Jesus being prophet, preist and King is It’s all about mercy. As one of our theologians has said, “The whole work of our Lord may be summed up in this, that He founded upon earth the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. But the kingdom of God is the community of men, in which God is the absolute and undisputed master. God is love, and therefore the kingdom of God is a kingdom of love; and the community of those who have been reconciled to God in Christ must hallow its whole life and conduct by love. The whole duty of members of the kingdom of God is comprehended by our Lord in one word: ‘Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,’ and again: ‘Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.’ The righteousness of the kingdom of God, which our Lord enjoins upon His people, is nothing else than the ordering of their whole life in accordance with the law of love.” ( Johann Uhlhorn, Christian Charity in the Ancient Church, (New York, Scribner’s, 1883) 57
We can do none of this ourselves. We cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, come to Him, or do anything good. But because of our mercifully anointed Prophet, and our mercifully anointed Priest, our mercifully anointed King, and His death on our behalf, we are free to be merciful. As Luther said: “Therefore, if we recognize the great and precious things which are given us, as Paul says [Rom. 5:5], our hearts will be filled by the Holy Spirit with the love which makes us free, joyful, almighty workers and conquerors over all tribulations, servants of our neighbors, and yet lords of all. For those who do not recognize the gifts bestowed upon them through Christ, however, Christ has been born in vain … Just as our neighbor is in need and lacks that in which we abound, so we were in need before God and lacked his mercy. Hence, as our heavenly Father has in Christ freely come to our aid, we also ought freely to help our neighbor through our body and its works, and each one should become as it were a Christ to the other that we may be Christ to one another and Christ may be the same in all, that is, that we may be truly Christians.”
