2025-07-30 – Jesus Christ is the Promised Messiah Part II: God is in Creation, Salvation, Revelation

A true Prophet’s role is not simply a diagnostic doomsayer, nor seer of the future.  A prophet changes the worldly circumstances by grace now so that the Messiah later can do His work in establishing the church. God through the prophet, therefore, provides “prevenient” grace for the faithful, preparing them for conversion by faith.  Importantly, there is no neutral encounter that a person may have with a prophet.  The prophet articulates God’s Word to heal what has been broken and put it forward to an even better use than before. This articulated Word is transformative: It changes the life of the person who heeds it for the better, and it condemns the person who denies it.  A profoundly important prophecy from Isaiah (2:2-4) describes the extension of the Covenant from the Jewish people to the Gentiles and the wider world.  This is fulfilled in Christ Jesus, but the work of transforming Israel into that which can be expanded to the Gentiles begins with Isaiah's prophetic articulation. God chooses to work through the medium of the Holy Spirit imparting prophecy to the mouths of human beings.  This is a sign of God’s largesse, allowing us to more closely resemble Him in whose likeness we are made, and, therefore, accomplishing God’s intention of theosis. 

The prophetic message functions in much the same way as does a sacrament: A means by both form and matter for the Holy Spirit to enter our lives and give the gift of grace.  The prophetic ministry sacramentalizes the here and now.  We either accept or reject the prophetic message, in the way that we take communion either worthily or unworthily, accomplishing either our salvation, or our damnation.

The Revelation of God’s intentions through His prophetic Word/Action is a miraculous act of divine love for His creation, because it replaces darkness with light, ignorance with knowledge.  The impartation of ordered reality onto disorder was a miraculous act of divine Creation, as is His miraculous Salvation by overcoming death with eternal life.  These miracles serve God’s purpose to keep his creatures faithful to His divine intentions.  Therefore, the Genesis account of the impartation of God’s self into the cosmos is a prophecy.  For, again, we define "prophecy" as God imparting His grace into the here and now, thus transforming the present world, through the prophet's articulation of God's Word. The universe is defined as good because it contains God within it. He put Himself into it in creating it. Therefore, God's act in creating the universe is "prophecy."

Why must God Himself be the Messiah?  In order to fulfill all of God’s promises to humanity, it must be God.  There is no human agent apart from God incarnate that could do this.  Any human can be set aside (many have been) and Moses did get the Jews out of bondage.  But fulfilling all of God’s promises requires supernatural agency.  Why?  Because the promise is to restore right relationship to God.  God alone is the source of this relationship, God alone can restore it when it is distracted, God alone embodies it.  If there is to be a Messiah in human form, it must be in the form of God incarnate, God with us.  The identity of the Messiah is revealed in Jeremiah 23:6, and is commented on by the Midrash Tehillim: the Messiah’s name is the Lord of Hosts, but since we may not speak His name, we shall call Him The Lord Our Righteousness.