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]

 -----------------------------------------------------------

         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).