[sgmb id=”1″]The net result of all these marvelous prophecies of hope in Messiah and His coming Kingdom was that both the prophets who prophesied them and the people who heard them were “Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow” (1 Peter 1:11). So wondrous was the marvel of this Messiah and the dawning of the golden age of His warring, yet peaceful, kingdom, the scriptures inform us that even angels desired to look into these things (1 Peter 1:12). The masses were enthralled with these visions, and yet at the same time were highly puzzled concerning their meaning.
The Holy Spirit informs us that the full meaning of these prophecies, while filling Israel with hope, at the same time were purposely written in mystery form,
“But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:7-8).
The mysteries of the prophecies spawned many interpretations in all aspects of the kingdom. In the time of the first century, the Messiah was viewed in several disparate ways. He was thought by some to be two Messiahs: a lay Messiah, and a priestly Messiah. In some writings there was a Messiah of Ephraim (or Joseph) whom some saw as the suffering forerunner of Messiah, the son of David.3 While some saw this suffering Messiah as one who would die, still, when Jesus told of his coming death, there were those who responded, “We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man” (John 12:34)? The Qumran scrolls (1QS, IX, 11) spoke of “the coming of a prophet and the anointed ones of Aaron and Israel.”4 Others spoke of the Messiahs of Judah and Levi.5 Roy Rosenberg notes, “The priestly ruler was to be superior to the royal figure.”6 Still others expected “a purely angelic being.”7 However, concerning the idea of a Messiah with both deific and human natures, Cullen Story points out, “No concept of the union of the two natures in Messiah seems to have presented itself to the Jewish minds in the time of Christ.”8 As a matter of fact, it was the idea of combining the concept of Messiah with a deific nature that became the basis for the priests’ charge of blasphemy against Jesus (Mark 14:61-64) leading to his death.9 Likewise, in the days of John the Baptist, the person and work of Messiah was associated with a prophet and with Elijah. John the Baptist denies three things: first that he is the Messiah, second that he is Elijah; and third, that he is “that prophet” (John 1:20-21). John indeed was not the Messiah; neither was he what they envisioned as the Elijah to come; nor was he some variant interpretation of either the prophet announced by Moses, or their misunderstanding of Malachi 3:1-3. Many and varied were the expectations of the person of the Messiah and his attendants.
Likewise, the Messianic kingdom, desired by every man in Israel, was subject to their expectations of “an earthly kingdom, a feast of fat things, and it includes military glory and conquered foes.”10 The problem that faced the Old Testament reader was the fact that it was “also a kingdom of righteousness and peace, ruled over by a prince of peace.”11 They had great difficulty combining these two concepts. Thomas Royds goes on to point out, “The Jews who crucified Jesus…corrupted the idea of the Messiah by fierce nationalism… They wanted a savior or deliverer in the earthly sense – a great patriot, whose kingdom might indeed ultimately be a kingdom of righteousness and peace, but still a kingdom of this world and a Jewish kingdom.”12 In this kingdom, there would be “an ideal Davidic king who would defeat Israel’s enemies and preside over a reunified Israel…composed of the northern and southern tribes.”13 The Psalms of Solomon chapter 17 (pseudepigraphal work) show “a fundamentally violent” kingdom.14 They believed that their Messiah “would strike terror into the Roman hearts.”15 A “kingdom of this world” dominated the hopes and aspirations of the first century Jew. No longer would Jerusalem be at the mercy of Roman armies and mercenaries. No longer would the nations inflict their will upon fleshly Israel. The dominion would belong to Israel, and the Gentiles would be ruled with a rod of iron. Finally, and at long last, God would raise his people to their proper place of world domination, and the tents of David would rise from the ruins and “possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the LORD that doeth this” (Amos 9:11-12).
It is into this maelstrom of struggling Messianic hopes and expectations that John the Baptist came preaching in the Judean countryside, “Repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Read the final post in this series, “The Messianic Announcement.”
Read the 5-part series: The Context of the Sermon on the Mount.
Footnotes
3. Joseph Heinemann, “Messiah of Ephraim and the Premature Exodus of the Tribe of Ephraim,” Harvard Theological Review 68, no. 1 (January 1, 1975): 1.
4. Jacob Liver, “The Doctrine of the Two Messiahs in Sectarian Literature in the Time of the Second Commonwealth,” Harvard Theological Review 52, no. 3 (July 1, 1959): 152.
5. Ibid., 183.
6. Roy A. Rosenberg, “The Slain Messiah in the Old Testament,” Zeitschrift Für Die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 99, no. 2 (January 1, 1987): 260.
7. Cullen I K Story, “What Kind of Messiah Did the Jews Expect?,” Bibliotheca Sacra 105, no. 417 (January 1, 1948): 107.
8. Ibid., 108.
9. Joel Marcus, “Mark 14:61 : ‘Are You the Messiah-Son-of-God?,’” Novum Testamentum 31, no. 2 (April 1, 1989): 127–130.
10. Thomas Fletcher Royds, “Jesus the Messiah,” Modern Churchman 23, no. 3 (June 1, 1933): 128.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., 128, 129.
13. Matt Jackson-McCabe, “The Messiah Jesus in the Mythic World of James,” Journal of Biblical Literature 122, no. 4 (December 1, 2003): 715, 716.
14. Ibid., 718.
15. Story, “What Kind of Messiah Did the Jews Expect?,” 114.[sgmb id=”1″]