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The Offices of Christ
I. Introduction: The Prophetic Office
A. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE OFFICES IN GENERAL.
1. THE IDEA OF THE OFFICES IN HISTORY.
It has become customary to speak of three offices in
connection with the work of Christ, namely the prophetic, the priestly, and the kingly office.
While some of the early Church Fathers already speak of the different offices of Christ, Calvin
was the first to recognize the importance of distinguishing the three offices of the Mediator and
to call attention to it in a separate chapter of his Institutes.[Bk. II, Chap. XV.] Among the
Lutherans Gerhard was the first to develop the doctrine of the three offices, Quenstedt
regarded the threefold distinction as rather unessential and called attention to the fact that
some Lutheran theologians distinguished only two offices, combining the prophetical with the
priestly office. Since the days of the Reformation the distinction was quite generally adopted as
one of the commonplaces of theology, though there was no general agreement as to the
relative importance of the offices, nor as to their interrelation. Some placed the prophetical,
others the priestly, and still others the kingly, office in the foreground. There were those who
applied the idea of a chronological succession to them, and thought of Christ functioning as
prophet during his public ministry on earth, as priest in his final sufferings and death on the
cross, and as king now that He is seated at the right hand of God. Others, however, correctly
stressed the fact that He must be conceived as functioning in His threefold capacity both in His
state of humiliation and in His state of exaltation. The Socinians really recognized only two
offices: Christ functioned as prophet on earth, and functions as king in heaven. While they also
spoke of Christ as priest, they subsumed His priestly under His kingly work, and therefore did
not recognize His earthly priesthood.
In the Lutheran Church considerable opposition appeared to the doctrine of the three offices of
Christ. Ernesti gives a summary of the objections that were raised. According to him the division
is a purely artificial one; the terms prophet, priest, and king are not used in Scripture in the
sense implied in this division; it is impossible to discriminate the one function clearly from the
other in the work of Christ; and the terms as used in Scripture are applied to Christ only in a
tropical sense, and therefore should not have precise meanings affixed to them, designating
particular parts of the work of Christ. In answer to this it may be said that there is little force in
the criticism of the use of the terms, since they are used throughout the Old Testament as
designations of those who in the offices of prophet, priest, and king typified Christ. The only
really significant criticism is due to the fact that in Christ the three offices are united in one
person. The result is that we cannot sharply discriminate between the different functions in the
official work of Christ. The mediatorial work is always a work of the entire person; not a single