We read together tonight Matthew 3, verses 13 through 17. Matthew 3, verses 13 through 17, just a small portion of Scripture. The context is the introduction of John the Baptist, who baptized with water. And then the portion we read is the familiar episode of the baptism of our Lord. Matthew 3, beginning at verse 13, as we hear the Word of the Lord. 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. I ask that you also turn with me to our confessional reference tonight, Lord's Day 12 of the Catechism, page 19. There are two questions and answers. Tonight we consider just the first one. Question and answer 31 of Lord's Day 12. As we confess together the answer. The question 31 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 Christ Jesus our Lord, you recall, I trust, from our consideration of Lord's Day 11 last week that to confess the name Jesus is to make the confession of no other name. Again, Jesus means Savior and there is salvation from sin found nowhere other than in Jesus. But this Savior, Jesus, is also the Christ. The Anointed One. That's, of course, what Christ means. He is the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament. Boys and girls, Messiah, that Old Testament word also means anointed. And as the Messiah, His official name or title, Christ, does two things. It tells us why He is qualified to be the Savior, and it describes the completeness of His saving work. You see, He could only be Jesus, that is, Savior, by being Christ, the Anointed One. Well, then to what was He anointed? Well, the catechism, reflecting the teaching of Scripture, explains the beautiful threefold office of our Lord, that of prophet, priest, and king. And it is to our comfort as believers that Christ's threefold office is unto full salvation. Now, we are familiar with prophets, priests, and kings from our knowledge of the Old Testament and Israel. God governed His people, we know, through these particular offices. He called and appointed certain men to these offices. We think of Elijah, or Amos, or Aaron, or Eli, or David, and Solomon, to mention a few. and a few of these, most often they occupied just one of these offices. Sometimes some occupied more than one. David occupied more than one office. He was a king and a prophet. But these men were anointed with oil, that oil which served as a sign of their ordination to the office for which they had been set apart, as well that oil which was also a sign of the promise and the giving of the gifts that were necessary for them to fulfill these offices. Yet not all of the Old Testament prophets, priests, and kings together, if we put them all together, they could not accomplish salvation for God's people. Even one was insufficient. And just the same, all of them together were insufficient. But as well, we must remember that even before any of these Old Testament officers were on the scene, as Lord's Day 3 teaches us, this threefold office was a part of the image of God with which man was created. Answer 6 of Lord's Day 3 says, God created man good and after His own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, that He might rightly know God His Creator, pointing to the prophetic office, heartily love Him, pointing to the priestly office, and live with Him in eternal blessedness to praise and glorify Him, pointing to the kingly office. God made man after His own image, as one commentator says, with 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 creatures with Him. This was the beauty of God's image with which man was created. But of course, man chose the way of sin, which not only threw him off of the right course, but also completely changed his course. And therefore, the Old Testament prophets, priests, and kings were to remind God's people of what they were supposed to be. Now, we know that the Old Testament officers did this imperfect, but that was still part of their task, to remind God's people what they were supposed to be. And beloved, since man literally rejected the perfection of this threefold office of prophet, priest, and king. And since the Old Testament prophets, priests, and kings were not capable of accomplishing salvation because of their own sin, therefore the Son of God, as the catechism says, was ordained by God the Father and anointed with the Holy Spirit for this threefold office unto full salvation. Jesus Christ was ordained. That is, boys and girls, He was designated. He was appointed or called to this office, this threefold office. And He received His commission, His marching orders from the highest authority, God His Father. Psalm 2, verse 6, there God says, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain. And in John 17, Jesus prays that He has accomplished the work His Father gave Him to do. But not only was this Savior called for this office, but He was also equipped and empowered to perfectly fulfill His threefold office. Again, by the highest authority, the Holy Spirit of God. When those in the Old Testament received the symbol of the Spirit in the oil, Jesus received the fullness of the Spirit Himself and was made fully qualified in His human nature for His work. We read about this already in Isaiah 61, verses 1 and 2. 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 that passage continues. And Jesus Himself takes these very words of Isaiah in chapter 61. He takes them, and in Luke chapter 4, He applies them to Himself. The Holy Spirit came upon Him fully 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 us all that we need for time and eternity. And we have a beautiful picture of Christ's ordination and anointing in His baptism. Verses 16 and 17 of Matthew 3 once again. 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. At His baptism, Christ's credentials were declared. Boys and girls, credentials are like a letter of recommendation. In the business world, If you want to get a job, you have someone who knows you well. Maybe a previous boss, or maybe your pastor, or maybe a good friend, write a letter on your behalf which tells your potential new boss that you're trustworthy, that you're able to do the job, that you would be a good person to fulfill this task. Christ's credentials were declared by His Heavenly Father. And His qualifications for duty were fully imparted by the Spirit of God. And because Jesus Christ is God Himself ordained by the Father and anointed by the Holy Spirit, for this reason, as our mediator, He was able to do what no mere creature could do, and that is accomplish the threefold office unto full salvation. First of all, as the chief prophet. Secondly, as the only high priest. And third, as the eternal King. Now, after this lengthy introduction, we want to consider this Word of God with these three points. In the first place, then, Jesus Christ meets our need as the chief prophet and teacher who, as the catechism says, perfectly reveals to us the secret counsel and will of God for our deliverance. Or as the older version of the catechism says, concerning our redemption. Now then, what was the task of a prophet? A prophet, we know, was called to preach to and teach God's people. He was a spokesman for God. He was the mouthpiece of God to his people. In that dialogue, the direction was manward, from God to man. And prophets were to speak only that word which they first received from God. The prophet's word was to be God's word, nothing else. Again, man was originally created as a prophet with true righteousness and holiness. But sin changed the light of that true knowledge into darkness. And therefore, left to himself in sin, man cannot know God. He cannot know the world. He cannot know himself rightly. Now, Jesus taught of only two ways. The narrow way of eternal blessedness in life. And the broad way of eternal wretchedness and death. And apart from Jesus Christ, the only way that we can find, the only way that we can follow, indeed the only way that we desire, is that broad way of eternal wretchedness. Apart from the prophetic revelation of Jesus Christ, we are the fool that says at His heart, there is no God. But our Lord Jesus Christ was raised up by God the Father and anointed by God the Holy Spirit to reveal to us, as the Catechism says, the secret counsel and will of God concerning our deliverance or our redemption. And He could do this perfectly because He designed this plan. God's counsel is His plan or decree to save His people. And His will for our deliverance or our redemption is the execution, the carrying out of His plan. And beloved, when many things remain hidden from us in this life With regard to God's dealing with this world and His people, things that we must trust will work together for our good. Things which we call a part of His secret will. We must praise Him because He has fully revealed that which we need to know to be delivered. To be redeemed. He has not kept any of that information back from us. That gift is ours. the gift of those who believe through our chief prophet, Jesus Christ. And He is the chief prophet because He is and always has been the content of the Revelation. He spoke through the patriarchs and prophets of old about Himself. He preached Himself through the sacrifices and ceremonies of the Old Covenant which all pointed forward to Him. He declared from His very own lips that He is the way, the truth, and the life and therefore with authority He could add, no one comes to the Father except through Me. He is the chief prophet because He is the Word become flesh, and His words are life and truth because they are the words His Father gave Him to speak. He made Scripture live because He is the life of Scripture. And He continues to minister today as He comes to us with His Word, the inscripturated, Spirit-inspired testimony of faithful men, including the apostles, that which we call the Bible. Paul commends the Thessalonian church for receiving and welcoming the apostolic Word, not as the Word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. Beloved, when we read Scripture, or when the Word of God is faithfully preached to us, we hear the voice of our chief prophet who shepherds His people by means of His Word. And through His Word, He reveals to us the mystery of salvation and He directs us to Himself as the all-sufficient Savior who alone turns our darkness into light. He was ordained and anointed to be our chief prophet to show us the way of forgiveness, reconciliation, true fellowship, and eternal life. And Paul makes it clear that outside of Christ there is nothing worth knowing. Nothing else when he says in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 2, For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Beloved, do you hear Him? Do you reject all other teachings and false prophets and man-made ideas of salvation? By the grace of God, do you hear Jesus Christ and do you heed His voice? You see, those who come to Jesus by the grace of God on that narrow way of eternal blessedness shall have rest. But the godless who by their rejection of this prophet look elsewhere and set their ear elsewhere and travel the broad road of wretchedness, they shall have no peace. When He was baptized, God the Father exalted Jesus over all to the office of chief prophet to show us the way. But more was needed, wasn't there? He was also, in the second place, exalted to the office of the only high priest who has set us free by the one sacrifice of His body and who continually pleads our cause with the Father. He has set us free. He has redeemed us by His sacrifice. Congregation, we had an urgent need to be taught and shown the way of redemption. But we needed more, didn't we? That wasn't enough. It doesn't do any good to teach one what must be done when they can't do it. When they're not able to do it. It doesn't do any good to point out the way to one who is blind when that one is not able to follow that way. As sinners, we are blind. We can't go the way that Christ teaches. The image of God included true righteousness, holiness, and love for God, which all was lost in sin. And therefore, the friendship of God was also lost in sin. You remember that the Israelites were constantly reminded of this through the daily sacrifices. Every day they were reminded that because of their sin, the way to God was shut off to them. They needed a substitute. Every day, the priests represented man to God. Just as the prophets represented God to man, The direction there was manward. The priest represented man to God. The direction was Godward. And every day the priest would bring the daily sacrifices to God on behalf of the people. And only one time every year the high priest was able to go into the Holy of Holies, into the presence of God, but then not without blood. Yet the priests and the sacrifices and the animal blood were not sufficient, once again, to restore that friendship with God. These things we know symbolically pointed forward to the only One who could open that way and restore fellowship with God, none other than Jesus Christ. You see, salvation doesn't come simply by the prophetic teaching of Jesus. It comes by Christ accomplishing that which He taught. He is the only high priest, again in part, because all of the Old Testament sacrifices pointed forward to him. But also, and so important, because he did not have to first offer a sacrifice for his own sin, like the Old Testament priest. He was sinless. He was perfect. And his body was the necessary instrument to perform his priestly work. Hebrews chapter 7 tells that story beautifully. For such a high priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens, who does not need daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the people's. For this he did once for all when he offered up himself. Beloved, he is the only high priest because he was both the sacrificer and he himself was the sacrifice. And only His sacrifice of Himself was complete, sufficient, perfect, and acceptable to God. He alone brought the acceptable offering for sin so that our punishment is carried away, our debt is paid, and the way to heaven is open because He gave His blood as a ransom for many. Jesus Christ was bound that we might be loosed, and He allowed His blessed body to be nailed to the cross so that He might fasten there the bond of sin that was against us. Our Lord not only points out the way of salvation, but He opened the way by sacrificing His life, by going through the pain and agony of God's wrath and punishment against sin, and by breaking through the deepest darkness of hell. And only because He is the only High Priest who has accomplished salvation, therefore, He is worthy to come before the Heavenly Father on our behalf, on behalf of His people and present His sacrifice to the throne of God. And as the Catechism says, continually plead our cause with the Father. Make continual intercession for us. Hebrews 7 verse 25 says, Therefore He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him since He always lives to make intercession for them. You see, God's people are saved completely because Christ's sacrifice is always effective. The power of His blood will never run out. And Jesus Christ continues to hold up before God His sacrifice, which is completely sufficient to cover all our sins. Beloved, our sins, that is, the sins of those who believe on Jesus as the Christ. Our sins are no longer a barrier. our sins no longer stand in the way to the heart of God. Not because of us. Not because of what we have done. But only because of Jesus Christ. And the intercession of our Lord on our behalf is a comforting thing. It's to be a comforting thing. His intercession includes His presentation. Presenting His sacrifice to the Father for our sins. And when Satan continues to make a charge or an accusation against God's people, Boys and girls, in other words, when Satan continues to blame us, which he indeed has so much to blame us for, Jesus Christ points again and again and again to his completed work. He also receives our prayers, he purifies them, he cleanses them, he makes that which was unacceptable to God, he makes it acceptable to the Father. As well, when we don't know what to pray, He prays for us through His Holy Spirit. Beloved, our prayers can only reach the Father through the Son. And as John 17 demonstrates, Jesus prays for the safety and the preservation and the well-being of those whom the Father has given Him. By the grace of God, we know, as believers, we know, and we travel the narrow way of eternal blessedness because our Lord Jesus Christ opened the way He traveled the way. And He leads us on the way, clothed in the white robes of His righteousness. And God's grace includes the guarantee that His people will forever remain on that only way to eternity. Our security lies with the anointed Christ who is also then finally 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. Again, the older version says it beautifully. Who defends and preserves us in the salvation obtained for us. You see, congregation, only the one who is victorious over sin, death, hell, and Satan, only the one who accomplished salvation for His people, only that one is able to keep us in this salvation. The enemy is still around. Daily we are bombarded by evil and temptation which left to ourselves would overtake us. This world is no friend to God, but God governs us. He governs His people by His Word and Spirit. Through His Spirit, Jesus Christ prepares our hearts to receive and obey His Word. Through His Spirit, through His Word and Spirit, He gives us strength to stand against a world of contradiction to His Word. Yet we must realize, beloved, that this is how He governs us, through His Word and Spirit. Not by our feelings. Not through our emotions. Not by an empty faith that operates apart from Him. Not by majority vote, as many would have us believe today. He has given to His people that which we call the means of grace, the preaching of His Holy Word and the administration of the holy sacraments, of which it has been our privilege to participate in both today. And through these means of grace, the Holy Spirit of God, He works faith in the hearts and lives of His people through the preaching of His Word. And through the preaching of His Holy Word and through the administration of His sacraments, The Holy Spirit of God strengthens our faith and grafts us more securely into Christ our head. And therefore, these are not to be neglected. They're not to be ignored. They're not optional. Beloved, He is our eternal King. Earthly kings, we know, even the great ones, those who were victorious, those who were popular, no matter how powerful they were, they died. They were temporary. Israel's kings were called to foreshadow Jesus Christ governing and ruling all the people righteously, wisely, and gently administering justice for the poor. But again, Christ's reign and rule, His reign and rule which can't be found on a map. His reign and rule which is found wherever Christians live. His reign and rule is perfect, it's holy, it's righteous, and it's good. And He is able to defend and preserve, to keep His church from the devil and the world because His power extends over all. Even as Paul says, all power and authority has been given to Him in heaven and on earth. And beloved, as our eternal King, Jesus Christ protects us. He guides us safely along life's way. He fills us with joy and strength and hope. And He rescues us from all of His and our enemies. And even when the church looks completely defeated in this life, in this world, she is victorious eternally in Christ, who also looks completely defeated to the eyes of the world as He hung on the cross. Yet what did He say? He said, I have overcome the world. But our assurance, beloved, is that He will defend and preserve us in the salvation won for us. And that means, of course, that when everything else can be taken away from us in this life, the salvation He has purchased can never be taken away. Boys and girls, you must understand this. You must understand this. Even when all that we have, our homes, our cars, our clothes, our jobs, our money, our health, even when everything can be taken away from us in this life, If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you are saved by Him, that salvation will never be taken away from you. Jesus says of His sheep in John 10, I give them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. Beloved, do you see your need to be governed and defended and preserved by Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords? Or do you seek to go your own way in your own strength? Therefore, robbing King Jesus of His rightful place. If that's the case, then you guarantee yourself eternal destruction. Jesus Christ is the one and only official Savior commissioned and empowered from on high. Only He was called and equipped to fulfill God's eternal plan. And what a beautiful picture we have of full salvation. It's revealed to us in His name, Christ. He is our chief prophet who shows us the way of salvation. He is our only high priest who accomplishes and opens the way of salvation. And He is our eternal King who protects and leads us on that way all the way to glory. So then, is that salvation yours by grace through faith? Is this Jesus the Christ, your shepherd, guardian, friend, your prophet, priest, And King, if he is not through repentance and faith, then you have no part in him now. Beloved, the narrow way, that way of eternal blessedness and peace is the way of Christ. But as long as it is still today, it is not too late. For those who turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and repent of your sins, you too will be placed on that way by the power of his Spirit. You too will receive everlasting life. What comfort belongs to the believer for Jesus' sake? The comfort of salvation, full and free. Is this comfort your precious possession? How can you know? Well, consider these closing questions. If you consider Him as our chief prophet, do you find yourself then humbly listening to His voice as He speaks to you through the Scriptures and through the preaching of His Word? If you confess Him as the only high priest, do you trust that through His one sacrifice for your sins and through His continued intercession for you at the Father's right hand, do you believe that you have peace with God? And if you confess Him as our eternal King, are you then gladly subject to His Word and Spirit in your seeking of His kingdom and in your battle against the kingdom of darkness and sin? Congregation, there's no other name of salvation than Jesus. Why? Because He is the Christ of God. Amen. Shall we pray? Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You again for this precious truth of Your Word. The truth of our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Christ, our prophet, priest, and king. The one who not only shows us the way of salvation, but accomplished that way on our behalf and leads us and guides us on that way eternally. Father, we give you thanksgiving and praise that we do not have to do it on our own because we could not. We thank you that you are the one who has provided for us fully. We pray that you would continue to bring others to the joy of that truth, those who even at this time continue to try to go it on their own. Father, break them down. Break down their resistance that they might know that there's nothing that they can do except to earn eternal destruction. Lift their eyes to the Lord Jesus Christ that they might see Him as Savior, the one anointed by God to fulfill that perfect work on our behalf. Father, we thank You and praise You that You are our God and our Father for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord through the operation of your Holy Spirit in Jesus name Amen