Tonight, I would invite you to turn to two short passages, one from Isaiah 61, one from Matthew chapter 3. Isaiah 61, verses 1, 2, and 3, and Matthew 3, verses 13 through 17. And in connection with these portions of Scripture, if you would also turn in the back of the Psalter, hymnal to page 19, Lord's Day 12. Two questions and answers belong to Lord's Day 12, 31 and 32. We will only consider tonight question and answer 31. Why is he called Christ, meaning anointed? We had considered the name of Jesus. And now tonight, the name, the title, Christ. Isaiah chapter 61, to begin with verses 1, 2, and 3, as we hear now the word of the Lord. The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor. In Matthew 3, verses 13-17, Matthew's account of the baptism of Jesus. Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter Him, saying, I need to be baptized by You. And do You come to Me? Jesus replied, Let it be so now. It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness. Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, This is my Son, whom I love. With Him I am well pleased. And looking to Lord's Day 12, page 19, as we confess together what we believe, the question asks, Why is He called Christ, meaning anointed? Because He has been ordained by God the Father and has been anointed with the Holy Spirit. to be our chief prophet and teacher who perfectly reveals to us the secret counsel and will of God for our deliverance, our only high priest who has set us free by the one sacrifice of his body and who continually pleads our cause with the Father and our eternal King who governs us by his word and spirit and who guards us and keeps us in the freedom He has won for us. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the name Jesus, we said a few weeks ago, is the sweetest name we know. It's a matchless name. There's none other like it. Of course, we know that there have been those throughout history, even those today who have been given the name of Jesus in one of its various forms, but no one else could even begin to live up to that name like our Savior. No one else could begin to live up to the meaning of that name. We said before, what's in a name? In the name of Jesus, we find everything that we need. And no one else could begin to live up to the name of Jesus like our Savior. Jesus means Savior. And there is none other who could or would save His people from their sins. You remember, I trust, that this little name is big with instruction. The name Jesus reminds us of our sin. It reveals to us our salvation and it requires of us our service. Jesus, we know, is our Savior's personal name, like your first name or mine. But He was also given an official name, a title, not talking about a last name now, but a title, and that is the Christ. And in the name Christ, The content of the name Jesus, that is, salvation, and all that is included in salvation, is more clearly explained. Christ means anointed. Now in the Old Testament, we know that there were those who held office among God's chosen nation of Israel, and they were anointed with oil. And boys and girls, that anointing with oil signified something. It signified their ordination to the office for which they had been set aside. and as well as signified the promise of and the giving of the gifts necessary for fulfilling these offices. And you know what these offices were, don't you? These offices were the offices of prophet, priest, and king. You remember, I trust, different prophets, priests, and kings by name in the Old Testament. But Jesus Christ was set apart by God the Father for all three of these offices. All of the Old Testament prophets, priests, and kings were to point to the one great prophet, priest, and king called the Christ, the Messiah. But he was greater than all of those that pointed to him because he fulfilled, and he continues to fulfill his office perfectly. And therefore, beloved, we confess that he is our chief prophet and teacher. He is our only high priest. And he is our eternal king. And in order to fulfill these offices, as the catechism says, Christ was ordained by God the Father and anointed with the Holy Spirit. You see, this work of salvation is indeed a Trinitarian work. Our Savior did not take on this work Himself without divine appointment. He covenanted with His Father in the covenant of redemption. To be ordained means to be designated or appointed or called. And to be anointed then means to be as the one designated, appointed, or called to be set apart or commissioned for a specific task. In Psalm 2, verse 6, God says of the Son to come, I have installed my King upon Zion, my holy mountain. In Luke 4, Jesus rightly applies to Himself the prophecy of Isaiah, which we read, the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me. In His prayer to God the Father in John chapter 17, Jesus says, I glorify Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do. And when He was baptized, Jesus was officially proclaimed to be the only Messiah. As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, This is My Son, whom I love. With Him I am well pleased. Jesus' credentials. Boys and girls' credentials are those things which when one goes in to get a job, the credentials say that that one is qualified. It talks about one's education and experience and those kinds of things. Jesus' credentials, we might say, came directly from heaven. And He had the best references anyone could ever have. At His baptism, He was made fully qualified for His work. He was already qualified. in His divine nature, but here at His baptism, the Holy Spirit came upon Him above measure so that in His human nature, He could pay the penalty for our sins. He could restore us to fellowship with the Triune God and grant to us all that we need for time and eternity. And therefore, beloved, it shouldn't surprise us then that Christ's threefold office was fully directed toward one purpose and that was the salvation of His people as he fulfills the threefold office of salvation, as the prophet who shows the way of salvation, as the priest who paves the way of salvation, and as the king who maintains the way of salvation. And before we consider these three points together, let me point out that even though in the Old Testament we don't find any one man with all three of these offices, some had two. David was a king and a prophet. Melchizedek was a king and a priest. Yet we don't find any one man with all three of these offices. Yet it should not be strange to us that all three of these offices unite in Christ. You see, God created man in such a way that these three offices were included in the image of God. We confess that already in Lord's Day 3. In Lord's Day 3, answer 6 says, God created man good and in His own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might truly know God his Creator, pointing to the prophetic work, love Him with all of his heart, pointing to the priestly work, and live with Him in eternal happiness for His praise and glory, pointing to the kingly work. And I appreciate the way one commentator explains it. He says, God gave man a prophetic consciousness to know Him, to think and speak His thoughts after Him. Also a priestly heart to love Him. to dedicate his life to Him and in fellowship with God to will what He wills. And finally, a royal hand to carry out His work, to rule His kingdom and to rule over all creation with Him. You see, beloved, these three offices, that of prophet, priest, and king, were all part of man's humanness. All part of His calling. And of course, we know that sin messed it all up and therefore, it should not be strange to us at all that Jesus is prophet, priest, and king because He is whole and true man, completely undamaged by sin. And Jesus Christ fulfills these three offices not only as a mere man, but as our mediator and Savior. And as the Christ, the anointed one, He fulfills the threefold office of salvation. First of all, as the prophet who shows the way of salvation. In answer 31, we see that Christ the Mediator, as our chief prophet and teacher, perfectly reveals to us the secret counsel and will of God for our deliverance. Of course, when we think of a prophet, what a prophet does, most often we think of one who foretells the future, who looks ahead, boys and girls, and tells us what is going to happen. And a prophet, we know, was generally to be a spokesman for God to the people. But he was also a teacher. And therefore, a prophet not only tells about the future, but as a teacher, he looks back. He discusses or teaches about the past. Again, as our chief prophet and teacher, Christ perfectly reveals to us the secret counsel and will of God for our deliverance, for our redemption. Jesus Christ has always taught and continues to teach His people about salvation. He shows us the way. You see, God's counsel that the Catechism talks about, God's counsel is His decree, His plan, to save His people and not to save those who are not His. And the will of God for our deliverance then means the carrying out of His counsel, the carrying out of His plan. In other words, He willed our salvation and not our ruin. Jesus Christ shows us the way of salvation planned from before the foundation of the world. He has revealed these things. Apart from Him, we would never have known about these things. Of course, we know that there are many things that we experience in this life that God has not revealed to us. God has a secret will, we say, a hidden will. We have many questions, don't we, about the situation of life that we find ourselves in, oftentimes those questions revolve around death. Why does God allow innocent people to die? I don't mean sinless people, but those who apparently haven't done anything. This afternoon we got a call that my wife's uncle, his children found him dead this afternoon. Why? So suddenly. Why does God take the life of a baby from her Christian parents just as they might have been anticipating her coming into this world? Why does God allow earthquakes or hurricanes to destroy cities, killing thousands of people? Why does God allow our society to suppress the church, to weigh down heavy upon us as Christians and to make our lives hard and difficult? You see, congregation, we would like to have the answers to these questions, don't we? But the point is that we don't need to know these things. And we need to be content in these things as God reveals them day by day. We know His secret will as He reveals it day by day. But some things we don't know. We don't understand. And we won't know. But praise be to God that what we need to know about, that is not hidden from us. We need to know about God's counsel and will for our deliverance. That's what's important. And Christ has fully revealed this. He laid it out clearly. There are only two ways. Not three, not ten, not a million. Only two ways. Either the broad way or the narrow way. Either the way of eternal wretchedness or the way of eternal blessedness. And if you're not on the narrow way of eternal blessedness, then you are on the broad way of eternal wretchedness. It's one or the other. In plain language, Jesus taught that He and only He is the way to the Father. Jesus taught that He and only He is the bread and the water of life. And all who as sinners come to Jesus weary and burdened and eat and drink of Him shall receive rest. But the godless, those who are literally without God, they have no peace. When Jesus walked this earth, His message to the multitudes was clear and understandable. He taught them gently, as the Bible says, because they were as sheep without a shepherd. And today He continues to show us the way of salvation. We are to thank God for His blessings, too numerous to count, and too much for us to comprehend, and not the least of these blessings. But the greatest is that He leads His children to the light of His truth. He leads His children to know His holy gospel. He's already shown you the way of salvation tonight, only through Him. Did you hear it? Beloved, do you know the Bible by heart, but not from the heart? You see, woe to those who know the way, but do not walk in it. Woe to those who do not look for salvation with a heart eager for deliverance and redemption. And again, of course, you remember that there were prophets of God in the Old Testament. Boys and girls, I'm sure you can name some of them. Elijah, Elisha, many others. But Jesus Christ, we say, is the chief prophet and teacher. Now that doesn't mean that He is just the most excellent one like the smartest student in the classroom. He is the most excellent one. But He is the head of all the prophets. Jesus Christ Himself ministered and showed the way of salvation through the Old Testament prophets. His Spirit was in them. We confess in the Nicene Creed regarding the Holy Spirit that He spoke through the prophets. They were His instruments to tell about Himself. Isaiah is a great example of that. Think of chapter 7, which foretells about the birth of the child to the virgin. Or think of chapter 9, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and He shall be called. Think of chapter 61. The few verses we read, we read together. A beautiful passage of hope for those in captivity, pointing to the One who shows the way of salvation. The secret counsel and will of God was revealed first in paradise and continued all throughout the Old Testament dispensation. The saints, the people of God in the Old Testament, They were shown that their salvation rested in the promised Savior to come. Boys and girls, we live way on this side of the cross, you might say. We look back at the cross of Jesus. We look back at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the One who came. But they looked forward. They looked off into the distance for the One who was to come. And still today, beloved, Christ remains our chief prophet and teacher. He ministers. He ministers today out of heaven by His Spirit through faithful ministers of His Word, through His servants. But you see, when the Word of God is faithfully proclaimed, it is Christ who speaks. You see, He Himself has a message for you and me whenever we open His Word. And therefore, we must listen to the preaching of His Word with eager anticipation for what He has to say to us. Through His Spirit, He ministers to us whenever we spend time reading the Bible. Again, beloved, you have come to church today. But have you heard His voice? And come to Him because He has shown you the way? But the Christ, the Anointed One, is more than the most wonderful teacher. If He were not more than a prophet or a teacher, then He would be of no benefit to us. You see, beloved, what good is it to point out the road to one who cannot see the road. Or to say to one who can't walk that he should walk on that way. And in the same way, what good would it be to point out the way to you and me as sinners when we are not able to go that way? But Jesus Christ is more than a prophet who merely points out the way or shows the way. He is also the priest who paves the way of salvation. John the Baptist said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who paves the way. As our only high priest, we confess that He has set us free by the one sacrifice of His body, and He continually pleads our cause with the Father. That's some beautiful stuff there, if you notice. Again, in the Old Testament, we know that the priest offered sacrifices to God for sin on behalf of God's people. And the priests made intercession. That is, they prayed, they pleaded to God, with God, on behalf of the people. And notice we confess Christ as the only high priest, and we confess His one sacrifice. Beloved, we must be completely convinced by the grace of God that His sacrifice of Himself is sufficient. And that there is no sacrifice that we or anyone can make that would be needed or could be needed, but that Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Of course, we do offer sacrifices, don't we? We do offer sacrifices. Not bulls and goats, boys and girls, but as Peter says, we are to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Our sacrifices are to be thank offerings for our salvation. The sin offering is done. The sin offering was brought by Christ. He brought the sacrifice of His body. His blood was shed. He is not only the priest. He is not only the sacrificer, but also the sacrifice. Jesus said in Mark 10, For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. Beloved, He died so that we might live. He was bound so that we might be loosed. As Isaiah says in Isaiah 53, verse 5, But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him. And by His wounds, we are healed. Beloved, our punishment He carried away. Our debt He paid in full. The way to heaven that we needed, He paved it. He opened it. Now I don't know about for you, but for me this is hard to understand at times. I had a debt. It's not like the debts we have today where you've got to make your payments on a monthly basis, you know. That's what we think of as a debt. But our debt was something incomprehensible. But He paid it all. As our only High Priest, Jesus Christ opened the way to His Father and as the writer of Hebrews says, He entered before us on our behalf. Jesus shows us the way. He proclaimed it. And He also opened to the way. He paved it by sacrificing His life. He is our one sacrifice, sufficient for all of the sins of all of His people. Again, Jesus Christ administered His priestly office in the Old Testament. The blood of the sacrificial animals. And again, I would have had a hard time if I was living back then thinking about this. But the blood of the sacrificial animals pointed to His shed blood. Imagine that. The blood of these animals pointed to someone unknown to those people at that time. All they knew is He was a Messiah. But this blood pointed to Him. And in the blood of those animals, God's people of old saw the poured out blood of the promised Redeemer that was to pave the way of salvation. Again, we really have a beautiful picture of this in Isaiah chapter 61. All of these things point to that way paved and the benefits of that opened way for God's people. The good news preached. Broken heartedness bound up. Freedom for captives. Release for prisoners and so on. And beloved, today He is still our only high priest. His sacrifice is not repeated. That's why we don't have an altar here. His sacrifice is not repeated. It doesn't need to be. We rest in His one sufficient sacrifice. But He makes continual intercession. He's still busy. He continues to plead for those who believe in Him. Remember, the priest was the people's voice to God. And Jesus Christ speaks to His Father on your behalf and on my behalf. John says that Jesus Christ is our advocate with the Father. He is our defense attorney. He continues to present the sacrifice of Himself for you and for me. Before the Heavenly Father, we are kept in fellowship with God because of our Lord Jesus Christ who continues to plead for us. But this doesn't mean that we stop praying, does it? The Bible commands us to pray without ceasing, but our prayers only reach the throne of God through Christ. If a prayer is not prayed in Jesus' name, in true faith, then it doesn't reach the Father's ears. But Christ receives our prayers, He purifies them, and He brings them cleansed to the Father, and God the Father promised to give us all that we need in Christ's name. Jesus Christ fulfills the threefold office of salvation as the prophet who shows us the way of salvation, as the priest who paves the way of salvation, but then finally also as the King who maintains the way of salvation. Now beloved, if you have the salvation of Jesus Christ, if that's your confidence, if you are traveling on that narrow way, you don't stay true to that way by your own strength. Not one of us keeps on the narrow path because we have such a good sense of direction. It's only by God's grace that we stay on it. Christ showed it. Christ paved it. Christ maintains it. And He keeps you and me on it. How? By the power of His kingship. He is ordained and anointed to be our eternal King who governs us by His Word and Spirit and who guards us and keeps us in the freedom He has won for us. Earthly kings. No matter how powerful they are or have been, they die. Boys and girls, you remember some of the great kings in the Bible. David and Solomon were great and powerful kings. Nebuchadnezzar, one of the kings over Israel's enemies, was a powerful king. Where are these guys? They're dead, aren't they? They're dead. Of course, we know that for each one, their soul is either in heaven or in hell. But they're dead. Their bodies are in the grave somewhere. But Jesus Christ is alive, body and soul. Jesus Christ lives. He is the eternal King and there is no end to His reign. Again, the kings in the Old Testament, they were supposed to be the image of the heavenly King. Supposed to be. They were to govern and rule all the people righteously and with wisdom and they were to gently rule over the poor and take care of them. We sang about that in Psalter Hymnal 133, a setting of Psalm 72, stanza 1. That's what that stanza says. But, as stanza 3 says as well, many of Israel's kings we know failed, and therefore God's people look forward with anticipation to the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed One, who would make things right. Jesus Christ is the eternal King. When Pilate asked Jesus if He was the King of the Jews, Jesus says, It is as you say. He was telling the truth. But His kingdom is unique. It's not of this world, he said. You can't find it contained on a map. It's not just over one of the continents of this earth. The kingdom of Christ is found wherever Christians live. The church militant, the church on this earth, doesn't fight for the kingdom with guns and bombs and tanks, but with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And even though our Lord Jesus Christ is now in heaven, He is still the King. He is seated at God's right hand. In Psalm 2, God says, I have installed my King upon Zion, my holy mountain, in effect to say, and He's still busy. He's still working. He's still ruling for you. Our eternal King, beloved, reigns supreme even though we can't see Him with our physical eyes. And even though He is not confessed by everyone as the King of the ages, He is still reigning supreme. He is the king of His church. And He governs her by His Word and Spirit. Without His Spirit, His Word means nothing to us. The Spirit of God makes our hearts ready and willing. Apart from that work of the Holy Spirit, we would not obey the Word of God. But you see, His power also extends beyond His church. Otherwise, He wouldn't be able to guard and keep her, to defend and preserve her. Jesus said, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. He is the eternal King over the whole world, over the whole universe. We can talk about His rule of power, which means His rule over the whole world, but we also talk about His rule of grace, which means His rule that is acknowledged and respected by those who are His. You see, beloved, the Bible says in Philippians 2 that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Did you catch that? All knees will bow before Him and all tongues will confess Him. That passage, too, is simply amazing to me. All tongues will confess Him. Not all in a saving way, of course. Some will bow and some will confess Him in hell. But all will do it. Where will you be when you bow before Him and when you confess His name? The church of Jesus Christ, we know, has many enemies, Satan and his followers, and they would like nothing more than to reroute that way of salvation and make it a detour to destruction. The gates of hell continue to attack Christ's church and they try harder every single day because Satan knows his time is running out. but we should not be discouraged because Jesus Christ guards and keeps his church and he says the gates of hell shall not prevail against it no matter what the church may look like in this world at times it looks like Christ isn't ruling doesn't it but no matter how beat up the church may look like on this earth she is victorious our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ continues to maintain the way of salvation He has paid for those who believe in Him. Again, this doesn't mean that the church militant will always flourish. It doesn't mean that we will always be on easy street. Jesus said, in the world you have tribulation. In fact, we know from God's Word that as Christ's return draws nearer and nearer, things will get worse before they get better, but He says, take courage. I have overcome the world. Beloved, Jesus Christ shows the way of salvation. He paved it and He maintains it. If you're not on that way, then you are headed in the opposite direction. It's either the way of eternal salvation or the way of eternal punishment. If Jesus Christ is your chief prophet and teacher, your only high priest, and your eternal king, then you may lose everything in this life, but you won't lose the salvation that He has obtained for you. He said, My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me and I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish and no one shall snatch them out of the Father's hand. Beloved, that's a guarantee. That's a promise from the only one who can make it work. Amen. Shall we pray? Father, once again as we come before You in this evening hour, we must confess that we are amazed as we consider the details of Your Word, even the details of the names of our Lord Jesus Christ and how every detail of our lives and our salvation has been planned by You and how as well every detail shall come out exactly as You have planned it. O Lord, that is indeed beyond our understanding and comprehension. Yet may it be, Lord, that we would rest content to know that it's all true and that our lives are safe in Your hands. We thank You, Father, for the truth of Your Word that nothing and no one shall be able to snatch us away from You. And as well that we ourselves are not able to snatch ourselves away from You, but you hold on to your people tight with an everlasting grip. We praise you for such a great salvation. In Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen.