Who Is The Messiah?

My dear Jewish brothers and sisters, I want you to know who your Messiah is. And to those of you who are not Jewish: He is your Messiah too.

Why is it important to know who The Messiah is?   Because he is the primary agent in the cure for death.  He can bring a person from death to life.  My dear friends, that is important!

So, let’s talk about The Messiah.  But first let’s get our terms straight.  The word Messiah comes from the Greek word and the later Latin word Messias.  Messiah is the word we use in the English language.  The Hebrew word is Mashiach.  Messiah means an anointed one, usually one anointed with oil, as the first High Priest, Aaron, was.  But in this post I’m not talking about an anointed Old Testament Levitical priest or an anointed Old Testament king.  Nor am I talking about any other Old Testament person whom the LORD had chosen to anoint and set apart for a particular purpose.  I’m also not talking about a person who might be a “messiah” in a secular sense.  For example, a military general who wins a great war and by doing so saves his nation from invasion and defeat by an enemy force, might be referred to as a messiah even though such a person would not generally be anointed with oil.  We are not going to talk about that type of messiah.   We are going to talk about The Messiah, of whom there is only one.  It is he who brings peace, righteousness, and the Messianic Age or Millennial Kingdom.  The Messiah essentially brings heaven to earth.  This is The Messiah that Jews have been waiting for, for thousands of years.

If you try to look for the one source or the one text that specifies who The Messiah is or what his qualifications are you won’t find one source for this information.  And there is no definite agreement even among Jewish scholars and Rabbis as to who The Messiah is or which ancient books or texts can be used to identify him.  And  it’s important to know how we might identify The Messiah because if we don’t have reliable criteria we could miss The Messiah when he comes or we could wrongly identify an individual who is not The Messiah as being The Messiah.  So how do we begin our  quest to find The Messiah?  Did he already come or do we look for him yet to come?  And where do we look for answers to these questions?

As noted above, Messiah, or Mashiach, means anointed one.  But the Jewish people mainly used the word Mashiach to describe that person, a human being and not God, who would be the deliverer or liberator or saviour of the Jewish people and Jewish Nation.  So The Messiah  is someone who would deliver the Nation of Israel and the Jewish people from disaster or catastrophe or oppression and such a person in actuality would not necessarily be distinguishable by being anointed with oil.  Certainly someone thought to be The Messiah could be anointed with oil by a person with the authority to declare an individual to be The Messiah.  But there is a potential problem with that.  If one of us, you or I, was a King, or Chief Priest, or Chief Rabbi, of Israel and had the authority to declare a person to be The Messiah, we could then anoint that person with oil and declare him to be The Messiah.  But I wouldn’t be convinced by that.  Would you be?  For an office as important as that of Messiah, the anointing must be from an unbiased and unimpeachable source.  It’s quite clear to me that the unimpeachable source has to be God.  Does that make sense to you?

If there is no one source of information to tell us about The Messiah, where did the information that we have come from?  Where did it originate?  It originates from the Hebrew Scriptures, i.e., the Old Testament, or Tanach.

Now suppose that you or I decided to carefully look for information and evidence pointing to The Messiah.  I would start my research in the Old Testament.  There would be more than one way to do that.  I could study the works of someone who has already carefully researched this question of The Messiah’s origin and who is also familiar with the Hebrew language.  Such a person would be Jewish and would very likely be a Rabbi or other Jewish scholar renowned for his knowledge on this entire topic.  I could simply accept the conclusions of such a person regarding who The Messiah must be and of equal importance, who the Messiah cannot be.  And that could be the end of my research.

Or I could do this a different way.  I’m Jewish but I don’t read Hebrew; however I could, myself, read through an English translation of the Hebrew Scriptures looking for passages that seem to talk about a deliverer or liberator who will rescue the Jewish people, and possibly other people as well, from the consequences of disaster or oppression from slavery or even from  death.  I could use dictionaries to help me understand particular Hebrew words, I could consult books written to give me the opinions of one or more authors on the subject, and I could directly question people who know more about this topic than I do.  But I would put my own study of the Old Testament first.  I would want to avoid being biased and I would want to do my best to shed any presuppositions that I might have about The Messiah before beginning my study.  I would not necessarily accept the opinion of an expert, particulaly if it did not make sense to me and if it contradicted the plain meaning of the Tanach (Old Testament).  And I would begin my study at the beginning of the Old Testament, in the Book of Genesis.  

So, we will take a look at the Book of Genesis regarding who The Messiah might be, but before we do that we must confront two difficult and very important questions.  

The first question is as follows:  Why do questions  about the identity of The Messiah often cause contention?  Could it be that there is a very strong motive for someone to cause confusion about The Messiah’s identity?  Could the reason for causing this confusion be so that the Jewish people will not accept The Messiah when he comes?

The second question is this:  Could there be someone who even wants to stop The Messiah from coming altogether?

If the answers to the above two questions are yes, why would that be the case and who would that someone be?  And there is something else too.  The Messiah is peculiarly related to the Jewish people and the Jewish Nation, Israel, and over the centuries there have been more attempts to destroy the Jewish people and Israel than there have been to destroy any other people or country.  Why?  Could these attempts be related to The Messiah?

When we talk about The Messiah and the name of Jesus comes up, especially with Jewish people, feelings can quickly rise to the level of extreme anger and  people, Jewish people, can sometimes even become violent.  The Apostle Paul, who started his career as a Jewish Rabbi, was one of those who became extremely angry and he lived many centuries ago.  Why does the name of Jesus provoke this anger and contention even today?  Could it be that Jesus is the Messiah?

The Jewish people, The Chosen People, have been persecuted for thousands of years.  That persecution began long before the time of Jesus Christ but not before the time that the first evidence for The Messiah made its appearance.  Antisemitism today is not decreasing.  It is increasing.  That is positively frightening.  Much of it comes from Islamic countries.  What is the ultimate reason for this antisemitism?

What if these two things are connected?  The two things I’m referring to are 1) extreme anger and rejection on the part of many Jewish people when the possibility of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah is brought up, and  2) several thousand years of antisemitism and murder of Jews that finally escalated to the  point of the attempted eradication of the Jewish people by Adolph Hitler and his Final Solution, and the current desire of radical Islam to eradicate the Jewish people and their Nation, Israel.

Could there be an evil mastermind behind these things directing this hatred and the consequences that follow from it?  In my opinion the answer is an unequivocal yes.  I want to give you the evidence for my opinion and I propose to begin with a verse from the first book of the Bible, Genesis.

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”"  Genesis 3:1

Death occurs because sin entered the human race when Adam broke the one commandment that God gave him.  Adam was commanded not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and this commandment also applied to Eve, Adam’s wife.  She ate of this forbidden fruit because the serpent tricked her into disobeying God’s commandment, and Adam followed Eve and ate of this fruit also.  The serpent caused Eve to doubt the truth of what God said and to disobey the one commandment that God gave Adam, a commandment that applied to both Adam and Eve.  In doubting the truth of this commandment Eve doubted God Himself and put the word of the serpent above the word of God.  The serpent was very well aware of the one commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve.  Here is how the serpent worked his deception:

"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate."  Genesis 3:5-6

And here is what God ordained for the serpent and clearly communicated to the serpent because of what he did:

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your  seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Genesis 3:15 (Tanach Bible v. 4.0.5, copyright 2018, A. A. Rosenbaum Services, Ltd.)

Now something profoundly important has occurred here, in fact  so profoundly important as to be beyond what we could even imagine.  The woman, Eve, will give birth to a male descendant and either he, Eve’s son, or a male descendant of Eve’s further down the line, is going to bruise the serpent’s head.  Many translators believe that crush is a  more accurate translation than bruise.  The male descendant will have only his heel injured.  Arnold Fruchtenbaum, in his commentary on Genesis (Ariel’s Bible Commentary, The Book of Genesis, Copyright 2008 by Ariel Ministries, Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, author) sees this verse as conveying a picture of Eve’s male descendant bringing his heel down on to the head of the serpent in a fatal crushing blow, and the serpent in a vain attempt to save itself, biting the descending heel.  The bite inflicted by the serpent is non-fatal and comparatively minor.

Please remember that it is through what the serpent did, by tricking Eve into breaking God’s commandment, with Adam following Eve and doing the same thing, that Death entered the human race.  When God spoke and pronounced sentence on the serpent, ultimately the sentence of death, God identified who would do this to the serpent.  The person identified is a male descendant of Eve.  Only here, and nowhere else in the Bible is someone described as being the descendant of a woman with no father mentioned.  This is very significant.  The fact that no father is mentioned fits well with the virgin birth of Jesus.  This was prophesied by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah 700 years before it actually occurred.

Was the serpent acting on his own?  No.  Were any other animals in the garden said to have the ability to speak?  No.  Inhabiting this serpent was Satan, an evil angel, arch-deceiver, the father of lies, a murderer, and a hater of God.  Satan, using the serpent as an instrument of evil, directly defied God and brought the curse of death on the entire human race.  Would not this situation as described in Genesis warrant someone to reverse this curse of death?  That someone would need to crush Satan’s head, utterly defeating Satan, and also pay the price for the sins committed by Adam and Eve and all of their descendants, including you and me.  Only then could we be declared righteous, only then could this penalty of death be changed into eternal life.  

Who could this descendant of Eve be?  Would not this have to be The Messiah?  That is what I believe.  But more than that, a number of ancient Rabbis thought so too.  They may not have known who The Messiah was to be but they did believe that he who would crush the serpent’s head was The Messiah.

Has there ever been a catastrophe that required a Messiah, The Messiah, to liberate the human race from the bondage of sin and death that followed from the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden?  Never!  The consequences of this catastrophe is affecting you and me today.  It is the reason for war, genocide, hatred among humans, and the evil pervading our world.  This Messiah would need to be profoundly powerful to reverse this curse!  He’d have to be stronger than Satan, the chief of evil angels.  It almost seems as if this Messiah would need to have the power of God. Could this be true?

But what about the two questions that I asked above?  Why such anger when the name of Jesus is brought up and why is there anti-semitism,  better called Jew hatred, and genocide?  Is Satan responsible for these?  Yes!  He does not want his head eventually crushed.  He knows the Bible and he is wily and powerful.  But how will destroying belief in The Messiah benefit Satan?  And how will eradicating the entire Jewish race benefit Satan?  In order to understand the answer, I’m going to ask you read several Bible verses with me, one from the New Testament and  the others from the Tanach:

"“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”"  Mark 23:37-39

Jesus said this to the Jewish people, his people, in Jerusalem, shortly before his death.  He was telling them that he would not return, he would not come back, until they, the Jewish people, called for him to return by saying:

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Jesus was quoting part of a verse from the Tanach.  It was from a Messianic psalm, Psalm 118:26, recognized by Rabbis as referring to The Messiah.  By quoting this verse, Jesus was once again affirming that he was The Messiah.  Here is the whole verse, in Hebrew, in transliterated Hebrew, and in English (Hebrew and English is from Hebrew World electronic pdf Tanach.  Transliteration is by A. Wolinsky):

כו. בָּרוּךְ הַבָּא בְּשֵׁם יְהוָה בֵּרַכְנוּכֶם מִבֵּית יְהוָה 

Baruch ha’ba b’shem Adonai baruch’nushem mi’beit Adonai.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; we have blessed you from the House of the Lord

Jesus is telling the Jewish people, His people, that they will not see Him again, that He will not return to deliver them, as a Nation, until they ask Him to come back by blessing Him in the Name of Adonai, God the Father.

Now, please look at these verses from the Tanach:

"On that day the LORD will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the LORD, going before them. And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn."  Zechariah 12:8-10

The Hebrew prophet Zechariah is speaking of The Time of Jacob’s Trouble, also known as The Great Tribulation.  It will be a time of trouble like none ever before seen on this planet.  The Son of David - The Messiah - will come to destroy all the nations attempting to annihilate Israel and the Jewish people.  The Jewish people will look on Him, Jesus, whom they have pierced, they will recognize him as their Messiah and mourn.  He, Jesus, will then rescue them.  He will destroy all nations coming against Jerusalem and He will bring in the Messianic Age.

In an attempt to prevent this from happening Satan will try to silence every last Jewish voice from crying out for Messiah’s return.  He will try to do this by two means.  He will deceive Jewish people so that many will not even consider that Jesus could be their Messiah and he will also attempt to destroy every single Jewish person.  By means of this double plan he will attempt to silence the last possible Jewish voice so that not one Jew will cry out for deliverance.  By so doing he believes that he can prevent The Messiah from returning and prevent his, Satan’s, head from eventually being crushed.  Jesus came for the Jewish people in the first century AD as a suffering servant.  He will return soon as a mighty King and Warrior.

My friends, as you ponder what I’ve written about in this post please remember that our God is a God of hope and blessing.  He wants you to have eternal life.  You can have that by accepting Jesus as your Lord and Messiah.  Why not do that right now?  No formula is needed.  Just pray, out loud, and ask him to be your Lord and Savior today.  He’ll do it.