Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Jesus as Prophet (Part 1)

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

By saying Jesus is a prophet, we mean he is a revealer. He communicates truth. He’s the revealer of who God is and what his will is. As a prophet, Jesus comes and speaks to you and to me for God. Even though Jesus is far more than a prophet, he is a prophet. And the fact that Jesus is a prophet shows us that we have a God who speaks to us. Let’s look at two aspects of Jesus as a prophet: 1) what are prophets? and 2) why is Jesus the ultimate prophet? This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 9, 1994. Series: Understanding Jesus. Scripture: Acts 3:17–26. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. Who is Jesus? The Bible says he's fully God, the creator of the universe, and at the same time, fully human. Lose one of those, and you lose Christianity. Join us for today's podcast, where Tim Keller explores the person and promises of Jesus Christ. Every January and June, the pastors get together, and we do a short series together on some theme or subject. And what we're doing here in the month of January, and actually, if you want to see how the subject's divided and how all the assignments have been divvied out, you can find that on the the very back page of the bullet and tells you what we're doing in January. We're speaking about

we're talking about how to understand Jesus. Now, that means that somebody might say, but aren't you always talking about how to understand Jesus? And the answer is, every so often it's a good idea to give people a helicopter ride in a comprehensive way a look at the biblical doctrine of Christ. The biblical doctrine of Christ means a look at all the various facets of what the Bible teaches about Jesus. The Bible teaches us about Jesus person. He is human and he's divine. And in Scott last week, in the morning and evening service, dealt with that. And it's very, very important, you see, at certain points to take a look at the two sides of what the Bible teaches about Christ's personage. Because if you only see him as human and not

diviner only seem as divine and not human, you get into some tremendous trouble. And you have a distortion of what, it's not Christianity, whatever you come up with, is not Christianity unless you keep that together. And the Bible, besides teaching those two great things about his person, the Bible teaches three great things about his work. All of the things the Bible tells us that he has done fit into three basic categories. He's a prophet, he's a priest, and he's a king. He's a And it behooves us to spend a month in which we basically take a survey of those three aspects of his work. Now, let me just put the whole thing in context for you for a moment. When I say that there's three things, everything that Jesus does,

everything that he says or does anywhere in the Bible, can fall into one of those three categories. And those categories are used because they are so crucial. If you leave out any one of those three things, if you see him as two, of those and not the third. If you see them as one of those and not the third, it gives you a distortion. It distorts your view of reality. It certainly gives you a concoction. It's not Christianity and it's spiritually poisonous if you take it into your system. Let me just give you a couple of examples. There's plenty of people. When we say prophet, priest, and king, by prophet, we mean he's a revealer. He communicates truth. He's the revealer of God.

who God is and what his will is. He's a prophet. And secondly, he's a priest. That means he's a redeemer. He's a representative. That is, he comes to stand in our place. You see, as a prophet, he comes actually representing God. But as a priest, he represents us.

As a prophet, he comes and speaks to you and me for God. But as a priest, he comes and speaks to God, the Father, for us. He's our stand-in. He died in our place. He brings us to God. He's our advocate. He's our representative. He's our redeemer. So first, he's a prophet, revealer. Secondly, he's a priest, redeemer. And thirdly, he's a king, a ruler. He commands us. We owe him our utmost allegiance. He's the supreme authority in our lives. So there he is, prophet, priest, and king. Revealer, redeemer, redeemer. and ruler. Now, let me just show you what happens if you leave any of them out. There are plenty of people that I have run into in New York, and I've been thinking a lot about this because I've been

reading a book. I'll refer to it again. It's called New York in the 50s by Dan Wakefield, who was a Columbia University student in the early 50s, and stayed in Greenwich Village and became part of the beat generation, the bohemian scene, and, you know, was a writer. Anyway, one of the things that I have noticed, I was reading the book, and I was reading the book And I realized that I've met so many people who've come to New York City from Middle America. And out in Middle America, they had, in many cases, fairly orthodox kind of Christian upbringing. But they come to New York, and they completely leave it behind. They disdain the religion of their childhood, along with the values of middle class America,

and the values of the great homogeneous American. and they dive into the intellectual and cultural and ethnic diversity of New York, and they think of themselves as kind of a superior race now to where they've come from. And very often I'll talk to these folks, and you know who you are. And what they'll say is, you know, I don't go to church, and I pretty much have lived the way I feel like I should be living, and I don't know what I believe anymore, really. But I know this, that when I was a little girl, when I was a little boy,

I made a decision for Christ, and I still somehow believe that he's really for me. I really somehow believe he's still with me. In other words, I've come here, and my feelings and my experience and my emotions are now my king, and they also are my prophet. In other words, I bring my own truth, I decide what's true for me, and I decide how to live, but I still want the idea somehow of a Jesus who's a redeemer. I don't want him as a king, and I don't want him as a prophet. I don't want him to tell me what's true and I don't want him to give me any commands. But somehow I just like the idea that he loves me and he forgives me and he's always with me. All right? That's not Christianity. That's something, but it's not Christianity. You can't have Jesus only as priest and not prophet

or king, only as a redeemer and not a revealer and ruler. You know, I'm Timothy James Keller. and if somebody says to me, come in, James, stay out Timothy and Keller, I'll be in a pickle. I say, well, you know, I'm sort of a whole thing. I don't know what part of me is the James part. Maybe it's my left arm. Maybe you can have that. It doesn't work that way. I'm all Timothy.

I'm all James and I'm all Keller. And he's all prophet and all priest and all king. You just can't have one piece of him. Or let me, another example, but I'll be more brief, is there are plenty of groups. And I guess I'd say churches, but there's plenty of groups that love the idea of Jesus. They've really got a very developed view of Jesus as the king and the commander. But their understanding of him as being a redeemer, the understanding of him as being an advocate is very underdeveloped. And in those legalistic groups, you know, you're hit over the head with Jesus says, and Jesus says, and Jesus says.

It's very vivid. It's put across in a very imaginative and vivid way. but any discussion about his redemption and about his grace and about his love is all an abstraction. Jesus is king without Jesus as prophet and priest is a terrible, terrible place to be. However, it's not really Jesus. Or, now, one more example. Just as the legalistic groups like him as king and not as a priest, and just as like licentious people like him as priest,

but they don't like the idea of him as king or revealer. So there's an awful lot of folks today that intellectually like the idea of Jesus as a prophet, but not as a priest and a king. In other words, they say, I believe Jesus was a great teacher. I believe he revealed to us a great deal about God. But I just can't buy in this whole idea of him being a divine savior and a divine king and so on. Now, one of the most famous, I'll just refer to it here, one of the most famous passages in all of modern Christian literature, has got to be that chapter in Mayor Christianity, where C.S. Lewis points out that that's the one

thing you can't believe, that he's only a prophet. He says, the problem with this prophet was that Jesus Christ, the prophet, came, and he said, I'm God. You have to worship me. I alone can forgive your sins. What you think of me will determine where you spend eternity. So this man comes along with all these unbelievable claims, you know, the saying that he's God and saying that he's got to be the final authority in your life and so on, and you are the stone on which he's the stone on which you will either rise or fall and so forth. So Lewis says something very obvious. He says, if this is true that he claimed all these things, then he's either much more than a prophet or much less than a prophet, but he can't just be a prophet. Either he's far more

than a prophet because he claimed to be, or else he's crazy or he's a liar and he's a fool and he's much less than a prophet. Either he's more than a prophet or else we can't believe anything that he says. But the one thing he will not allow you to believe is that he's only a prophet and not a priest and a king. Don't you see, if you try to hold on to one, if you either have one or two and reject the others. Or if you even just have a grasp on one and a kind of vague understanding of the others, it will introduce distortions into your life. In fact, in fact, I think that it would be possible, though I don't think I can go into it right now, it would be possible for me to create a grid for myself as a pastor to help people understand

what's wrong with their Christian lives. I'm talking about Christians here. I think in most In most cases, if we look at our Christian lives and we say, what's wrong? Where do we need to grow? Where do we have stress fractures in our Christian life? Where is there crumbling? Where is their deterioration? Where is their weakness? Ordinarily, you'll be able to do it by looking at this grid. Very often, we're really good. We have a good grasp on Jesus as one of these things and on Jesus as one of the others. Some of you are really great into the Bible study. The idea of Jesus' prophets is great. You love to study. His teachings, and you know very, very well, and yet you're not being obedient to him as king. Some of you are being very, very obedient to him as king, and yet you're just full of guilt and anxiety and burdened, and you're burdened down with a horrible view of yourselves, because you just really don't have a good grasp of Jesus as Redeemer and priest. Don't you see? These three things, that's why we're spending a couple of weeks on each, a couple of sermons on each. He's the prophet, he's the priest, he's the king.

Now, having said that, and I just sort of set the context for the entire moment, month. Tonight, I would like to say, even though he's far more than a prophet, he is a prophet, and what does that mean? Let me read, believe it or not, I have a scripture text, yes. Let me read from Acts chapter 3, verse 17 to 26. I just gave you the introduction to the month. Now, Acts chapter 3, verse 17 to 26, read it, and there's two basic things that we want to draw out of this that tells you something about Jesus as the great and ultimate prophet and revealer of God to us. In Acts 3, it reads, start in verse 17. This is Peter preaching. He says, Now brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders, but this is how God fulfilled

what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that His Christ would suffer, repent then, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, and that times of refresh. And that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you, even Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. For Moses said, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people. You must listen to everything he tells you. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from among his people. Indeed, all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have foretold these days. And you are

heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, though your offspring, through your offspring, all peoples on earth will be blessed. And when God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways. Now, what do we see here? First of all, we see the obvious, and that is that Jesus Christ is a prophet. It says, Peter says, Moses had prophesied, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like unto me, said Moses. From among your own people, you must listen to everything he tells you. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off. Now what Moses is saying is, you think I was a good prophet, there is a prophet to come to beat all prophets. He'll be like me,

and yet he will be so supreme in his authority. so seminal in his, in his authority and his truth, that your relation to him will completely determine whether or not you're accepted or cut off. And Peter says, this is Jesus. Jesus is the one who's coming. And, you know, what does this teach us? All right, first. First of all, the fact that Jesus is a prophet, not just a priest and a king, but a prophet, shows us that we have a God who speaks to us. Now, I want you to know that ever, ever since, the beginning of time, it seems like,

human beings have wanted desperately to have a universe that talked to them, to have a universe that talked back to them. If you read our literature and you look at our songs from the very beginning, we have been always imagining talking trees and talking animals. And even in our science fiction, we imagine other races, you know, from other planets, we're desperately afraid of the idea that maybe we're the only speakers in the world. That maybe it's an impersonal and silent universe.

Maybe at bottom, there's nobody to talk to. There's no rational, there's no rational other. And the Bible says that's not true. The reason you believe that there is, the reason you want so desperately to have someone else to talk to is because there is. One of the things I loved about Leonard Bernstein was he said, you know, I don't believe the Bible. I don't believe that sort of thing. And yet, remember he says, when I listen to Beethoven, remember the great quote? I don't. That's why I'm reading it. He says, when I listen to Beethoven, he says, Beethoven leaves us with a feeling that something is right

in the world, that something checks throughout, that something follows its own laws consistently, something we can trust, something that will never let us down. In other words, he says, you know, I don't believe in absolute truth. I don't believe in a body of truth that's internally coherent, that's absolutely consistent to its own inner laws, that's something that we can trust that will never let us down, that checks throughout. And yet, when I hear Beethoven, I feel like it must exist.

And the Bible says the reason that you want to believe in talking trees, the reason you want to believe there's a universe out there to talk to you, that there's a rational center that can talk back to us is because there is. The reason that you, even when you intellectually say, I reject the whole idea of absolute truth, I reject the idea of a God who speaks to us. When I listen to Beethoven, I know that there's something else, that we're not all alone, rational in an irrational universe,

personal in an impersonal universe, speakers in a silent universe. I can't believe that. well the Bible says the reason you can't believe it the reason if you want to believe it where did you get the idea it's because it's true because you know it because there is a God who speaks and he speaks through Jesus when Jesus was transfigured remember the transfiguration on the Mount of Transfiguration the apostles who were there saw Jesus and they saw Moses on the one side and Elijah on the other prophets and Jesus standing in the middle and a voice came

down from heaven. Remember what it said? This is my son, says God. Hear ye him. Hear ye him. You cannot relate to Jesus Christ as some kind of mystical figure. He is a teacher. He is a prophet. He brings truth, and your relationship with the father is through a prophet. And that means that your relationship with God is not just a mystical kind of on oneness, it is a relationship based on communication and an acceptance of that communication. It's rational, it's orderly. There's a body of truth that this prophet brings, and that's the basis of your relationship. You can't just commune with God by going out into beautiful spots, you know, of nature and just kind of feeling his presence. That's not the way you relate to God as a father. This is my beloved son. Here, you're

ye him. He's a prophet. Now, the two things I just like to talk about, just to two aspects, is what a prophet is. Anyway, what does the Bible mean when it talks about prophets? So first of all, what are prophets? And then secondly, why is Jesus the ultimate prophet? Why is he the final? I'll show you, the Bible teaches he's the final prophet. That's a big difference between Christianity and other religions. Islam will tell you Jesus was a prophet, but they will not grant that he was the final prophet. And there's a lot of other religions that will say Jesus was a prophet, but they will not grant that he was the final prophet. That's the place where Christianity diverges from others. They say that Jesus Christ reveals God in an unsurpassable way and brings a disclosure of God

that can't be topped. And here's the reasons why. But anyway, let's take a look. These two things. What are prophets? What does the Bible teach us about prophets and why is Jesus the ultimate prophet? Number one, what are prophets? You see, it says, The word is mentioned a number of times in the passage. Jesus is the prophet that Moses was talking about, but it also tells us a great deal about what prophets did. Look, in verse 18, if you have something to look at, it says, this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets. Now, you see, if you want to know what a prophet is, a prophet is a mouthpiece for God. God foretold these things through the prophets. It doesn't say the prophets

foretold. Sometimes it does, but it tells us that whatever the prophet says is what God says. Now, if you want the best definition, biblical definition of prophecy and what a prophet is, you can go back to an interesting place where Moses is being told by God to go and speak to Pharaoh. And Moses says, you don't understand. I'm very inarticulate. I don't. I don't. don't like crowds. I get scared when I get up on a platform. I can't take it. So what does God say? He says, fine. Aaron's better at, you know, at speaking than you. So he says, quote, this is in Exodus 7. I will make you like God to Pharaoh and Aaron like a prophet to you. So whatever you say, Aaron will say. See, now modern people don't believe what the Bible says about prophecy.

modern people will say, okay, here are the prophets, and they have written what the Bible says. The prophets have written, there's Isaiah, and here's Jose, and here's Obadiah, and here's all these prophets. Well, how do we regard them? We say those are men who have interpreted, they have interpreted, they're giving us their interpretation of who God is. And that's great. We might learn from them. But, of course, we all have the right to make our own interpretations about what God has said, too. And so the idea is sort of like this.

Let's just say Shostakovich has written a new symphony, but I don't think he can. Isn't he dead? But anyway, but let's just say he has. I think he's dead. Or if he's not dead, he's certainly probably not writing any symphonies anymore. So you're a critic for the paper, and you go to hear this symphony, and you listen. And then you're all done, you sit down and you write your column and you say, well, you know, I think that the first, I think that the first, movement is a man in bondage. Yes, a man in slavery. And I think the second movement is a man

in liberation, a man liberating himself from bondage. And so you write this down and so on. And that's how many people say we should understand prophets. Prophets are people who wrote in the Bible like Isaiah and Jose and people like that. And they wrote down their interpretation. They say, well, I think God is like this and I think God is like that. Well, everybody has a right to their own interpretation, right? However, what if you asked Shostakovich to write the review of his symphony for the paper? And you said, Mr. Shostakovich, tell us, what were you trying to say in the first movement? What were you trying to say in the second movement?

And he writes it down. And you see, that's a very different thing than when the critic interprets it. Here you have the author saying something. And it kind of gets rid of the whole idea. How can you debate what Shostakovich had in his mind when he wrote the first movement of that symphony? You can't debate it. It debates over. We have it right from his mouth.

Now, do we understand when the prophets write something in the Bible? Should we understand it as a critic interpreting what the composer meant? Or do we interpret really as nothing more than the very ideas and words, of the composer simply through the mouthpiece of the prophet. And the Bible says very clearly, it says, especially in 2nd Peter, chapter 1, verse 13, no prophecy of scripture is by the prophet's own interpretation, but prophets spoke from God not of their own will

as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, period. You may know the story of the prodigal son, but it's not just about a wayward younger brother. In fact, Jesus tells this story to speak both to those who run from God and to those who try to earn his love by being good. In his book, The Prodigal God, Tim Keller shows how this well-known story reveals the heart of the gospel, a message of hope for both the rebellious younger brother and the judgmental older brother, and an invitation for all to experience God's prodigal, extravagant grace.

Whether you're a Christian or you're still exploring faith, the Prodigal God will help you see your relationship with Christ in a whole new way. The prodigal God is our thank you for your gift this month to help Gospel in Life share the hope and joy of Christ's gracious and relentless love with people all over the world. Request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. Now, I know the reason I'm putting this out, we have to bring this up every so often, This idea of truth is utterly repugnant to the modern mind, and we're modern people, and we live in a modern community, maybe the most modern city anywhere. And yet that's what it means when the Bible says Jesus was a prophet, and that's what it means when it says the Bible is a word of prophecy.

Prophets are simply bringing you the very words of God. That's why it says there in verse 19, he foretold through the prophets. what the prophets say, God says. And therefore, the idea of truth in Christianity is, this is objective truth. This is not an interpretation of what God thinks. This is what God thinks. It's possible to know what God thinks. Boy, I'll tell you, it's so easy for people to say, ah, the idea that you can know what God thinks.

Who do you think you are? Christians are often told us, you think you know what God thinks. Who do you think you are? And the only thing you can say at some point is, yes, I do believe that our God is knowable. I do believe that our God speaks. I do believe that our God is not a hidden God. I do believe that our God is not hiding from us. You do. That's the difference. It's not a matter of pride. I think you can know what God thinks about certain things. Because I believe there's a God who speaks. Not just a God who's out there. not just the God who's out there, but a God who speaks. Now, Christians will always find when they come to understand this view of prophetic truth

that God has spoken, that God gives us objective truth, you're going to find that there's two very different alternate worldviews really competing with Christianity in a city like New York. Every so often, you know, I mention these two basic competing worldviews, and unfortunately, every time I give them different names, so a lot of you probably think there's seven or eight. But the two of them are, you know, let me give you all of the different names. The one is sometimes people, sometimes we call it naturalism, because it's the view that nature is all there is. Sometimes we call it secularism that says, you know, there's nothing, there's no spirit,

there's no supernatural, all we have is what is matter, that's all. And on the other hand, besides naturalism or secular scientism, you've got pantheism. Pantheism, which means God is in everything. I also sometimes call it New Ageism. You know, it confuses everybody. And they seem very different. The one view says there is no God.

Nothing is God. The other view says everything is God. God is a force in all of us. And therefore, the first view says there is really no truth, only facts. We know scientific facts, But there's no truth, there's no reality. You know, see, there's no ultimate reality.

Bertrand Russell says, when the universe dies, all a civilization will go. So there's no right and wrong. There is no spirit. There is no purpose or meaning in life. And he says, only if you build your life on the knowledge of that. Only if you build your life on, he says, the foundations of unyielding despair, will you be safe? Don't believe any humbug about there being meaning.

Don't believe any humbug that there's right and wrong. We're just made of molecules, period. That's the one view. The other view says, oh, no, God is in everything. In fact, you are God. And what it says is we have to alter our consciousness, move into a new state of consciousness, and look inside of ourselves to get in touch with our own greatness,

our own potential, our own creativity. Now, they sound very different, and very often they hate each other, and they have fights on cable television. They fight with each other, you see. The one group, you know, one group believes, it's funny, the one group believes nothing, and the other group believes everything. The one group believes in nothing, and the other group says, what, tarot cards, you know, crystal balls, channeling, you know, and, you know, worshiping nature. Yeah, yeah, you know, everything.

One group believes in nothing, one group believes in everything. One group says there is no God. One group says everything is God. And they seem very different, but here's where they, in practice, it comes down to the same thing. They both come down to this. You are your own truth finder. You are your own truth bringer. On the one hand, you see, a Bertrand Russell will say,

you decide how you want to live. There's no right and wrong. On the other side, they say, well, you have to look into yourself and find out what you really are and who you really are. But when it comes right down to it, in both cases, there's no truth outside that we have to submit to. You're your own truth finder. You're your own truth bringer.

And I, listen, the one view sounds so noble. You know, they say to us, they say to Christians, ah, yes, if you need a belief in God to face the meaninglessness and despair of life, well, okay. You know, you, they seem, it seems so noble. It seems so, you know, they seem so strong and courageous. On the other hand, the pantheistic, the New Ageistic people, they seem so exotic, so positive, so profound, you see. But I would suggest that there are some very crass motives that people have to reject the Christian idea of truth.

Because at the very bottom, there is a childish side of us that doesn't want anybody to tell us what to do. and as intellectual and as noble and as positive, as profound as it sounds, it plays right into those crass motives, right into the hands of those crass motives. The book I was reading by Dan Wakefield called New York in the 50s, Dan Wakefield was a guy from the Midwest, and he came to Columbia University, and he started reading The Existentialist, and he began to realize that the universe was, cosmos was meaningless, and that existence was absurd, and everybody had to find their own truth, you know?

And so he went down into the village and he began to live any old way he wanted. And he said, you know, he would get, his friends would come from Indiana. One time he had a woman come from Indiana and they spent a couple weeks with him and said, she says, Danny, New York is so intellectual. New York is so sophisticated, so anonymous, I don't know what sin to commit first.

And he said, you know, really, what New York gave us was an intellectual construct to justify doing all the things our parents back in Indiana, Anna would never let us do. And so people, a lot of people say, oh, you know, Christians, you've got motives for wanting to believe in Christ. You've got motives for wanting to believe that the Bible is really the Word of God. You want authority in your life.

You want certainty in your life. Yeah, sure, that's true. So there's motives there. What about your motives for rejecting the concept of truth? You see, you've got tremendous motives. People come, especially college kids. They just love either to buy in. into naturalism or pantheism. Why? Because now I can do all the things my parents would never

let me do. Finally, I can do whatever I want. There's nothing more crass than that, and there's nothing more childish than that. Put it this way. Your eight-year-old comes home, having played baseball, and he says to you, boy, I got into kind of a fight. Why, honey? Well, I was rounding third, and this boy tripped me. Well, what did you do? I got up, I grabbed a big rock, and I threw it as hard as I could right at his head, and it just missed him. He got very upset, and we had a fight. So you say, son, that was absolutely and totally wrong. What he did was wrong, but what you did, you could have killed him. It was disproportionate. It was all out of proportion. It was wrong. Always wrong. You're going to ruin your life if you have a contempt like that. You're going to

ruin your life if you think you can respond like that. So what does your son say? You weren't there. You don't know. Who do you think you are to tell me what to do? I mean, that's the way the heart works, you see. That's the essence of the heart. So what do you say to the kid? You say, I'm 40, you're eight. I am from above. You are from below. I can see things that you can't see. I'm absolutely serious. I know it's funny. It is funny. You can laugh, but it's totally serious. You say to the kid, I can see life from a vantage point that you can't even imagine. And therefore, unless you hear my word, if you reject my word, your life will be a wreck. In John chapter 8, Jesus says, I am the light of the world, and everything that I say is true.

And if you reject my truth, you will die in your sins. And it says here, what does it say? the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet, but this prophet will be different than all other prophets. This prophet will not be from below. This prophet will be from above. And because he's from above, if you don't listen to him, you will be completely cut off. So what are we saying? The first point, and there's only two points, don't worry. The first point, the Bible says that there is objective truth, that Jesus Christ brings it, but all the prophets brought it. Now we're going to see in a minute why Jesus Christ is the ultimate bringer of truth, but the prophets bring a truth which trumps all other sources of information. See, the other worldviews hate that idea. They say, well, we're all

in competition. Oh, Isaiah, they have an interpretation of God, but so does Shakespeare, so does my English teacher, so do why. Everybody has their own interpretation. The Bible says, no, there are some people who have spoken that are prophets. And they bring a truth, which is from above. and therefore that truth trumps all other truth, all other source of information. You've got your heart motions, right? You've got expert opinion. You've got your traditions that you were raised in, and you've got public opinion. Jesus' truth, God's truth, trumps all other kinds of truth.

If it differs with public opinion, you have to follow it. If it differs with your feelings, you have to follow it. That's the nature of truth. That's what it means when the Bible says that there are prophets, that God has sent prophets. Though you've murdered the prophets when I sent them to you, he says, I will keep sending them to you because they bring the truth. You don't like the idea of a truth that trumps you, but it does. Now, one more thing about this. I know that what I said sounds very harsh.

the doctrine of God's truth, the idea of God's truth, the Bible gives us, it's hard, it's unyielding, it's got sharp edges to it, it's like chewing on a diamond. I know that. And yet, what about Beethoven? We hate the idea that there is truth that no matter how much we want to do this, we're not allowed. that no matter how much we don't want to do this, we have to. That idea, we just hate it. That's why we love to jump into the existentialists.

We love to jump into the New Age movement. We love to jump into complete skepticism about any truth at all, you see. We just love that idea. We hate the idea of being a prophet. I know it sounds very harsh. But what are you going to do about Beethoven? Because you see, as Pascal puts it this way, just as we have an incapacity for proving anything,

which no amount of dogmatism can overcome. You hear that? He says, on the one hand, we really can't prove anything. Nobody can prove anything. He says, on the one hand, we have an incapacity for proving anything which no amount of dogmatism can overcome yet. He says, we have a concept of the truth which no amount of skepticism can overcome. What I'm trying to say is, you look at the people, and I know some of you are these people, look at the people who say, there is no truth, like Birch and Russell. And look at the people who say, well, truth is found within. Look at the people who say there's no such thing as objective truth. And yet, every human being, every human being has a concept of truth that no amount of skepticism can overcome. We all know that some things are right or wrong regardless of what people believe. Isn't that right? Some things are just wrong, we say. But if you don't believe in a God who speaks through the prophets, you've got no basis for that. You've got no basis for believing it. And you can't help but believe it. You know there's a truth.

You know there's a God who speaks. Okay? So first we learn that God speaks to the prophets. But lastly, we also learn in this passage that Jesus is the ultimate prophet. He's the final revealer of the truth. Why? You see, notice, even though he's a prophet, it tells us that he is what all the prophets were speaking of. It says, this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets,

saying his Christ would suffer, repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out. In other words, Jesus Christ is not only the subject of prophecy, he's the object of prophecy. He not only brings the truth, but he is the truth to which all the prophets have always been pointing. And that means what makes him different than all other prophets is simple. He is not just the one who brings the truth. He is the truth. Buddha, Muhammad, and Moses, and Abraham, all of them come, and here's what the they say. They say, don't look at me. I'm pointing to God. I'm pointing to the way to God. Don't look at me. I am nothing in myself. I am pointing to him. Jesus is the first prophet who comes along

saying, I am pointing to me. You can only find God through me. I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the father but by me. And it says in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 1, this astonishing thing, It says, in the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets in many times and in many ways. But now he has spoken to us by his son, who is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being. That's just, you know, there's no parallel for such a statement. It says, why all other prophets, what they told us was piecemeal. Every other prophet who has ever lived. In fact, I could even go so far to say, every other prophet of any other prophet of any,

other religion. Comes and tells us true things, you know, they would never have gotten off the ground. I'm not saying, Mohammed says plenty of true things. Buddhist says plenty of true things. They have to. You do not get a religion off the ground unless there's a lot of truth in it, an awful lot. But Jesus is the only one who comes not pointing over his shoulder, but pointing to his own heart. He's the one that comes and says, they can tell you a lot about God, but I can show you God. So I am the ultimate revealer. Why?

Because all other prophets give us pieces of the truth in many ways, in many places we heard, but now God has spoken in his final way. Why is it unsurpassed? Because he is the very radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his being. And that's the reason why we have to say, how could anyone come after Jesus

and add anything? How could he? Unless there's a fourth person to the Trinity. And then it wouldn't be a Trinity, you see. No, there are been prophets that, you know, Muhammad came along afterwards, said Jesus is the prophet, but I trump him. I'm the ultimate. I bring, I bring a higher view. I bring a better view. Baha'u'llah said the same thing. People have been doing it all the way down to the 20th century. The only way you could really get away with that rationally is to say, I am God. In fact, I'm a better, I'm a bigger, I'm a more, I'm a better manifestation of the radiance of God's glory, and I'm a more exact representation of his being than Jesus. Nobody has ever dared make such a claim except people

who are lunatics. Why? You can't get away with it unless you are a heck of a moral, glorious character. You better be unbelievably great person. Your wisdom and your beauty and your attractiveness and your compassion and your absolute consistency. Only Jesus has ever been able to claim that and get away with it because only Jesus had the life to match his claim and therefore he is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being. And let me just, let me conclude by saying he is not just a prophet because as God, he shows us who God is because he's so compassionate and loving in the way in which he talks and acts and moves. No. Ultimately, Jesus is the ultimate revealer. Well, this is what's so great about why you can't move prophet, priest, and king

away from each other. He is the ultimate prophet because he's the priest and the king. On the cross, listen, other prophets have told us, haven't they, that God is holy? Other prophets have told us, haven't they, that God is love? Prophets in all religions have come and said, God is holy, he is just, he hates evil, he hates sin, right? And all the prophets have come and said, God is loving, God is compassionate. And Jesus was no different. He came and he said, God hates sin. He also came and said, God loves you. And he told the parable, the prodigal son. And he showed how when we come back to God, the father is so eager to have us back that he comes rushing to us before we can even get half of our repentance out of our mouth. He leaps on us and he

kisses our neck. Now, Jesus, like a prophet, told us those things. But Jesus, because he's a priest is the ultimate prophet because on the cross he shows in a way that no prophet ever has or ever could. He reveals in a way no prophet ever has or ever could the absolute glory of God because he reconciles

the holiness and love of God on the cross. The one place in history, the one place in the universe where the holiness and the love of God shine out with equal brightness is on the cross. Because when you understand the logic of the cross, Jesus died for you, so the more God poured out his wrath on sin, the more he saved us.

On the cross, and only on the cross, God is both just and justifier of those who believe. Only there is God's heart, his essence revealed, only the true glory of God. There is no other religion, there is no other prophet, there's no other place anywhere that shows us that like that. Why? Because you see, Jesus is more than a prophet, and that's why he's the ultimate prophet. And I tell you that if you follow any other prophet and make any other prophet supreme, any other source of truth supreme over Jesus, you will either see the holiness of God or the love of God, but you'll never see them together. Never. You'll be either a legalistic person or a licentious person. You will be an unbalanced person, but you'll never hold it all together. You'll never see how the righteousness and the love of God kiss and embrace and weep and fall on each other's necks, you see, so that God can weep and fall on your neck.

Only this prophet says to the woman caught in adultery, I don't condemn thee, but yet he says, go and sin no more. How can he do both? The cross, you see. Only to here do we have a God who is just and justifier. it's unsurpassed. It's unbelievable. Look into the face of this prophet. Look into the face of this God, of this prophet, Jesus Christ, and you will see the face of the Father. Is he, listen, Jesus says, this is my beloved son. Hear ye him. Let me ask you to conclude. Do you? Do you just hope that Jesus will kind of love you, but you don't want to.

to study his teaching, master his teaching. You really don't like the idea that he has the right to tell you what to do? I tell you something. Do you want him to redeem you? Do you want him to love you? Do you want him to open the way to the Father? You have to hear him. You have to listen to him. You've got to let his hard, unyielding, objective truth into your life. Are you willing to do that? Because he's all of these things, or he's none of these things. But because he's all of these things, he shows us the Father. He's the absolute. He's the absolute representation, exact representation of his being, and the radiance of his glory. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that all this is for us. We thank you that because Jesus

Christ came and died, you can look at our sin and yet fall on our neck and say, put on my robe, put on my ring. Let's kill the fatted calf. Let's dance and sing for your mind, your home. Father, when we see Jesus Christ, and only when we see Jesus Christ, are we able to really see you? Only he reveals you. Only he does. Thank you for the uniqueness. Thank you for the supremacy of his revelation of your being and of your radiance and of your glory. We pray that tonight, the two things we might learn is that we need to study the Bible. We need to study the scripture. We need to know it inside out.

but on the other hand that you your son Jesus Christ is the supreme and ultimate prophet and his truth trumps all of the truths and the picture that he gives us of you is the supreme picture that's possible we thank you for this great disclosure

and we ask that you would help us to take it in to our own lives and be changed by it no one knows the father except the son and he to whomsoever the son will reveal him. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel and Life podcast. If you'd like to see more people encouraged by the gospel-centered teaching and resources of this ministry, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership allows us to reach people

all over the world with the life-giving power of Christ's love. To learn more, just visit gospel and life.com slash partner. That website again is gospel and life.com slash partner. Today's sermon was recorded in 1994. The sermons and talks you hear on the gospel in life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Thank you.