Theological Term of the Week: Threefold Office of Christ

threefold office of Christ
The office given to Christ by the Father. It consists of three parts: the office of prophet, the office of priest, and the office of king. Christ fulfills the duties all three parts as he accomplishes the mediatorial work of salvation; also called triplex munus or three offices of Christ.

• From scripture, Christ as prophet:

  Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.” (Acts 3:19-26 ESV) 

• From scripture, Christ as priest:

  We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 6:19-20 ESV)

• From scripture, Christ as king:

  …[H]e raised [Christ] from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church…. (Ephesians 1:20-22 ESV)

• From the 1689 London Baptist Confession, Chapter 8, Of Christ the Mediator::

  9._____ This office of mediator between God and man is proper only to Christ, who is the prophet, priest, and king of the church of God; and may not be either in whole, or any part thereof, transferred from him to any other. (1 Timothy 2:5) 

   10.____ This number and order of offices is necessary; for in respect of our ignorance, we stand in need of his prophetical office; and in respect of our alienation from God, and imperfection of the best of our services, we need his priestly office to reconcile us and present us acceptable unto God; and in respect to our averseness and utter inability to return to God, and for our rescue and security from our spiritual adversaries, we need his kingly office to convince, subdue, draw, uphold, deliver, and preserve us to his heavenly kingdom. (John 1:18; Colossians 1:21; Galatians 5:17; John 16:8; Psalms 110:3; Luke 1:74, 75)

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What does it mean that Jesus is prophet, priest, and king?
2. Joel Beeke: Jesus’s Threefold Office as Prophet, Priest, and King
3. R. C. Sproul: The Threefold Office of Christ
4. Anthony Carter: Jesus Christ: Our Prophet, Priest, and King
5. Kim Riddlebarger: The Triple Cure: Jesus Christ — Our Prophet, Priest, and King

Related terms: 

• king (as an office of Christ)
• mediator
• priest (as an office of Christ)
• prophet (as an office of Christ)

Filed under Person, Work, and Teaching of Christ

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Theological Term of the Week: Total Depravity

total depravity
The inherent corruption of humankind which “extends to every part of our nature, to all the faculties and powers of both soul and body; and that there is no spiritual good, that is, good in relation to God, in the sinner at all, but only perversion.”1

• In scripture:

  [B]oth Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: 

  “None is righteous, no, not one;
  no one understands; no one seeks for God.
  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
  no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:9-12 ESV)
  

  And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body  and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:1-3 ESV)

• From the Second Helvetic Confession, Chapters 8 & 9:

  Sin. By sin we understand that innate corruption of man which has been derived or propagated in us all from our first parents, by which we, immersed in perverse desires and averse to all good are inclined to all evil. Full of all wickedness, distrust, contempt and hatred of God, we are unable to do or even to think anything good of ourselves.

  What Man Was After the Fall. Then we are to consider what man was after the fall. To be sure, his reason was not taken from him, nor was he deprived of will, and he was not entirely changed into a stone or a tree. But they were so altered and weakened that they no longer can do what they could before the fall. For the understanding is darkened, and the will which was free has become an enslaved will. Now it serves sin, not unwillingly but willingly. And indeed, it is called a will, not an unwill(ing).

• From Concise Theology by J. I. Packer:

  The phrase total depravity is commonly used to make explicit the implications of original sin. It signifies a corruption of our moral and spiritual nature that is total not in degree (for no one is as bad as he or she might be) but in extent. It declares that no part of us is untouched by sin, and therefore no action of ours is as good as it should be, and consequently nothing in us or about us ever appears meritorious in God’s eyes. We cannot earn God’s favor, no matter what we do; unless grace saves us, we are lost.

  Total depravity entails total inability, that is, the state of not having it in oneself to respond to God and his Word in a sincere and wholehearted way (John 6:44; Rom. 8:7-8). Paul calls this unresponsiveness of the fallen heart a state of death (Eph. 2:1, 5; Col. 2:13), and the Westminster Confession says: “Man by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto”

• From Living for God’s Glory by Joel Beeke:

  [T]otal depravity means that sin is tragically inclusive, i.e., it dreadfully impacts every part of us. There is something terribly wrong not only with who we are inwardly, but with every aspect of our being. No element of our personality is less affected by sin than any other. Our intellects, our consciences, our emotions, our ambitions, our wills, which are the citadels of our souls, are all enslaved to sin by nature…. 

  Total depravity means that when God scrutinizes the human heart, affections, conscience, will, or any part of the body, He finds every part damaged and polluted by sin. Apart from saving grace, every part is alienated from God and actively pursuing sin. If the Spirit teaches us this experientially, we will understand Jonathan Edwards’ confession: “When I look into my heart, and take a view of my wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely deeper than hell.”

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: Total Depravity - is it biblical?
2. Simply Put: Total Depravity
3. Loraine Boettner: Total Depravity
4. Bob Burridge: You Are Worse Than You Think
5. R.C. Sproul : Human Depravity
6. Brian Schwertley: Man’s Need of Salvation: Total Depravity and Man’s Inability

Related terms: 

• fall (of man)
• image of God
• inability
• noetic effects of sin
• original sin

Filed under Anthropology

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Clicking on the Theological Terms button will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.

Theological Term of the Week: Transcendence

transcendence
God’s existence above and outside his creation, independent and distinct from it.

• In scripture:

  For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

  neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

  For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

  so are my ways higher than your ways

  and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV)

• From Salvation Belongs to the Lord by John Frame:

  When Scripture uses the “up there” language, theologians call it transcendence….

  …[S]ome theologians have misunderstood God’s transcendence. They think it means that God is so far away from us that we cannot really know him, so far that human language can’t describe him accurately, so far that to us he’s just a great heavenly blur without any definite characteristics. This concept of transcendence is unbiblical. If God is transcendent in that way, how can he also be near to us/ Furthermore, according to the Bible we can know definite things about God. Despite the limitations of human language, God is able to use human language to tell us clearly and accurately who he is and what he has done.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What does it mean that God is transcendent?
2. Compelling Truth: What does transcendence mean? How is God transcendent?
3. J. I. Packer: Transcendence
4. John Frame: Divine Transcendence and Immanence

Related terms: 

• aseity
• holiness
• immanence
• immutability
• impassibility
• incommunicable attributes
• infinitude
• omnipotence
• omnipresence
• omniscience
• sovereignty of God

Filed under God’s Nature and His Work

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Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.