ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUENet AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION DOGMATICS 2 LESSON 42 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 10 E. 22nd Street Suite 304 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> I've run across the concept of the three-fold office of Christ in my studies. What do we mean by this? Is there any biblical evidence for speaking in this way? >> DR. DAVID SCAER: Josh, I came across this question about the three-fold office of Christ when I was a seminary student. And I was with my father at a pastoral conference in Pennsylvania. And a professor from a seminary of another Lutheran church was there and said that's the idea that Jesus was prophet, priest and king. And I had learned that in my confirmation instruction. And that was one of the questions we were asked, as probably you were asked. It was basically not Lutheran but came from John Calvin and had a prominent place in Reformed theology but should be taken away from Lutheran theology. Many years after that I came across a book also written by a Reformed theologian that pointed me to the 12th chapter in Matthew where surprisingly the idea was found all in one chapter. And it has to do with Jesus taking -- eating grain on the Sabbath and his being accused -- he and his disciples being accused of breaking the Sabbath law. And then Jesus says -- Jesus compares himself to Jonah. "As Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and nights." And to make matters even more interesting, that's followed by a reference that the queen of the south, Queen Bathsheba, had come from the ends -- she had crossed over the boundaries of Israel. She had come from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. "Behold a greater than Solomon could be found." So here in one chapter was the prophet, priest and king. That Jesus, by eating the grain and comparing himself to David who ate the show bread, had actually done the work of a priest. And that of all of the prophets -- I would like to preach a sermon on this for the students some day because I believe all pastors in a way are Jonahs. We are kind of unwilling. We don't really believe our preaching does anything so we're really kind of unbelievers -- Jesus compares himself to Jonah. And he was a prophet. Jesus spokes to Jews. And they didn't believe him. Jonah spoke to Gentiles. And they believed him. Jesus was willing. Jonah was unwilling. And then he compares himself to Solomon. Some Lutherans hold -- and I think they are absolutely wrong -- that Solomon is in hell. He's not in hell. Jesus compares himself to Solomon. He said that the queen of the south came to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold a greater than Solomon is here. Now, in one sense Jesus is prophet, priest and king. But in another sense, he's more than a prophet. He's more than a priest. And he's more than a king. Jesus is like Moses in that the word of the Lord doesn't come to Jesus. He knows God face to face. He speaks from his own authority. He is more than an ordinarily earthly king. He's the king over all things. And the idea that he is a priest may be the important one, the most important one. Because the priest suggests his atonement whereby he offers himself as a sacrifice. He is priest, victim and sacrifice. So I certainly endorse the idea and believe that it's biblically defensible that Jesus is prophet, priest and king and that we can find this theme throughout the New Testament. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***