Messianic Prophecy

You’ll remember that Messiah simply means “anointed.” It’s a Hebrew word that’s simply been put into English. Messiah means anointed. In Greek, it’s Christos . It means anointed. And it speaks of the anointed one, par excellence , who will be coming. The three offices in Israel were the prophet, priest, and king, and each of them was entered upon anointing to the office. And in particular, there is a focus on the kingly aspect of the Messiah that’s especially prominent in the Old Testament. A couple of times we have mentions of the others as well.

Now, from our standpoint, we look back at the Old Testament and we say, yeah, that just lies right on the face of it. Read Isaiah 53. Who else is that about? It’s about Jesus. Of course it is. It wasn’t that obvious to anyone prior to the fact. And so the New Testament writers later can talk about the mystery that has now been revealed and the gospel being hidden in the Old Testament. But it was hidden in plain sight. There it was, but not until after the fact are they able to see it. But Jesus is emphasizing that now—what has happened to him in his death and resurrection is what the Old Testament scriptures said would happen to the Christ, the Messiah. And then verse 45, very important: “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” So all of this about Jesus as the crucified, risen Messiah, the ascended King—this is not an afterthought. This is not something the church came up with after the fact. Jesus is telling us here, we have it on his authority, that this is how the Old Testament scriptures ought to be read. If you read the Old Testament and don’t see Jesus, you’re not reading it correctly. That we have on Jesus’ own authority.

Now clearly, the sense of “fulfill” can vary. It can connote “this happened just as the prophet explicitly said it would.” Or it can connote a broader pattern, a type, that finds its ultimate realization in Christ. That is, direct verbal prophecy or indirect typological prophecy. But in either case there is at least the broad idea of prediction and realization / fulfillment, as these “fulfillment formulas,” common to both, demonstrate. Underlying either use is a recognition of redemptive-historical movement — expectation, progress, and fulfillment. And underlying both is also the conviction that, at least in the mind of the divine Author, the passage had some kind of anticipatory function.

He—that is, a male descendant of the woman’s seed—shall crush Satan’s head, and Satan in the meantime will bruise his heel. There’ll be a significant blow given to this “he,” but it will not be a final one. The final blow is given to Satan by this “he” who is coming. So it’s forward-looking; it’s looking ahead to a champion who will come. The first promise in the Bible is that of a champion who will come and he’ll fix what has just been lost by God’s king that he has placed to rule over creation. Adam has failed; there’ll be another one who comes, and he’ll succeed in it. It’s forward-looking. It’s eschatological. It’s looking ahead.

But we come to also another emphasis here in verse 15, which is this whole idea of “seed” or “offspring.” It’s a huge messianic theme. It’s a big theme running all through the rest of Genesis and really through the rest of the Bible—that God will give an offspring and through the offspring you’ll bless the world and so on. This is significant in the Genesis genealogies. Well, Genesis 3:15, then, is often referred to as the seedbed of messianic prophecy. There’s often a Latin term that’s associated with it: protevangelium . Sometimes it’s proto-evangelium . The first proclamation of the gospel is what the Latin term means. It’s the first promise of the gospel here in Genesis 3:15. The first promise is a champion will come, he will rule, he’ll defeat the tempter who has brought this mess around.

But immediately on the heels of their failure, God comes with a promise. Genesis 3:15 promises a champion who will come—some descendant of the woman, one of her offspring will come—and he will pick up where we have failed, and this champion will succeed and carry out God’s rule in the earth. I say all that again just to emphasize that this is the Bible storyline: that this champion will come. Eventually, this champion will be referred to as the Messiah, and we will speak about the messianic hope, but from the beginning, this has been the theme even before the terminology of Messiah ever came about. This is not an add-on theme. This is the theme. It’s integral to the biblical story. It’s even central to the biblical story, and we find it from the outset.

Well, we find then in Deuteronomy 18 verses 15 and 18 that he will come from Israel—”from among your brothers.” We find that he’s like Moses, verses 15 and 18. He’ll have unique authority then in terms of divine revelation. Presumably then, taking our cue from Deuteronomy 34, he will be a miracle worker, do public miracles like Moses did, he’ll be a mediator, he’ll be a lawgiver, he’ll be a judge, he’ll be a deliverer—he’s a prophet like Moses.

Deuteronomy 18, verses 15 to 19. Then we have another Messianic prophecy, and here we have a prophecy that speaks of the Messiah as prophet, as well as as a king who will come, as we see in so many other passages. Like Moses, the Messiah, Jesus, has unique authority, supreme revelation, works public miracles, he’s a mediator, he’s a lawgiver, he’s a judge, and he’s a deliverer—the prophet like Moses.

All right, so Numbers chapter 24, we have a prophecy of a future Davidic king who will rule over Israel’s enemies and establish God’s kingdom universally. It is then explicit Messianic prophecy, explicit royal Messianism, if we can call it that. And that, by the way, is the way the ancient Jewish literature took it. The ancient Jewish theologians, all the Targums and things, understood it that way. And this idea of a star who is coming was something that was picked up in ancient Israel.

Look at verse 12. God establishes David’s throne. A Davidic son will reign on David’s throne. In other words, God is promising to David a dynasty. Actually, there’s a pun here. David wanted to build a house for God, a literal house, a temple. God says, “You won’t build a house for me; I will build a house for you.” But in this case, “house” means a dynasty. That’s verse 12. Verse 13: this dynasty will be for my name, that is for God’s name, forever. That is, this Davidic king then will preside over the kingdom of God. That’s what Israel was: God’s kingdom on the earth. God will administrate his rule—even his eschatological rule. God will administrate all his rule through his appointed king, and that king will be one of David’s sons.

He must be a faithful king. And yet, even so, verse 15, David is assured he will have a faithful son whose rule will continue forever. “My steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.” So the promise is sure, but not for any given descendant of David. It’s dependent on obedience and faithfulness. And that directs us to look for a faithful, an ideal son of David. And this in turn accounts for how we see in the book of Psalms—we’ll see more of this as we go through it—where the king that is being praised is presented often in his ideal, beyond any of the historic Davidic kings that we have seen so far.

God, when he says, “I’ll build a house for David,” means not a literal palace; he means a dynasty. I’m going to establish your house forever, and your son, your offspring, will rule on your throne forever. Now this is not called a covenant in 2 Samuel chapter 7. In many different places in the Scriptures, it is referred to as a covenant—Psalm 89 very famously and some other places as well. But God promises the perpetuity of David’s dynasty, the perpetuity of David’s kingdom; a perpetual seed will reign on David’s throne forever.

Some general observations in this regard—not that you care about all of this data, but in case you do—the New Testament has, by the count that I have, 283 citations of the Old Testament. 283. Now that can be a little bit debated because what’s the difference between a citation, some kind of reference, or a more vague allusion? Biblical scholars try to classify these things this way, but at least 283 direct citations from the Old Testament. 116 of those are from the Psalter. And overwhelmingly in the New Testament, they are referred to Jesus. So we have the New Testament writers picking up on what Jesus says here to say the Psalter was written about Jesus. Jesus himself cited the Psalter more than 50 times, and again, overwhelmingly with reference to himself. It’s not just to raise some theological point, although he does that on some occasions. He’ll cite a verse from the Psalms to establish some theological point. But overwhelmingly, his point is to say: it talks about me.

And we made the point that the Psalms foreshadow the Messiah, but they do it in a variety of ways. Some of them are directly messianic, like Psalm 110. That is the outstanding example of it. “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies my footstool.” There’s an oracle that is given where the psalmist hears God the Father saying to the Messiah, “Sit here,” as he’s been exalted to the throne. This is a direct prophecy of the Messiah. It can hardly be understood in any other kind of way. Psalm 2 is pretty much like that as well, where we have another enthronement psalm. We saw that there’s a variety of ways, though, that the psalms foreshadow Jesus. Sometimes it’s a mere typology where the king foreshadows the King. Sometimes the language is so exuberant that it just simply has to go beyond that. And that’s the way the New Testament writers take it often as well.

And we’ve seen in the Psalms that we have prophecies of the coming Messiah—verbal prophecies, predictions of that Messiah who will come. But we also have found in the Psalms that David sets a pattern, and in his life, and in his experience, and even in his words, he has a pattern—it’s a template—that somehow reappears then in Jesus. And we come to the New Testament, we find over and again that he appeals back to the Psalms, pointing them, saying, “That was Jesus. That was him.” And in fact, the New Testament writers point us to do that over and again, so often. And you’ll have, like I say, verbal prophecies like Psalm 2, Psalm 110, where the king is prophesied: he’ll come and sit at the right hand of the Father, and all of that. But we have these patterns that are set, and we find it over and again that they point us back to Jesus in this kind of a typified way. With the exception of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” with all of its description of the cross and the crucifixion centuries ahead of time—with the exception of Psalm 22, the New Testament writers cite Psalm 69 more than any other psalm. And consistently, they point and say that these words spoken by David were spoken of Jesus.

David never experienced suffering that he describes here. There’s no pattern that is set. David, here in these words, exactly describes the scenes of a Roman crucifixion. Verse 8, the mockings of the enemies. Verse 14, the bones out of joint. Verse 15, the parching thirst. Verse 16, a piercing of the hands and feet. Verse 18, the casting of lots for the garments. So David is describing exactly the scenes of Jesus’ crucifixion. What’s significant about that is that crucifixion was a form of execution unknown to David and unknown in the world at that time. Roman crucifixion came centuries later. And so we find here that David is not just a type of Jesus. What we find is that David was a prophet. Peter calls him that, of course, in the book of Acts. Jesus says as much of him in Matthew chapter 22 and Luke chapter 24. And so this psalm may reflect in the background something of David’s sufferings himself. And as such, it does serve as a model for us as to how to suffer faithfully. But this psalm, it seems, above everything else, is given to tell us ahead of time of the saving work of David’s greater son.

So this is a sign: behold, a virgin pregnant bearing a son and that son in fact is himself God with us. So no military force will be able to wipe out the Davidic house. God is not going to allow his promise to David to fall to the ground. There will be a king to sit on David’s throne forever just as God has promised and God will not allow any threat to interfere with that. Now, of course, we come to the New Testament, and I won’t take time to go there now, but you’re familiar with this in Matthew 1, verses 22 and 23. We have the account of the angel coming to Joseph, and we read in Matthew 1:22, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold,'” and here he quotes Isaiah 7:14, “‘the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, and he even gives the interpretation of it, ‘God with us’).” So this is what Isaiah meant to say, that this child will himself be God with us. This is how Matthew understands it.

Traditionally, this has been understood as His coming forth not only from Bethlehem, but from eternity, from ancient days of eternity, from eternal days. In fact, the same Hebrew expression that’s used here is used in other contexts with reference to God and His eternality. I think the traditional understanding is the correct one, that He has come from eternity. That’s the view taken that you’ll find in the New American Standard Bible, Christian Standard Bible. It’s the view taken from the translators of the King James Version, and there are some other places in the Old Testament, I think, that bear that out. The Septuagint, by the way, takes that view as well and translates it into the Greek, that this is from of old, from eternity, is the idea. So, verse 2 again: he comes from Bethlehem, that is, he’s a Davidic son. That’s his humanity. And he comes from eternity. That’s his deity. So we have the two natures of the Messiah. He’s eternal, comes forth from ancient days, from eternity. And he comes from Bethlehem. So here we have the incarnate Son of God. David’s son, yes, but also God the Son come—the eternal Son of God coming and born in Bethlehem.

Number two, he’s called the Mighty God. This is his authority and his power in administrating his kingdom. By the way, this title, Mighty God or God Almighty, this is the use of God himself in Isaiah, the very next chapter, chapter 10, verse 21. So we have here again what we have seen so many times in Messianic prophecy, and that is this divine Messiah theme. That yes, he’s a Davidic son, but it is also the Lord himself who has come. I’ve said this many times—it’s important, I’m going to say it again—it’s important that we understand through the Old Testament, you have these two tracks of prophecies. You have the prophecy that David’s son will come, David’s son will rule, Davidic king will be here, David will rule over them. Then you have that other track about God will come and he will rule over his people and he’ll take charge and he will shepherd his people. And then sometimes those two tracks converge, and of course they converge in the New Testament, in the incarnation of Christ, but we have that hinted for us at least in passages like this.

One of the most important examples of that is when the Lord Jesus himself cites this passage. Most famously in Luke chapter 22 and verse 37, this is Jesus’ only formal citation of this passage on the eve of his crucifixion. And he quotes for us Isaiah 53 and verse 12. In Luke 22:37 he says, “I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me.” And here he cites Isaiah 53:12: “And he was numbered with the transgressors.” And then he says, “for what is written about me has its fulfillment.” And that verse, as you’ll see, verse 12 of chapter 53, goes on to say, “yet he bore the sin of many.” So we have it on Jesus’ own authority that Isaiah 53 is the key to understanding his passion, his work.

Well, you might wonder then, what was the Jewish understanding of this passage? And as I say, the passage is a little enigmatic. It’s a little difficult. It seems to be a mysterious figure. He’s exalted, and he’s God’s servant, and he’s blessed, and he’s successful. And then on the other hand, he suffers and he dies. And it’s hard to pull all that together, I think, before the fact. One Targum we have from the first century AD—this is the Targum Jonathan—refers it to the Messiah, but the idea of a suffering Messiah was so seemingly incongruent that this was never a dominating understanding of Isaiah 53 on the part of the Jews. Most Jews still today understand it in terms of righteous Israel suffering or a righteous individual from within Israel suffering. Some have referred it to Isaiah himself as the one who suffers. Some have referred it to a Qumran teacher who suffers. So the Messianic understanding of these servant songs was never the official position in Jewish interpretation, but there is a long line of rabbis from the 1st to the 16th centuries AD that have identified it as the Messiah. It’s just hard to miss once you see all the details.

Well, this is the concept of penal substitution. There are two concepts there. I’ve said it several times. I want you to get it. Both words are important. Penal substitution. Penal, that is, it’s penalty. It’s punishment. It’s satisfying of justice, the satisfying of God’s wrath. God’s wrath, His just wrath, exhausted in the punishment of His Son in our place. Substitution: He bore it not only for our benefit, but as our stand-in and in our place. So all of this presupposes divine retribution for sin. Christ standing in our place, taking the just penalty of our sin to himself. In other words—and this is the expression the older theologians used to use a lot—He took our “law place.” The law of God condemned us for the sins that we have committed. And standing before the bar of divine justice, we stand condemned. Jesus interposes himself and stands in our place and assumes all of our responsibilities and all of our guilt, offers himself in sacrifice to God. And by his chastisement, by his punishment, we have peace. We’re reconciled to God.

One other question then remains: what’s the timing of the fulfillment of this prophecy? You’ll notice in verse 44 it says, “In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom.” So this is while, at least while the Roman kingdom is still standing. Well, that’s easy. That’s the time of the birth of Jesus. And this is one of the really clear examples of what we’ve seen a hundred times over in this series where we have prophecies that leap from the now to the not yet. And here we have that as well. Verse 44: “In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever.” So the kingdom of God established in the first coming of Christ, through his life, death, resurrection, ascension to heaven, the kingdom has been established. The culminating aspect of that kingdom will be at his return, as we find in so many other prophecies as well. So we have here a broad view of the already and not yet: the kingdom has come; it’s been established in the days of those kings. Its consummation awaits for the return of Christ.

The prophecy of Daniel 7 encompasses a long look at future history from the time of Daniel to the consummation when the enemies of God are brought to final judgment and the people of God share in its rule. At what appears to be the climax of history (7:9-12) this “one like a son of man” approaches the Ancient of Days “with the clouds of heaven” to receive universal authority and eternal dominion. He is “like a son of man,” yet he does not come from earth to heaven but out of obscurity into manifestation, approaching the throne of God as one who has that right. He rides on the clouds, a function associated elsewhere with God (Ps. 104:3). He moreover is worshiped, given universal homage (7:14). All this serves to indicate that this one “like a son of man” (i.e., human) is the transcendent Messiah.

With that in the background—Israel’s high anticipation of the coming of Messiah around the time of Jesus, and their devastation afterwards that, in their view, it never happened—the question then becomes, what Old Testament prophecy made them expect the Messiah around that period of time? Daniel 9 is the only candidate. There are other prophecies that tell us of the place of Messiah’s birth, his lineage, his work, and things like that. But Daniel 9 is the only prophecy that gives us a time frame. And in fact, the Jewish understanding of this prophecy that we’ve run through this evening was that it was to be filled by Messiah. So Daniel alone provides the time frame. It will be while that second temple is still standing. It would be before the events of AD 70. It has to happen within that time frame. In other words then, for all that is uncertain about this prophecy and the details and how interpreters differ about it, this passage really remains a strong apologetic for the Messiahship of Jesus. If Jesus is not the Messiah, then who is? If Jesus didn’t fulfill this prophecy, if he’s not the one who was cut off, but not for himself, then who was? Has this prophecy just fallen to the ground? There are no more candidates. Either Jesus is the one spoken of, and it happened in the time frame stated, or the prophecy fails altogether.

First, some observations about Messiah. First of all, what we learn here is what we should know already, and that is Messiah will be a descendant of David. They’ll return to David their king. It’s hard to miss 2 Samuel 7 in that. Number two, and this is fascinating, and we’ll see this more in the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament: Messiah is closely associated with Yahweh, and yet he’s distinguished from him. They’ll return to the Lord and to David, their king. Return to the Lord, their God, and David, their king. You can’t return to the Lord, your God, without returning to the Davidic king. You can’t return to David your king without returning to the Lord. There’s some close association. I think there are overtones here of the deity of Messiah. He’s the son of David; he’s also the son of God. We’ll see much of that in some of the other prophecies where it’s even more clear than that. But that’s common in the David prophecies. Third thing about the Messiah here is that he’ll rule then over the entire nation, that they will all come and they’ll acknowledge together one head. It will be David, their king.

So in summary then, we have in these prophecies, these statements: one, the dilapidated Davidic dynasty will be restored. It’ll be restored under the Messiah. Common theme in the prophets, the new David who will come—we find it in Isaiah 11, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, we saw it last time briefly in Hosea—the dilapidated Davidic dynasty will be restored, and it will be restored under the Lord Jesus Christ. And then secondly, in summary, the kingdom entails all the nations. That’s the point here. We have this reunited Israel, but it’s not just Israel. It’s plus all the nations: “Edom and all the nations who are called by my name.” So we have an ideal king, we have a prosperous kingdom of peace, never to be overthrown.

Now the parallelism here, their king seems to be the Lord, and so we have then a divine king passing through Israel, and this matter of a divine messiah is something that we will see very often in the messianic prophecies. We’ll see it here in Micah chapter 5 and verse 2: “His goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” And here, then, this divine Messiah is at their head, leading his people into rescue. So Jerusalem is being oppressed. The shepherd king breaks open the blockade, leads his people through the opening, and where all of Israel’s kings previously had failed, this king will lead them to final triumph. So the deliverance from Sennacherib and his armies, the return from Babylon from that exile, all of that is just a down payment and a precursor of this larger regathering yet to come, a still greater exodus from a greater exile led by Messiah, the shepherd king of his people.

Zechariah is one of the most frequently quoted prophets in the New Testament to affirm the Messiahship of Jesus. 71 quotations or allusions from this short book in the New Testament are given. 27 of those are in the Gospels; mostly, this was the most quoted prophet in the passion narratives of Jesus, where they are given then to show that he is in fact the Messiah who was promised. We have 31 of these quotes in the book of Revelation. Zechariah is a major source for John’s apocalyptic book as well. So, Zechariah is given in large part to reaffirm God’s covenant promises. One man writes, “No other Old Testament book is as messianic as Zechariah.” Zechariah has more messianic content than all of the minor prophets put together, and he’s second total only to the prophet Isaiah, who of course is much longer.

The later part of verse 8 says God will send, “I will bring my servant the Branch.” That is a greater king-priest to come. He will bring about the cleansing that is symbolized in all of this event. In other words, then, this event is visionary, but it’s also explicitly prophetic. “I will bring my servant the Branch,” clearly a reference to the Messiah. This expression, “my servant,” consistently—not invariably, but consistently—refers to David and the Davidic line in the Old Testament. Moses is called “my servant” as well, and of course, we have the promised servant of the Lord in Isaiah’s prophecy. But this has Davidic overtones to it. And the expression, “my servant the Branch,” has messianic overtones to it as well. We have seen that ourselves here in our studies on messianic prophecy. We saw it in Isaiah chapter 4. We saw it in Jeremiah 23 and Jeremiah 33. We’ll see it again in Zechariah chapter 6. There’s a similar expression used in Isaiah chapter 11. Consistently, the Branch—that is, the Branch of David—is a reference to the promised greater son of David, the Messiah who will come.

And then it says, “there shall be a priest.” Fascinating. “There shall be a priest on his throne and a council of peace shall be between them both.” So an anointed priest-king, both offices combining in this messianic figure, the royal branch. So all of this then we find is an acted prophecy, and it’s a stunning development in the Bible story. We do see it elsewhere. We saw it just briefly in Zechariah chapter three, that these two offices will be combined. We see it most famously in Psalm 110, where the exalted son sits at the right hand of God, reigning over all, the exalted king. And God says to him, “you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” Well, that’s what’s going on here. He’s the king and he’s the priest. And all of this now with Joshua wearing this crown, this dual crown of king and priest.