Messianic Perspectives

Chris Rodriguez: Shalom and welcome to Messianic Perspectives. Today, our Bible teacher Steven Ger continues his six-part series on the foundations of Messianic prophecy. And now, with today's teaching, here is Steven Ger.

Steven Ger: Shalom. This is Steven Ger. We're continuing our series on Messianic prophecy. Before we get any further, and certainly before we get into any actual Messianic prophecies of the Hebrew Bible, we should define our terms. The most important term to define is that of "Messiah" itself.

When we say the word "Messiah," that is a transliteration of a Hebrew word. That Hebrew word is "Mashiach." What does "Mashiach" mean? It means "Anointed One." There is a word with an identical meaning that comes from a Greek word, "Christos." That word, of course, is "Christ." So, when we talk about Mashiach, Christos, Messiah, or Christ, we're talking about exactly the same thing. It is a title, and it means "Anointed One."

So when we talk about Jesus Christ, we're not talking about this guy's last name. He's not Mr. Christ. He is Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah. In the Hebrew Scripture, Mashiach, Messiah, or Christ generally signifies someone who, upon the assumption of a sacred office, is specially consecrated. Consecrated means to be set apart for God.

How do you consecrate them? By anointing them with consecrated oil. A ceremony of consecration of anointing with oil was performed, for example, upon the installation of prophets, the installation of priests, and of course, the installation of kings to mark them off as God's anointed ones.

Over time, the concept of Anointed One, the concept of Messiah/Mashiach, came to be applied to an idealized representative. He would be prophet, but not just prophet. He would be priest, but not just priest. He would be also king. So, prophet, priest, and king, all combined, smushed into one figure. This is an ultimate Moses, an ultimate Aaron, and principally, an ultimate David, all in one fellow.

This redemptive figure develops within Israel's collective consciousness alongside an accompanying idealized age of peace and prosperity, what we call the Messianic era, brought forth by the Messianic King. These Messianic ideas freely percolate throughout the eras of Israel's United Kingdom, Divided Kingdom, Israel's exile, diaspora, and return.

It gains momentum during the time when Hanukkah came to be under the Hasmonean dynasty, and it heated the imaginations of the Jewish population who came under Roman domination from 63 BC until finally, by the time of the Gospels, Israel began erupting with one charismatic figure's Messianic claim after another. Here a Messiah, there a Messiah—there were tons of claimants to the title Messiah.

When we talk about the kinds of Messianic prophecy found within the Hebrew Bible—by which I mean the Old Testament—you have three basic facets, three different subjects, three different aspects that may be in view. You have what I call first advent exclusive. In other words, a prophecy that is just about the Messiah's first coming, his first advent.

Then you have another facet, and that is second advent exclusive, or second coming exclusive, and that is only talking about the Messiah's second coming. Then you have a third category, which is the first and second advent not exclusive, but combined, blended together.

You could think of this kind of prophetic passage as a photo of a mountain range. When you are looking in two dimensions at a photo of a mountain range, or even as you're driving and you see mountains way ahead of you in the distance, you know intellectually that those mountains are not placed right on top of one another. There is actually a series of mountains and valleys with distances between the mountains.

However, from your perspective, whether you're looking at a photo or whether you're looking off into the distance, you cannot possibly ascertain what the distance is between the mountains. They all look blended together. That is how this third category of Messianic prophecy works. You cannot tell first from second advent. Is there a pause between the two?

It's unclear. We could think of this as a kind of full gospel Messianic resume, except it may be a little bit jumbled, and we cannot figure it out until hindsight, until we see how it all works out. Just as you cannot determine how far those mountains are apart until you're actually in the mountain ranges themselves, we cannot see how these Messianic prophecies work until the Messiah actually comes. And thank God, between you and me, He did. It was Jesus, Yeshua, and so we can indeed interpret those prophecies.

There are three actual types of Messianic prophecy as well. We're talking about literal Messianic prophecy—that's one type of Messianic prophecy—literal Messianic prophecy, by which I mean crystal ball, where the prophet looks into the future and sees what is going to happen and writes about it.

The second type of Messianic prophecy is what I would call typological. A typological kind of prophecy means a picture, a prophetic type, a picture that teaches us and gives us a heads-up to look for a future picture that matches.

The third, which is similar to typological, although it is not a picture per se, is what I would call—and you have a choice of what you want to call it here—you can either call it analogical, or just call it correspondence. In other words, this is a kind of prophecy that corresponds, that is analogous to a future situation. As we get to the prophecies, we will go through them and we will be able to identify which one is which type, and we will be able to see more clearly exactly what I'm talking about. So, don't worry about that for now.

But now I want to get into something that theologians call hermeneutics. You say, "Hermen-who? What's hermeneutics? What is this word?" Hermeneutics is simply the quest for meaning. Theologians always have to come up with a fancy term; it is how we justify our existence. But when we talk about hermeneutics, we are talking about, what does the text mean? Not "mean to me," but what does it objectively mean? Not what the text means in my heart or in my imagination, but what does the text objectively mean?

When we talk about hermeneutics, we must adopt a particular approach which is called the grammatical-historical-rhetorical approach. You could think of those fancy words as simply the common sense approach. The presuppositional question when we get to interpretations, when we get to hermeneutics, is whether or not we can actually determine meaning.

Are we forever doomed to the vagaries of rationalism and subjectivity? That the text has a constantly moving meaning and that we can never actually determine what the text means once and for all time, but the text's meaning changes as our generations change or as our emotions change?

Much like many people today would like to read the Constitution of the United States as a living, breathing document, which basically in plain English means that they can change the meaning of the Constitution anytime they decide it means something else than what it plainly says. But I say no. No with the Constitution, and also no with the Bible.

There is objective truth. There are absolutes. The authors of Scripture wrote what they meant to write, and they meant what they wrote. Because meaning is objective, not subjective. This can be illustrated by the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8. The man of God, Philip, asked the Ethiopian eunuch, "Do you understand what you are reading?"

The Ethiopian eunuch responds, "How can I unless I have someone to interpret?" Thank God that the Ethiopian eunuch did not just determine that meaning was completely subjective and he could make up whatever he wanted to, and that Isaiah 53 meant whatever he felt like it, because then the story might have ended very differently for him.

That is the grammatical-historical-rhetorical approach, which again, I call common sense. By grammatical, I simply mean you take the grammar and you read the grammar and you understand the grammar. What do the words say? Past tense means past tense. Present tense means present tense, etc. If it is addressed to "he," then it is to the guy; it is not to you. If it's to Israel, it is to Israel.

Then historical—one has to understand the historical context in which the text was originally written. You have to understand the grammar and you have to understand the historical context. When I use the term rhetorical, that is simply an elaborate way of saying, recognize the genre of literature that you are reading.

One does not interpret poetry in the same way that one interprets an epistle. One does not interpret a biographical story such as we find in the Gospels in the same way that one would interpret the kind of apocalyptic literature that we find in the book of Revelation. One recognizes the genre and your approach should be appropriate. Put simply, don't read the Proverbs the same way as you read the book of Acts.

In closing, I want to contrast that with the standard Jewish rabbinic approach, which incorporates all that I've just discussed—determining what the meaning is. This is called the "peshat" in rabbinic interpretation. But they add something to it, and that is unleashed creativity. They take what the meaning of the text is and they just use it as a springboard.

They have to determine what the meaning is, but then they unleash their creativity. We will see some of the quotations from the rabbis regarding these Messianic prophecies and we will be able to see exactly what I mean. Specifically, this involves taking a Scripture, no matter how obscure, and applying it to a major theological truth or theme on the basis of some tenuous connection, like playing "Words With Friends" with the Biblical text.

Well, that is all the time we have for today. Next time we are going to actually get into the text of Scripture itself, beginning in the book of Genesis. 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 is 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. If you'd prefer ordering by phone, just call our toll-free order line at 1-800-926-5397, and our operator will be glad to assist you.

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This is Chris Rodriguez. Join us tomorrow for another edition of Foundations of Messianic Prophecy right here on Messianic Perspectives. Messianic Perspectives is sponsored by CJF Ministries in San Antonio, Texas, and is made possible on this station by the free-will contribution of our listeners in this area.