One of the experiences of Jesus that, for many, has ruled him out of being the final Great Prophet is the story of his crucifixion. A widespread belief holds that Jesus was simply one in a line of prophets and that he escaped death at the last minute when God saved him by causing someone else to die in his place. Does it matter, what difference would there be between the actual death of him and the exchange of him for someone else?
• PROPHET?
So how do we verify someone’s claims to be a prophet of God? To begin with, to hold that if a prophet is defeated by hostile opposition, he must be weak or inferior to others is an unsafe way of deciding the question. Certainly, when we look at the prophets recorded in the Bible, we often see severe opposition.
Samuel as a prophet of the Lord, was one more exception, of whom the Scripture records, ‘the Lord was with him and did not let any of his words fall to the ground’ (1 Samuel 3:19). But many prophets were despised, harassed, and sometimes killed by those who hated to hear God’s truth. Long after the time of Samuel, Jesus challenged the advocates of the religious establishment with: ‘Woe to you! Because you build the tombs of the prophets that your fathers killed… that is also why the Wisdom of God said: “I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute” (Luke 11:47-49).
Faithful prophets were often persecuted and sometimes killed because they did not compromise the word of the Lord. A basic rule was ‘when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or does not come to pass, it is a word that the Lord has not spoken’ (Deuteronomy 18:22). The false prophets were popular because they said what the people wanted to hear, but they opposed the true prophet who called them to turn to God.
• HOSTILITY
We see this pattern in the ministry of Jesus, when he says of himself, ‘for a prophet cannot die outside of Jerusalem’ (Luke 13:33). Several times Jesus foretold his death and resurrection, saying to his disciples: ‘The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise’ (Mark 9:31).
Note the dark hostility experienced by the prophets of the Lord and by Jesus himself, and how it was the terrible spiritual blindness of the people and the powerful exposure of their sins that provoked the most hostile reactions, just as it does today.
This is part of the context of Jesus’ crucifixion, when he uses the words of King David to describe his own terrible feeling of being abandoned by God: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Psalm 22:1 and quoted in Mark 15:34).
Here we are faced with a big question; Why Jesus, the Great Prophet, the victorious one, who is crowned with everlasting glory and honor, the Redeemer, abandoned by God?
• ABANDONED
In the words, ‘My God, my God,’ Jesus is calling God his. He knows that the deepest relationship is broken and cries with the most bitter anguish: “Why have you abandoned me?”, As if, I, were your own beloved, in the deepest relationship and indivisible in the nature of God. Why, if the Lord assured Joshua: ‘I will not leave you nor forsake you’ (Joshua 1:5), why would God abandon the Eternal through whom he made all things? Can God abandon God?
But, Jesus never lost his destiny – this was his destiny! At the heart of the gospel of Christ are such truths as, ‘Christ died for the ungodly’ (Romans 5:6), and ‘Christ died for our sins’ (1 Corinthians 15:3) and ‘He Himself [Christ] He bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). Those words show God’s clear purpose that Jesus Christ bore God’s holy wrath on behalf of others who fully deserved it.
There was a wonderful purpose in his abandonment. Christ bearing the wrath of God is God himself justly punishing sin and graciously rescuing people from his most terrible wrath and bringing them into the embrace of his everlasting love. So for all who are trusting in Christ now there is no condemnation – Christ has borne it – what a glorious gospel! With the last and best word of God now revealed, the role of the prophets has long since ended.
• TASTE
In answer to our title question, we now say, yes, and much more than a Prophet; Jesus is the lord. With the biblical revelation of the three-in-one nature of the One true and living God, there is a way in which God himself justly bears the punishment of rebellious sinners and graciously offers them free forgiveness of all his sins; something that is not possible with good religious works, prayers and pilgrimages, which never change the heart and are never acceptable to God. But Jesus’ death was acceptable, a single sacrifice for sins forever! Resurrected on the third day, he lives forever.
For who else was willing, in boundless love, even the one who never deserved it, to bear the sins of others, to be wounded for our transgressions, and to be abandoned by God so that rebels like you and me could be reconciled? and never abandoned? This is without a doubt the best piece of good news you will ever hear.
Turn and trust in Jesus, the only great Savior of sinners today!