08.06. The Messiah
The Messiah The teaching of this lesson may be begun with Acts 2:17-21. Surely the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost was something new. Yet even that was explained by a reference to prophecy. And the reference is of remarkable aptness and beauty. The Pentecostal speech of Peter is full of the appeal to prophecy. Primarily, indeed, the claims of Jesus are supported by the direct testimony to his resurrection. Without the facts, of course appeal to prophecy would have been useless; for it was just the wonderful correspondence of the facts with the prophecies that could induce belief. Along with the direct testimony to the facts went the appeal to prophecy. The promised king of David’s line at last has come. Acts 2:30; 2 Samuel 7:12-13; Psalms 89:3-4; Psalms 132:11. And David’s son is David’s Lord — David’s Lord and ours. Acts 2:34-35; Psalms 110:1; compare Matthew 22:41-46.
1. The New Testament Appeal to ProphecyThis speech of Peter is typical of the preaching of the early Church. The appeal to prophecy was absolutely central in the presentation of the gospel. Proof of that fact does not need to be sought. It is written plain on the pages of the New Testament. Old Testament prophecy was found to apply not merely to one side of the work of Christ, but to all sides. Israel had looked not merely for a king, but also for a prophet and a priest. Peter, after his first arrest, for example, could appeal to the notable prophecy of Deuteronomy: “A prophet shall the Lord God raise up unto you from among your brethren, like unto me.” Acts 3:22; Deuteronomy 18:15; Deuteronomy 18:19. The author of Hebrews could appeal to the priest after the order of Melchizedek, Hebrews 5:6; Psalms 110:4, and to the symbolic sacrifices of the temple which found their fulfillment on Calvary. The appeal to prophecy extended even to those things which were most distinctive of the Christian message. “I delivered unto you first of all,’’ says Paul, “that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures.” 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. Here the death and the resurrection of Christ are both declared to be according to the Scriptures. That means that they were the subject of prophecy. But the death and the resurrection of Christ were the fundamental elements of the gospel. The gospel, then, in the form of prophecy, is to be found in the Old Testament.
What Old Testament passages has Paul here in mind? With regard to the death for our sins, the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah was probably in his mind. That passage was being read by the Ethiopian when Philip met him, and Philip made the passage a basis for preaching about Jesus. Acts 8:27-35. With regard to the resurrection, it is natural to think of Psalms 16:10. Paul himself quoted that passage in his speech at Pisidian Antioch. Acts 13:34-37. The appeal to prophecy did not begin with the apostles. It was initiated by Jesus himself. “To-day,” said Jesus at Nazareth after the reading of Isaiah 61:1-2, “hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears.” A large claim! No wonder they found it difficult to accept. When John the Baptist asked, “Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another?” it was to “the works of the Christ” that Jesus appealed. Matthew 11:2-6; Isaiah 35:5-6; Isaiah 61:1. These are merely examples. Throughout, Jesus represented himself and his kingdom as the fulfillment of the ancient promise. “O foolish men,” he said to the disciples on the way to Emmaus, “and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Luke 24:25-27.
2. The Messianic Hope a Preparation for the GospelWhen the gospel was preached to pure Gentiles, a great deal of preliminary labor had to be done. Under what title should the claims of the Saviour be presented? “Christ” to the Gentiles was almost meaningless, till explained. “Son of God” was open to sad misconception. There were “sons of God” in Greek mythology, but they were not what the early Christians meant to show that Jesus was. These difficulties were overcome, and speedily. Gentile Christians were imbued with a lofty and adequate conception of the Lord. The labor was great, but it was gloriously accomplished. In this labor, however, the missionaries were assisted by the synagogues of the Jews. In the synagogues, “Christ” was no new term, and no new conception. In the synagogues, one proposition needed first to be proved, “This Jesus ... is the Christ.” Acts 17:3. If that were proved, then the rest would follow. The Jews knew that the Messiah was Lord and Master. Identify Jesus with him, and all the lofty claims of Jesus would be substantiated. How the identity was established may be observed in the speech of Peter on the day of Pentecost, or in the speech of Paul at Pisidian Antioch. Acts 13:16-43.
It will be remembered that the synagogues attracted not merely Jews but also Gentiles. The Gentile “God-fearers,” as well as the Jews, were acquainted with the Messianic hope. Even the Gentile mission, therefore, was prepared for by the prophets of Israel.
3. The Permanent Value of Prophecy The appeal to prophecy, however, was not merely valuable to the early Church. It is of abiding worth. It represents Jesus as the culmination of a divine purpose. The hope of Israel was in itself a proof of revelation, because it was so unlike the religious conceptions of other nations. The covenant people, the righteous king, the living God, the world-wide mission — that is the glory of Israel. The promise is itself a proof. But still more the fulfillment. The fulfillment was an unfolding. Wonderful correspondence in detail — and far more wonderful the correspondence of the whole! The promise was manifold. Sometimes the Messiah is in the foreground. Sometimes he is out of sight. Sometimes there is a human king, sometimes Jehovah himself coming to judgment; sometimes a kingdom, sometimes a new covenant in the heart; sometimes a fruitful Canaan, sometimes a new heaven and a new earth. But manifold though the promise, Christ is the fulfillment of it all. “How many soever be the promises of God,” in Christ is the yea. 2 Corinthians 1:20. There is the wonder. In Christ the apparent contradictions of the promise become glorious unity, in Christ the deeper mysteries of the promise are revealed. Christ the keystone of the arch! Christ the culmination of a divine plan! That is the witness of the prophets. It is a witness worth having.
4. The Messianic Hope of Later JudaismAfter the close of the Old Testament, the promise did not die. It was preserved in the Scriptures. It continued to be the life of the Jewish nation. But it was not only preserved. It was also interpreted. Some of the interpretation was false, but much of it was true. The Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament promise is worthy of attention. What did the Jews of the first century mean by the Messiah, and what did they mean by the Messianic age? In the first place, they retained the hope of a king of David’s line — a human king who should conquer the enemies of Israel. When it was held in a one-sided form this was a dangerous hope. It led logically to materialistic conceptions of the kingdom of God and to political unrest. It led to the effort of the Jews to take Jesus by force and make him a king. John 6:15. It led to the quarrel of the disciples about the chief places in the kingdom. Matthew 18:1-4; Mark 9:33-35; Luke 9:46-47. This conception of the Messiah had to be corrected by Jesus. “My kingdom is not of this world.” John 18:36.
Yet even where the Messiah was conceived of as an earthly ruler, the spiritual hope was by no means always and altogether lost. The “Psalms of Solomon,” for example, Pharisaic psalms of the first century before Christ, though they look for an earthly ruler, picture him as one who shall rule in righteousness. “And a righteous king and taught of God is he that reigneth over them; And there shall be no iniquity in his days in their midst, for all shall be holy and their king is the Lord Messiah” (Psalm of Solomon 17:35, 36. See Ryle and James, “Psalms of the Pharisees,” especially pp. 137-147). No iniquity in the days of the Messiah! That is true understanding of the Old Testament, even joined with the political ideal. In the second place, however, the Messianic age is sometimes in later Judaism conceived of as purely supernatural. The Messiah is not an earthly ruler, merely helped by God, but himself a heavenly being, a preexistent “Son of Man,” judge of all the earth. The Messianic age is ushered in not by human warfare, but by a mighty catastrophic act of God. Not a liberated Canaan is here the ideal, but a new heaven and a new earth. This transcendental, super naturalistic form of the Messianic hope appears in the “Book of Enoch” and other “apocalypses.” Its details are fantastic, but it was by no means altogether wrong. In many respects it was a correct interpretation of the divine promise. The new heavens and the new earth are derived from Isaiah 65:17. The doctrine of the two ages was accepted by Jesus and by Paul— for example Matthew 12:32; Galatians 1:4; Ephesians 1:21. The heavenly “Son of Man” goes back to Daniel 7:13-14. The Book of Enoch was not altogether wrong. Its use of the title “Son of Man” prepared for the title which Jesus used.
Finally, the Messianic hope was held in a pure and lofty form by the “poor of the land” — simple folk like those who appear in the first two chapters of Luke. In the hymns of Mary and Zacharias and Simeon, purely political and materialistic conceptions are in the background, and the speculations of the apocalypses do not appear. The highest elements of prophecy are made prominent. “For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples; a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” Luke 2:30-32. In those circles, the hope of Israel burned still and pure.
Later Judaism thus preserved the manifoldness of prophecy. There was exaggeration and there was one-sidedness; but in Judaism as a whole the promise was preserved. One element at most was forgotten — the suffering servant and his sacrificial death. The death of the Messiah was no easy conception. The disciples had difficulty with it. When Peter heard of it, he took Jesus, and began to rebuke him. Matthew 16:22. The lesson was not easy, but it had to be learned. And it was worth learning. The cross is the heart of the gospel.
Thus in Jesus nothing was left out, except what was false. The whole promise was preserved. The revealer of God, the ruler of the kingdom, the great high priest, the human deliverer, the divine Lord — these are the elements of the promise. They find their union in Christ. Leave one out, and the promise is mutilated. Such mutilation is popular to-day. The whole Christ seems too wonderful. But the Church can be satisfied with nothing less.
In the Library. — Beecher, “The Prophets and the Promise,” pp. 173-420.