A Prophet Without Honor
“He also said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.’” — Luke 4:24
What is a prophet? We may ask that question in light of our text from this past Sunday, especially as we consider who Jesus is. Throughout church history, it has been understood that Jesus holds this office alongside the offices of priest and king. It would do us good to think about this specific office as it relates to our passage from Sunday.
In simple terms, a prophet was a person who represented God to man—this is in contrast to the role of the priest, who represented man before God. In the Old Covenant, both roles were crucial to Israel’s covenant relationship with God.
Moses was considered to be the first prophet and potentially the greatest of the prophets (Deut. 34:10). He ushered in a time in which God regularly raised up prophets for His people in order to communicate His will to them (Deut. 18:15). This was one of the primary ways God sought to restore a close relationship with His people.
Yet in our passage, we see Jesus comparing Himself not to Moses, but to a different prophet—the prophet Elijah. Elijah ministered after the time of David and Solomon, during the era of the kings (1 Kings 17–19). While he was an important representative of God, his ministry was fraught with adversity. The people of Israel were rebellious and had turned aside to other gods. Elijah’s task was to rebuke the people and call them to repentance, which was often met with hostility, violence, and threats of death—especially from the wicked Queen Jezebel. Eventually, Elijah flees to a mountain, where he famously pours out his concerns before the Lord.
“Suddenly, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’
He replied, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord God of Armies, but the Israelites have abandoned Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are looking for me to take my life.’”
— 1 Kings 19:9–10
This puts the comparison Jesus makes into sharp perspective. In these blogs, we have often considered the idea of “types and shadows” in the Old Testament. In this case, Elijah is a type of Christ. Just as Elijah did, Jesus ministered to a people hardened in heart, as Pastor Joe mentioned on Sunday. Like Elijah, Jesus was pursued by an angry mob. Both men represented God to God’s people.
Yet Jesus is the better prophet. Elijah was a mere man; Jesus is the God-man, who therefore represents God perfectly. Elijah’s mission was largely unsuccessful—his goal was to turn Israel back to a covenant they were unable to keep from the beginning. Though Jesus was rejected by his own people, just as Is. 53 said he would be, Jesus, leads His people into deliverance through a new and better covenant, one that promises real and lasting change of heart, not just to the nation of Israel, but to the nations as well! In other words, Jesus is better than Elijah in efficacy and in scope!
We can be deeply thankful that Jesus is the better prophet. We have the perfect mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5), the one who communicates the will of God perfectly as the very Word of God (John 1). Therefore, we can place our trust in Christ fully, as our one and only hope.