The Promised Messiah
The Old Testament's central purpose was to promise the Messiah. And he
has come, said Stephen. Jesus is his name. We know this because the
events surrounding Jesus' crucifixion give clear evidence of the hand of
God.[1]
ISAIAH'S PROPHECIES CONCERNING DAVID'S ROYAL DESCENDANT
The book of Isaiah has been called the "Gospel of the Old Testament." It
is filled with references to God's promised Messiah. Although Isaiah
announced that severe judgments loomed because of Israel's sins, the
prophet also spoke glowingly of a Savior whom God would send to deliver
His people. Many passages in Isaiah identified that Savior as the
descendant promised in the Davidic Covenant.
Isaiah 9:6, 7: He is to be God the Son. When we looked at the Abrahamic
Covenant, we noted that it is essentially an eschatological covenant. It
announces what God will accomplish by history's end. When God's plans and
purposes are at last fulfilled, Abraham's descendants will possess the
land. When God's plans and purposes have been fulfilled, every human
family will be blessed.
As Isaiah explored this promised future he fit the promises made to David
into the prophetic pattern. His message was that God would fulfill the
Abrahamic promises through the agency of a person destined to be Israel's
promised Davidic king! Isaiah 9 is one of the most significant of these
prophecies.
For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government
will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful,
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the
increase of His government and peace
There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To
order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time
forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this
(Isa. 9:6, 7).
What does Isaiah say here about this king who is to come from David's
line and sit on David's throne?
He is a Son, although born a child (Isaiah 9:6). Hebrew poetry typically
repeats thoughts in couplets. Yet there is something unique here. The
coming ruler will be born a child. But at the same time, He is a gift-the
Son of the Giver! These words might have meant little in Isaiah's time.
But today we recognize Jesus Christ in this couplet. Born as an infant in
Bethlehem, Jesus was nevertheless the eternal Son of God, given to take
away the sins of the world. And Isaiah declared that the government-all
rule and authority-would one day rest on His shoulders.
[2]
Early Christians believed that Jesus of Nazareth was God's promised
Messiah, who established a new covenant with his new people, the church.
So the New Testament stands for the books telling the story of Jesus
Christ and the birth of the church.
The Bible contains two portions: the Old Testament, which the early
Christians claimed-along with the Jews-and the New Testament, which the
early Christians produced-in spite of the Jews. The Old Testament
promised; the New Testament fulfilled.
The word for the special place these books occupy in Christianity is
canon. The term from the Greek language originally meant "a measuring
rod" or, as we might say, "a ruler." It was a standard for judging
something straight. So the idea transferred to a list of books that
constituted the standard or "rule" of the churches. These were the books
read publicly in the congregations because they had a special authority
of God upon them.
Since the first Christians were all Jews, Christianity was never without
a canon, or as we say, Scripture. Jesus himself clearly accepted the Old
Testament as God's word to man. "Scripture cannot be broken," he said.
"Everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the
psalms must be fulfilled" (John 10:35; Luke 24:44).
[3]
The act of Jesus was in itself simply an embodiment of the thought lying
at the basis of the prophecy,-namely, that the kingdom of the Messiah
would unfold itself, through lowliness and suffering, to might and glory;
that Jesus, as the promised Messiah, would not conquer the world by the
force of arms, and so raise His people to political supremacy, but that
He would found His kingdom by suffering and dying,-a kingdom which,
though not of this world, would nevertheless overcome the world.[4]
The chief titles given to Jesus are:
1. Christ. The title Christ is so often given to Jesus that people often
mistake it for his last name. It is, however, not a name, but a title
that refers to his position and work as Messiah. The term Christ comes
from the Greek Christos, which is used to translate the Hebrew word for
Messiah. Both Christ and Messiah mean "Anointed One."
In the Old Testament the concept of the promised Messiah, who would be
uniquely anointed by the Holy Spirit, was a many-sided and complex idea.
The Jews did not all have the same idea about the Messiah.
One concept of the Messiah was that he would be a king. He would be the
anointed Son of David, the Lion of Judah, who would restore the fallen
kingdom of David. (This aspect greatly excited the Jews and fanned the
flames of their hope for a political ruler who would free them from their
bondage to Rome.)
But the Messiah was also called to be the Servant of God, indeed the
Suffering Servant spoken of in Isaiah's prophecy. These two strands
seemed virtually impossible to unite in one person, though in Jesus they
obviously were.
The Messiah would also be a heavenly being (Son of Man) and would be
uniquely related to God the Father (Son of God). He would be both priest
and prophet as well. The more we realize how complex the concept of
Messiah was, the more amazed we are at the intricate way in which all
these strands were woven together in the person and work of Jesus.
[5]
The Triumphs of Faith
1 Now faith is the ?1??a?assurance of things ?2??b?hoped for,
the ?3?conviction of ?c?things not seen.
[6]
2:8-9. In contrast with Moses (cf. Josh. 1:1-9; Num. 27:12-23), Joshua
died without appointing a successor, thus setting the stage for the
period of the Judges. Joshua's epitaph, identifying him as the servant of
the Lord, linked him with other theocratic servant-rulers (Moses, Josh.
1:1; the kings, 2 Sam. 3:18; 2 Chron. 32:16; and the promised Messiah,
Isa. 52:13; 53:11). At the age of 110, Joshua died and was buried at
Timnath Heres (also known as Timnath Serah, Josh. 19:50; 24:30),
traditionally identified with Tibneh about 18 miles north by northwest of
Jerusalem.
[7]
The Exalted Servant
13 Behold, My ?a?servant will prosper, He will be high and
lifted up and ?1?greatly ?b?exalted. 14 Just as many were
astonished at you, My people, So His ?a?appearance was marred more
than any man And His form more than the sons of men. 15 Thus He
will ?a?sprinkle many nations, Kings will ?b?shut their mouths on
account of Him; For ?c?what had not been told them they will see,
And what they had not heard they will understand.
[8]
11 As a result of the ?1?anguish of His soul, He will ?a?see
?2?it and be satisfied; By His ?b?knowledge the Righteous One, My
Servant, will justify the many, As He will ?c?bear their iniquities.
[9]
Why Jesus is the Only Way to get to God (Promised Messiah from Genesis
OT)
People are constantly asking, "What's so special about Jesus? Why is He
the only way that someone can know God?"
Along with the problem of the heathen, there is no question asked more
often than this one. We are accused of being narrow-minded because we
assert there is no other way to get to God.
The first point to make is that we did not invent the claim of Jesus
being the only way. This is not our claim; it is His. We are merely
relating His claim, and the claim of the writers of the New Testament.
Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to
the Father, but through Me" (John 14:6, NASB) and, "For unless you
believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins" (John 8:24, NASB). The
apostle Peter echoed these words, "Neither is there salvation in any
other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby
we must be saved" (Acts 4:12, KJV).
St. Paul concurred, "There is one God, and one mediator between God and
men, the man Christ Jesus. . "(I Timothy 2:5, KJV). It is therefore the
united testimony of the New Testament that no one can know God the Father
except through the person of Jesus Christ.
To understand why this is so, we must go back to the beginning. An
infinite-personal God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1) and
man in his own image (Genesis 1:26). When He had finished creating,
everything was good (Genesis 1:31).
Man and woman were placed in a perfect environment, with all their needs
taken care of. They were given only one prohibition; they were not to eat
of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, lest they die
(Genesis 2:17).
Unfortunately, they did eat of the tree (Genesis 3), and the result was a
fall in four different areas. The relationship between God and man was
now broken, as can be seen from Adam's and Eve's attempting to hide from
God (Genesis 3:8).
The relationship between man and his fellow man was severed, with both
Adam and Eve arguing and trying to pass the blame to someone else
(Genesis 3:12, 13).
The bond between man and nature also was broken, with the ground
producing thorns and thistles and the animal world no longer being
benevolent (Genesis 3:17, 18). Man also became separated from himself,
with a feeling of emptiness and incompleteness, something he had not
experienced before the fall.
However, God promised to make all these things right and gave His word
that He would send a Saviour, or Messiah, who would deliver the entire
creation from the bondage of sin (Genesis 3:15). The Old Testament kept
repeating the theme that some day this person would come into the world
and set mankind free.
God's Word did indeed come true. God became a man in the person of Jesus
Christ (John 1:14, 29). Jesus eventually died in our place in order that
we could enjoy again a right relationship with God. The Bible says, "God
was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" and "he hath made him
to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him" (II Corinthians 5:19, 21, KJV).
Jesus has paved the way! God has done it all, and our responsibility is
to accept that fact. We can do nothing to add to the work of Jesus; it
has all been done for us.
If mankind could have reached God any other way, then Jesus would not
have had to die. His death illustrates the fact that there is no other
way. Therefore, no other religion or religious leader can bring someone
to the knowledge of the one true God.
But the death of Jesus is not the end of the story. Let us illustrate why
we prefer Jesus over other religious leaders. Suppose a group of us are
taking a hike in a very dense forest. As we get deeper into the forest,
we become lost.
Realizing that taking the wrong path now might mean we will lose our
lives, we begin to be afraid. However, we soon notice that ahead in the
distance where the trail splits, there are two human forms at the fork in
the road.
Running up to these people, we notice that one has on a park ranger
uniform, and he is standing there perfectly healthy and alive, while the
other person is lying face down, dead. Now which of these two are we
going to ask about the way out? Obviously, the one who is living.
When it comes to eternal matters, we are going to ask the one who is
alive the way out of the predicament. This is not Mohammed, not
Confucius, but Jesus Christ. Jesus is unique. He came back from the dead.
This demonstrates He is the one whom He claimed to be (Romans 1:4), the
unique Son of God and the only way by which a person can have a personal
relationship with the true and living God.
[10]
How We Know Jesus Rose From the Dead (The Promised Messiah)
(I Corinthians 15:12-19). If Jesus did not come back from the dead, then
the Christian faith crumbles.
Fortunately, one of the most well-attested events in the ancient world is
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. When confronted by the
religious leaders of His day, Jesus was asked for a sign to demonstrate
that He was the promised Messiah.
He answered, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and
yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for
just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea
monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:39, 40, NASB).
The sign of the resurrection was meant to set Jesus apart from anyone
else who ever lived, and it would designate Him the Son of God (Romans
1:4).
The accounts of His appearances are recorded for us by eyewitnesses to
whom Jesus appeared alive over a forty-day period after His public
crucifixion. As the scriptural account sets forth, to these "he shewed
himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of
them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of
God" (Acts 1:3, KJV).
Writing about a.d. 56, the apostle Paul mentions the fact that more than
500 people had witnessed the resurrected Christ at one time and most of
them were still living when he wrote (I Corinthians 15:6). This statement
is somewhat of a challenge to those who might not have believed, since
Paul is saying that there are many people yet living who could be
interviewed to find out if Christ had indeed risen.
The historical evidence is more than sufficient to satisfy the curiosity
of the honest inquirer. This can be seen not only by the positive defense
that can be made for the case for the resurrection, but also by the lack
of any evidence for an alternative explanation. The theories attempting
to give an alternative explanation to the resurrection take more faith to
believe than the resurrection itself.
Frank Morrison, who was an agnostic journalist, attempted to write a book
refuting the resurrection of Christ. After much investigation, his
opinion changed and he became a believer in Jesus Christ. This is how
Morrison described what happened to him:
"This study is in some ways so unusual and provocative that the writer
thinks it desirable to state here very briefly how the book came to take
its present form. In one sense it could have taken no other, for it is
essentially a confession, the inner story of a man who originally set out
to write one kind of book and found himself compelled by the sheer force
of circumstances to write another.
"It is not that the facts altered, for they are recorded imperishably in
the monuments and in the pages of human history. But the interpretation
to be put on the facts underwent a change" (Who Moved the Stone? Preface,
Zondervan, 1971).
Morrison discovered that Christ was publicly put in the tomb on Friday,
but on Sunday morning the body was missing. If He did not rise from the
dead, then someone took the body. There are three interest groups that
could possibly have taken the body: the Romans, the Jews, or the
disciples.
The Romans would have had no reason to steal the body, since they wanted
to keep the peace in Palestine. The idea was to keep the provinces as
quiet as possible, and stealing the body of Christ would not accomplish
this objective.
The Jews would not have taken the body, because the last thing they
wanted was a proclamation of the resurrection. They are the ones who
asked for the guard, according to Matthew 27.
The disciples of Jesus had no reason to steal the body, and if they did,
they later died for something they knew to be untrue. Moreover, the
religion which they proclaimed emphasized telling the truth and not
lying. Their actions would have been inconsistent with that which they
knew to be true and commanded others to follow.
The other reasonable explanation is that Christ has risen, and the
eyewitnesses make it plain this is the case. The disciples of Jesus may
not have been as sophisticated as twentieth century man in the realm of
scientific knowledge, but they surely knew the difference between someone
who was dead and someone who wasn't.
As Simon Peter said, "For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when
we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but
we were eyewitnesses of His majesty" (II Peter 1:16, NASB).
[11]
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ADDITIONAL REFERENCE SOURCES
Frank Morrison, Who Moved the Stone?, Zondervan, 1971
George Ladd, I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus, Grand Rapids,
Eerdmans, 1975
Josh McDowell, "The Great Resurrection Hoax" (tape), Liberation Tapes,
P.O. Box 6044, Lubbock, Texas 79413
Don Stewart, "The Resurrection: The Cornerstone of Christianity" (tape),
The Word for Today, P.O. Box 8000, Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626
Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Vol. 1, rev. ed., 1979 p.
179-263
[12]
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[1]Shelley, B. L. (1995). Church history in plain language (Updated 2nd
ed.) (14). Dallas, Tex.: Word Pub.
[2]Richards, L. (1998). Every promise in the Bible. Includes indexes.
(59). Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers.
[3]Shelley, B. L. (1995). Church history in plain language (Updated 2nd
ed.) (58). Dallas, Tex.: Word Pub.
[4]Keil, C. F., & Delitzsch, F. (2002). Commentary on the Old Testament.
(10:578). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.
[5]Sproul, R. C. (1996, c1992). Essential truths of the Christian faith.
Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House.
1 Or substance a Heb 3:14 2 Or expected b Heb 3:6 3 Or evidence c Rom
8:24; 2 Cor 4:18; 5:7; Heb 11:7, 27
[6]New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Heb 11:1). LaHabra,
CA: The Lockman Foundation.
cf. confer, compare
[7]Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-
c1985). The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures
(1:382). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
a Is 42:1; 49:1-7; 53:11 1 Or very high b Is 57:15; Phil 2:9 a Is 53:2, 3
a Num 19:18-21; Ezek 36:25 b Job 21:5 c Rom 15:21; Eph 3:5
[8]New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Is 52:13). LaHabra,
CA: The Lockman Foundation.
1 Or toilsome labor a John 10:14-18 2 Another reading is light b Is
45:25; Rom 5:18, 19 c Is 53:5, 6
[9]New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Is 53:11). LaHabra,
CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[10]McDowell, J., & Stewart, D. D. (1993). Answers to tough questions.
Originally published: San Bernardino, Calif. : Here's Life Publishers,
c1980. Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers.
[11]McDowell, J., & Stewart, D. D. (1993). Answers to tough questions.
Originally published: San Bernardino, Calif. : Here's Life Publishers,
c1980. Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers.
[12]McDowell, J., & Stewart, D. D. (1993). Answers to tough questions.
Originally published: San Bernardino, Calif. : Here's Life Publishers,
c1980. Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers.
The NT is one big announcement that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the
Living and one true God, the Creator of the Heavens and the earth,
(Genesis 1:1).
.
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