Matthew 17:5
Christ as Prophet - Corporate Implications
Pastor Martin explores the corporate implications of Christ's prophetic office, especially in the realm of authority. Since Christ alone is the supreme prophet of His church, five enemies must be resolutely resisted: ignorance of the words of Christ (Matthew 22:29), indifference to the words of Christ (Hosea 8:12), unbelief (Luke 24:25), human tradition that negates God's commandment (Mark 7:8-9), and fanaticism that claims revelation beyond the closed canon. The whole application is intensely pastoral, grounding Trinity Baptist's commitment to systematic exposition, reading of Scripture, and progressive reform according to Scripture.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 9 sections · 59 min
- Introduction and Corporate Framework 0:02
- The Question of Authority 6:57
- Enemy One: Ignorance of the Scriptures 10:05
- Enemy Two: Indifference to the Scriptures 24:29
- Enemy Three: Unbelief 30:51
- Enemy Four: Human Tradition 40:06
- Enemy Five: Fanaticism and Extra-Biblical Revelation 48:15
- Conclusion: Christ as Living Prophet Through Scripture 54:27
- Closing Prayer 56:21
Key Quotes
“In direct proportion that any church moves from this preoccupation with solid, substantial, broad, and thorough acquaintance with the Word of God, it will move to forms of entertainment and ritual.”
“Can you imagine what it must do to our prophet when we are indifferent to his words?”
“Faith may swim where reason and understanding may only wade.”
“Faith is reason at rest in God.”
“Is it a reformed church? I like to be cheeky and say, well, if there is such a thing, I don't want anything to do with it. Is it a reforming church? I like that.”
“Any group that claims to have revelation beyond the insight the Spirit gives to the words of our prophet in this book — in direct proportion, they will despise and demean this revelation.”
Applications
Parents & families
- Make family worship a matter of conscience — when the elders come for an annual visit, expect to be asked about it, because the word is the only way Christ the prophet speaks.
All listeners
- If your church leaders ever substitute elegance or entertainment for solid biblical substance, raise your voice in protest — do not go quietly into ignorance.
- Do not be ignorant of too much Scripture for the time you have been converted — the cause is indifference to your great prophet.
- Discipline your Saturday night schedule of sleep and Sunday morning preparation so you come to hear the prophet's voice with eager undistracted expectation.
- When the words of Christ concerning the narrow way or eternal torment seem hard, refuse to fathom the mystery — simply believe all that your great prophet has said.
- Bring every tradition (not innocent cultural forms, but traditions that affect obedience to precepts) to the touchstone of Scripture and let Christ's word reform what needs reforming.
- Look for no word from Christ outside the pages of this book — but expect the Spirit to make that word living, sweet, and joy-producing to you.
A full transcript is available on the tab. 95 paragraphs, roughly 59 minutes.
Introduction and Corporate Framework
As was announced last Lord's Day morning, our study in the Scriptures today will center on the implications and demands of the prophetic office of Christ, as those implications and demands come particularly to the gathered people of God, the corporate implications of this great biblical truth concerning Christ as the great prophet of his people. Now, I trust you will not be frightened into dullness by that rather academic-sounding title to our study this morning. I would ask you to remember that such a consideration comes couched in the context of considering something of the majesty of the offices of the Redeemer of sinners, even our glorious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
In the process of unfolding what the Scriptures teach concerning this great subject of the salvation taught in the Bible, the salvation we as sinners receive, the salvation we as forgiven sinners proclaim, we are presently concerned with concentrating upon the person of the Redeemer, both in the mystery of who He is and the majesty of the office He holds as our Redeemer. For many, many weeks we contemplated Him in the glory of His priestly office, discovering from the Word of God that there is no other priest appointed by God for the salvation of sinners. And now for some weeks we have been contemplating Him who as our Redeemer not only functions as a duly appointed, duly equipped priest,
But as a duly appointed and duly equipped prophet to his people, we consider the biblical concept of a prophet as one who makes known the mind of God in the words of God with special authority and power from God. We looked at the scriptures and discovered that Christ is indeed a prophet to his people. That this is not a convenient category, a nice neat little package idea into which the theologians have poured their own notions. No, Christ as Redeemer is to be understood as our prophet because the Scriptures tell us, the Lord God shall raise up a prophet like unto me, in the words of Moses. Then we consider the manner in which he functions as a prophet to his church,
his unique fitness for that office of a prophet. And now we are concerned with understanding what does all that say to us. 2 Timothy 3.16 says that all Scripture is not only inspired or breathed out of God, but profitable for doctrine. Having looked at the doctrine or the teaching of Scripture concerning the prophetic office of Christ, we want to know what is its profit for reproof, for correction.
for instruction in the life of righteousness. Well, last Lord's Day we looked at the reproof and the correction and instruction that the prophetic office of Christ has for us, particularly as individuals. We looked at the individual implications and demands of the prophetic office of Christ, and we saw that His prophetic office has great implications with respect to our safety, with respect to our assurance,
and with respect to our duty. Now this morning, we want to consider the corporate implications of the prophetic office of Christ. Now I'm fully aware that corporate or joint responsibilities can only be performed by individuals. I'm aware that everybody's job becomes nobody's job. But it is proper to make this distinction between responsibilities that are exclusively individuals,
and those that are personal in terms of our identity with a given group. And so our concern this morning is to look upon this great biblical truth of the prophetic office of Christ and what it says to us, yes, as individuals, but as individuals who comprise the visible body of God's people. These are individual implications, but They are ours individually insofar as we are part of the visible church of Jesus Christ. And that responsibility and those implications that come to us as part of the corporate identity of the people of God are responsibilities which must be understood in that connection, in that conjunction.
Now, we're only going to have time this morning to touch on one, and perhaps this is what we might call the primary implication of the prophetic office of Christ with reference to his people. As a people of God, we have made many approaches to God in prayer and praise this morning. I trust we have done so conscious that Christ alone is our priest. that when we pray, Father, we bring these petitions in the name and through the merits of your Son. We are confessing that our worship is worship that is presented to God through the priestly mediation of Christ and Christ alone. We did not say any Hail Marys. We did not come with St. Thomas or St. Augustine or any other saint's name upon our lips.
We've said, O God, we present our petitions only in the name of your beloved Son. You see, the doctrine of the priesthood of Christ has great implications for the corporate people of God. All of their worship is presented only in the name and merits of their great priest. Well, in the same way, The doctrine of the prophetic office of Christ has great implications to us as the people of God, and in particular in the realm of authority. God willing, next week we shall consider the realm of the ministry, and thirdly, in the realm of the prayerfulness of the people of God. But this morning, just this one area of concern, the concern of authority.
The Question of Authority
There are very few questions of more pressing importance than this question. Who shall give the church instructions as to faith, that is what it is to believe, and practice what the church is to do? To whom shall the people of God commit their consciences with respect to faith and to practice?
Well, since Christ is the great prophet of the church, since the Father has said, and I quote now from that passage we've looked at on several occasions in the course of this study, Matthew 17, since the Father has said, this is my beloved Son, listen to him.
Since we read in Hebrews 1, God who spoke in times past in many ways through many instruments hath in the last days spoken unto us in a son, since this is true, then anything that will obscure, undermine, or militate against the exclusive prophetic rights of Christ in his church,
is to be violently resisted and resolutely rejected. There is but one supreme authority in the Church of Jesus Christ, and that authority is the Lord Jesus, the Church's only and true prophet. I come back again to this matter of the union of those offices. We violently resist anything that would undermine the exclusive priesthood of Christ. As a body of redeemed sinners, we say Christ is our only and all sufficient priest. We will therefore have no human priests. It's not an innocent thing when ministers are called priests, whether in the Church of Rome or the Church of England. It is an abomination for any man
to take upon himself the title of priest in the sense that he becomes some kind of a mediator through which either the grace of God comes to men or men's response is brought back to God. Jesus Christ is the way. He is our only priest. Well, you see, we need to develop the same mentality with regard to his prophetic office, for he is not only the way, he said, I am the truth.
He is the exclusive prophet in that sense to his church. And therefore the people of God with respect to this great question of authority must intelligently and then violently resist and resolutely reject anything, any influence that would intrude upon the rights of Christ as the great and final prophet to his church.
Enemy One: Ignorance of the Scriptures
Now what are the ways in which there has been an erosion of the prophetic rights of Christ in His Church in the past? God would teach us from the history of His people, and I want to suggest as time permits, drawing out these lines of biblical evidence, that there are four or five major ways in which the authority of Christ as prophet in His Church has been undermined, And we must, aware of these things, seek by the grace of God to resist them. The first is ignorance of the words of Christ. Will you turn, please, to Matthew chapter 22. The first great fifth columnist that would undermine and seek to overthrow
The supreme authority of Christ as the prophet to the church is what I'm calling ignorance of the words of Christ. In the 22nd chapter of Matthew, we read in verse 23, On that day there came to him Sadducees, they that say, There is no resurrection. Here are a group of people who hold a certain doctrinal position.
That position says there is no such thing as the bodily resurrection or the resurrection of the body. Now they not only hold that doctrine, they propagate that doctrine and they seek to bind the consciences of their followers to that doctrine. And so they come to Jesus and say, Teacher, Moses said, and so they point to the Scriptures, If a man die having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, And then they give to the Lord a rehearsal of this Old Testament law with respect to the raising up of seed to one's brother who died. Now he says, or they say, verse 25, there were with us seven brethren. The first married and died, and having no seed left his wife to his brother, and the like man of the second, the third, unto the seventh. And after them all the woman died. Now they feel we've really got the Lord backed in a corner. In the resurrection, therefore,
If there is such a thing as a bodily resurrection, which we don't believe, but since you believe in this foolish doctrine, we'll concede the point. In the resurrection, therefore, which has got to be a resurrection of bodies, so you've got the resurrection of that one woman with one body, and the seven men that married her with seven bodies. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife shall she be of the seven? For they all had her.
Is she going to be cut up into seven segments and each one have a part? How ridiculous, they say. Now notice our Lord's answer. But Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. Our concern is with the former part of the cause of their error. Ye do err because you are ignorant of the Scriptures.
You see, the Sadducees made unwarranted conclusions and taught those conclusions as matters of faith because they were ignorant of the Scriptures. Now here is what we might call a vital doctrinal issue. According to Hebrews 6.1, the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead is part of the ABCs of biblical revelation. They were ignorant at a most fundamental point, and their ignorance led...
to this that we could very well call a challenge to the supreme and sole authority of Christ as the great teacher of His church, both in the Old and the New Testaments. Well, then you have in Matthew 19 a similar situation, a similar situation in which there was ignorance on a very practical matter, the matter being marriage and divorce. And our Lord here is not dealing with Sadducees, but with Pharisees, those who held even a higher view of Scripture, a more all-embracing view of Scripture. And what does our Lord do to them? To correct their thinking.
He says, in essence, you need to understand what you've read and what you say you believe. You're really ignorant, not so much of the form of the Scripture, but its true significance. If only you'd let the message of that part of Scripture come through, you'd understand the folly of your question. So he says in verse 4 of Matthew 19, and he answered and said, Have ye not read? Well, he knew they had read, but they read, but they didn't read it.
They threaded the words through their eyeballs, but the concepts conveyed in the words had never gripped the heart. And so here there was a question concerning a very practical issue, and ignorance was the great enemy of the authority of Christ as the great prophet of His church, who had revealed the mind of God through the Old Testament writers, as we saw from Peter's words. Well, then you have a very sensitive pastoral issue, such as the Apostle gives us in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Here are some believers, and they are swallowed up with an inordinate grief when their loved ones die. Imagine being swallowed up with a grief that was at least parallel to the grief of those who have no hope.
Well, Paul says the reason they are in this state is ignorance. Verse 13 of 1 Thessalonians 4, But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as the rest that have no hope. Your grief must not reflect the hopelessness of the world. So how does he correct this?
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord we have a prophetic ignorance of Christ. Coming through an apostle, yes, but as we saw in the previous studies, our great prophet teaches not only in the Old Testament by his Spirit, speaking through the writers, not only in the days of his flesh, but as he gives of his Spirit to those whom he has especially equipped as apostles and the penmen of the New Testament letters. This is Christ speaking. And the apostle says, if you will hear the words of your great prophet, and ignorance is dispelled, then your grief will be dispelled with the ignorance. Now then, what does this tell us? Concerning this question of authority as it touches upon Trinity Baptist Church, here we are, a congregation of people who say Christ is our only Redeemer. We consciously embrace Him primarily and first of all as our priest,
Faith in dealing with Christ for salvation deals primarily with Him as priest, but not exclusively. For he who said, Come and I will give you rest, said, Come and learn of me. And embracing Him is our great prophet to teach us, to bring every thought subject to His own mind and will. Do you see now, perhaps as you have not seen before,
Why we are committed to the form of worship and public ministry to which we are committed. It is a form of worship and ministry calculated to fight ignorance. Why? Because ignorance is the great enemy of the prophetic office of Christ in His church. Why is the exposition of the Word of God central in all our public worship?
because we gather around our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. We gather in His name. We gather to feed upon Him, to be ministered to by Him. Well, what is He? How does He minister to us? He ministers to us not only as a priest, taking all of our praise and confession and making it acceptable to God, but as our great prophet, He ministers to us by discipleship, Spelling ignorance and having his word come home to our understanding. This is why there is the public, systematic reading of the Old and the New Testament scriptures. This was not my heritage. This was not the heritage of one of the elders in our congregation. We are not propagating an ecclesiastical heritage. We didn't do this because we read it in the book.
It was some years after we embarked upon this policy that I discovered in the old directory for worship in the old Scottish Presbyterian churches that this was part of the directory of worship. It was a wonderful confirmation to know that this view of the prophetic office of Christ was one which worked out in the same details of application in other places. But dear people, this is why. We've met to worship Christ, to have dealings with Christ, not only as our priest, but as our prophet. Well, how can we have dealings with Him? Only as His Word is expounded, only as His Word is read, so that there may be this exposure, as Jesus Himself said, to every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. This is why we encourage family worship.
When the elders come to visit you in their stated visitations for their sort of annual checkup of how you're doing, you'll be questioned as to your family worship. Why, is this some kind of a little ritual? Some kind of a Protestant ritual that we do in the place of thumbing through the rosary to say we've had a little... No, no. It's that Christ as prophet might speak to us.
And we might have this further opportunity. Why do we provide a book table? Why do we encourage the reading of good Christian literature? Not to make big-headed people who know a lot. No! But to have this multifaceted exposure to our great prophet, you see, so that he may not say to us, You, Trinity Church, you err in what you teach and in what you bind upon the consciences of men. You err because you know not the Scriptures. We may dispense with eloquence of speech. We may dispense with elegance of style in preaching and teaching. But, oh, dear people, listen! We dare not dispense with solid, substantial, broad, and thorough acquaintance with the Word of God. For the day that comes,
Christ has been to some degree rejected as prophet in this place. And mark my word, church history shows that in direct proportion to the church's relinquishment of this practical adherence to Christ as prophet, it will substitute rituals and entertainment that does not inform the mind concerning the truth of Scripture. You hear me?
in direct proportion, direct proportion now, one-on-one, equal signs, in direct proportion that any church moves in its total form of worship and life from this preoccupation with what? Solid, substantial, broad, and thorough acquaintance with the Word of God, it will move
to forms of entertainment and ritual that bypass the light of the truth upon the mind. And then such a congregation will end up believing and doing anything because it has been rendered ignorant of the Scriptures. So the question of authority is a very vital question in the implications of the prophetic office of Christ. And if we would respect his authority, and in the language again of that great text, if we would listen to him, and only to him, then we must not be ignorant of the Scriptures. And it means you as a congregation, if the time should ever come when your leadership, for one reason or another, would substitute elegance for substance, eloquence for substance,
or encourage any form of worship that has primarily as its goal to entertain, or to have some magical influence upon the mind or the spirit, I trust there will be voices raised up not by the ones and twos, but by the dozens, saying, We shall not, we will not, we dare not,
embark upon a course that will leave us ignorant of the Scriptures, for the Scriptures are the mouth of our great prophet. And we hear him speak only there. Well, secondly, I won't get through these five unless I hurry on. There is a second great enemy to Christ's prophetic office in the Church through the Word, and it's what I'm calling indifference.
Enemy Two: Indifference to the Scriptures
You see, our great prophet has given nothing but what is for our good in his glory. Now, not everything he has given us is equally clear, nor is it all equally important. But he has given nothing superfluous. All Scripture is given and is also what? Profitable. All is profitable. Not all equally profitable, but all is profitable.
And yet one of the saddest indictments, and I want you to turn to it in the book of Hosea, chapter 8 and verse 12. One of the saddest indictments in all the Word of God is this indictment of the prophet or the Lord Jehovah through his prophet, the very Spirit of Christ speaking through Hosea to the Old Testament church. And this is what he says, Hosea 8, verse 12.
And verse 12, I wrote for him the ten thousand things of my law, but they are counted as a strange thing. I wrote for him, and I've recently been reading the book of Deuteronomy in my own Old Testament devotions, five, six, seven, eight, nine chapters at a clip, to feel something of the pressure of that
recapitulation and re-emphasis of the law of God prior to their entering the land in the conquest of the land of Canaan. And again and again God says, I set these words before you for your good, for your good, for your good, obey them and there will be blessing. Do what I say and there will be blessing. Blessing in the field, blessing in your home, blessing in your needing trough, blessing where you turn. God says, I've written for you, for your good, not just to you, but for you, the ten thousand things of my law. But God says, you've counted them a strange thing, and because of it, in this very context, we read of the spiritual harlotry of the nation.
We read of their offering unacceptable sacrifices. We read of the judgment of God that will bring bitterness to their souls. Why? Because of the curse of indifference that militated against the prophetic office of Christ, speaking through the Old Testament prophets to the Old Testament people of God. And you and I must recognize that if Christ is to be a prophet amongst us in something more than names, If we are truly to know the ongoing of His saving work in our hearts, not only as our priest, but our prophet, we must continually learn of Him. As He said in Matthew 11, verse 28, Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Or in the language of Matthew 28, 19, teaching them to observe everything, all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
You see, indifference is an insult to our great prophet. We dare not pick and choose what shall have our attention. We are to learn, as those who acknowledge that our prophet knows better than we do, what we need to know. And we're to learn of him all that he says. We dare not pick and choose when our prophet says, Come and I will give you rest. We're to hear him.
When he says, take up a cross daily and follow me, we are not to be indifferent to that word demanding self-denial and cross-bearing. We are to hear him when he calls us to the blessedness of fellowship with himself, but we are to hear him when he calls us to lose our lives for his sake in the Gospels, that in losing our lives we may find them. Oh dear people, can you imagine what it must do to our prophet when we are indifferent to his words?
It's one thing for the unbelieving skeptic to say, I do not believe there is any such thing as a word from God. Christ is profit rubbish. And I'm sure God is angry with that kind of effrontery from the little worm of the dust. But what must the grief of God's heart be with His people who say, I embrace the only Redeemer and mediator for sinners, the Lord Jesus, as my only priest.
prophet. And then God says, I have written to him to tell the ten thousand things of my law, but they were counted a strange thing. Some of you are ignorant of too much Scripture for the time you have been converted. And the reason is the spirit of indifference to your great prophet. You do not scour the Scriptures. You do not read the Scriptures. You do not come to preaching with a mind that has been duly prepared both by a disciplined Saturday night schedule of sleep and early morning schedule of waiting upon God to prepare your heart and coming, as it were, filled with a holy zeal that nothing will distract your mind. Nothing in terms of the crazy backdrops we sometimes have to preach with here, the state of the day, somebody picking an ear in front. You say, nothing! Nothing!
I'm coming to hear the voice of my prophet, Pastor Martin or Mr. Garlington. No, no, but my great prophet, the Lord Jesus, will speak to me in his word. And so when it is announced, we shall turn to the Gospel of Luke.
There is eagerness. What shall my prophet say to me through his word this morning? And when the Scriptures are opened and it begins to be expounded, there is that attitude, not of indifference, but of eagerness, of holy longing, of holy yearning to know the voice of your prophet. Well, there is a third great enemy to the authority of Christ as prophet in his church.
Enemy Three: Unbelief
And I pray, God, that we may be purged continually of this influence. It's that of unbelief. If indifference and ignorance are great enemies to the authority of Christ as prophet, then unbelief must as well take its place among the first ranking of these negative influences. For all that our great prophet speaks demands,
The response of faith. I remind you of those words in John 12 that are so pivotal to the whole subject of the prophetic office of Christ. In which our Lord makes it plain that you cannot separate your dealings with Him and your dealings with His Word.
Verse 46 of John 12, I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me may not abide in darkness. If any man hear my sayings, you see, he speaks on the one hand of believing on him. He moves right into his sayings. If any man hear my sayings and keep them not, I judge him not, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, his person, And receiveth not my sayings. His words hath one that judgeth him. The word that I spake. The same shall judge him. Well, I thought Christ was going to judge. Yes, He is. But He says the instrument of that judgment or the measure of that judgment will be His word. I thought we were saved by receiving Christ. Yes, but there is no receiving of Him apart from His words. And to receive His words, certainly if it means anything, means to embrace them in faith.
To believe that all that he speaks is true, and being true, it is worthy of the unquestioned acceptance of my heart and the undivided allegiance of my whole-souled commitment. Now, unbelief, this cursed sin that would raise an eyebrow at anything that comes from the voice of our great prophet. What is unbelief? Some people look upon unbelief as...
as a constitutional weakness. Some of us have allergies. And when my nose itches here preaching, I don't feel any guilt. I feel a little embarrassment sometimes when I have to rub it, for I fear you may think he's got a nervous habit. No, that's just to get rid of the distraction of an itchy nose. I feel no guilt for my allergies. Now, if I do something stupid to aggravate them and should have known better, then I feel guilt for being stupid.
And I'll confess to God to forgive me for being stupid, but I feel no guilt. It's a constitutional matter, nothing I can do about it. Well, some people look upon unbelief that way. Well, I just was sort of put together a doubting Thomas. Will you listen to what your great prophet says concerning unbelief in Luke chapter 24? Listen to what he says to some people who were despondent and downcast because of unbelief. Unbelief.
In the face of the great prophet who spoke through the prophets of the Old Testament, and now that same prophet who by his Spirit spoke through Isaiah and Jeremiah and Elijah, he is there with two of his people. And he says this, verse 24 of Luke 24, And certain of them that were with us went to the tomb and found it even as the women had said, but him they saw not. Here they are discouraged, despondent, and even though a report has come that the tomb is empty, they are still despondent. Why? And he tells them, And he said unto them, O foolish men and slow of heart, to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Why should they believe in everything that the prophets, small p, have spoken? Because everything that the prophets, small p, have spoken, according to Peter,
They spake as they were carried along by the spirit of the great prophet, capital P. The spirit of Christ was in them, Peter says, signifying the things concerning his death and his resurrection and the glories to follow. And he says to these people, you have the scriptures. And the reason you have not come to a point of joy and expectation is because of folly and of
wicked unbelief that is rooted in a slow heart. And folly in the Bible is never morally neutral. It is an evil thing. And our Lord is not calling unbelief constitutional weakness. He is calling it moral perversity, foolish and slow of heart to believe in all that has been said. And oh, dear people of God in this place,
May we ever be delivered from a carnal rationalism that will only believe what it can fathom. If the sea of your faith is only as deep as your own height, and you'll never swim unless you can feel bottom, my friend, your sea is too shallow to take you to heaven. Someone has said, faith may swim.
where reason and understanding may only wade. Faith may swim where reason and understanding may only wade. Another man of God has said, Faith is reason at rest in God. Our Lord says to these, Fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have said.
And if Christ is to have his rights in our midst, there must be no carnal rationalism that refuses to believe what it cannot fathom. May I say by way of application another thing. Don't ever look upon this Bible as some detached embalming of the word of God.
You want to have your relationship to the Scriptures revolutionized. Put it into the orbit of the concept of Christ as the great prophet of the church. Peter says, when I pick up the Old Testament writers, it's the Spirit of Christ speaking through them. And when I turn to the New Testament, it is the same Christ by the Spirit promised to lead these people into all the truth. This is
the embalming of the words of God in some detached or technical sense. I must look upon it as the living transcript of the mind and will of my great prophet. And it is my Lord, my Redeemer, my great prophet who speaks to me in the Scriptures. Would he ever tell me a lie? Would he who is the truth lie to me?
Therefore, when he says things that I find hard to understand, I can still by his grace say, Lord, I believe. And even if I must be honest and say like that man did, conscious of the actings of faith, I am also conscious of this contrary spirit of unbelief. He doesn't get content with the unbelief. He says, Lord, I believe.
some of you who wrestle more than others with the problem of unbelief. You read the words of Christ concerning such issues as the way being narrow, and you say, can it be that of all the multitudes of the earth so few are entering the narrow gate? You read Christ's words concerning a place of outer darkness and eternal torment, and you say, can it be that that for a few years of rebellion and sin there should be an eternity of torment. I cannot, my friend, it is none of your business to fathom the depths of the mystery of divine wrath. Your little mind can no more fathom the depths of divine wrath than it can rise to fathom the heights of divine love. Can your little mind encompass the magnitude of divine love?
Neither can it encompass the magnitude of divine wrath. So what do you do? You believe all that your great prophet has said. Of wrath and of love, of mercy and of judgment. And you say, I believe it all because my prophet is truth. And he would not lie to me. Well, I must touch quickly upon the fourth.
Enemy Four: Human Tradition
the great enemies to the authority of Christ's prophetic office in His Church, and it's the great age-old problem of human tradition. Now let me very carefully guard what I'm about to say. Human traditions, in the general interaction of any society or church which do not violate the Word of God, are perfectly innocent things. Such things as where we shall meet, what time we shall meet on the Lord's Day, are matters where there are traditions in various societies and cultures, and none of them is either right or wrong. They are simply conveniences in the fabric of that society. But when you turn to a passage such as Mark chapter 7, you have another thing. Mark chapter 7. Our Lord is indicting the religious leaders of his day who seemed on the surface of things to be very punctilious in their obedience to the word of God.
But this is what our Lord has to say to them in verses 8 and 9. Ye leave the commandment of God and hold fast the tradition of men. And he said unto them, Full well do you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition. And then he gives them an illustration. He says, The word of God said, verse 10, Honor thy father and thy mother. And he that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death.
And he quotes two passages from the Old Testament law. Now he says, you see what you have done? You've set up a clever little tradition. Here's a man who obviously ought to know that honoring father and mother means that if my father and mother are destitute and I have the means to help support them, I can only honor them in supporting them. But they had a clever little tradition where the man says, all right, the $10 this week that mom and dad need to have a little crust of bread on the table,
and I have wherewithal to give it to them, and the law of God demands that I give it to them, I'll say that's devoted to God, and I'll take it up to the temple and give it unto God. And they had this tradition which encouraged people to violate the fifth commandment under the guise of a higher level of spirituality. And it had become so ingrained in their whole fabric of perspective and activity that Jesus said this tradition was negating the Word of God. And oh, my dear friends, this is a constant, constant problem in the visible Church of Christ. Is Christ our only and final and supreme prophet? Well, it means then that we must
continually bring every single tradition that is not simply an innocent expression of our particular society, but every tradition that affects obedience to the clear precepts of God. We must bring tradition again and again to the touchstone of Holy Scripture, or we no longer have the right to say that Christ is our prophet from whom we learn the will of God.
People ask, is such and such a reformed church? Well, I know what they mean, but I like to be cheeky and say, well, if there is such a thing, I don't want anything to do with it. I don't like the tense of the word. If you ask, is it a reforming church? I like that. Is it a reforming church? What do we mean by that? Is it a body of people to whom Christ is a real and a present?
unfolded in exposition and application by the gifts deposited in the church whose word can cut right into the heart of a tradition that's a year old, two years, twenty, or a hundred years old. And that church reforms itself by the word of Christ. Can Christ speak and lead people to do something that nobody else is doing? And to give up doing
See, if Christ is prophet in more than just name, isn't that what it's going to demand of us? And it's a most wonderful thing not to be afraid to turn up any passage of Scripture and to know that whatever your prophet says, by His grace, you're going to do it. It's a wonderful thing to use a current term to hang loose and to know that nothing is sacrosanct. That's just a big word, kids, for specially sacred, and you've got to preserve it.
who thanked but the precepts of God coming from the lips of our great prophet. It's a wonderful thing. When I have occasion to speak in pastors' conferences in various parts of the country and times in various parts of the world, and we get discussing this whole matter of church life, one of the heartbreaks that pastors again and again pass on to me, they say, Brother Martin, God has shown me things in His Word, and I believe with all my heart that they're based upon the Word, and I've sought the confirming witness of careful exegetes and theologians and church historians. But any time I introduce it, the people look at me and say, but we haven't done it that way. And then I start bragging on you people. I won't tell you all I say.
But I'll tell you some of the things I say. I say my great joy for the past ten years has been to be a teaching elder in a congregation where up till now, whenever we saw something in the book, all we as elders had to do is demonstrate to the people that it was in the book. And that was the end of the matter. And they did it. Up till a year ago or so, give you a case in point, in our stated midweek prayer service, men and women prayed Now only the men pray. Why? Because some of us in our study of the Word, we weren't trying to go around and be mean to our ladies. We love our ladies now more than we ever did. And I think they love us as men more now than they ever did. But we saw that our prophet, speaking through the apostle Paul, said, I will that the men pray in every place. 1 Timothy 2.8 I will that the men pray in every place. Lord, why did you say the men?
is because that's what I meant. It's a form of spiritual leadership in public stated gatherings of the saints. And because I've ordained that men should take the loving, responsible headship in the leadership of the church, I will that demand pray. So we just announced at a prayer meeting a new light God had given us from His Word. It was always there. We just hadn't come to grips with it. No new lights from heaven.
Our prophet had been speaking. We just hadn't gotten close enough to those sentences. People say, well, what happened? I say, well, the only feedback I ever got was women coming up to us saying thank you. Now I know why I was reluctant to pray in the mixed prayer meeting. Thank you for your obedience to the Word. You didn't have any women get mad? No. Didn't have any women? No. They stand there and say, well...
You know, I think you're an honest man, but at that point I'm finding it hard to really believe you are. Oh, dear people, may it ever be so. You see, this is the practical outworking of what it means. Is Christ our prophet? Then whatever He says concerning anything must be embraced. We must allow no tradition. And no doubt we're already locked into some traditions that God will blow to pieces in 1978. Blessed blowing to pieces.
Enemy Five: Fanaticism and Extra-Biblical Revelation
Make God bring it to pass, as long as we know our prophet is speaking to us from his word. Well then, last of all, and since we can't meet tonight, I'll keep you a little longer than usual this morning. There is this fifth great enemy to Christ's prophetic office, and seriously now I'll only touch upon it for a moment. And I don't have the right word. If I were speaking to a group of church historians, I'd use one term, because it would mean something.
But the term I have to use is one I'm not satisfied with, but I'll give it anyway. It's what I'm calling fanaticism. Fanaticism, the old sense for you who've read some church history. Religious enthusiasm. And this is what I mean. The Bible says that God has spoken, Hebrews 1, 3, in these last days, in a son.
And everything in conjunction with the first advent of our Lord and the descent of the Spirit, the establishment of the apostolate, the confirming of their testimony with miracles as we heard in the previous hour, to the giving of that final word from our great prophet in the book of the Revelation, that is the deposit of truth given to the church for as long as she will exist in this state upon the earth.
And when that last book is completed, Jesus himself says in Revelation 22, 18, concerning that book in particular, but by inference concerning all that precedes, Cursed be he who adds, cursed be he who subtracts. This is the final deposit of truth for the church. But from the history of the church in its earliest days, there are always those who claim to have such an intimate access to the Lord that He gives them secrets not contained in this book. Now, mind you, they never claim that in departure from the Lord, God gave them secrets. It's always under the guise of a more intimate, sensitive communion with the Lord Jesus. You see, you poor people out there, all you've got is a book. That's all you've got. But some of us, we have the ear of
You poor people, you just got a dry boat. We have living words breathed into our ears, floated into our consciousness on eagles' wings. Oh, they'll tell you until your spiritual fangs dripped. Oh, yes. Early in the history of the church and in greater or lesser degrees throughout its entire history,
There has been this spirit of fanaticism, and what is it? It is an intrusion upon the prophetic office of Christ. Our great prophet has chosen to embody all of his mind with respect to the faith and practice of the church in this book.
Anyone who says, I have something given for faith and practice that goes beyond that book, is saying, our prophet has left us an inadequate transcript of his mind and his will. And that's not only pride. It casts aspersions upon the love and the foresight of our great prophet. You see, careful study comparing Scripture with Scripture is Applying oneself to all the disciplines necessary to be an accurate exegete, that's not very glamorous compared to the fluttering of angels' wings and lights and liquid gold, whatever that's supposed to feel like, being poured over you. Oh, you read the descriptions of the ecstasies that God spoke. Well, I didn't mean to be cheeky, but I had to be with one man who came to me on one occasion, a young college student.
God spoke to me. I said, oh, he did. What did his voice sound like? High, low, loud, soft? How do you know it was God's voice? Oh, I've heard him many times. I said, oh, that's very interesting. And I went on to try to answer the fool according to his folly. And it was so obvious that the God who spoke to him was not the God who speaks through his great prophet in this book. And again and again, there generally is no middle position here.
Any group, any individual that claims to have revelation that goes beyond the insight the Spirit gives to the words of our prophet in this book, in direct proportion that they get caught up with that additional revelation, they will despise and demean this revelation. And thank God the reverse is true. The more they esteem this, the less they want that.
And I have known of groups and movements that at one time gathered around their so-called tongues and prophecies who began to take this book seriously. And now they acknowledge weeks and months have gone by and they've had no prophecies. What's happened? You see, when you begin to feed upon the true and unchanging word of the prophet himself, everything else is drivel.
Oh, may God keep us in this place from fanaticism. From that fanaticism that will seek a word from our great prophet anywhere but within the pages of this book. Now, do we want the dead letter as they would say to us? No, for Jesus said, the words that I have spoken are spirit and they are life. David said, the opening of thy word.
Conclusion: Christ as Living Prophet Through Scripture
It gives light. It gives understanding. We believe that men are begotten by the Word of Truth. We believe that Scripture is adequate to make us whole men. We do not believe in this detached, heartless, unemotional, purely intellectual exposure to the Word. We believe this Word, when understood, will become to us, as David said, sweeter than honey to our taste. It will get us excited.
Cause us to leap for joy. But when our feet come back down again. They come right back down upon the book from which they took off. Is the truce here to make us jump? Why when we come back down our feet will be right planted in this book again. Oh may God keep us then as a church. For this has been an intensely pastoral message. May God keep us bound to our great prophets.
You see, don't detach this book from Him. You see that relationship, when that dawns upon you and the Spirit of God makes it real to you, then you see it's not a matter of having dealings with Christ, or now we set Him aside in our worship while we study the Bible. No, He is our great prophet. What does that mean to us? It means then we refuse to be ignorant of that Word by which He reveals the mind and will of the Father. We refuse to be indifferent to that Word by which He reveals the mind and will of the Father. We refuse to be unbelieving with regard to that Word, by which He reveals the mind and will of the Father. We refuse to stubbornly hold to traditions that would make us disobey that Word. And we look for no ecstasies. We look for no transports beyond that Word. We look for all that He will give us within it. Oh, may Christ be the prophet of this people.
Closing Prayer
And may we as a church be a living monument to the fact that Jesus Christ is more than prophet in name to a body of God's people here in this place. Let us pray. O blessed and unchanging prophet, priest, and king, We worship you this morning. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that ever being upon the bosom of the Father, you are able fully to exegete him to us, fully to reveal him. We thank you that in the words of the prophets and writers of the Old and the New Testaments, you have given to us all of the transcript of the Father's mind that we will ever need
until we are brought home safely to glory. Oh, we ask that we may have an intelligent, loving, and believing relationship to you as our great prophet. We thank you that you are our priest for all the sins that you have forgiven, cleansed, and washed away in your own blood, that by your intercession you keep us, O blessed Lord, we would afresh have those actings of faith in You and towards You as our great prophet. Teach us as a church. O ever keep us under Your Word. Keep us from fanaticism. Keep us from that kind of traditionalism that makes us unwilling to obey Your Word. O Lord, be to us our power.
prophet, and all that that means, to the end that your name may be praised, and our own lives enriched in an onlooking world, be brought to acknowledge that there is indeed a people whose God is the Lord. Hear our prayer. May your benediction and blessing rest upon us as a people as we leave this place, and all of the activities of this
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
This is my beloved Son, hear ye him — the foundation of Christ's prophetic authority
Ye do err not knowing the Scriptures
Tradition making void the commandment of God
Texts Expounded
Also Referenced
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Scripture Shall Mold Our Faith and Practice, Part 1
Ephesians 5:23
layers Manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church