Just as Christ’s office as priest logically proceeds from his office as king, so too his office as prophet logically proceeds from his office as priest. Christ actualized his testament of grace by his death on the cross and resurrection on Easter Sunday. As prophet, he delivers that new testament. He thereby fulfills the third function of sacrifice in the Old Testament, namely, the ratification of a covenant/testament. When instituting the Lord’s Supper, Jesus said “this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”(Matt. 26:28).
St. Paul writes that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). Because Jesus fulfilled the law, he delivers the gospel of unilateral and universal forgiveness, as well as eternal life and bodily resurrection. Since death is the wage of sin, the logical result of the destruction of sin on the cross is the destruction of death. This occurred in Jesus’s bodily resurrection, which actualized and proleptically anticipates the bodily resurrection of all humanity (1 Cor. 15:20). As a prophet, Jesus announced his resurrection victory.
In Deuteronomy 18, Moses spoke of a coming eschatological prophet who would be like him. Those who ignored this prophet’s word would be condemned (Deut. 18). Similarly, because Christ inaugurates a new testament, he is the fulfillment the prophetic role of the Servant written about by Isaiah. In a word, a new exodus and a new Passover Lamb, calls also for a new Moses. Just as Moses sprinkled the children of Israel with the blood of the covenant (Exod. 24:8), so too would the Servant will “sprinkle many nations” (Isa. 52:15).
Nevertheless, instead of a covenant of law (as with Moses), the Servant mediates the new covenant of unilateral grace witnessed to by Ezekiel and Jeremiah (Ezek. 37:26, Jer. 31:31-34). Indeed, the Servant himself and his work of atonement for sin are the content of this covenant: “Thus says the LORD: “In a time of favor I have answered you; in a day of salvation I have helped you; I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people” (Isa. 49:8, Emphasis added). Hence, the Servant will proclaim a universal Jubilee of forgiveness (Isa 61:2), based on his own person and work.1
Christ’s Descent into Hell as Prophet
Christ first actualized and preached the new testament of forgiveness and eternal life by his death on the cross to the preternatural world where sin originated. In hell, Christ preached of his victory to the forces of spiritual darkness as well as to the damned: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison” (1 Pt. 3:18-19).
Hence, Christ’s descent into hell, spoken of in the later versions of the Apostle’s Creed, was not only the first stage of his exaltation. It is also a function of his office as prophet. This was fitting because since sin originated first in the preternatural world, its destruction should also be first proclaimed there. Therefore, the Formula of Concord correctly asserts that Christ did not descend to hell to continue to suffer as if his death on the cross did not complete his work (Jn. 19:30, Col. 2:14).2 Interestingly Roman Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar recently revived this position in his theology of Holy Saturday.3
In any case, Christ did not descend to rescue the holy dead (the Harrowing of Hell), as is claimed in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox teaching.4 Rather, Scripture explicitly explains that Abraham had already been justified by faith in the coming Christ (Gen. 12, Rom. 4), who was always already slain from eternity in God’s foreknowledge (Rev. 13:8). Valerius Herberger writes, “From the beginning of the world, His [Christ’s] bloody death was always seen in the sacrifices of the people of God; and from the beginning of the world, the power of His merit has also availed for all believing hearts.”5
Resurrection Victory and the End of the World
The resurrection communicates Christ’s proclamation of his victory to the temporal world. Christ’s victory is the proleptic eschaton, since the resurrection of the dead was the sign of the end of all things in the Old Testament and the Jewish apocalyptic tradition (Isa. 26, Dan. 12). In effect, when Jesus walked out of the tomb on Easter Sunday history ended.
Contrary to Oscar Cullmann’s analogy, Easter is not D-Day.6 Rather, it is VE Day and VJ Day all rolled into one. Hence, all subsequent history has been nothing other than the story of the Church’s prophetic proclamation of the end of history and resistance on the part of the part of the unbelieving world: “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn. 16:33).
St. John writes extensively about the tribulation of believers in Revelation. Satan and the unbelieving world rage against Christ and his Church. But in the final analysis, nothing can ultimately harm true believes because the Lamb has already shed his blood and won the victory (Rev. 14:1-5). Hence, the entire Christian message is authorized by and hinges on the validity of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:12-19).
- Hengstenberg, Christology in the Old Testament, 3:351-3. Leupold agrees that this is a reference to Jubilee. See Leupold, Isaiah, 2:321. ↩︎
- FC SD, IX; CT, 1049-1053. ↩︎
- See summary and description in Alyssa Lyra Pitstick, Light in the Darkness: Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Catholic Doctrine of Christ’s Descent into Hell (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2007), 7-86. ↩︎
- See Catechism of the Catholic Church (Rome: Libereria Editric Vaticana, 2000), 164. ↩︎
- Valerius Herberger, The Great Works of God: Part Seven: The Mysteries of Christ in the Book of Leviticus, Matthew Carver, trans. (Fort Wayne, Emmanuel Press, 2024), 25. ↩︎
- Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time, trans. F. V. Filson (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1964), 87. ↩︎
From the draft manuscript for Lutheran Dogmatics: The Evangelical-Catholic Faith for an Age of Contested Truth (Lexham Press).
Cover image from James Tissot, detail of Yeshua Teaches People by the Sea, at “Meet Yeshua / Jesus, the Greatest Prophet – Listen to Him,” The Messianic Prophecy Bible Project, accessed July 11, 2024, https://free.messianicbible.com/feature/meet-yeshua-jesus-the-greatest-prophet-listen-to-him/; other images from Nicholas Roerich, detail of Descent into Hell, 1933, March 22, 2012, accessed July 11, 2024, https://www.flickr.com/photos/32357038@N08/7007131975; Geoffrey Smith, “A Decisive Victory Won,” Guardian, March 28, 2024, accessed July 11, 2024, https://adelaideguardian.com/2024/03/28/a-decisive-victory-won/.