Messianic Perspectives

Chris Rodriguez: Shalom, and welcome to Messianic Perspectives, a daily program where we look into the scriptures from a distinctive first-century Jewish point of view. Today, our Bible teacher, Stephen Gair, continues his six-part series on the foundations of Messianic prophecy.

Stephen is a long-time friend of ours and has his own organization, Sojourner Ministries, dedicated to exploring the Jewish heart of Christianity. Stephen also currently serves as teaching pastor at Messianic Congregation Beth Sar Shalom in Plano, Texas. This is Chris Rodriguez, and I'll have some important information for you at the end of our program, so be sure to have a pencil and paper ready. And now, with today's teaching, here is Stephen Gair.

Stephen Gair: Shalom. This is Stephen Gair. We're going to be continuing our series on Messianic prophecy. We're looking at Messianic prophecy, views of Messianic prophecy, expectations of the Messiah, and of course, interpretations of the Messianic prophetic scriptures of the Hebrew Bible. Last time, we discussed the centrality of Messianic prophecy to the New Testament, including the words and teachings of Jesus and the approach of Paul and other apostles. We are going to continue our discussion right now on the centrality of Messianic prophecy to Judaism itself.

I want to repeat that in the time of the Gospel, there was no single Judaism, no single system. It's better to think in terms of Judaisms, plural, at the time of Yeshua. These various faith streams, these rivers of Judaism, begin to converge with the dominance of Pharisaic Rabbinic Judaism. That happens by the beginning of the second century AD.

What we see in the Gospels itself at the time of Jesus is a variety of Jewish expressions of Judaism, of opinions, of ways of being Jewish. But by the time the Temple is destroyed in 70 AD, within one generation, Pharisaic Rabbinic Judaism quickly evolves into the single mainstream normative Judaism. Every other Jewish sect was obliterated. At the end of the first century, there are no Herodians, there are no Zealots, there are no Sadducees, there are no Essenes, etc. There's only one group left standing after the temple is destroyed, and that's the Pharisees.

Well, there is one more Jewish sect that was not obliterated by the destruction of the temple, and that is, of course, the Jewish Christians. But Pharisaic Rabbinic Judaism evolves into mainstream normative Judaism, the mother of the faith system that we know today. The process of refining the essentials of Jewish faith within a post-Temple world are orchestrated and executed by the survivors, who were the Pharisaic rabbis.

This included compiling, recording, and formalizing Rabbinic oral traditions into a giant set of literature that we eventually come to know as the Talmud, as the written record of the oral tradition of the rabbis. But Judaism, although it had successfully transitioned from what began as a Levitically oriented system and became a Rabbinically oriented faith system, within a few centuries, it soon found itself devolving again into a fractured, diverse set of parties, sects, faith traditions, propositions, and beliefs.

There's an old expression that goes, "Where there's two Jews, three opinions." You could think of contemporary Judaism as the poster child of religions in its ability to illustrate the second law of thermodynamics: entropy. The center doesn't hold. If it can fall apart, if it can diversify, it will, and it did. So today, 2000 years after the visitation of the Messiah, Yeshua/Jesus, to Israel and then the subsequent destruction of the temple, believe it or not, Judaism finds itself today more fractured and divided than it ever was.

Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than in the diversity of Messianic expectation that the Jewish people hold. Even with all this diversity, self-correcting measures have occasionally been attempted. There was a great 12th-century philosopher-rabbi, Moses ben Maimon, known popularly as Maimonides. He attempted to unify all Jews around what were commonly considered the essentials of the faith.

These fundamentals that he assembled are still recited daily in the traditional synagogue service. And the 12th article of his 13 Principles of Faith—in other words, the 13 Biggys—recognizes the foundational nature of the Messianic hope within Judaism. This is what it says: "Ani ma'amin be'emuna shelema beviat hamashiach," which translates, "I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah. And though he tarries, I will wait daily for his coming."

That, my friends, is one of the 13 Biggys that Maimonides listed as his 13 Principles of Faith. And although it's only today's Orthodox Jewish practitioners who still faithfully recite this great affirmation, the somewhat diminished Messianic flame still flickers in the Jewish heart, however dimly, through glass, however darkly, throughout most of the remainder of Jewry.

It's very hard to quench a concept that is rooted so thoroughly within the warp and woof of the Hebrew scripture and entrenched so deeply within the Jewish imagination. So even if you did not have a facility and a familiarity with the Hebrew scriptures, Messianic expectation is breathed in the very air the Jewish people breathe. The expectation of Messiah is intrinsic to the Jewish imagination.

There's a contemporary rabbi by the name of Shmuley Boteach, which is a fun name to actually say. You should try saying it three times: Shmuley Boteach. He's a popular rabbi. He wrote "The Wolf Shall Lie with the Lamb: The Messiah in Hasidic Thought" among other books. But he wrote in this book that belief in the Messiah is more central to Judaism than even the observance of the Sabbath or Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

He goes on to say the cardinal principle of Jewish faith is belief in the Messiah. Now let's move from the centrality of Messianic prophecy in Judaism to why Messianic prophecy is important for us. One reason is that evangelistic purpose, because without question, the foundation of the evangelism of the New Testament era was Messianic prophecy. And if it was good enough for the apostles, if it was good enough for Jesus, then how could we turn our noses up?

It worked pretty darn well in the New Testament era, and as they say, if it ain't broke. Somehow, I don't know how it happened, but somehow Messianic prophecy fell out of fashion for the church to speak about. But I'll tell you that the ability of Jesus to either fulfill these prophecies—he either fulfilled them or he didn't fulfill them—that either makes or breaks his Messiahship. I tell you, that's indisputable and that's inarguable.

You ignore Jesus' Messianic fulfillment of prophecy at your own spiritual peril. If you're ignoring that, you're missing out, and that's not my opinion; that's the opinion of the New Testament. That brings me to my next point regarding the importance of Messianic prophecy, which is that it's faith-affirming. I always like to know when I'm studying something, when I'm listening to something, when I'm learning something, I like to know, frankly, what's in it for me.

Don't you ask that question? What's in it for me? What am I going to get from this? And I'll tell you that Messianic prophecy is extremely faith-affirming. For me, when I was growing up, Messianic prophecy was an extremely crucial component in my faith walk when I was a teen, when I was a college student. I used to read tracts, I used to read booklets, some of which were absolutely stupefying and some of which were less than compelling.

There was a lot of material back in the 70s and 80s about Messianic prophecy, and some of them seemed to base their arguments on a numbers game. I don't personally believe that there are hundreds and hundreds of prophecies in the Hebrew Bible concerning the coming Messiah. However, I do believe that there's at least, at least, two dozen dazzling, inarguable Messianic prophecies to be expounded upon in depth.

And then another two dozen that are analogical, typological, or correspondence Messianic prophecies to be enjoyed for the purpose of building up our own faith and seeing the connection of Yeshua, of Jesus, between the New Testament and the Hebrew scripture. So in all, if you wind up with about 60 good Messianic prophecies, I'd say that's a wonderful place to begin. That's really about 24 or 25 that are absolutely stupefying and compelling. That's a terrific place to begin.

The great thing about Messianic prophecy in affirming our faith is that if all the first advent prophecies—all the prophecies concerning the first coming of the Messiah—if they were all fulfilled, then we can be fully confident and fully informed that every single one likewise of the second advent prophecies will be literally fulfilled. And I call this faith-affirming. In our next session, we'll continue by talking about a definition of Messiah. I'm talking a lot about Messiah. What do I mean by Messiah? We're going to talk about the facets of Messianic prophecy, the types of Messianic prophecy, and then we'll talk about how to interpret the scripture itself. Until then, Shalom.

Chris Rodriguez: Thank you, Steve. If you missed part of this series or would like to share it with a friend, you'll be glad to know that it's available on one convenient compact disc for the suggested gift of just $6. Just point your web browser to our online store at messianicspecialties.com and search for "foundations" and place your order with our secure server.

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Be sure to ask for Stephen Gair's series titled Foundations of Messianic Prophecy when you call or write. And as always, when you're in touch with us, whether it's through the mail or by phone, or even on the internet, if you would please, mention the call letters of this station. If you listen to our program by logging on to our webcast on oneplace.com, we'd like to know that too. This is Chris Rodriguez. Join us tomorrow for another edition of Foundations of Messianic Prophecy right here on Messianic Perspectives.

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