Chapter
6
"THE
CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD"
(1)
Section
1: JESUS THE MESSIAH
Jesus
and his disciples were in the far north of the land, commencing
the long journey to his crucifixion at Jerusalem. As they
walked, Jesus asked the twelve a question: 'Who do men say
that I am?' Various replies followed, most of them suggesting
that Jesus was a reincarnation of one of the notable Old Testament
figures such as Elijah or Jeremiah. But he then turned the
question on them: 'But who do you say that I am?'
Simon Peter's unhesitating answer forms the title of this
chapter: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God'.
Peter's reply distilled into one short sentence all the information
he had acquired during the three years in which he had been
a constant companion of his Lord. Christ's response shows
that Peter had correctly stated the facts. "Blessed are you,
Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this
to you, but my Father who is in heaven". So we have a firm
starting point for a detailed exploration into the person
and mission of Jesus. He is 'the Christ', and at the same
time the 'Son of God'.
To modern ears the word 'Christ' could easily be regarded
as just another name for Jesus, but to a Jew in Peter's day
it had a very specific meaning. 'The Christ' (Gk 'Christos')
meant 'The Anointed One', and was the direct equivalent of
the Hebrew word 'Messiah'. The coming of this Messiah is one
of the themes of the Old Testament and was the earnest expectation
of all pious Jews. So when Peter said Jesus was the Christ
(Matthew 16:16), or when the high priest asked Jesus
if he was the Christ (Matthew 26:63), or when Peter
later preached that God had made Jesus "both Lord and Christ"
(Acts 2:36) each time they had in mind the fulfilment
of the predictions about the Messiah. So in any enquiry into
Jesus, the teaching about the Messiah must be explored.
ASPECTS
OF THE MESSIAH'S WORK
If
there is one common link between virtually all the books that
comprise the Old Testament it is the expectation that there
would eventually arise in the nation of Israel a notable man
who would be a deliverer and ruler. Many different roles would
be combined in this one person, and in each of these aspects
the Messiah would be a source of great benefit to the world.
The first book of the Bible reveals that to Abraham, the founder
of the entire Jewish race, God promised a descendant who would
bring a time of blessing to everyone on earth:
"By
myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, ... in thy seed shall
all the nations of the world be blessed" (Genesis 22:16-18,
RV).
One
of these Messianic 'blessings' was to be the forgiveness of
sins leading to man's reconciliation to God (Acts 3.25-26).
So here we have the promise of a SAVIOUR; although, as will
be shown below, this aspect of his mission was not understood
by many Jews.
A few hundred years after Abraham's day a different aspect
of the work of this future personage was revealed when Moses
received an assurance of the coming of a messenger with divine
teaching and authority:
"And
the Lord said to me, (Moses) ... I will raise up for them
a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will
put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all
that I command him" (Deuteronomy 18:17-18).
Here
the coming of a DIVINE TEACHER is promised.
Some centuries later David, the first king of Israel to have
his royal throne in Jerusalem, was told by God that he would
have a descendant who would one day occupy that throne for
ever:
"I
will raise up your son after you, ... and I will establish
his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will
establish the throne of his kingdom for ever... And your
house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever" (2 Samuel
7:12-13,16).
So
this descendant of Abraham and David would also be an eternal
KING.
But as well as being the son of David, this immortal royal
ruler would also have another father. God said:
"I
will be his father, and he shall be my son" (2 Samuel 7:14)
The
promise thus concerned no ordinary man! He would be none other
than the SON OF GOD.
By combining these aspects of Saviour, Teacher, King
and Son of God, the work of the
promised Messiah emerges as the clear teaching of the Jewish
scriptures. The title 'Messiah' means 'the Anointed One'.
It is an ancient custom to initiate both civil and religious
leaders by anointing them with oil, and the 'anointed of the
Lord' was often used to describe Israel's kings. But whilst
these were 'messiahs' in this one sense, the future ruler
was to be pre-eminently the 'Anointed'' Messiah the
Prince' to use Daniel's description (Daniel 9:25, AV).
PREDICTIONS
OF THE COMING OF THE MESSIAH
The
Old Testament is full of predictions about the coming of this
Messiah descended from Abraham through David, and the great
work he would do. Many aspects of his life and mission were
revealed in advance. The prophet Micah foretold the actual
town where he would be born, Bethlehem:
"But
you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the
clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who
is to be ruler in Israel" (Micah 5:2).
Isaiah
spoke of his birth and of his success as ruler:
"For
to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government
will be upon his shoulder, ... Of the increase of his government
and of peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David,
and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness from this time forth
and for evermore" (Isaiah 9:6-7).
Jeremiah
links the Messiah's coming to the final deliverance of Israel:
"Behold,
the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfil the
promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous
Branch to spring forth for David; and he shall execute justice
and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will
be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely" (Jeremiah 33:14-16).
These, along with many other similar predictions, formed the
basis of the Jewish hope in their coming Messiah. He was anticipated
mainly as a deliverer of the nation from a time of extreme
trouble, and as a king under whose wise rule Israel and the
whole world would live in a state of unparalleled peace, blessing
and prosperity. This belief was instilled into Jews from their
earliest age, and the coming of the Messiah was the pinnacle
of their hopes. It is often overlooked that the first converts
to Christianity were Jews who had been brought up in this
hope of a coming Messiah. Thus we can understand the obvious
excitement of the little group of men that later became the
nucleus of Jesus' disciples:
- "One
of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was
Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother
Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which
means Christ).
- Philip
found Nathanael, and said to him, "We have found him of
whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus
of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Jesus saw Nathanael coming
to him ... and Nathanael answered him, "Rabbi, you are
the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" (John 1:40-
41,45,47,49).
Notice the terms used to describe the Messiah: the Son
of God, the King of Israel. And all this, those
original disciples said, had been gleaned from the writings
of Moses (the first five books of the Bible) and the prophets
(all the rest of the Old Testament).
JESUS
IS THE MESSIAH
The
New Testament continues this emphasis on the Messiah, but
now as a matter of reality, not prediction. It clearly identifies
Jesus of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, as the Messiah or Christ.
The very opening words of the New Testament trace the pedigree
of Jesus back to Abraham and David as a basis for the revelation
of Jesus as the Messiah:
"The
book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David,
the son of Abraham" (Matthew 1:1).
In confirmation of the identity of Jesus with the long expected
Messiah we read that at the annunciation of his birth the
angel predicted that he would fulfil all the aspects of the
promise to David, viz: be a son of David, be also the son
of God, and would reign over Israel for ever on David's restored
throne:
"He
will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High;
and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father
David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever;
and of his kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:32- 33).
When Jesus grew to manhood his public preaching compelled
many to believe that he was indeed the Messiah, or Christ.
People on occasions addressed him by Messianic titles: "Jesus,
son of David" (Luke 18:38), "Hosanna to the son
of David" (Matthew 21:9), "Tell us if you are the Christ,
the Son of God" (Matthew 26:63), "Are you the King
of the Jews?" (Mark 15:2). It is important to note that
in each case they were using Old Testament terms attributable
only to the Messiah. On at least two occasions Jesus actually
affirmed that he was the expected Messiah (John 4:25-26;
Mark 14:61-62). And because they saw him as the promised Messiah,
it is not surprising that they attempted to install him as
their king on at least one occasion:
"Perceiving
that they were about to come and take him by force to make
him king, Jesus withdrew ..." (John 6:15).
Christ's
reluctance was because the fulfilment of the Messianic predictions
of his kingship was to be at his second coming, not
the first. Luke records that:
"He
proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem,
and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to
appear immediately. He said therefore, A nobleman went into
a far country to receive kingly power and then return" (Luke
19:11-12).
Clearly the nobleman is Jesus, and the far country heaven.
In this way he tried to tell his listeners that although he
was the Messiah, the promises were not to be fulfilled
then, but would await his return from heaven. It was because
Jesus did not do immediately the things expected of the Messiah
capitalise on the wave of nationalistic emotion proclaim himself
the King in David's line, rally the Jews to him, expel the
Roman overlords from the Holy Land and city, set up the golden
age of Messianic rule there and then it was because of his
failure to do all this, that the tide of public opinion turned
so rapidly and violently against him. Within a few days of
the peoples' rapturous welcome of him into Jerusalem as the
son of David, a similar crowd was howling for his crucifixion.
Even the disciples, including Peter who had once so strongly
asserted that Jesus was the Christ, were disillusioned
by the death of their master. "We had hoped that he was the
one to redeem Israel" they plaintively said (Luke 24:21).
Along with all their fellow Jews they had failed to notice
that the predicted Messiah or Christ had the role of redeemer
as well as king. After his resurrection Jesus had to educate
his disciples to understand that his recent sufferings and
death were just as much a part of the Messianic rôle
as the kingship:
"O
foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets
have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should
suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning
with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them
in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
Then
he said to them, "These are my words which I spoke to you,
while I was still with you, that everything written about
me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must
be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the
scriptures, and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the
Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,
and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached
in his name to all nations" (Luke 24:25-27; 44-47).
So it was with this fuller, indeed complete, picture of the
Messiah that the disciples embarked on their mission to convert
the world to Christianity. Jesus, whom the Jews had crucified,
was the Christ!
"Let
all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made
him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified"
(Acts 2:36).
"But
Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded
the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was
the Christ" (Acts 9:22).
"He
(Apollos) powerfully confuted the Jews in public, showing
by the scriptures that the Christ was Jesus" (Acts
18:28).
These references stress the method of the apostles' preaching.
Taking the universally accepted understanding of the expected
Messiah as the starting point, they demonstrated from Scripture
that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the promised Christ. When
Christianity was first preached it was the Jewish Messiah
that was the subject, followed by convincing proof (notably
by his resurrection) that Jesus, whom many of them could remember,
was this promised Messiah. So Peter, in the incident
described at the opening of this chapter, was not wrong in
styling Jesus "the Christ" and if we desire to understand
the person and mission of Jesus of Nazareth the starting point
must be the Old Testament predictions of the coming Messiah.
A system of Christian belief that ignores this basis must
inevitably be astray from the original and true teaching about
the founder of Christianity.
CHRISTIANITY VERSUS THE CREEDS
Certainly,
the Jews were expecting a human Messiah divinely sent it is
true, but a fleshly descendant of Abraham and David and in
the mould of their great leader Moses. They undoubtedly would
not have expected, or been able to comprehend, the individual
alluded to in later attempts to define the person and work
of the Christ:
"I
believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven
and earth, and all things visible and invisible: And in
one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, Begotten
of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light,
Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made, Being of one substance
with the Father" (the Nicene creed).
This chapter will investigate whether the Nicene creed, and
the equally famous Athanasian creed, are a true and legitimate
interpretation of the Bible references to Jesus the Messiah.
It will examine teaching on the person and mission of Jesus
under the following Scriptural titles ascribed to him:
Section
2: JESUS THE SON OF MAN
REFERENCES
1.
Matthew 16:16
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