We nearly fell out of our cushioned synagogue seats when we heard the rabbi's answer! I had accompanied a group of believers from a suburban Detroit church to a conservative synagogue to learn more about Jewish beliefs and customs. We had been given an excellent tour and now the rabbi was answering questions. One of the group inquired, "What do Jews believe about the Messiah?" The rabbi's startling answer: "God has delivered the Jewish people from many trials during our history, and He will deliver us also from the Messiah!" After we recovered from our shock, we inquired further about the meaning of this strange answer. The rabbi then elaborated on the numerous false Messiahs that have appeared to Israel over the centuries. These pseudo-Messiahs had inflicted much pain on the Jewish community by shattering many unnecessarily raised hopes and aspirations. The damage inflicted by them was so great that many Jews no longer believe in a personal Messiah. The rabbi included himself among the doubters.
Over two dozen individuals have claimed to be the Messiah of the house of Israel over the past nineteen hundred years. They represent a wide variety of Jews from many different areas. All of them, however, had one thing in common - they were wrong! Some of the most colorful:
The foregoing pseudo-Messiahs are only the most prominent - many others have raised the hopes of some, only to dash them in disappointment! Combined with a growing secularism over the past two hundred years, this sad history of messianic pretenders has had a notable effect on the messianic views of many Jewish people. Today most Jewish people do not believe in any personal Messiah - past, present, or future! Some affirm belief in a future messianic age, when peace among nations will prevail, but it will be a messianic age without a Messiah. Only the small group of Orthodox Jews believe that some day the Messiah will personally arrive. They tenaciously hold to one of thirteen principles laid down by Maimonides in the twelfth century: "I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah, and though He tarry, I will wait daily for His coming." Many Orthodox, however, are not clear whether such a belief is essential to Judaism!
Apart from being wrong, each of the pseudo-Messiahs had one other factor in common - none of them met the qualifications, mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, that would characterized the Messiah. Most of them ignored these biblical qualifications and based their messianic claim on so-called miracles, supposed visions, and sophisticated numerical calculations based on Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). Had the people measured them by these biblical characteristics, they would not have been deceived. What are these characteristics and, more importantly, has there ever been anyone who measures up to them?
Although the Tenach (the Hebrew Scriptures) mentions many messianic qualifications, the following four are most crucial in determining who indeed is the real Messiah:
God's Word is very precise about this verification. There were actually two Bethlehems in ancient Israel - one in Judah (1Sam 16:4) and one in Galilee (Josh 19:15). This verse (Mic 5:2) makes it clear, however, that the Bethlehem in Judah is the place from which Messiah comes. The ancient scribes and rabbis agreed that this Bethlehem was to be the birthplace of the Messiah, and they related this information to Herod the Great when he asked for it (Mat 2:4-6). This birth, in Bethlehem, however, does not mean that Messiah is of human origin only, for this verse says His "goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." The notion that Messiah is nothing more than a gifted man is contradicted by this plain statement declaring His eternal preexistence - an attribute belonging only to the LORD God (cf. Hab 1:12).
Even the Talmud and the Rabbinic commentary on Genesis state that the name of Messiah is one of the things that existed before the creation of the world (Pesahim 54a, Genesis Rabbah 1:4).
So, the first characteristic of Messiah is that He will be an eternal being who will come out of Bethlehem in His earthly existence.
A divine being who comes to earth as a human being would have to experience a supernatural birth. The Bible also teaches the Messiah would be born of a virgin - clearly an event involving the miraculous. Isaiah 7:14 states: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." The controversy surrounding this verse hinges on the word translated as "virgin." It is the Hebrew word, almah, and some insist it should be translated young woman without implying virginity. They say that the normal Hebrew word for "virgin" is betoolah. Although this line of reasoning seems to have a scholarly, authoritative tone tone it, a closer examination reveals that "virgin" is a very legitimate translation of almah in this verse.
The word almah only appears seven times in the Hebrew Bible (Gen 24:43; Ex 2:8; Psa 68:25; Prov 30:19; Song 1:3; 6:8; and Isa 7:14). There is no instance where it can be proved that almah designates a young woman who is not a virgin. Particularly obvious is its use to describe the virgin, Rebekah, in Genesis 24:43 (cf. with Gen 24:16) and the virgin, Miriam, in Exodus 2:8. The use of the word indicates that it refers to a young woman, one of whose characteristics is virginity. This is borne out by the fact that the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures completed around 200 BC, renders almah in Isaiah 7:14 by the Greek word for virgin, parthenos.
Furthermore, the extraordinary nature of this birth is brought out by the word "sign:" "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." A sign, in Scripture, is something out of the ordinary that attests and confirms a word from God. Most of the eighty occurrences of this word in the Old Testament refer to miraculous signs (e.g., Ex 7:3; Deu 4:34; Isa 20:3). With this in mind, it is appropriate to ask, "What is so miraculous and out of the ordinary for a young woman to conceive and bear a child?" That happens all the time. It would be miraculous, however, if a virgin conceived!
Furthermore, the child born from this miraculous birth is given the name Immanuel. This name is actually made up of three Hebrew words, translated literally: "with us God" (cf. Mat 1:23).
Therefore, the second characteristic of the Messiah is that He will have a miraculous birth from a virgin mother and that He will be God in human form.
Calculations purporting to indicate the exact dates of prophetic events have abounded throughout history. Some pseudo-Messiahs claimed that the year of their unveiling to Israel was determined by secret numerical calculations arrived at through the mysterious practice of gematria - i.e., calculating numbers through letters.
Needless to say, the Bible knows nothing of this practice. The general time of Messiah's coming, however, was revealed to Daniel in chapter 9, verses 24-27. Though there is room for disagreement on the exact details of this prophecy, it is clear that the appearing of Messiah the prince would be in the early fourth decade of the first century. What is absolutely clear, however, is that Messiah had to come before the destruction of the Temple: "And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself; and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined" (Dan 9:26).
The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple took place in 70 AD at the hands of the Roman general, Titus, and his legions. What Daniel 9:26 is teaching, therefore, is that the Messiah had to come before 70 AD.
Therefore, the third characteristic of Messiah is that He had to come and be "cut off" before the Temple's destruction in 70 AD.
If a Jewish person is asked, "What is the purpose of Messiah's coming?" he probably would respond by saying, "To bring peace to the world and to restore the Jewish people from their exile." These themes of universal peace and restoration are mentioned often by the Hebrew prophets. Another prophetic theme, often overlooked, describes an additional purpose of Messiah's coming - to die for the sins of Israel and of all mankind. No greater elaboration of this theme can be found than the "Servant Song" of Isaiah 52:13- 53:12.
This section of Scripture is one of a series depicting the work of "the servant of the Lord" in Isaiah. At times, this servant is Israel (e.g., Isa 44:1-2), but at other times the servant is an individual who will restore Israel to the Lord (Isa 49:5-7). In Isaiah 53:4-6, the personification of the Suffering Servant reaches a sublime pinnacle:
"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."The suffering of this Servant not only was experienced submissively and silently, but the suffering was vicarious, i.e. for the sins of others. His soul became "an offering for sin" (Isa 53:10).
The Babylonian Talmud as well as the Aramaic Targums and the ancient rabbinic commentators identified this Suffering Servant as Israel's Messiah. Typical of their comments is that of Moshe Kohen ibn Crispin, a 14th century Spanish rabbi: "This prophecy was delivered by Isaiah at the divine command for the purpose of making known to us something about the nature of the future Messiah, who is to come and deliver Israel... in order that if anyone should arise claiming to be himself the Messiah, we may reflect and look to see whether we can observe in him any resemblance to the traits described here: if there is a resemblance, then we may believe that he is the Messiah our Righteous; but if not, we cannot do so."
The modern Jewish view of the Servant of Isaiah 53, however, is not that he is the Messiah but that he is a personification of suffering Israel. This interpretation was first introduced circa 1100 by the great French rabbi Shlomo Yitzaki, referred to simply as Rashi. Even though most commentators then adopted this novel "Israel" interpretation, there were many who rejected it. As late as the 17th century, Rabbi Naphtali Altschuler wrote: "I am surprised that Rashi and David Kimhi have not, with the Targum, also applied them (Isa 52:13- 53:12) to the Messiah."
However, Isaiah 53 itself refutes the "Israel" interpretation and affirms that the Servant must be an individual who suffers for Israel. In verse 8b, Isaiah states "...for the trangression of my people was he stricken."
Question: "Who were Isaiah's people?"
Answer: "Israel."
Problem: "How could Israel be stricken for Israel?"
Taking the words of this marvelous chapter in their normal, literal context demands that they describe the substitutionary suffering of an innocent servant for the sins of Israel.
Therefore, the fourth characteristic of the Messiah is that the purpose of His coming is to give His own life as a substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of others so that they might be forgiven. However, He would be rejected by His own people.
There are many other prophecies about whom Messiah would be and what He would do. He would be a descendant of David in the tribe of Judah (Gen 49:10; Jer 23:5-6), He would be preceded by a forerunner (Mal 3:1), He would perform miracles of healing (Isa 35:5-6), He would be crucified (Psa 22:16), He would rise again from the dead (Psa 16:10), and He would ascend to the right hand of Jehovah (Psa 110:1).
Is there anyone in Jewish history who meets these qualifications? Certainly not Bar Kochba, or Shabbetai Zvi, or any of the other messianic impostors, past, present, or future. But there is One who fits the composite figure drawn by the Hebrew prophets. His name was Yeshua ben Yosef. We know Him in the West as Jesus of Nazareth. He was born in Bethlehem of a virgin mother (Mat 1:23; 2:1). He appeared publicly in the early years of the fourth decade of the first century (Luk 3:1-2,21). He was rejected by the greater part of the Jewish nation, died on a Roman cross, but rose again the third day, and later ascended to His Father (Joh 1:11; Mat 27:35; 28:1-f; Acts 1:9). These and dozens of other specific prophecies He fulfilled.
Therefore, "Will the real Messiah please stand up?" He has already stood up - over nineteen hundred years ago, He stood up and said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Mat 11:28).
Will you come to Him as your Messiah and Savior today?