Christ, Our Chief Prophet
We sometimes forget that Christ is not only our great High Priest who offers that one sacrifice for sin, but that He is also our King and Prophet. These offices are of equal importance with His priestly office.
As our Prophet He is the one who brings us the word of God. He does this first by being the living Word of God (John 1:1f). As the living Word He reveals God to us (John 1:14; 14:9)—all the grace, mercy and love of God, but also the holiness, justice and wrath of God.
He also functions as our Prophet in speaking the word of God to us. He does this in the preaching of the gospel. In commissioning and sending faithful preachers, He makes Himself heard to His people (John 5:25; 10:27). This is one of the most important truths in Scripture concerning preaching—that in the preaching, by the work of the Spirit, God’s people actually hear the voice of Christ. That is what makes preaching the very “power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16). That is why “faith cometh by hearing” (Rom. 10:17).
Because He speaks with such power we need no other prophet nor may we seek or follow any other beside Him. The claims of those who say they are prophets today, and who claim to be able to speak infallibly or to reveal to us the will of God, are put to shame in His presence.
Because His work as prophet is so important, Moses told of His coming long ago (Deut. 18:15; cf. Acts 3:22–25). Moses said concerning His prophetic work, “Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you” (Acts 3:22). The people did not always hear and heed Moses and that is why Moses spoke of a better prophet to come. He who comes makes Himself heard.
As the Son of God He speaks with such power that the sinner cannot but obey when He calls. When He calls to faith and repentance, His powerful voice creates faith and repentance in the hearts of His people. When He speaks the dead hear the voice of the Son of God and live (John 5:25).
That is why Moses said, “Him shall ye hear in all things.”
That sinners are dead and cannot hear Him until He speaks with such power to them does not destroy the accountability of those who perish in their sins. “Every soul which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people” (Acts 3:23).
We can hear Him only when He speaks His powerful, creative word in our hearts, but we must hear Him, lest we perish. As the Prophet He demands our attention. We must “give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip” (Heb. 2:1). Rev. Ron Hanko
God’s Method of Teaching
“I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know” (Gen. 18:21).
The passage quoted above is a part of the chapter which speaks of God’s appearance to Abraham in the plains of Mamre. After eating and drinking with Abraham, God and the two angels went toward Sodom and Abraham accompanied them (16). It was as they journeyed toward Sodom that God began the conversation which led to God’s revelation to Abraham of His intention to destroy Sodom because of its wickedness.
The question appended to the request to treat this verse is the following: “Accepting the fact that God knows the end from the beginning and indeed He has purposed in that way, why does it appear in certain instances, as in Genesis 18:21, that God’s knowledge is incomplete? Is this an accommodation to our human limitations or, as in this specific incident, was this to draw Abraham out in intercession?”
This is an interesting question, although the question surely has the insight to answer it along the correct lines. But there are some things in it which are worthy of our consideration.
It is correct and necessary to affirm God’s omniscience. God knows indeed the end from the beginning and knows all this because He has eternally purposed all that comes to pass. Any explanation we give to this verse and others like it must be within the bounds of God’s omniscience.
But both suggested answers to the question are, in the specific instance of Abraham, correct. God was not merely passing on information about His intention to destroy Sodom. God was about to reveal to Abraham something very important concerning the fulfilment of His promise.
The destruction of Sodom was but a type of the destruction of the whole world at the end of time. But the elect of God are found in this world, and the question is: What will happen to God’s people who are in the world when the world is destroyed?
The answer to this question is, God will not destroy the world as long as His people are still to be found in it. This is clear from Abraham’s intercessory prayer and from God’s response: “If I find … fifty [or forty, or ten] righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes” (cf. 26-32). Indeed, before the world is destroyed, God will deliver His own at that point in history when the last elect should be born and brought to conversion (cf. II Pet. 3:9—Christ will not return until the last elect has come to repentance).
God accommodates Himself to our human limitations and speaks to us in ways we can understand. Calvin talks about the fact that God speaks to us in “baby” talk, for we are, in relation to Him, only babies (cf. Luke 24:19).
But it is also true that God speaks this way to elicit from Abraham the prayer of intercession which Abraham makes. God works in this way because the revelation of His eternal purpose is meant for Abraham and by God’s statement in verse 21, God causes Abraham to ponder exactly the problem to which God addresses His revelation. Abraham’s thoughts turn to Lot in Sodom and that is the immediate occasion for God to reveal to Abraham and the church of all ages that the wicked world is spared only because in it are to be found righteous people.
How important this is for us to understand. We are sometimes amazed at the terrible wickedness which is present in the world. We cannot understand why a holy God does not break forth in fury to destroy it all. The only answer is that there are still some people of God either living in the world who must still be brought to repentance, or there are elect who are still unborn but who must be born and saved before the world is destroyed.
How can the church go to heaven unless every elect for whom Christ died is first saved? That would be impossible. But just as soon as every elect is born and saved, God will indeed destroy all wickedness. But He will not do this until the elect are also delivered from the world, for they shall not have to endure the terrible judgments which God sends upon the world at the end of time.
We might add that we have a clear statement of this in Revelation 11 where we read that the witnesses are raised and brought to heaven in the sight of their enemies, that is, before judgment finally comes upon the wicked (11–13).
But there is also something else here. We read a similar expression in Genesis 11:5: “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.” It seems as if the Lord is described as “coming down” in connection with extremely great wickedness—as in Babel’s attempt to establish the kingdom of Antichrist and in Sodom’s homosexual wickedness.
This must be a very graphic and picturesque way of telling us that the wickedness of Babel and Sodom were so great that it is, and I speak as a man, almost impossible for God to believe it Himself. He must “come down” to investigate whether, as it were, the wickedness is as great as it is reported!
Of course we know that God knows all this, but it is God’s way of telling us that their wickedness was very great. Could it be that the Lord even now is getting ready to “come down” to investigate the wickedness so prevalent in our society?
Let us be sober and watch unto prayer. Prof. Herman Hanko
A Saturday Sabbath?
One of our readers has suggested that the Sabbath is still Saturday. He says, “Scriptural evidence for a change to Sunday is flimsy, to say the least—but whether one day should be different from another is debatable anyway (Col. 2:16; Gal. 4:10; Rom. 14:5-6).” He adds, “We believe the real Sabbath is to be a recipient of the grace of God—resting from our own works and awaiting the eternal Sabbath.”
With regard to the Sabbath, we do not think that the evidence for keeping the day of worship on the first day is flimsy. We would insist that the evidence is as strong as it can be.
There are, of course, those passages which single out the first day of the week as a special day (Acts 20:7; I Cor. 16:2) and Revelation 1:10 which speaks of “the Lord’s day.” Probably these three passages, standing alone, are considered flimsy evidence by our correspondent.
We must realize, however, that the case for a day of rest on the first day of the week rests not only on what Jesus says, but also on what He did: the fact that He rose from the dead, made His appearances and poured out His Spirit all on the first day of the week is the strongest possible proof that day is special. Because all these things happened on that day of the week it is forever after known as “the Lord’s day.”
What is more, it is still the day when He “appears” to our faith (John 20:27), when we are to be “in the Spirit” (Rev. 1:10) and when we glory in His resurrection (17-18) and enjoy without distraction our own new life in Him (Col. 3:1-4).
The principle here is that not only Jesus’ words but His actions also are a rule for us and for our life. In this case all the great works of redemption that followed His death are on the same day. Can that be anything but a pattern and rule for us?
Nor do Colossians 2:16, Galatians 4:10 and Romans 14:5-6 contradict this. They are not written against the keeping of a special day (the Sabbath) but against the keeping of other special feast days and sabbaths commanded in the Old Testament law (as the context of each passage indicates).
That is why Galatians 4:10 not only mentions “days” but also “months,” “times” and “years.” And why Colossians 2:16 mentions “new moons,” “holydays” and “sabbaths” (note the plural). And that Romans 14:5-6 also refers to things commanded in the ceremonial law of Moses.
In the Old Testament special days were sabbaths and there were, in addition, sabbath weeks and years. These were things that had their origin in the ceremonial law. It is these that were done away by the coming of Christ. The Sabbath itself does not originate in the law of Moses but is a creation ordinance (Gen. 2:1–3), like marriage.
There is, therefore, no conflict between Hebrews 4:9—which speaks of sabbath rest (the word used, sabbaton, literally means “a sabbath-keeping”) that still remains for the people of God—and passages like Colossians 2:16 which speak of sabbaths.
It certainly is true that we keep the Sabbath through resting from our own works as recipients of the grace of God and awaiting the eternal Sabbath. But both the Old and the New Testament emphasize the eternal Sabbath and rest from our own works by keeping a day here and now in memory of Him who gives us rest and on the day that He did all those things by which we have rest for our souls—on that day He claims as His own, the Lord’s day. Rev. Ron Hanko
