Jesus spoke of himself using many messianic titles from Scripture. Names such as Son of Man in Luke 19:10, the Green Tree in Luke 23:31, and the King in Matthew 25:34 all have their origins in messianic passages from the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus also was referred to by such messianic titles as Lord (Lk. 5:8), the Son of God (Lk. 1:35) and the Son of David (Lk. 18:38).

One title applied to Jesus is not so clearly messianic: “Prophet.” There can be little doubt that Jesus viewed himself as a prophet, and that many of his contemporaries concurred.

Jesus the Prophet

Jesus claimed to be a prophet when he quoted the popular saying, “No one is a prophet in his own village,” going on to compare himself to Elijah and Elisha (Lk. 4:24-27). He made the same claim when he said, “It cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem” (Lk. 13:33).

But what did the people of Nain have in mind when they exclaimed, “A great prophet has been raised in our midst!” (Lk. 7:16)? Since they had just witnessed the bringing to life of a dead man, a miracle that also had been performed by Elijah (1 Kgs. 17:17-24) and Elisha (2 Kgs. 4:18-37), one might conclude that the people viewed Jesus as a prophet of the stature of these or other biblical prophets. However, the language of the

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