Christians who believe Jesus is God will readily acknowledge that he is also the prophet of God. But are these two beliefs compatible? Can God also be the prophet of God? An explanation of what the word prophet means and an examination of how it is used in Scripture will provide us with the answer.
What is a Prophet?
In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for prophet is transliterated as nabi, which comes from a root word that means ‘“to bubble forth’ like a fountain.” Hence, it denotes “one who announces or pours forth the declarations of God.”[1] In the New Testament, the Greek word is transliterated prophétés and is defined as “one who speaks for another, especially one who speaks for a god.”[2] Thus, a prophet is someone who speaks on God’s behalf.
God is Not the Prophet
We find this definition of a prophet embodied in the calling of Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 1:5-9 (NASB) “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born, I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” 6 Then I said, “Alas, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, Because I am a youth.” 7 But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’ Because everywhere I send you, you shall go, and all that I command you, you shall speak. 8 “Do not be afraid of them, For I am with you to deliver you,” declares the Lord. 9 Then the Lord stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. (emphasis added)
God sent a man to the nations to speak on His behalf. It would not be Jeremiah’s words that he would deliver, but rather God’s.
The Bible tells of other men like Moses,[3] Isaiah,[4] Daniel,[5] Samuel,[6] and John the Baptist,[7] and women, like Miriam,[8] Deborah,[9] Huldah,[10] and Anna,[11] who served as God’s prophets or messengers. In these and other examples, there is, by definition, a distinction between the one who sends the message and the one who delivers it. God serves as the author of the message, while the human agent is the one who speaks it on God’s behalf.
2 Peter 1:20-21 (NASB) But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture becomes a matter of someone’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (emphasis added)
The Promise of a Prophet Like Moses
While Biblical history records numerous prophets sent by God, Scripture tells us that the Messiah would be set apart for a special prophetic calling and that Moses would serve as his prototype. Before the Israelites entered the Promised Land, Moses told them:
Deuteronomy 18:15-18 (NASB) “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him. 16 This is according to all that you asked of the Lord your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die.’ 17 The Lord said to me, ‘They have spoken well. 18 I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. (emphasis added)
The coming prophet would be like Moses. He would come from among their countrymen, and he would speak with the authority of God. Just as God taught Moses what to say, God would teach the coming prophet as well. Therefore, the people should heed the Messiah’s words because he would speak for God.
Of significance is the reason God gave for sending the coming prophet. When God spoke to the Israelites from Mt. Sinai (Horeb), they were terrified. They did not want to hear from God without a human intermediary. God granted their request, saying that they had “spoken well.” He would send an agent to speak on His behalf.
It is important to note that when God speaks to an audience, as He did to the Israelites gathered at Mt. Sinai, there is no need for a human messenger or prophet.
Jesus, the Prophet of God
The apostle Peter teaches that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to send a prophet like Moses.
Acts 3:18-23 (NASB) But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. 19 Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; 20 and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, 21 whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time. 22 Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren; to Him you shall give heed to everything He says to you. 23 And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ 24 And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and his successors onward, also announced these days. 25 It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ 26 For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.” (emphasis added)
Peter reminds his audience, and us, that since ancient times, God has spoken to the people via His prophets.
Jesus Was Acknowledged as God’s Prophet
Throughout his ministry, people recognized Jesus as the prophet of God:
Luke 24:19 (NASB) And He said to them, “What things?” And they said to Him, “The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people (emphasis added)
Matthew 21:9-11, 46 (NASB) The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!” 10 When He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.”…46 When they sought to seize Him, they feared the people, because they considered Him to be a prophet.[12] (emphasis added)
Jesus, the son of David, the prophet from Nazareth, came in the name of the Lord God.[13] To come in someone’s name was to come on their behalf and in their authority. Jesus is not the Lord God but rather the messenger who came in God’s name.
Similarly, we read in the gospel of Luke that the people understood Jesus to be a great prophet.
Luke 7:15-17 (NASB) The dead man sat up and began to speak. And Jesus gave him back to his mother. 16 Fear gripped them all, and they began glorifying God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and, “God has visited His people!” 17 This report concerning Him went out all over Judea and in all the surrounding district. (emphasis added)
The people did not glorify Jesus, but the God who sent him. They did not believe that God had come down as He had at Mt. Sinai, but rather that God had visited His people via His chosen prophet.
John 6:13-14 (NASB) So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. 14 Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” (emphasis added)
John 7:40 (NASB) Some of the people therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, “This certainly is the Prophet.” (emphasis added)
God Taught Jesus What to Say
As with Moses, Jeremiah, and all other prophets who served God, Jesus was taught what to say. He was given the words of God to speak.
John 8:27-28 (NASB) They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father. 28 So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. (emphasis added)
Jesus repeatedly stated that he did not speak his own words, but rather the words of God who had sent him.
John 7:14-17 (NASB) But when it was now the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. 15 The Jews then were astonished, saying, “How has this man become learned, having never been educated?” 16 So Jesus answered them and said, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. 17 “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself. (emphasis added)
Jesus clearly makes a distinction between himself and God. Jesus’ teaching came from God and was not his own. If Jesus is God, he could not have truthfully made this statement. Like Moses and other prophets, Jesus is a man who received divine messages from God:
John 8:26 and 40 (NASB) [Jesus said,] “I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.”… 40“But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. (emphasis added)
John 12:48-50 (NASB) “He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. 49 “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. 50 “I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore, the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.” (emphasis added)
John 14:10 and 24 (NASB) “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works… 24“He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. (emphasis added)
John 15:15 (NASB) “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. (emphasis added)
John 17:1, 6, 8 and 14a (NASB) Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, 2 even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent …6 “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word…8 for the words which You gave Me I have given to them…“I have given them Your word…(emphasis added)
Those who believe in the Trinity or the deity of Christ should find these verses quite surprising. How is it that the one who is supposed to be God-incarnate, the Word of God, did not speak his own words, but had to be taught what to say? The truth is, the Great Teacher had a teacher. This teacher is God the Father, whom Jesus calls, the only true God.
Jesus’ Dual Natures?
Some may counter that Jesus can be both God and the prophet of God because of the doctrine of the dual natures of Christ. In other words, Jesus prophesied in his human nature and not in his divine nature. However, the Bible never teaches that Jesus has two natures, and it never specifies that he was prophesying only from a human nature and not a divine one. Instead, Scripture teaches that Jesus was a man, sent from God. The post-Biblical doctrine of Jesus’ supposed dual natures developed over a period of several hundred years after the gospel had been syncretized with Platonic philosophy. The dual nature theory did not become official Church dogma until the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. (You can learn more about the evolution of orthodox Christology here.)
Conclusion
As we have seen throughout the Bible, God’s standard mode of engagement with humanity is to speak through an intermediary. No Biblical author says that Jesus is God the Prophet, rather Scripture tells us that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to send a messenger on His behalf. If Jesus is God, the promise of an intermediary who would speak on God’s behalf has not been fulfilled. The idea that God could be His own spokesman is illogical and, as we have seen, is contrary to the Biblical use of the term prophet. By the very definition of the word, you cannot be your own prophet. Jesus is not God but the prophet of God.
[2] Ibid.
[5] Matthew 24:15.
[6] 1 Samuel 3:20.
[7] Luke 7:24-28.
[8] Exodus 15:20.
[9] Judges 4:4.
[10] 2 Kings 22:14-15.
[11] Luke 2:36.
[12] See also John 4:19 and John 7:40.
[13] Matthew is quoting Psalm 118:26, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.” Here, LORD is Yahweh in Hebrew, a designation for God Almighty, that is, God the Father.
