christ. That's the great evil that happened to Jesus. They did not kill him because he claimed merely to be savior. Men liked the idea of salvation of one to bind the wounds, to comfort the brokenhearted, but that this is done through only one whom God appoints. And apostasy always shows itself by looking at the one whom God appoints and saying, nope, not qualified. There's this defect. There's these things that are wrong. That's what they did to Jesus. after seeing all those things that clearly qualified him for his office, all the things that God had given him. Remember, God qualified him with power. The Spirit is power, and God showed that power that he had given to Jesus in all of his ministry by his miracles over devils, over diseases, over the creation, over death itself. But they didn't want such a humble man in that office. That was a rejection of the office. Why is that? How can that be? And the answer is because office is of God. It's a creation ordinance. Office goes all the way back to the beginning. And the idea of office, like the institution of marriage and government, comes from God. So much so that the apostle Paul says, he that resisteth the higher powers, that is the state, the government, resists God, regardless of whether the government was godly or not. Man despises office because he despises God in whom God appoints. and now let's not say to ourselves, oh, that's such an Old Testament thing. The Jews killed Jesus, but we Gentiles, we wouldn't do that. Well, yes, we do. How often, how often in your own mind and in your own speech and your own talk have you rejected the work or the word brought by an office bearer, a minister or an elder, or even someone from the state because you did not like their person. You did not like who it was that God put in that office. And you said to yourself, that man is unqualified, and therefore I have the right to say whatever I want and to act however I want against that person. You have rebelled against God. and you have forgotten what office is. Oh yes, office bearers sin. There are office bearers who are reprobate. Office bearers who are ungodly beyond imagination. Simply look at Herod on the throne at the time Jesus comes. What a wicked, ungodly man. Look at the Roman rulers during the time of Paul. They're going to execute him. So when we behave that way toward office bearers, we must say, you have not so learned Christ. Christ didn't teach you that. That's not the Word of Christ. That's not how Christ behaved. Look at Christ, the anointed of God. appointed king of kings and lord of lords, appointed to be the prophet and the priest of God. Look at him. When the Jewish rulers falsely condemn him to death for claiming, ironically, that he is the Christ, he submits. When the godless, unbelieving Roman governor declares him innocent and yet condemns him to death, he says not a word. Not a word. Why is that? Jesus is teaching us about office. What does Paul, who will be executed by godless Roman rulers, say? He teaches us to submit to them. Submission, I remind you, is first of all the attitude in one's heart that a certain person is ordained by God, appointed by God to that work and that labor of the office. So it is with Christ. And what we must see before we move on and look in more detail at it is that this is basic to everything. We're going to see in just a little bit, it's basic to the calling of the Christian life. It's very, very important for us to look at our own calling in that light. Otherwise, we begin to imagine that we're carrying out some calling that somehow earns God's favor and proves our standing with God, that our calling is some sort of condition that we must fulfill to receive God's favor. But look at your calling in the light of office. Look at the calling that's assigned to being a Christian. That's basic, you see. Why is it? Why is it that we must confess His name or even may confess His name? Why am I called to present myself as a living sacrifice unto God? Why is it that I may and must live with a free and good conscience and fight daily against sin? Answered, because I'm a Christian. That's why. I've been given an office. Not the office of Christ, but the office of Christian. You see how that changes things? It's basic to the life and work of the church. If the offices disappear, you have no church. This was one of the great deliverances of the Reformation. This was one of the great, great works of the man appointed by God, John Kelvin, to reform the church. He brought back the offices and their work as it had been lost under Rome. This is why Jesus, when Peter confesses that thou art the Christ, Jesus goes on to say, that's the rock, that's the confession upon which I will build my church. Read, When You Get a Chance, the Belgic Confession, Article 30, which sets forth the fact that the existence and reality of the church is tied to the offices. We believe this true church must be governed by that spiritual polity or policy which our Lord taught us in His Word. You say, well, what spiritual policy? And the answer is the offices. They're listed. Same idea incorporated into Article 36 of the Belgian Confession about our attitude toward the state. It's rooted in the fact that our gracious God, to restrain the dissoluteness of men, appointed kings and governors, et cetera. And so also, It's basic to all of Christ's work. It's very important, so important that this is a theme that runs through all of Scripture. There's an entire Lord's Day, and it's going to come up again, that Jesus cannot save unless He is Christ, because He is first and foremost appointed Christ. and all therefore of his salvation will come as that office bearer. That was the issue when Jesus comes. It's not so much whether he was the Son of God. That was a given. If he's the Christ, then he's the Son of God. But the issue was whether or not he was the one God appointed. Now, the catechism goes on to explain the threefold office of that. First, he is prophet. He is our chief prophet and teacher. By that word, chief, our catechism means that there are other prophets and other teachers that Jesus uses. And therefore, that if there are those called prophet or teacher in the church, they labor under Jesus Christ, not instead of. or over against, but under Him." Notice now the work of that. It's almost built right into the office itself, prophet and teacher. You say, well, what's the work assigned to that? Well, you could say it's to teach us the Word, it's to teach us what's in Scripture, it's to teach us the truth, and that's true. But notice how the Catechism puts it, to fully reveal to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption. That's an amazing way to summarize all the ministry of Jesus and all the work that He still does as prophet. Worth pointing that out. Remember when we consider that Jesus is Christ. He's still Christ. He's still prophet and teacher. That didn't stop as soon as He ascended into heaven. He continues to be our prophet, our chief prophet and teacher. He's the one who teaches us. He's the one who prophesies to us. But notice the summary. to reveal to us all the secret will of God concerning our redemption. There's a secret. There's something hidden. There's something that God has determined and decided to do way back in the beginning, long before we were born, long before the foundation of the world. And God sends a prophet. who first of all knows that will, and secondly then reveals it. Says this is the way it is. Now you understand the horror of the church that says we won't receive such a thing as the secret will of God. We despise the notion of election and reprobation. We despise the notion that God does anything eternally. It's a rejection of the Christ. Now if you ask how was Jesus qualified beyond the fact that he was given the Spirit, Consider that Jesus is the Christ, the prophet, the teacher, because He is the wisdom of God. He is the Word of God. That is, He is the one who knows the will of God, because He is God. He knows the mind of God. He knows what God is determined to do, and so He reveals it. He speaks it. He teaches it. The great benefit of that is that we learn, we know. It's impossible to be a Christian, we're going to see, unless we learn. When we consider that we're prophets, consider not only that has to do with what comes out of our mouth, but first of all, that we're students of Jesus Christ. You're not merely a member, don't merely believe in Him, but you believe in Him in such a way that you know Him. You're a student of Him. You learn. There's no prophet under Jesus Christ worth his salt who doesn't study the Scriptures, isn't spending time in prayer, isn't learning under Jesus Christ Himself. He's our priest, who by the one sacrifice of His body has redeemed us and makes continual intercession with the Father for us. Notice here, that Jesus is our priest, but he's a priest who brings himself as the sacrifice. He is the priest who offers and the sacrifice that is offered. And he does that to redeem us, to purchase us from someone else, our Lord and Master, who now have a new Lord and Master, our Lord Jesus Christ. Notice in the second place that here is highlighted also his continuing work in that office. He makes intercession for us. He entered in behind the veil, entered in behind the veil of death into heaven, and there he continues to apply that work to us. The benefit is that we have peace with God, a good and clean conscience before God, and he is the king. He showed that, as I pointed out, not only in his ministry on the earth by his miracles, even as his preaching indicated he was God's prophet, and his death on the cross, sacrificed on the altar of the cross, indicated he was God's priest, but he especially showed that when he came out of the grave. God's king, given power over death, he ascends into heaven and now sits at God's right hand. He's still king over all. our eternal King. And notice that as King, He continues to govern us by His Word and Spirit. We show and acknowledge that He is Christ the King by obeying Him, listening to Him. He shows He is King by defending us, by preserving us. in, and notice here, the enjoyment of our salvation. Not just our salvation, but the enjoyment of it. That is the experience of it, the pleasurable experience of our salvation. That's the work of Christ. You don't make yourself joyful, he makes you joyful in that salvation, confident in that salvation. You say, how does he do that? Well, he's king. He's all three. Now, we're united to him. We're united to Him, and thus we're anointed with the same anointing that He has given. We're anointed with the Spirit. We're anointed with that Spirit when we are baptized. That is, when we receive regeneration. When we are baptized, not with water, but with the Holy Spirit, thus regenerated. We are qualified. We are given and qualified for an office. The office is not Christ, but the office is Christian, a disciple or follower of Christ. And that is manifest in a threefold way. First, the office of prophet. That office of prophet is manifest in what we call special offices, namely the minister That's whom God uses, Christ uses, to continue to teach and preach. But also us. And notice how it's manifested us. We confess His name. Notice, and we may. Not only may, but must. That implies we can. We confess His name. We say, I believe. I believe in this Christ. I believe in this Jesus. I believe in this God. And that's our work. How can we be priests of God if we never open our mouth, if we ever, ever tell others of what Christ has done for us? What does it say about our Christ if we can't open our mouth and say, He is my Savior? Confess His name to one another, confess His name before all the world. Priests, do we offer atoning sacrifices? No. But we do present ourselves as priests and notice ourselves, a sacrifice. We present ourselves a living sacrifice, not of atonement, of thanksgiving to Him. That's our calling, to continually remember we are priests standing in the temple of God, honoring and praising God. And that's not simply a matter of the mouth as a prophet, but saying, here's my body. This is my body. This is my heart. My heart I give to you, O Lord. One of the great confessions of the Reformation. My heart is bought and belongs to God. Therefore, I present it to him. It's his to do with what he wants. And I give it because I'm so thankful. But notice also kings. Priest is manifest in the special office of deacon. Deacon. The office of mercy, that's the special qualification of priests. Mercy, they're merciful, gracious. You may say that's one of the chief ways that we show our thanksgiving to God, a living sacrifice. We're giving, we're caring, we're gracious, we're merciful to one another. But kings too. As king, with a free and good conscience, I may fight against sin and Satan in this life. That's how you show you're God's king. You fight. You fight against sin. You fight against sin, understanding you're fighting also Satan. Notice, you fight, that I may fight. And the may there implies can and do. Fight. You show that you're Christ's king. You show that Christ is your king. You show the kingship of Jesus Christ. If one would ask, how do I know this Jesus of yours is king? You may point at the fighting of the people of God against Satan in this life. And that too has a manifestation in the future. It even says so. And they have to reign with him eternally over all creatures. That's manifest too in a special office, the office of the elder. This is the office appointed officially to fight against sin and Satan in the church, to rule the church, to show the kingship of Jesus Christ in church implies a certain manner in which the elders have to carry out their work. But notice also it's manifest in the future and that we get to reign with Him eternally, that is, perfectly, over all creatures. Now, how do we honor that office? Number one, by recognizing and submitting to it in one another. I was preaching that so long ago. Submit to one another. Submit how? Recognize that all of God's people are prophets, priests, and kings. They're Christians. May have a mouth to confess Jesus as you do. You're not the only one has a mouth. You're not the only opinion that ought to be heard. Listen to others. Recognize the sacrifice of others. Recognize the battle of sin in others. But also by carrying out our own duty, even as Christ carried out his. Amen, let us pray. O Lord our God, we thank Thee for the offices given to us as Christians, members of Christ. We are especially thankful that Thou hast appointed us this Christ, Jesus the Christ, the one whom we recognize as our Lord and Master, the one who is our King, our Priest, and our High Priest. and therefore also behave as prophet, priests, and kings ourself. O Lord, thank thee for this thy holy gospel. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.