When any one is called to great place, there is a setting apart from others, and an ordaining to that particular, and a qualifying. If it be a caUing of God, he qualifies where he ordains always.
But Christ had the Spirit before. AVbat doth he mean, then, when he saith he will put the Spirit upon him now ?
I answer, he had the Spirit before, answerable to that condition he was in. Now he received the Spirit answerable to that condition he was to un- dertake. He was perfect then for that condition. Now he was to be made perfect for that office he was to set upon. He was always perfect. He had abundance of Spirit for that estate he was in, but now he was to enter upon another condition, to preach the gospel, to be a prophet, and after to be a priest. Therefore he saith now especially, I will put my Spirit upon him.
Now, this putting of the Spirit, it is expressed in Isa. Ixi. 1, and other places, by anointing. There were three sorts of persons that were anointed before Christ, prophets, priests, and kings. Now Christ was to be
16 A DESCEIPTION OF CHRIST.
a prophet, a priest, and a king. Therefore he was to be anointed with the Spirit, to enable him to these three offices.
I might here take occasion to enlarge myself in the offices of Christ, but I will only speak of them as the text ministereth just occasion.
There are three main defects in man since the fall.
There is ignorance and blindness.
There is rebellion in the will and affections.
And in regard of his condition, by reason of the sins of nature and life, a subjection to a cursed estate, to the wrath of God and eternal damnation.
Now, answerable to these three grand ills, whosoever shall be ordained a saviour must provide proportionable remedies for these. Hereupon comes a threefold office in Christ, that is ordained to save man, to cure this three- fold mischief and malady.
As we are ignorant and blind, he is a prophet to instruct us, to convince us of the ill state we are in, and then to convince us of the good he intends us, and hath wrought for us, to instruct us in all things conceming our everlasting comfort. He is such a prophet as teacheth not only the out- ward, but the inward man. He openoth the heart, he teacheth to do the things he teacheth. Men teach what we should do, but they teach not the doing of them. He is such a prophet as teacheth us the very things ; he teacheth us to love and to obey, &c.
And answerable to the rebellion and sinfulness of our dispositions, he is a king to subdue whatsoever is iU in us, and likewise to subdue all opposite power without us. By little and little he wiU trample all enemies under his feet, and under our feet, too, ere long.
Now, as we are cursed by reason of our sinful condition, so he is a priest to satisfy the wrath of God for us. He was made a curse for us. Gal. iii. 13. He became a servant, that, being so, he might die, and undergo the cursed death of the cross ; not only death, but a cursed death, and so his blood might be an atonement as a priest. So, answerable to the threefold ill in us, you see here is a threefold office in Christ.
Now Christ performs these three offices in this order.
Fhst of all he is a prophet. When he was baptized the Spirit was put upon him, as in Isa. bd. 1, to preach deliverance to the captives. First, he preached wherefore he came into the world, why God sent him, and dis- covered to the world the state they were in ; and when he had preached as a prophet, then as a priest, he died, and offered himself a sacrifice.
After death his kingly office was most apparent. For then he rose again as a triumphant king over death and all our enemies, and ascended in his triumphant chariot to heaven, and there he sits gloriously as a king in his throne at the right hand of God. So that however at his baptism, and before, when he was sanctified in his mother's womb, he was both king, ])riest, and prophet, yet in regard of the order of manifestation, he mani- fested himself first to be a prophet, secondly a priest, and thirdly to be a king. For his kingly office brake forth but seldom in the time of his abasement. Sometimes it did, to shew that he v/as ruler and commander of earth and sea, and devils, and all. He wrought miracles, but the glorious manifesta- tion of his kingly office, it was after his resurrrection.
Now, the fundamental, the chief office to which he was anointed by the Spirit, upon which the rest depends, it was his priestly office ; for where- fore was his teaching, but to instruct us what ho must do and sufi'er for us, and what benefit we have by his sacrifice — reconciliation with God, and freedom from the wrath of God, and right unto life everlasting, by his
A DESCRIPTION OF CHRIST. 17
obedience to tlie cursed death of the cross ? And how comes he to be a king to rule over us by his Holy Spirit, and to have a right unto us, but because as a priest he died for us first ? He washed us with his blood, he purged us with his blood, and then he made us kings and priests. Rev. i. 5. All other benefits came from this — he washed our souls in his blood fii'st. Whatsoever we have from God, is especially from the great work of Christ as a priest abasing himself, and dying for us ; and thereupon he comes to be a prophet and a king. Thus we see the order of Christ's ofiices, how they come to be fruitful to us, the rest especially, by virtue of his priestly office.