Each of those titles, prophet,
priest and king, as we use them, as we employ them in our description
of the Saviour, declares something specific, something particular
about the way in which the Lord Jesus Christ's work is unfolded
to us and revealed to us in his ministry. Lord Jesus Christ,
when he came into this world as a little baby, introduced
the most significant event ever to occur. And we would be very
foolish if we imagine simply that it was, as it were, a one
or two-dimensional involvement in this world that our Savior
had. Rather, the Scriptures tell us
and tell us clearly in both the Old and the New Testament that
there is a richness of the extent and nature of the work of Christ. So much so that we will spend
eternity grappling with an understanding of the magnitude and the wonder
of God's plan of salvation. and the nature and extent of
the love that forged it and the mercy that brought it to sinners
like us. So when we read about the Lord
Jesus Christ and hear about his role as prophet, priest, and
king, we are to understand the many different aspects of his
ministry. As king, he reigns over this
world. He reigns in his church and he
has rule over his people. As priest, he was the offerer
of a suitable sacrifice of his own blood, a sacrifice that he
made for sin. And so he was both the offerer
and that lamb that was offered. and we think about that work
under this title of his priesthood. And when we think about him as
a prophet, we think about him in the sense that the Lord Jesus
Christ has declared the will and the word of God. He has spoken
out. Indeed, he is called the eternal
word. He is called the living word.
And that word is spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ in a declarative
way. It is a revelation which speaks
to us prophetically. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
King, He is Priest, He is Prophet. He has revealed to us the will
and the purpose of the Godhead Father, Son and Holy Ghost in
the great plan of salvation. I would like you please to turn
with me in your Bibles to Psalm 40. Psalm 40. And we're going to read there
some of the aspects and elements of these great roles that the
Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled in his ministerial capacity, in
his covenant responsibilities as prophet, priest, and king
before his father. Psalm 40, and we're going to
read from verse one. To the chief musician, a Psalm
of David. I waited patiently for the Lord,
and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also
out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet
upon a rock and established my goings. He hath put a new song
in my mouth, even praise unto our God. Many shall see it and
fear and shall trust in the Lord. Blessed is that man that maketh
the Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn
aside to lies. Many, O Lord my God, are thy
wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which
are to usward. They cannot be reckoned up in
order unto thee. If I would declare and speak
of them, they are more than can be numbered. Sacrifice and offering
thou didst not desire. Mine ears hast thou opened. Burnt
offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said
I, lo, I come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me. I delight to do thy will. O my
God, yea, thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness
in the great congregation. Lo, I have not refrained my lips,
O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness
within my heart. I have declared thy faithfulness
and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy lovingkindness
and thy truth from the great congregation. withhold not thou
thy tender mercies from me, O Lord. Let thy lovingkindness and thy
truth continually preserve me, for innumerable evils have compassed
me about, mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I
am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs
of mine head, therefore my heart faileth me. Be pleased, O Lord,
to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help me. Let them be ashamed and confounded
together that seek after my soul to destroy it. Let them be driven
backward and put to shame that wish me evil. Let them be desolate
for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha! Aha! Let all those that seek thee
rejoice and be glad in thee. Let such as love thy salvation
say continually, the Lord be magnified. But I am poor and
needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. Thou art my help and
my deliverer. Make no tarrying, O my God. Amen. May God be pleased to bless
to us this reading from his word. This afternoon, as the Lord enables,
it is my intention to dwell for a little while upon some of the
themes of this psalm and think about what it teaches us of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm sure that you've noticed
with me that this psalm has an author. It's there in the introduction. We're told that it is a psalm
of David. Now, not every psalm in the book
of Psalms is a psalm of David. There are a number of authors
and some psalms don't actually have an author mentioned. But
here is one of the many that David is given credit for authoring. And so, in some senses, it's
very easy for us to imagine that these words are autobiographical,
that David is speaking here about himself, that David is telling
us about some of the things that he has experienced and encountered
and had to deal with in his own life. And yet, If we think about what
this psalm says carefully, attentively, we will discover that not everything
that is said in this psalm can be applied to David. And we remember
that we are told in Scripture that David was a prophet. And therefore, we know from the
New Testament that all the prophets, David included, spoke about the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so what I want to encourage
you to do this afternoon is with me for a little while, think
about this psalm, not as it were having been authored by David,
But as it were, having these words placed into the mouth of
the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, that we might have some insight
and understanding of He of whom David spoke, of the Lord Jesus
Christ, who is able to speak of His Father, speak to His Father. and speak to us words that open
up our understanding of the nature and the extent of the sufferings
of the Saviour and some of the roles that He undertook willingly
and voluntarily as He entered into this great task of being
the Prophet, the Priest and the King for His people. We particularly, when we look
at the New Testament, are told in the book of Luke and in the
book of Hebrews that these words must be applied to the Lord Jesus
Christ. I won't ask you to turn there
at the moment, but if you were looking with me at Hebrews chapter
five and verse 10, you would discover there that the writer
to the Hebrews explicitly states that verse six and seven here
in this Psalm, Psalm 40, are words that were spoken by the
Lord Jesus Christ. When it says that I come in the
volume of the book it is written to me, I delight to do thy will,
O God, that's the Lord Jesus Christ that is speaking according
to the book of Hebrews. And furthermore, we discover
that the Lord Jesus Christ, as these words are placed in his
mouth, is addressing his father. It is the Lord God, and we can
see that as we look at the verses. For example, verse five. Many, O Lord my God, are thy
wonderful works. So here is the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking words that direct our attention to his acknowledgement
of God as his God. The Lord Jesus Christ is God,
but here the Lord Jesus Christ acknowledges God, the Lord, Jehovah,
as His God. And I stress that point because
I want to show you something. I want to show you that here
the Lord Jesus Christ is acknowledging, for example in verse 8, that
he has come to do the will of God. God doing the will of God. the Lord Jesus Christ, as it
were, putting himself into a position of being instructed, of being
subservient, of being a servant to do the will of another, not
under duress, but willingly and voluntarily. And this glimpse,
this understanding, if we look at these words in this light,
opens to us something of the wonderful plan of God's purpose
in this world. We call it, and I'm sure that
Most of you who have heard me preaching over the weeks and
months will be familiar that I very much enjoy speaking about
the subject of the covenant, God's covenant purpose. Because I see that as the structure
and the back cloth, the essence, the glory of the plan of salvation. And this covenant, this purpose
of salvation, in scripture it goes by many names. It is called
the covenant of peace. It is called the everlasting
covenant. We sometimes call it the covenant
of grace. It's called a holy covenant,
a better covenant. And it speaks to us of a new
and a hope. and a blessed covenant of promise. Sometimes it's called a testament,
but all of these words have to do with God's plan, purpose and
promise. And when we come to consider
these things, we see that God is always behind everything that
transpires, that he is the first cause, that he is the manager,
that he is the ruler, that he reigns, that he sovereignly accomplishes
his purpose in all things. This covenant teaches us that
God has a plan and a purpose that is unfolding throughout
the history of this world. People might think that there's
a randomness, a variability, an uncertainty about what happens
in the world, but the Word of God tells us it's all hinging
upon God's covenant purposes. In Hebrews chapter six and verse
19, there's a lovely little phrase, a lovely little verse, and it
speaks about this covenant, and it's calling it in this occasion
our covenant of hope, or the hope that we have, the confidence
that we are led into, the trust that we have in the promises
of God. And it says here, which hope
we have, as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast. Here is our view of God's purpose. It is an anchor for our soul. I don't know what your life's
experience has been so far. I don't know where you've been
and what you've done. In many respects that's not my
business. And equally, I will be reticent
about telling you where I've been and what I've done. But
I can tell you this, that in this world of uncertainty, it
is a wonderful thing to have an anchor for our soul. It is
a wonderful thing to know and to have hope in the purposes
of God. And it is a wonderful thing to
know that one who came to accomplish and fulfil all the purposes of
God's covenant, grace and peace to his people. John chapter 20 verse 31, we
are told, And so we've established, if you're with me so far, that
the one who is speaking in this psalm is the Lord Jesus Christ
and he is declaring what He has come to do. He has
come to do the will of His Father within the covenant of grace,
within the covenant obligations that fall to Him. Let me ask another question here. When did the Lord Jesus Christ
say these things? If we are saying that these are
words that are spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ in this psalm,
hundreds and hundreds of years before the Lord ever came to
this earth, and yet prophetically are being put into the mouth
of Christ by this prophet David, when did the Lord Jesus Christ
say these things? And I ask that question only
because I want us to view these words with the importance that
they deserve. Here we see the Lord Jesus Christ
taking upon Himself the weight of our sin, and yet He calls
it His own sin. Look with me at verse 12. He says, their innumerable evils
have compassed me about. He says more than that. He says,
mine iniquities have taken hold upon me. Well, what are you saying
here, pastor? What are you saying here? Are
you saying that the Lord Jesus Christ's iniquities have taken
hold of him? Let me be explicit, the Lord
Jesus Christ was perfect and holy in all of his ways. Never sinned, never could be
accused with any legitimacy of having done anything wrong. He was called a holy child and
that holiness attached to him throughout his whole life. But
the Lord Jesus Christ knew what it was to experience the weight
and the awfulness and the darkness and the torment of iniquity. not because he perpetrated sin,
but because he carried the sins of his people, because he bore
them on his shoulders, because he carried them in his soul,
because he experienced them in his heart to such an extent that
every sin of every one of the people for whom he died was laid
upon him And such a degree and extent
and depth and horror of iniquity filled his soul that when God
took that sword of wrath and laid it upon the soul of his
son and brought his son to that place of death, it was done justly
and legitimately and entirely on order. God the Father never
slew God the Son, Injustly, unjustly. He never did that saying, well,
I'll imagine that there's sin there and I'll punish him in
a pretend way. The Lord Jesus Christ was a worthy
sacrifice. But that worthiness extended
to the fact that he was taking the sins of his people upon himself. And so we can read into these
Psalms something of the horror and the terror that entered into
the very soul of Christ during his life's experience here. Particularly, perhaps, in the
Garden of Gethsemane. Particularly, perhaps, upon the
cross where he was crucified. Lord Jesus Christ came into this
world, he says, in order to seek and to save that which was lost. And he did both of those things. He saved us by taking our sin
upon himself. And he sought us by bringing
to us the word of God and bringing to us the gospel of the way of
life. Lord Jesus Christ fulfils these
roles of prophet, priest and king. As a priest he was sacrificed
and as a prophet he declared the word and the will of God. There is a full, there is a free,
there is an accomplished salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. There
is a finished work upon the cross. There is an absolute satisfactory
redemption and salvation accomplished on the cross. And we rejoice
in it. But there is a message too that
attaches to that work. And it is important that we understand
the message of what the cross means. It is our ground of faith. It is our hope. It is the anchor
of our soul. And this prophetic ministry of
the Lord Jesus Christ is that which is being discussed also
here in this psalm. It is a revelation of truth to
our hearts. A gospel to be heard, to be received,
to be believed, to be trusted, to be depended upon. Absolutely, the Lord Jesus Christ
saves us by His blood, but He seeks us by His gospel. And there is a beautiful association
here which we do well to understand. You cannot have one without the
other. There is no salvation without
gospel and there is no gospel without salvation. These two
things go together and complement each other beautifully. This
is our gospel. It speaks here to us of the nature
of our God. We sometimes say that gospel
means good news, and God has given us good news. Look at verse
nine in Psalm 40 with me, please. Here is the Lord Jesus Christ
telling us that he is a prophet, telling us he is a proclaimer,
telling us he is a preacher, He says, I have preached righteousness
in the great congregation. Lo, I have not refrained my lips,
O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness
within my heart. I have declared thy faithfulness
and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy lovingkindness
and thy truth from the great congregation. Everlasting life. is the knowledge
of God. The gospel isn't an offer or
a casual invitation as so many appear to present it. The gospel
is a declaration of the purpose of God which found its fulfilment
and accomplishment in the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross. The gospel leads up to the cross. The gospel explains what happened
on the cross. The gospel is designed to teach
us what Jesus Christ accomplished there for us, as well as opening
up the experience of God the Holy Spirit entering our life
with that same lively power. But we cannot understand the
cross without the gospel, and we cannot understand the gospel
without the cross. John says in chapter 17 verse
3, If we would have eternal life, if you have any hope for your
soul, if you have any anchor for your soul, men and women
this afternoon, you have to know the gospel. You have to know the God who
is revealed in the Gospel. You have to know that One who
has been preached to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. No man hath
seen God at any time. The only begotten Son which is
in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. Christ alone
has taught us of the Father, and yet a knowledge of the Father
is essential for eternal life. It is in itself eternal life. Luke chapter 10 verse 21 says,
of the gospel. These things were hid from the
wise and from the prudent and revealed to babes. And Jesus
Christ fulfilled that prophetic purpose. He came and he preached
righteousness. He declared the gospel. What is it that Christ has revealed
to us? What has he declared to us in
this gospel? God's righteousness. He has declared
God's faithfulness. He has spoken of salvation. He has told us of loving kindness. And he has set before us God's
truth. And we could take those five
wonderful words in many ways this afternoon. But let us at
the very least agree upon this, that Jesus Christ has declared
these things. Jesus Christ has taught these
things. No matter what a preacher says,
no matter what a pastor says, no matter what a church says,
no matter what a statement of faith says, This is the testimony. What has Christ taught? What
have his apostles revealed to us of the teachings of the Lord
Jesus Christ? For all that can be known of
God comes through him in this great prophetic office that he
undertook. The Lord Jesus Christ points
us today as weak, poor, impoverished sinners, as needy sinners, to
a better hope, to the ground of assurance, to salvation and
to the anchor which will never move. He speaks of God's righteousness. We all need righteousness. We cannot stand before God without
righteousness. And let me tell you, my friend,
that the righteousness which you have of your own will not
suffice. It's like a little cloth that
doesn't cover you from the cold. You keep pulling it this way
and that way to try and find a covering, to try and find some
comfort, but it is insufficient. It is too small. It is too threadbare. You think you're well endowed,
you think you're suitable as far as this world is concerned,
but before the holiness of God, the word of truth tells us that
we are iniquitous and sinful and condemned. We need a righteousness
and the Lord Jesus Christ has come to teach us where true righteousness
is to be found. Romans chapter 5 verse 7 says,
For if by one man's offence death reigned by one, much more they
which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one. That is by the Lord Jesus Christ. He teaches us of God's faithfulness. God says something, we should
depend upon it, for it will certainly come true. Now I doubt that there's
anyone here this afternoon imagines that God tells lies, but God's
faithfulness is more than just his truthfulness. Turn with me
to John chapter 17, please. John chapter 17 is the Lord Jesus
Christ's high priestly prayer. Wonderful, wonderful prayer that
has been recorded for us in this gospel. And I just want to show you here
something of the nature of God's faithfulness. Lord Jesus Christ
is speaking. And these words speak Jesus and
lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has
come. That is the hour of his crucifixion. The hour of when he would accomplish
those things which he had been sent to do within the covenant
of grace. The hour has come. Glorify thy
son, that thy son also may glorify thee. As thou hast given him
power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as
many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that
they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom
thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou
me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was. This is speaking about that covenant
of grace. And do you see what the Lord
Jesus Christ is saying here? He's saying, look, let me paraphrase,
and I trust I won't do this, flippantly, but he is saying
to his father simply this, you made me a promise, you gave me
a job to do, I've done my part of the contract, now it's up
to you to fulfil what you promised to me. And that's the faithfulness
of God. That's the promise. That's what
we place our hope in, in this world. The fact that that covenant
of peace, that covenant of grace, that promise that was made to
the Lord Jesus Christ was made to him upon condition that he
should accomplish everything that was needful. for the salvation
of his people. And God the Father said to him,
when you've done all, when you've completed everything, when you've
satisfied every demand, then I will give you that people as
your prize, as your bride. And the Lord Jesus Christ on
the hour of the accomplishment of his great work of deliverance
calls upon his Father's faithfulness and says, no, I've done everything
that's required. You fulfill your end of the contract. And that's the faithfulness of
God that we have to trust upon. Yes, God is true. Yes, God never
lies, but God can never deny himself. And these promises are
the ground of our assurance, the ground of our hope, the anchor
of our soul. The Lord Jesus Christ declares
the righteousness of Christ. He declares the faith, the righteousness
of God. He declares the faithfulness
of God and he declares God's salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ
revealed the salvation of God. Salvation is the benefit of all
God's work to us in Christ and everything Christ accomplished
leads to our salvation. It's God's salvation because
it's His as a gift to give to His people, and He will give
it. This is free salvation. This
is not man's ideas of deliverance, but it is a salvation wrought
in the purposes of God, a suitable salvation that He alone could
design and He alone can bestow. Jonah could say, salvation is
of the Lord. And that salvation which was
agreed upon in the eternal council, that salvation which, as it were,
the parties to the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit undertook
to deliver, to a needy people is that salvation which is the
Lord's. Oh, to be a possessor of such
a blessing. Oh, to receive something of an
understanding and an assurance of possession of such a gift. In Luke chapter 19, verse nine,
we discover a man that received exactly that. He wasn't a very
big man, He was called Zacchaeus and the Lord Jesus Christ said
to him, this day is salvation come to this house for as much
as he also is a son of Abraham. What's the reference to Abraham
mean in there? Abraham was typical in scripture
of the promises and the covenant of God and because Abraham had
received promises from God, Zacchaeus is called a son of Abraham. That is, a son or an heir of
the promises of salvation. Salvation came to his house.
Why? Because Jesus Christ came and
met him. And so when we speak of God's
salvation, we speak of a meeting with Christ. We speak of Christ
coming to a sinner. We speak of Christ entering into,
as it were, our house, our home, and salvation being brought into
our life's experience. God's righteousness, God's faithfulness,
God's salvation, and the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of God's
loving kindness. I genuinely doubt if eternity
itself will be sufficient for us to plumb the depths of the
love of God towards us. But I want to show you just one
little passage in the word of God which perhaps will act like
just a token to whet your appetite to think more of the love of
God. Look at John chapter 17 again,
the same high priestly prayer, but this time go to the very
end of the prayer. Go to verse 22. It says there, John 17 verse 22,
And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them. that they
may be one even as we are one. That is, the people for whom
Christ was about to die. I in them and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one, that is, have the righteousness
of God, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me,
look, look at this, and hast loved them as thou hast loved
me. You know, We read over these phrases and
we become, I don't know, maybe inured to the significance of
some of these things simply by familiarity. Shame on us if that
happens. God loves us as much as he loves
his son, Jesus Christ. You know, I count myself privileged
to have been loved by one or two people in this world, really
loved by one or two people. But this love, the love of God,
is beyond my comprehension. And I think, as I've already
stated, we will struggle for eternity to lay hold upon the
nature and extent of such a love as this. The love we're with,
God the Father loved his son, is the love and the loving kindness
which flows to us, his people. Goes on, Father, I will that
they also which thou hast given me be with me where I am. that they may behold my glory
which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation
of the world. Well, that gives us an extent,
a duration, does it not? If the Lord God loved the Son
from before the foundation of the world, then he must have
loved the people for whom Christ died from before the foundation
of the world, because it's the same love. It's of the same nature,
it's to the same extent. O Righteous Father, the world
hath not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known
that thou hast sent me, and I have declared unto them thy name. See that's what he's talking
about in Psalm 40. These are the things, the loving
kindness of God, the righteousness, the salvation, the faithfulness
of God. These are the things that Christ
has declared to us in the gospel. These are the things that become
the anchor of our soul, that give us hope, that give us assurance,
that show us we're in our steadfastness in this variable world is to
be found. It is the knowledge of God and
who He is and what He has done for us. I have declared unto
them thy name and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou
hast loved me may be in them and I in them. The psalmist in
Psalm 63 verse 3 could say, thy loving kindness is better than
life. Do you know that love? Have you
experienced that love? Is that love something that you
could speak about, that you could testify to, that you could look
to as a ground of your hope of eternal life? Then let us, with
the psalmist, honour and praise His holy name. The final thing
that I want to mention here is God's truth because the Lord
Jesus Christ said, I have not closed my mouth I've spoken your
truth. And again, so much could be said
about the truth of God or the truth that comes from God. But
I just want to say this, and it's perhaps the simplest thing
that I'll have mentioned all afternoon. Jesus Christ said,
I am the truth. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
way, the truth and the life. And no man comes to the Father,
no man can know the Father, except through the Lord Jesus Christ.
If we would know God's truth, we must know God's Son. We must
know who He is. We must know why He came. We
must know what He accomplished. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
and His work is the only way to God. It is the way to life. It is the way to the benefits
of the covenant of peace which God established with His Son
in eternity past. And this way is what the Lord
Jesus Christ has preached to his church, preached to his people,
preached to this world. And it is this message that he
calls us to stand for today, to declare to this world as God
the Holy Spirit goes out and gathers his people to himself. One more thing and then I'm done.
To whom was this declaration made? It was made to the great
congregation. The great congregation, or the
gathered flock of God. In the Old Testament, the word
congregation is almost exclusively used in connection with the children
of Israel, and they are called the congregation of God. But this reference in Psalm 40
is to the great congregation. This is different. This is the
gathered congregation of the justified. This is the people
of God who have been set aside in and through the gospel to
receive the blessings of God's covenant of grace. This is the
sanctified, the redeemed, and this is the ultimately glorified
beneficiaries of all Christ's accomplishments. And they are
therefore called the great congregation. I am delighted to welcome you
here today as part of this conference's congregation. But oh, what a
wonderful thing if we were all to be members of that great congregation
to whom these great truths are revealed. Oh, to hear these blessed
declarations of gospel grace and sovereign mercy, as it were
from the lips of Jesus Christ himself. To hear of God's righteousness. as our righteousness, of God's
faithfulness as the ground of our hope, of God's salvation
as my salvation freely given and bestowed through the work
of Jesus Christ, of the loving kindness that first forged this
plan of salvation and deliverance and brought it to a sinner like
me, and of the truth that can be depended upon. and the person
that can be depended upon, Jesus Christ himself. John 17 verse
3 says, This is eternal life, that they may know thee the only
true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. May it be so
for his name's sake. Amen.