Jesus & the Prophets – spurning the Saviorship … (10/24/18)
Though there are admittedly a number of claimed prophecies in the Old Testament’s “Law & prophets” that supposedly foretell and even announce Jesus as one who becomes the embodiment of the long longed-for Messiah – “a prophet like [Moses]” (see Deuteronomy 18:151) who was summoned “to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives … and comfort all who mourn.” (via Isaiah 61:1-2)2 And yet despite the prevalence of these seemingly transcendent forecastings, all of them are for various reasons fundamentally lacking in prophetic legitimacy.3 Some don’t correctly reflect the life of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels or have yet to come to pass (see Isaiah 11:124, Micah 5:25, & Isaiah 9:6-7 et al), some are so vague that hundreds of additional candidates would qualify for Messiahship thereby (see Isaiah 7:146, Isaiah 9:1-27, & Isaiah 52:7 et al), and others were clearly fulfilled intentionally after the fact – either by Jesus himself (see Isaiah 53:5 & Jeremiah 31:31-34 et al) or by him with the help of friends &/or disciples (see Psalm 22, Psalm 34:19-20, Zechariah 9:98, & Zechariah 11:12-14 et al).
And yet these are in no way the only examples proving this point. In fact, there are dozens of other instances & texts – many of them instigated &/or professed by Jesus himself – that definitively show that Jesus was indeed not the highly-desired Messiah. Consider …
.Firstly, the Messiah was prophesied as being an ancestor of David9 – a Jewish king who would one day forcefully liberate Israel from her oppressors (see Psalm 2:8-9, Psalm 72:4, Isaiah 2:4, & Isaiah 9:4 et al). It bears noting that Jesus explicitly rejected both these notions throughout the Gospels – resolutely renouncing his oft-proclaimed kinship with David10 (see his open reference to Psalm 11011, where he plainly states “If David calls [the Messiah] Lord, how can [the Messiah] be [David’s] son?” – see Matthew 22:41-45, Mark 12:35-37, & Luke 20:41-44), explicitly rejecting the notion that he was the Messiah (see Matthew 16:20-28, Matthew 19:17, Matthew 26:63-64+Matthew 27:11+John 18:36, Mark 8:29-30, Mark 10:18, Mark 14:8, Luke 9:18-21, Luke 18:19, Luke 22:70+Luke 23:3+John 18:36, & John 5:41et al), and vehemently refusing to advocate violence as a means of transcendence (against Rome or any other human authority – see Matthew 5:9, Matthew 20:25-28, Matthew 22:20-21, Matthew 26:53-56, Mark 1:38, Mark 12:17, Mark 14:48-49, Luke 9:51-55, Luke 22:24-38, & Luke 23:35 et al).
“Let all turn away from causing harm and be kind instead. Let all seek peace and pursue it avidly … A harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace … So pursue peace with everyone, and the selflessness without which no one will know the Lord.” ~ unknown (1 Peter 3:11, James 3:18, & Hebrews 12:14)
.“Peace I leave with you and my peace I give to you … I have said this all to you, so that through my way you might know peace … Salt is per se pure; and yet if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season with it? Renew the salt in yourselves – by being at peace with one another.” ~ Jesus Christ (John 14:27, John 16:33, & Mark 9:50)
“By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high breaks upon us;
bringing light to those who sit in darkness
and guiding all feet onto the way of peace.”
(Luke 1:78-79)
It is also well worth noting that Jesus himself repeatedly and quite vehemently denied being any sort of uniquely divine being during his Gospel ministry. Yes, it is true that he did often state that he was an exemplary embodiment of “the Son of God” that resides within all sentient beings (see the entire Gospel of John, especially John 14), and yet he made it just as clear just as often that he was not the only such embodiment thereof (see Matthew 19:17, Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19, & John 14:12-26 et al) and thus that he was quite certainly not the lone Davidian Messiah prophesied by “the prophets”12 – the sole Messiah who his disciples & many of his listeners longed for him to be. Indeed, quite regularly it was actually “demons” (the spawn of “the father of lies” – see John 8:44) who falsely proclaimed Jesus to be the sole “Son of God” (see Mark 1:24, Mark 3:11, Luke 4:34, & Luke 4:41a) and he sternly silenced them just as regularly whenever they did so (see Mark 1:25, Mark 1:3413, Mark 3:12, Luke 4:35, Luke 4:41b, & Luke 8:38-39).
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In addition, though it is also true that Jesus’ disciples regularly intimated that he was the sole “Son of God” (see Matthew 14:30, Matthew 16:16, Mark 8:29, Luke 9:20, John 1:49, John 6:69, John 10:24, & John 14:8 et al), the Gospels also repeatedly show them to be fully ignorant as to the actual purpose of Jesus’ ministry, much less the selfless content of his teachings (see Matthew 15:15-18, Matthew 16:8-11, Matthew 18:1, Matthew 19:16, Matthew 19:25, Matthew 20:21-28, Mark 8:15-21, Mark 8:32-33, Mark 9:33-35, Mark 10:13-14, Mark 10:23-24, Mark 10:37-45, Mark 13:4, Luke 9:45, Luke 19:11, John 6:60-66, John 7:3-4, John 8:33, John 12:34, & John 14:22 et al) – a fact which helps to explain why Jesus was in the end quite frustrated with their lack of understanding (see Matthew 16:23, Matthew 17:17, Mark 8:33, Mark 9:19, Luke 9:41, John 8:25, John 8:43, & John 14:9-10 et al) as well as why he vehemently demanded that they not tell anyone that he was the Messiah (see Matthew 12:16, Matthew 16:20, Mark 8:30, & Luke 9:21 et al).
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1 While it is true that this long-foretold “prophet” was indeed explicitly announced by Peter as being Jesus Christ in Acts 3:18-22, Jesus himself seemingly renounced this claim in John 14:12-26, John 15:26, & John 16:13-14 – on all three occasions clearly stating that this same oft-prophesied “prophet” was actually the latent moral essence that resides within all human beings; the internal “Advocate” or “Spirit of Truth” that enables us all to make the most difficult choice (i.e. to love our enemies) in the most difficult moments (i.e. while being persecuted by the same – see Matthew 5:44-48 et al). And this particular interpretation is indeed supported by the actual wording of Deuteronomy 18:15 itself – with the word typically translated as “among” therein being the Hebrew word miqqerbeka (Strong’s #7130); a word that actually meant “from within” not merely “from the midst of.”
2 This is the very passage from “the prophets” that Jesus himself quotes the only time in the Bible he is seen publicly orating Scripture in a synagogue (see Luke 4:16-21). Of special intrigue in this instance is the fact that he closes this particular sermon with the bold statement “today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”, and this after having intentionally omitted Isaiah 61:2‘s “the day of vengeance of our God” from the same – in so doing clearly transforming the traditionally prophesied Messiah-of-holy-violence into a never before intoned Prophet-of-humble-peace.
3 Many of these Old Testament “prophecies” are clearly describing particular events long-since past (a la Daniel 9:24:27‘s “abomination that desolates” – a passage most scholars believe refers to the murder of the high priest Onias III and Antiochus IV’s erecting a statue of Zeus in the Temple in & around the Maccabean Revolt of 167 BCE, not the 2nd Coming of Christ as intimated in Matthew 24:15 & Mark 13:14) and others seem to refer to the entire Jewish citizenry, not solely Jesus himself (a la Hosea 11:1‘s “Out of Egypt I have called my son” – a verse which truly has nothing at all to do with Jesus’ childhood, as is falsely claimed in Matthew 2:14, or Isaiah 53:5 – where it is at the very least a great stretch to say that the “suffering servant” therein solely prophesies Jesus on the cross).
4 While some refer to the foundation of the State of Israel as a fulfillment of this verse, there can be little argument that the full diaspora of non-Israelite Jews (“the outcasts of Israel … from the four corners of the earth”) has clearly yet to return.
5 More than a few Christian apologists have latched onto this verse as the fulfilled prophecy that Jesus was the Messiah because he was born in Bethlehem. Aside from the fact that Jesus never once did “rule in Israel” as the rest of that same verse states (see “My kingdom is not of this world” ~ John 18:36), most scholars agree to starkly disagree about Matthew 2:4-6‘s bold claim that Jesus as the Messiah was indeed born there. Indeed, the concept that Bethlehem was the birthplace of the Messiah appears in no Jewish literary source until several centuries after the death of Jesus, and the New Testament itself cites the common understanding among Jews at the time that the birthplace of the Messiah remained unknown at the time (see John 7:26-27). As such, despite the admitted fact that Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem is one of the few portions of his story that exists in all four Gospel accounts, many biblical scholars believe that his birth stories are more literary invention than historical fact, created by the Gospel authors to lend credence to his longed-for divinity.
6 NOTE that this verse does not predict that the Messiah will be born of a “virgin” but rather that he would be born of an almah (Strong’s #5959) – a Hebrew term meaning “young maiden” or “young woman” (see also Exodus 2:8, Psalm 68:25, & Songs of Solomon 6:8 et al).
7 NOTE that the Masroetic text of Matthew 4:12-16 merely denotes “the region of the nations,” while it is the Greek Septuagint that expands the same to reflect Isaiah9:1-2‘s “the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali.”
8 NOTE that Matthew 21:1-3 makes it exceedingly clear that the “donkey” required by this “prophecy” was without a doubt an acquisition arranged by Jesus ahead of time in order to fulfill the same.
9The Hebrew Bible promised both that the Messiah would come from the lineage of Abraham (see Genesis 21:12, reflected in Galatians 3:16) and David (see Psalm 132:11, reflected in Matthew 12:23 & Acts 2:29-30). Fittingly then, the text of 2 Samuel 7:12-16 clearly announces God’s covenant with David – a covenant that includes the messianic promise: “I will raise up your offspring after you – he who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.” … Jeremiah 23:5 also seems to reflect the same pronouncement when stating “The days are surely coming when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness throughout the land.” … Ezekiel 34:23-24 also establishes David (and thus his heirs) as being the rightful ruler of Israel, though it is worth noting that some scholars mention that Ezekiel 34:15-24 cannot refer to David at all – since Israel was divided into two separate realms until after the death of Solomon, David’s son.
10Despite the fact that the authors of the Gospels of Matthew & Luke both openly believed that Jesus was indeed a direct descendant of David (see Matthew 1:1-6, Luke 1:32, Luke 2:4, & Luke 3:31) and the fact that all three of the Synoptic Gospels regularly show the people (mostly non-Jews, the blind, &/or his clearly clueless disciples) expressing the same belief (see Matthew 9:27, Matthew 15:22, Matthew 20:30-31, Matthew 21:9, Matthew 22:42, Mark 10:47, Mark 11:10-11, Mark 12:11, Luke 18:38-39, & Luke 20:17), there remains considerable debate amongst scholars as to whether or not this was actually the case. For one, Matthew & Luke present two remarkably different genealogies for Jesus (see Matthew 1:1-17 & Luke 3:23-38), with the former presenting 42 generations from David to Joseph and the latter presenting 77 (and with there being remarkably little overlap between the names listed within the two). It bears noting that the Matthean count of 42 generations is achieved only by omitting several names (Ahaziah, Jehoash, and Amaziah – possibly because they were especially wicked rulers, and yet probably in order to attain the clearly desired three sets of 14 – double the Jewish perfection represented by the number seven, and also directly reflective of the gematrical value for the name David). Most notable of all, Matthew claims Joseph’s father to be Jacob while Luke says his father was Heli. Many Christians resolve this blatant discrepancy by claiming that Matthew’s genealogy is the lineage of Joseph while Luke’s denotes the line of Mary (and this despite the fact that Luke makes it very clear that Mary was the cousin of Elizabeth a la Luke 1:5 – & thereby descendant of Aaron, and thus a member of the tribe of Levi – not David’s tribe of Judah). Indeed, this truth is further supported by Jesus himself when he publicly renounced Mary’s status as his mother (“My mother and my brothers are [my disciples]; those who hear the Word of God and enliven it” ~ Luke 8:21) as well as when he rebuked a bystander who had just praised “the womb that bore you” by exclaiming “Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and obey the same.” (see Luke 11:27-28). In addition, while it remains true that Matthew & Luke both clearly claim that Joseph was indeed from the House of David, those same Gospels also unabashedly proclaim that Jesus was actually born of a virgin – a claim that makes null & void Joseph’s Davidian lineage. Indeed, tribal lineage in ancient Judea was explicitly traced through a person’s father (see Numbers 1:18 et al), and as such Jesus’ supposed virgin birth ironically negates any claim that he was the Messiah. That having been said, the virgin-birth prophecy is actually a scriptural fabrication (see Note 261 on the previous page), and as such Jesus was in all likelihood truthfully the physiological son of Joseph, and thus indeed a member of the line of David – a status he openly & repeatedly & vehemently abdicated – both explicitly & symbolically – during his ministry thereafter.
11NOTE as well that Psalm 110:1 notes that the Messiah will sit at God’s “right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” – announcing a level of callous cruelty that no one sitting at the selflessly giving “right hand of God” could ever advocate, and indeed an expression of abject violence that Jesus himself openly renounced & devoutly rejected throughout the course of his ministry (see Matthew 5:44-48 & Luke 6:29-37 et al).
12While it is true that there are a number of verses in the Gospels that seem to show Jesus contradicting himself on the matter of his supposed Messiahship (see John 4:25-26, John 8:24-29, John 8:56-58, & John 9:35-37 et al) these passages do not show him to utter “I am he” or “I am”, but rather have him stating “I, Iam” (the Greek ego eimi – Strong’s #1473 & #1510) – or, if translated in a manner consistent with the rest of his teachings, “I am an embodiment of the I Am.” True enough, he also states “the Father and I are one” in John 10:30, and yet it is just as true that he later explains that we are all on equal spiritual footing therewith – that “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” (John 14:20)
13Please NOTE that Mark 1:34 & Luke 4:41 do not state that they demons knew Jesus was indeed the Messiah (as most translations intimate) but rather that they (incorrectly) “believed” (the Greek term edeisan – Strong’s #1492) him to be so.
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