Prophetic Office of Christ

Definition and Meaning

The prophetic office of Christ is the office by which Jesus Christ reveals and teaches the will of God. Revelation is God's act of making himself and his will known. A prophet is one who receives the word of God and proclaims it.

Protestant theology commonly describes the work of Christ in terms of three offices—prophet, priest, and king—known as the threefold office (munus triplex). The prophetic office is one of these three, alongside the priestly office of Christ and the kingly office. The title "Christ" means "the anointed one," and the fact that prophets, priests, and kings were anointed in the Old Testament is cited as the basis for this threefold distinction.

Biblical and Historical Background

In Deuteronomy 18:15, Moses conveys the promise that God will raise up "a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me," and Acts 3:22 applies this promise to Jesus. Hebrews 1:1–2 records that God, who "spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." John 1:18 states that the Son "hath declared him."

The concept of the threefold office appears already in the writings of the early church. It was John Calvin who systematized it and established it as a framework for Protestant Christology; his Institutes of the Christian Religion is the principal text in this regard. Question 31 of the Heidelberg Catechism confesses Christ as our chief Prophet and Teacher. Question 24 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism answers that Christ executes the office of a prophet by revealing to us, by his word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation.

Practice in Korean Churches

Among Korean Protestant churches, the prophetic office of Christ is understood and applied in several ways:

• Presbyterian: Korean Presbyterian churches adopt the Westminster Confession of Faith and its catechisms as their doctrinal standards, and many teach the threefold office using the Shorter Catechism in instruction for the catechumenate and baptism. The threefold-office framework itself, however, is not limited to Presbyterians; it is widely used in the catechetical instruction of many Protestant denominations.
• Reformed: The Reformed tradition holds that Christ continues to exercise his prophetic office today through Scripture and through the preaching that proclaims its message. It emphasizes that the revelation necessary for salvation has been completed in Scripture.
• Pentecostal and charismatic: These traditions hold that prophecy continues to be given today as a gift of the Holy Spirit, and they generally describe it as subordinate to the authority of Scripture. This difference is connected to the cessationism and continuationism debate.
• Progressive circles: Progressive Korean Christians have frequently used the expression "prophetic mission" to describe the church's calling to criticize injustice. This was especially true of bodies such as the National Council of Churches in Korea during the democratization movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Evangelicals, by contrast, tend to place greater emphasis on the revelation of salvation as the center of the prophetic office.