Advent Prophet

Psalm 85 - Advent 3 Midweek - December 14, 2011
Christ Comes as our Prophet

For our midweek Advent services we have been considering a three-part theme by taking a look at what is often called the three-fold office of Christ, known as Prophet, Priest, and King.  We have considered how Christ comes as our King by ruling our hearts and consciences through the forgiveness of sins.   We have considered how Christ comes as our Priest by shedding His own blood and by continually serving us with the benefit of His perfect atoning sacrifice.  Now, this week we consider what it means for Christ to come as our prophet. 

A Prophet speaks for God.  That’s what it means to be a Prophet.  When people hear “prophet” they usually suppose that his main job is to tell the future.  Now, it’s true that throughout the Old Testament, prophets would foretell what was going to happen.  After all, the promises of the Gospel in the Old Testament were all promises concerning Christ who had yet to come until many years later.  Prophets certainly did prophesy concerning the future.  But the future events that these prophets were able to foresee were not simply foggy glimpses into the distant years ahead.  No, they were decrees of God spoken clearly to them.  Isaiah prophesied those words that we just heard about what would take place in the future, and grounded them upon that which God had already said.  He writes: “And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” 

The Old Testament prophets were not merely gifted fortune-tellers.  No, they were much more.  They heard the word of God, and in some cases they saw real visions given to them from God.  And that which they saw and heard they spoke.  They were God’s own mouthpieces through whom He communicated His will toward all mankind. 

Much of the prophet’s job was the same as what the pastor’s job is today.  He was to preach the law and the gospel, and properly distinguish between these two very different doctrines.  He was to prepare his hearers for God’s grace and mercy by teaching them their sinful condition so that they might fear God’s punishment, hate their own sin, and return to their God in sorrow and contrition for the sin that the law exposed.   He preached about the warfare between God and sinners, which is caused by God’s righteous judgment against our own sin.  The prophet was furthermore to preach to repentant sinners the promise of Jesus Christ who would come to take their sin away. He preached about the peace between God and sinners, which is caused by the righteous obedience and death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  The purpose of a prophet in all that he did was to proclaim the words that create saving faith in God. 

St. Paul writes in Romans 10, “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? * And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? * And how shall they hear without a preacher? * And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” *  This is why God sent his prophets in order to preach the gospel of peace between God and man.  St. Paul concludes: “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  We need to hear the word of God.  That is why we listen to His prophets. 

Our Psalm this evening does not begin by telling the future.  It doesn’t begin as a plea for mercy.  It begins as a confession of what God has already done in the past: 

LORD, You have been favorable to Your land; You have brought back the captivity of Jacob. You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people; You have covered all their sin. You have taken away all Your wrath; You have turned from the fierceness of Your anger.

All these things God has done.  But where did the Psalmist learn about them?  Well, from the prophets, of course.  The word of God teaches us the works of God—that is, the Bible teaches us what God has done for us.  That is how we know that God is merciful, that God forgives, that God rescues sinners from slavery, and that He removes His wrath from those who well deserve His anger.  We don’t simply assume that God must be merciful.  God tells us that He is merciful, and then demonstrates His mercy by having compassion on sinners.  We know this God because we have seen Him do these things in the pages of Holy Scripture.  “Lord, You were gracious to them;" we pray in this Psalm, “so also be gracious to me.” 

When we ask God to have mercy on us, we don’t abandon ourselves upon a strange god who may or may not have pity.  We seek the favor of Him with whom we are intimately acquainted through the waters of Holy Baptism, where He washed us from all our sin and placed His name on ours.  We seek mercy from Him who has proven Himself already to be our God who loves us, and who will indeed restore us to Himself.  This Psalm is a prayer for mercy.   But it begins with a rationale, that is, it begins with evidence that God already is merciful: “Why should you have mercy on me? Because you are a God who saves His people. That’s why.  That’s what You do; that’s what You have done.”  With this clear knowledge of who God is and what He does, the Psalmist now continues with confidence, asking God to do it again:

Restore us, O God of our salvation, And cause Your anger toward us to cease. Will You be angry with us forever? Will You prolong Your anger to all generations? Will You not revive us again, That Your people may rejoice in You? Show us Your mercy, LORD, And grant us Your salvation.

God’s law doesn’t stop condemning sin.  And on this side of heaven we don’t stop being sinners.  When we ask God for mercy, we don’t ask that His law stop doing what the law does.  The law always condemns sin.  When we pray for mercy, we ask that God would not condemn us.  This means that we ask that God would take our sin away.  We don’t ask that He not punish it.  We ask that He be mindful of the fact that He has already punished our sin in His Son, Jesus Christ, who took it upon Himself.  “Show us Your mercy, LORD, And grant us Your salvation.”  This is to say, show us Jesus, and give to us what He has earned in our place. 

To ask that God revive us, or give us life, is to ask for faith in the Gospel, because where there is the forgiveness of sins, which only faith receives, then there is also life and salvation.  We need to hear what God’s prophets have to say.  To ask that God save us is to ask that we might hear the Gospel again.  And that is where our Psalm continues:

I will hear what God the LORD will speak, For He will speak peace To His people and to His saints; But let them not turn back to folly. Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, That glory may dwell in our land.

May we not turn back to folly.  May we not regard the preaching of the Gospel as a small thing.  May we not be offended by the foolishness of God by which the Almighty has chosen to make us wise.  Only the word of God creates faith in our hearts to believe the promises that only the word of God can make.  The hymn says it well that sings concerning the Gospel: “It is the power of God to save, from sin and Satan and the grave; it works the faith that firmly clings to all the treasures which it brings.”  There is no greater treasure than peace with God, than to hear that our warfare is over, that God is not angry with us, but pleased with us—that our iniquity is pardoned, and that we have received from the hand of the Lord double the joy for all the punishment that we deserved.   This is the peace that the prophet declares, and we need to hear him declare it because we need faith to receive it. 

In order to delight in the Gospel that saves us, we need to take our sin seriously.  “Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him.”  Salvation is near to those who recognize in real sobriety that God truly hates our sin.  And He does.  And we are powerless to free ourselves.  But God is not powerless.  “Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, that glory may dwell in our land.”  This glory is not the glory of us overcoming our sin, and triumphing over temptation.  This glory is not the success of having found a righteousness of our own that avails before God.  No, this glory is none other than the Glory of God who hid Himself under the lowly form of a little baby in Bethlehem and under the lowlier form of a Suffering Servant on Calvary.  It is the Glory of the Highest who takes on our sinful flesh and comes to dwell on earth to win peace for men.  It is the Glory of God that reveals God’s grace and favor toward sinners by dying in their place.  This is how God demonstrates His love.  It was as the Psalm declares:

Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed.

God demanded truth in our inward parts, but all that was found was sin.  God required that we be righteous, but all He found was enmity against Him.  But mercy and truth met together when the Father punished our sin in His Son Jesus Christ so that He might have mercy on us.  Righteousness and peace kissed when the righteous Son of God who obeyed the law perfectly for us also suffered the entirety of His Father’s wrath in our place on the cross.  In mercy, God declares us truly righteous and gives to us His peace. 

Truth shall spring out of the earth, And righteousness shall look down from heaven.

The truth that God required from us sprang forth from the earth when God sprang forth from the earthly womb of the Virgin Mary.  Righteousness looks down from heaven, when God sees us through the blood of His Son and calls us perfect and without sin.  God isn’t making it up.  He remains righteous when He calls us righteous too, because Jesus has fulfilled all righteousness in our place.  And so we listen to the Gospel that the prophet preaches, because through it we see righteousness looking down from heaven to call us righteous. 

This was the faith of the Psalmist who wrote the words that we consider this evening.  The promise of the Gospel only increased in clarity the closer Christ came, but the faith that saved the prophets was faith in the same Word that they preached – the very Word that became flesh and dwelt among us.  Jesus is the final word from God.  What He has done.  What He has accomplished.  This is what makes Him our Prophet.  He teaches us God’s will toward us.  He gives us the peace He won by coming to us through the word that is preached today. 

We tend to think of Prophecy as pertaining to the future.  This will happen, etc. 

But we must learn the difference between past, present, and future. 

Past – Cross. Jesus died. 

Present – forgiveness.  Your sins are forgiven. 

Future – glory.   You shall live forever.  When Jesus comes again. 

In Jesus’ name, Amen.