The prophet Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus the Nazarene is a lot of things. Christ/Messiah/King of Israel, and King of Kings; rabbi/teacher and wise man; savior and healer; God incarnate, and second person of the trinity; and rumor has it he’s particularly good at woodcarving. But listed among these job titles and abilities is prophet. He shares what God told him. Arguably, he never taught anything else. Jn 12.49 That makes him a prophet.

Problem is, every single time I teach Jesus is a prophet—but I fail to refer to him by the usual job titles, “prophet, priest, and king,”—I get blowback. Lots of Christians feel the need to point out he’s not just a prophet. Well duh. He’s all those things I mentioned in the first paragraph. And he’s a prophet.

And the funny thing is, I don’t get this reaction when I teach Jesus is our head priest. Or Jesus is our king. Or Jesus is our teacher. It’s only when I state Jesus is a prophet. What’s up with that?

It’s about despising prophecy. 1Th 5.20-21 The average Christian doesn’t think very highly of prophets.

Some of it’s because they’ve met too many cranks who claim to be prophets, but they’re fake, or they’re sloppy and get it wrong. Or they’ve seen too many nutjobs on TV talking about the End Times, making wild predictions which will never happen, and making the rest of Christian biblical interpretation look foolish and stupid.

Some of it’s because there’s a large number of Christians who believe in cessationism: God turned off the miracles back in bible times, and that includes prophecy. So all present-day prophetic ministries are no different from fortune-tellers and psychics. Calling Jesus a “prophet” invokes ideas of those phonies, so it’s not a compliment.

And to be fair, some of it’s because pagans have no problem saying Jesus is a prophet—but won’t call him Lord. So they wanna make sure I’m not going that route myself.

In the end it’s usually, “Okay, Jesus is a prophet. But he’s more than that. He’s better. Call him something better.”

Remember: Just as Jesus’s behavior is high above the behavior of any of us would-be followers; just as Jesus’s fruit is far more abundant than that of the people who claim allegiance to him; just as Jesus’s character is way more consistent than people who claim to be Christlike; so he’s a better prophet than any and every Christian prophet. Even the good ones.

“Jesus fulfilled the role of prophet.”

One variant of “Call him something better” is the popular teaching, “Jesus fulfilled the role of prophet.”

Properly, what fulfillment means is Jesus is a better, more complete, fuller prophet than any who came before and after him. He does prophecy better than everyone. The prophets who came before him could only give partial information, because all they knew was what the Father told ’em. Jesus can give full and complete information, because he came from the Father and knows the Father more intimately than any of us could. Like the prophet John put it:

John 3.31-34 CSB

31The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth is earthly and speaks in earthly terms. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32He testifies to what he has seen and heard, and yet no one accepts his testimony. 33The one who has accepted his testimony has affirmed that God is true. 34For the one whom God sent speaks God’s words, since he gives the Spirit without measure.

When Jesus describes God, take him seriously. Jesus wasn’t speculating. He wasn’t guessing what the Father is like, what the Father wants, what the Father intends. He knows the Father; knows him better than every other prophet in the bible. Those folks only knew what the Holy Spirit told them. Jesus knew from personal experience. Jesus’s character and nature is precisely the same as the Father’s; it’s why he could say when you saw him, you saw the Father. Jn 14.9 Jesus’s entire life was revelation.

But that’s not what Christians popularly mean by “fulfillment.” They mean finished: Jesus is the last prophet. There aren’t any prophets after him. He did the job so well, so completely, it’s done. That’s how they spin Hebrews:

John 3.31-34 CSB

1Long ago God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways. 2In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him.

To them, God used to speak through prophets in the previous dispensation. But in the present day, he doesn’t need to. Jesus spoke; his apostles wrote the New Testament, and he’s done. You wanna hear from God? You read your bible. That’s all you get.

This cessationist point of view has slipped unnoticed into a lot of mainstream Christian theology. You’ll even hear it in Pentecostal sermons. And it’s not even close to consistent with the scriptures. The whole purpose of the Holy Spirit being poured out upon Christians was to make prophets of us all. Ac 2.16-17

Read Acts. The apostles functioned, in the Spirit’s power, as prophets to the pagan world they encountered. Some of ’em even held the title “prophet,” like Agabus, Ac 21.10 Judas, Silas, Ac 15.32 Philip’s daughters, Ac 21.9 and various unidentified prophets who ministered to various churches. Ac 11.27, 13.1, 19.6 Paul and Sosthenes wrote whole chapters of instructions to the Corinthians about prophecy 1Co 12-14 and these chapters serve absolutely no purpose in our bibles—may as well stop printing ’em!—if all prophecy ended with Jesus. Or for that matter with bible times.

Jesus is far from the last prophet. Everybody he speaks to—particularly those he speaks through—is his prophet.

Jesus being a prophet is important, people.

Whenever Mormons try to share Jesus with me, first thing they ask is whether I believe God speaks through people. Because, they proclaim, they have good news: God speaks through their prophet!

By whom they mean the president of the Latter-day Saints. “Prophet” is one of his titles. The reason they’ve adopted this evangelistic tactic is because people really do wanna hear from God. They would like to learn about God’s will, and have it explained to them. True, plenty of skeptics think prophecy is bunk, but just as many are open to the idea.

The apostles recognized this, and pointed out Jesus is this very prophet people were looking for.

Acts 3.19-23 CSB

19“Therefore repent and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped out, 20that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus, who has been appointed for you as the Messiah. 21Heaven must receive him until the time of the restoration of all things, which God spoke about through his holy prophets from the beginning. 22Moses said: The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to everything he tells you. Dt 18.15 23And everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be completely cut off from the people.” Dt 18.19

Pharisees claimed this particular prophet whom Moses spoke of wasn’t just any prophet: He was an End Times figure. He, along with the second coming of Elijah, would help usher in the End and the Messiah.

Christians recognize these two figures, the prophet and Messiah, are the same person: Jesus the Nazarene. So Jesus being a prophet isn’t a minor biblical deal. It’s a huge deal. He’s the guy we’re supposed to listen to. Not just Israel either, but all humanity.

In the gospels, people didn’t always recognize Jesus was the prophet, but they sure noticed he was a prophet. Mk 6.15, Mt 21.11 Usually ’cause he could do miracles, or had words of knowledge. He couldn’t do any of that stuff unless God was with him. Hence he must be a prophet.

Hence the crowds he fed leapt to that conclusion, Jn 6.14 as did the Samaritan woman he “knew all about,” Jn 4.19 and the blind man he cured. Jn 9.17 Two of Jesus’s students, who didn’t yet know he’d been raised from the dead, if nothing else identified him as a prophet. Lk 24.19 Even his opponents mocked him by the claims he was a prophet, by punching him and demanding he prophesy who’d punched him. Mk 14.65

He identified himself as a prophet too, y’know. Jesus declared the LORD’s Spirit was upon him, same as Isaiah. Lk 4.16-21 And when he got backlash for saying so, he pointed out how prophets (like himself) aren’t honored in their hometowns. Mk 6.4, Mt 13.57, Lk 4.24 He even joked he had to go to Jerusalem: It’s where prophets die. Lk 13.33

Like the Old Testament prophets, Jesus made declarations over the people of his day—blessings because of their faith, Mt 5.3-11, 13.16-17, Mk 10.29-30 and woes of what would befall them because of unbelief. Mt 11.21-24, 23.13-29, Lk 6.24-26

But unlike the Old Testament prophets, he didn’t preface his statements by, “The LORD says,” but by “Amen, I promise you.” (In John he regularly threw in an extra amen.) Literally amén légo ymín/“I say amen to you,” a statement we don’t find in any other literature, either in Jesus’s day or before. It’s an oath, a promise Jesus is telling the truth, which is why the NLT renders it “I tell you the truth.” (I tend to go with “Amen, I promise you.”)

These many “amen” statements are examples of Jesus speaking on his own authority, Mt 7.29 as opposed to what the people were used to. Old Testament prophets would evoke the LORD, and scribes would evoke fellow bible experts. But Jesus would say “Amen,” then make a prophetic declaration: Something about God, which revealed God’s character and intentions and will. But these statements didn’t purely come from Jesus alone. If you knew who Jesus was, you realized they did come from God. They came from the One who sent Jesus. Jn 7.16

So take Jesus’s prophetic ministry seriously.

If you’ve got a lot of skepticism towards today’s prophetic ministries and claims, I don’t blame you. I agree there are a lot of fools and frauds out there. But this gives us no license to dismiss Jesus’s prophetic ministries and claims. He’s our standard for how we’re to view prophecy. Not the nimrods who claim they have the anointing, and make hash of it.

Whenever Jesus makes those “amen” statements in the gospels, take ’em seriously. Because he’s serious. These aren’t wishes, ideals, things he hopes will come to pass, things he’d like to see us Christians do, things he wishes were part of his kingdom. These are promises. This stuff will happen—whether we help him get there or not. Better to be on his side than fighting him.

Whenever he makes claims about who God is, he knows what he’s talking about. Point people to God through Jesus. Describe God by the way Jesus describes God. Act in Jesus’s name.

Jesus’s statements have been confirmed, time and again, by Christians who took ’em seriously and watched ’em change our lives. Do likewise.