Messianic Perspectives

Guest (Female): The 110th Psalm is quoted or alluded to by Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Peter, Paul, and other New Testament writers more than any other passage in the Old Testament. But this Psalm is also a source of great controversy. So is it really a Messianic prophecy or just wishful thinking? We'll find out today, right here on Messianic Perspectives.

Liz Aiello: Shalom, and welcome to Messianic Perspectives, a daily program where we look into the scriptures from a distinctive first-century Jewish point of view. This is Liz Aiello. Our Bible teacher is Dr. Gary Hedrick, president of CJF Ministries in San Antonio, Texas. You can reach our offices by dialing 1-800-926-5397.

Gary's subject today is The Truth about Psalm 110. And since this Psalm is the most often quoted Old Testament prophecy in the entire New Testament, that means if it can be discredited, the whole Messianic house of cards comes tumbling down. I'll be back a little later with information about a special offer, so have your pencil and paper ready. Now with today's study, here is Dr. Gary Hedrick.

Dr. Gary Hedrick: All right, thank you, and welcome listening friend to another edition of Messianic Perspectives. It's good to have you with us today as we continue this series of studies on the truth about Psalm 110. We've been saying this is a very important series of studies because the 110th Psalm is the most widely quoted Messianic prophecy in the entire New Testament.

Psalm 110 is quoted or alluded to in the New Testament more than any other Old Testament passage. What we've been saying here is that the second Lord in Psalm 110:1 is the Messiah. We have that on good authority because Yeshua himself, Jesus himself, in Matthew 22 identifies the second Lord in Psalm 110 as the Messiah.

Remember we talked about this before. He asked them whose son the Messiah would be. Of course in Judaism, the Messiah is Mashiach ben David, or Messiah son of David, so Jesus said, "Whose son is he?" The rabbis said, "David's son." And he said, "Well then, if he is David's son, how come David calls him Lord?" Then he quotes from this 110th Psalm.

The question was, how could the Messiah be David's son and also be his Lord or his master? You see, a father would not ordinarily call his son Adon, or master, or Lord. When my father was living, he didn't call me sir; I called him sir. Yes sir, no sir, I was his subordinate as a son always should be.

It's like here in the 110th Psalm, it talks about Melchizedek. I know I'm getting ahead of myself here because we're going to talk about Melchizedek later when we get to verse four. But when you go back to Genesis 14 and you look at the meeting there in the Valley of the Kings between Abram or Abraham and Melchizedek, who blessed whom?

Melchizedek blessed Abraham. You see, the blessing always goes from the greater to the lesser. The king blesses his subjects. The father blesses his sons. That's how it goes. And yet here we have David calling his son master. Now think about that. This is King David of Israel, the man after God's own heart, the greatest king Israel ever had, and arguably the greatest king any country has ever had.

Yet David said there was someone else besides God himself that he acknowledged as his Lord and master. Think of it like this. Think of the President of the United States, the person who holds the most powerful office in the world. Who besides God is the President going to acknowledge as his Lord and master? No one.

No other single person in the world tells the President what to do, except maybe his wife. Not the head of the European Union, not the head of the United Nations, not the head of NATO, not the President of Russia, not the Premier of China. No one orders around the President of the United States. No one but God, that is.

But if the President comes on television and says that God sent a message to his master, to the President's master, that must mean there is someone else besides God that the President acknowledges as his superior. Someone else besides God that he takes orders from. There is someone else running the show. You see, that's what this is all about.

Jesus uses this Psalm in Psalm 110 to show that the Messiah is not merely David's son, but actually David's superior. He is David's Lord. So the next question is, in what sense does he use the word Lord here? Does it imply deity or does it just mean master in a human sense?

Now, here's what the critics will tell you. When I use the word critics, I'm talking about liberal Christian critics, Catholic critics, Jewish critics, scholarly critics, or anyone else who rejects the deity of the Messiah. Here's what they say. They say the idea of a divine Messiah originated in paganism. Not in the Bible, but in paganism.

They say the whole idea of a man being God is from Hellenistic paganism. Some of them will even say that the whole story of Jesus was borrowed from some ancient myth about a god who had intercourse with a mortal woman and her son becomes a sort of half god and half man. They say the whole idea of a divine Messiah is pagan; it's not Jewish.

I don't often do this, but I want to read you something here on the program. In fact, I brought this book in here with me because it proves beyond any reasonable doubt that all of this business about the idea of a divine Messiah being pagan is simply not the case. I'm going to read just a couple of paragraphs here.

It wouldn't mean a whole lot if I read something to you from one of my books or from something written by an evangelical theologian. You could just say he's writing what he's expected to write. But what I brought into the studio with me today is a scholarly book, actually it's a collection of essays, written by a number of liberal and critical scholars all around the world.

These are not evangelicals. In fact, most of them wouldn't even claim to be Christians at all. And by the way, please don't call us and order this book because we do not carry it. Let me repeat that because every time I quote from a book, we get calls on the 800 number from people who want to buy the book. We do not carry this book in stock here at Messianic Perspectives.

If you want a copy, you can order it from your own local bookstore. Here's the title: *Jesus' Jewishness: Exploring the Place of Jesus in Early Judaism*. Now, the editor of the book is James Charlesworth of Princeton University. The publisher is Crossroad Publishing, and the date of the publication is 1991.

Here are some of the scholars who contributed essays to this book: Harvey Cox of Harvard Divinity School, Dead Sea Scrolls scholar Geza Vermes of Oxford University, David Flusser of Hebrew University, and Alan Segal of Barnard College and Columbia University. These are some of the leading scholars in the world, some really heavyweight guys.

They're mostly very liberal, and certainly no one's going to accuse any of these writers of wanting to defend an evangelical, Bible-based position. So let's see if it's really un-Jewish to say the Messiah is divine, to say that he is Lord. I'm going to read from the essay taken out of this book titled "Jesus the Revolutionary." It's written by Professor Alan Segal.

Now watch this. It's on page 219, where he's talking about Psalm 110. Professor Segal says, quote, "The most important idea implied in the reinterpretation of Psalm 110 is the divinity of the two figures: God and 'my Lord.' Lord is a term by which the Jews designated God. In Hebrew the word Lord for God is different from, but extremely close to, the ordinary word lord."

"When translated into Greek or Aramaic, the two terms become one. In Christianity, the Greek word *kurios* meaning Lord became a term describing not God himself as in Judaism, but Christ. Thus the earliest Christian exegesis already asserted the divinity of the figure of Jesus on the basis of his heavenly ascent and exaltation in Psalm 110."

"Hellenistic and mystical Judaism held similar views on the human form of God's glory," and then he gives the Hebrew word *kavod*. "The Logos, the resemblance of Adam to God before sin, and the divine participation of some principal angels in God's divinity," Professor Segal writes.

Then he says, "The Qumran community asserted the divinity of Melchizedek, the angelic mediator, through a similar interpretation of the Hebrew word *El* meaning God or angel. Philo even describes Moses as divine when he ascends to Mount Sinai and allegorically to heaven itself."

"Against this background, Christian innovations are both natural and fitted to the events of the crucifixion. The events unique to Jesus' biography account for a post-resurrection identification of the mediator or angelic figure with him, and hence create a Messianic candidate who succeeded at his Messianic mission in a totally new and unexpected way."

That's on pages 219 and 220. I wish I had time to read that again because it's so full of good stuff, but I don't. But this is dynamite. Listen, we should not be intimidated by rabbinic arguments when they say the Christian notion that the Messiah is divine is a Gentile invention.

No good Jew would ever attribute divinity to the Messiah. Well, that is simply not true, my friend, and a prominent Jewish scholar just told you it's not true. Do you know why they say it? Because Judaism's religious establishment has an axe to grind with the Christian faith.

However, unbiased scholars acknowledge that attributes of deity were often attributed to Messianic figures or angels in ancient Judaism. It is not merely a Christian notion. So here's the answer to that question in Matthew 22. King David could call his descendant or his son the Messiah. David could call him Adon because he would be no mere man.

He would be the God-man, the second person of the triune Godhead, Yeshua of Nazareth. He would, in fact, be not only Adon but Adonai. In fact, the full title of his divinity is Adonai Yeshua HaMashiach, or the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, we're out of time. We'll pick it up here on the next program. Until then, this is your friend Gary Hedrick saying God bless you, take care, bye-bye.

Liz Aiello: Thank you Gary, and thank you listening friend for tuning in today. We've been listening to our Bible teacher, Dr. Gary Hedrick, talking about the truth about Psalm 110. If you are interested in Bible prophecy, you'll be glad to know that our special offer this week is the CD of this current series of studies on the truth about Psalm 110 by our Bible teacher, Dr. Gary Hedrick.

It's available for a suggested contribution of just $6 or more. Just visit our secure online store at messianicspecialties.com to place your order. If you would prefer to order by mail, just address your request to Messianic Perspectives, PO Box 345, San Antonio, Texas 78292.

To order by phone, use our toll-free order line. The number is 1-800-926-5397. Let me remind you that when you order the materials we offer here on the program, you're not only enabling us to remain here on your station, but you're also helping us take the good news of Yeshua HaMashiach to Jewish people and Gentiles all over the world.

So when you write, consider helping us with a gift above the suggested amount. We'd be very grateful. And as always, when you're in touch, please mention the call letters of this station. If you're listening to our webcast or podcast, we need to know that too. I'm Liz Aiello. Join us next time, won't you, as Dr. Gary Hedrick continues our series of studies on the truth about Psalm 110 right here on Messianic Perspectives.

Guest (Male): Messianic Perspectives is sponsored by CJF Ministries of San Antonio, Texas, and is made possible on this station by the freewill contributions of our listeners in this area.