#DailyDevotion So Just Who Is Jesus Anyway?
Mark 8:27–30 27Then Jesus and His disciples went to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way He asked His disciples, “Who do people say I am?” 28“John the Baptizer,” they answered Him. “Others say Elijah, and still others, one of the prophets.” 29“But who do you say I am?” He asked them. “You are the Christ!” Peter answered Him. 30He warned them not to tell anyone about Him.
Jesus tries to ease his disciples into seeing who is really is by first asking them who others are saying he is. And just who did people think Jesus was at the time? Well some thought he was John the Baptizer risen from the dead. Herod thought as much, having killed John and Jesus was preaching the same thing but with miracles, signs and wonders. Some people thought Jesus was Elijah who was to come. He was a prophet who did miracles, who was taken up to heaven in the fiery chariot and was prophesied to come again. Others thought Jesus was one of the other prophets brought back to life.
Then Jesus asked them, “But who you say I am?” Peter answers for the twelve, “You are the Christ!” Well Peter got that right even if he did not understand what that term meant. Now Christ (in the Greek) or Messiah (in the Hebrew) means anointed one. There all sort of people anointed in the Israelite sense. Prophets were often anointed. Priests were anointed. Kings were anointed. In fact, Isaiah even prophesied the future pagan Persian King Cyrus and called him the LORD’s anointed.
One popular hymns “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” sings, “He lives, my kind, wise, heav’nly friend; He lives and loves me to the end; He lives, and while He lives, I’ll sing; He lives, my Prophet, Priest, and King.”
Indeed Jesus is a prophet. More than that, he is the Prophet. Moses told the Israelite in Deut. 18 15“The LORD your God will raise a Prophet for you, one of you, an Israelite, like me; listen to Him.” True, there were a lot of prophets after Moses but none really like him. Elijah and Elisha come close, but they are the promised Prophet. Moses delivered the people from Pharaoh and the Egyptians with great signs and wonders and brought them to the Promised Land. Jesus is the Prophet who delivers us from sin, death and the devil and brings us into the New Heavens and New Earth.
Jesus is our priest. He is a priest who offers up not lambs, bulls or birds but his own body upon the altar of the cross. Hebrews 2 writes, 17 “And so in every way He had to become like His brothers to be merciful and faithful as High Priest before God and to pay for the sins of the people.”
Jesus is King. He is the promised seed of David to rule on his throne forever. But more than that, he is Israel’s king before he took on human flesh. He is Israel’s king as God and according to the flesh. He has ascended to the right hand of the Father and sits reigning on the Father’s throne over all creation and he invites us to join him through faith in him and the sacrificed he offered on the cross.
Heavenly Father, grant us grace to believe in Jesus so we may know him as our prophet, priest and king. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.