with the Messianic Kingdom, which he conceives of spiritually, than
with the Messiah, who is only alluded to once, and who is expected to
arise from Judah.
(4) The Similitudes of Enoch. B.C. 95-80. This part of the Book
of Enoch is much occupied with the person of the Messiah. He is
definitely named "the Messiah," and also bears the titles "the Elect
One," "the Righteous One," and "the Son of Man." He is a Prophet and
a Teacher, "the light of the Gentiles," all judgment is committed
unto Him, and He will sit on the throne of His glory. He will raise
again to life all the righteous who have died.
(5) The Psalms of Solomon. B.C. 70-40. The Messiah is to be sinless;
He is the Son of David; He will not adopt the ordinary methods of
warfare, but will smite the earth with the rod of His mouth.
The following works all belong to the Christian era, but they may
reflect ideas that had an earlier origin:--
(6) The Assumption of Moses. A.D. 7-30. The hope of an earthly
Messiah is abandoned and it is God Himself who is expected to take
vengeance on His enemies.
(7) The Apocalypse of Baruch. _c._ 70 A.D. The Messiah will appear
after Israel's enemies have been destroyed. His Kingdom is likened to
"the bright lightning," and at the end of His reign He is to return
in glory to heaven.
(8) 2 Esdras. A.D. 81-96. The Messiah, although more than earthly,
dies after a reign of 400 years. He is pictured as a lion rebuking
an eagle (the Roman power), and "as it were with the likeness of a
man" arising from the midst of the sea, and flying with the clouds of
heaven.
Lecture XI
MESSIANIC EXPECTATIONS
In all the stages through which the Old Testament religion passed there
seems to have existed a consciousness of their imperfection, and this
produced a tendency to gaze into the future, in which it was thought
the ideal religion would exist, and where could be descried the perfect
realisation of God's dwelling among men. It is natural that this
characteristic should find its clearest expression in the Prophets.
When their eyes are upon the present, they condemn; when they look to
the immediate future, they utter grave warning and the shadows deepen
upon their faces; but when they lift their eyes to the distant hills
of time, the light is on their faces, and they break into songs of
the days that are yet to be. It is this vision of the future and the
endeavour to give it a definite outline that runs like a thread through
the Old Testament and forces us to look beyond its borders for the
ultimate issue of its religious development. This subject may best be
studied under the general head of Messianic expectations.
The immediate difficulty in understanding this subject is found in the
circumstance that it has received from Bible students an exaggerated
attention, and has been pursued with methods that the best modern
scholarship cannot sanction. The eager hunting for Messianic prophecy,
and the desire to find literal fulfilment, has often stretched the
meaning of passages unwarrantably and made a sane exegesis appear tame
and uninteresting. But more disastrous has been the effect upon the
understanding of the Old Testament as a whole. The literature has been
treated as a mysterious typology, in which some indirect picture of
the Messiah was to be discovered, or a series of exact predictions of
His life and work. This has destroyed the sense of perspective, it has
ignored the message of the Prophets to their own age, and it has been
responsible for the idea that the religion of the Psalmists was simply
a pious expectation of the Messiah, instead of a real communion with
God.
It is difficult to gain a right appreciation of this subject after it
has suffered such abuse, but a serious effort should be made; for it is
in the understanding of the Messianic expectation that we shall find a
key to the New Testament and more especially to that conflict of soul
which the acceptance of the Messiahship seems to have brought upon
Jesus.
The method of study followed will be an endeavour to read all alleged
Messianic predictions, first of all in the light of their actual
meaning for the age in which they were uttered; but more particularly
it will embrace the general ideas of the future of which the conception
of the Messiah forms only a part. We shall find that the conscious
prediction of the Messiah is somewhat reduced in bulk, and that the
Messianic expectation includes something more than a figure of the
Messiah himself, and is indeed sometimes found without any such feature.
The Messianic ideal involves the whole conception of the religious
future of Israel. The Hebrew religion receives much inspiration from
its tradition of the past, but infinitely more from its hopes for the
future: the golden age is not thought to lie far back in history,
but in a time yet to come. It seems likely that this idea was widely
dispersed even among the common people, and it is therefore only
natural that it should often have been held in an unspiritual manner
and expressed after a material fashion. This hope was seized upon by
the Prophets, and by them elevated above a merely material expectation;
they enriched it by the wealth of their creative genius, and from
their time it receives a definite content. Standing far above their
contemporaries in their conception of the meaning of Jehovah's covenant
with Israel, the Prophets were forced to realise the failure of their
message to win immediate acceptance, and sometimes they witnessed its
entire rejection by the people; and therefore it was inevitable that
they should look to the future to yield what the present seemed unable
to produce: a religion pure, simple, and free from all limitations.
If we inquire the reason of this hope, we find it in their trust in
Jehovah's covenant and in their conviction of the ultimate triumph
of truth. Now it was not unnatural, with the peculiar character of
their national history, for their hopes to group themselves around
some commanding figure; for all along Israel had been moved by
splendid personalities. They were accustomed to the appearance of men
whose power and genius marked them out as fitted by Jehovah for some
mighty task; so that whenever they think of the future and come to a
detailed description of their vision they descry one dominant figure,
the symbol and representative of the people, but also the symbol and
representative of the power of Jehovah dwelling among them. This
figure receives his peculiar outline largely from the needs of their
immediate times, and any person of whom great things are expected may
be hailed as the Messiah (Cyrus, Isa. xlv. 1; Haggai ii. 20-23, seems
to suggest that Zerubbabel is the expected Messiah; and Zech. vi. 12
uses Messianic language of Joshua the High Priest).
We should have expected that the figure of the Messiah, as conceived
by the Prophets, would partake largely of the prophetic office
idealised and accepted by an obedient people. This however is not
the case. There is a promise of a prophet made through Moses, which
in the New Testament has been interpreted as a Messianic prophecy
(Deut. xviii. 18; Acts iii. 22, vii. 37), but an examination of the
passage, which follows a denunciation of the practices of divination,
necromancy, and sorcery, out of which primitive Prophetism arose, shows
that it is a promise of the establishment of the prophetic office
rather than of any one person. Elsewhere Moses is made to exclaim:
"would that all the Lord's people were prophets" (Num. xi. 29). Both
these passages are due to prophetic teaching, and this is the Prophets'
conception of their office: they do not rejoice in their splendid
isolation and their unique relation to God; they are grieved that the
people do not share their possession of the Spirit of God and their
hearing of His word, for to them these things are the essence of all
true religion. So they look forward to a time when their office will
no longer be necessary (Jer. xxxi. 34), and when the Spirit of the
Lord shall be poured out on all flesh (Joel ii. 28f). It is not in any
contradiction to this that the picture of the Servant of the Lord,
delineated by the Second Isaiah, is largely drawn from the prophetic
office (Isa. xlii. 1-4, xlix. 1-6, l. 4); for the Servant is the Nation
of Israel fulfilling her prophetic role among the nations of mankind.
In the late prophecy of Malachi the figure of Elijah the prophet
is seen in the future, but only as the herald of the coming of the
Messianic era (Mal. iv. 5).
The Priest contributes little more than the Prophet to the picture
(Zech. iii.; vi. 12; Psa. cx.); for to the prophetic conception of
things the Priesthood is hardly a necessary office in a true religion.
It is from the office of the King that the Messiah is largely drawn.
This conception could only have arisen after the founding of the
monarchy and only when the real David had faded far enough into the
past to be idealised. It was in their experience of the imperfection of
the Kings of Israel and Judah that the Prophets saw the need for a true
kingly head; and in the oppression of military kingdoms, the need for a
mighty warrior. And yet it is not a king who fills the picture of the
future, so much as a kingdom.
Outside the Prophets and the Psalms we find little expectation of a
personal Messiah, but we find almost everywhere the conception of
an ideal or Messianic age. What has been called the Protevangelium,
the promise to the woman that her seed should bruise the serpent's
head (Gen. iii. 15), does not point explicitly to any one person,
but simply promises that in man's eternal warfare with temptation he
shall at length gain the victory. The prophecy of Balaam (Num. xxiv.
17-19) involves nothing more than the future supremacy of Israel.
Jacob's blessing on Judah (Gen. xlix. 10) promises a stable dynasty
to that tribe, and the reference to Shiloh is so obscure that nothing
can be built upon it (_Shiloh_ may mean peace, but in the Septuagint
the phrase is translated: "until that which is his shall come."
Another ancient reading is: "till he come whose it is." Shiloh might
refer to the town of that name, but this would give no help to the
interpretation. The text must be corrupt).
It will be necessary for us to examine the circle of ideas which form
the background of the Messianic hope and from which the idea of the
Messiah emerges. When the Prophets speak of the future they often use a
strange phrase: "the day of the Lord." This is found first in Amos (v.
18), but its occurrence there shows that it was already a term in use
among the people, for Amos had to dissent from the popular idea of its
character. The term comes from the Hebrew idiom of the "day" of battle,
and it comes to be used of the great conflict in which Jehovah will
entirely overthrow the enemies of Israel; it is therefore looked for
with expectant hope. Amos points out that the manifestation of Jehovah
will be fatal to sin, whether in Israel or in other nations: _dies iræ,
dies illa_. Thus modified by Amos this is the conception which, with
varying details, becomes the prophetic idea of the Day of the Lord. It
may therefore come in some threatened invasion; later, it is conceived
as a gathering of all the nations against Jerusalem, from which we get
the picture of Armageddon, the last great war before the establishment
of peace; and finally it becomes the world assize, and so the "day" of
judgment of the New Testament. This "day" is to separate the history
of God's dealings with men into two distinct periods, and will be the
dividing line between the perfect and the imperfect; so that all the
bright visions of the future are to be "after those days." The Prophets
believe that reconstruction can only come after destruction, that
history will reach its ideal over a precipice; they believe in a reform
by cataclysm rather than by evolution. Every threatening of political
change or national disaster may herald the coming of that day; it is
always at hand; to their vision, they are living near the finality of
things. There is a great deal in this imagery that fails to appeal to
modern ideas of history and progress. It was part of the prophetic
scheme and as such was a limitation of perfect vision; but shorn of its
mere form it remains a witness to their consciousness of the activity
of God in human history and of His judgment in the crises of the world.
The form was a limitation essential to their stage of mental evolution
and to its intelligibility to their age; its spirit is an eternal
message to mankind.
Immediately after the Day of the Lord, the Messianic Age is ushered
in, and in depicting the conditions of that time the lyrical genius of
the Prophets reaches its supreme expression, and these passages still
inspire the reformer and move men with their ideals of peace. The
picture of that age is composed by projecting into the future their own
institutions and especially their religious conceptions. They picture
a condition of human society which is best described in the phrase,
"the kingdom of God"; for although such an expression never breaks
forth from their lips, its contents are obviously in their minds. It
is to be a community in which the will of God is perfectly realised,
when religion shall no longer consist in statutes and commands, but in
the recognition of an inner law. Absolute righteousness, individual
and civil, will prevail, and the nations shall learn war no more. The
animal and natural creation will share in this beneficent order: the
lion shall lie down with the lamb, and the wilderness shall blossom
like the rose; the veil shall be torn from men's vision, all tears
shall be wiped away, and death shall be swallowed up in victory.
When they come to depict the subjects of this kingdom they fail to
attain to the inner and ethical requirements enunciated by Jesus, for
national hopes and ambitions still cloud their outlook. There are two
streams of thought--one frankly particularistic, where the future of
the heathen is ignored, or where they are simply to be exterminated;
and the other universalistic, where the conversion of the whole world
is expected (Isa. xlv. 22; Jer. xii. 14 ff, xvi. 19; cp. Isa. xi. 14-16
with xix. 18-25). It is somewhat surprising, in view of the subsequent
development of these ideas under Christian thought, that the sphere of
this tremendous change is conceived to be this present earth; and even
when the necessity of a new earth and a new heaven is considered, it
is still earth that is to be the chief theatre of events. Heaven is
conceived of as the dwelling place of Jehovah, but there is no idea
that this great change is to be postponed or relegated to some heavenly
condition; heaven is to come down to earth and Jehovah is to dwell
among His people and be their God.
It is from the ground of these ideas that there arises the conception
of the person known as the Messiah, who shall be the Divine instrument
in bringing about this blessed condition. Messiah is from the Hebrew,
_Mashiah_, and means "anointed one." The actual phrase, _the_ Messiah,
without further qualification, is not found in the Old Testament (Dan.
ix. 25, A.V. "The Messiah" is incorrect; it should read: "an anointed
one, a prince," as R.V. mar.); but after the closing of the Canon the
phrase was constantly used to denote the Jewish hope of the appearance
of a singular person, of Davidic descent, who should be superhumanly
endowed, and who should overturn the enemies of the Jews and place
their nation at the head of the world. The title recalls the mode of
consecration used for priests and kings by anointing them with oil
(Lev. iv. 3, 5, 16; vi. 22; 1 Sam. ii. 35; xii. 3), and "the anointed
of Jehovah" is the common title for the kings of Israel. The origin of
this idea of the Messianic King may certainly be traced to Nathan's
promise to David of a perpetual seed which should occupy his throne
and be the special delight and care of Jehovah (2 Sam. vii. 2-17). In
the presence of a weak or unworthy occupant of the throne this promise
would come to mind, and would gather new meaning as the Prophets saw in
the troubles of their times the imminence of the Day of the Lord. It is
to the prophet Isaiah that we owe a striking conception of a monarch
who not only fulfils his promise but transcends it in a way that is
hardly conceivable in a merely human king. The first emergence of this
hope in the mind of the prophet occurs when he attempts to restrain
Ahaz from joining the fatal confederacy of Syria and Ephraim against
Assyria. When Ahaz demands some confirmation, the prophet promises the
sign of a young woman who shall bear a child named Immanuel (Isa. vii.
14-17). Following Matthew, Christian expositors have taken this to be
a prophecy of the virgin birth of Jesus; although it is difficult to
see how this could be a sign to Ahaz. The subject is obscure to the
last degree. The Hebrew word rendered "a virgin," although capable of
such a special application, means simply a young woman. The translation
"virgin" was first made by the Septuagint, and this may point to the
fact that at the time this version was made the Messiah was expected
to be born of a virgin. The prophecy seems to have arisen from the
conviction that the Assyrian invasion would bring into existence
some person who should represent the active presence of God with
His people; and beyond this explanation there is nothing but mere
speculation. But in a later oracle of Isaiah's (ix. 6f), the conception
has grown in definiteness, and this expected person is crowned with
such honorific titles as "Wonder of a Counsellor, Hero-God, Father
of Eternity, Prince of Peace." To our ears these titles convey the
sense of absolute Divinity, but it is questionable whether they meant
that to Isaiah. Eastern monarchs have always been addressed with
high-sounding titles, and Isaiah's language may have been coloured by
foreign court customs; but still it would remain that the titles lead
us to expect an unexampled figure who possesses attributes that mark
him out as specially equipped by God. Once more Isaiah returns to this
figure (xi. 1-12), and now definitely asserts that he shall spring
from David's line; only now the majesty of his person is conceived
as due to his seven-fold possession of the Spirit of Jehovah, and
his character fits him rather for administrative and prophetic work.
Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, has much the same figure (v. 2-5) of
a mighty prince of Davidic lineage and of mysterious birth (Bethlehem
simply stands here for David's line, and "whose outgoings have been
from eternity" probably means nothing more than that his descent shall
spring from this ancient ancestor). There is an inexplicable element
in these predictions, but they have been found elsewhere, outside
Israel, in times of great national danger or expectation. In Israel,
the idealisation of David, the personal element in her history, and
the increased possibilities discovered in human personality when under
the complete dominion of the Spirit of Jehovah, have contributed to
the creation of this figure. It cannot be said that it was a mental
vision of the person of Jesus that shaped the prophecy, for it must not
be forgotten that it was an immediate fulfilment that they expected;
and indeed their picture so utterly misled the Jews, that, when Christ
claimed to be the Messiah, they treated His claim as blasphemous. While
we can see that Christ was indeed a King, it is only by a spiritual
conception of kingship, and only after the verdict of history has
crowned Him as a true ruler of men; not by any actual resemblance to
the external magnificence of the Messianic King. When the Messianic
call came to Jesus He found in these passages a difficulty, for they
outlined a programme He could only reject; but it was other and
indirect allusions of the old Testament, some of which had never been
considered as Messianic, that Jesus took for His pattern. This meant a
reading of prophecy very different from that of the Jews of His time,
and it is surely here that the views we have found ourselves forced to
accept in regard to Old Testament prophecy can claim the support of
Jesus Himself. It is important to grasp this point: the argument from
predictions definitely fulfilled in Jesus has failed to convince the
Jews, who ought to understand their own Scriptures best, and we must
recognise that it is only a spiritual interpretation of prophecy and a
valuation of Jesus which owes nothing to flesh and blood that can see
in Him One of whom all the Prophets bore witness.
It is to these other conceptions, to which the spiritual intuition of
Jesus led Him in His search for support for His Messianic ideals, that
we must now turn.
The first of these in importance is undoubtedly "the Servant of the
Lord." We saw when examining this idea that it was an ideal of a nation
rather than of an individual, and yet it was upon this that Jesus
fixed, and it was this idea that seemed to mould His whole conception
of His mission. According to Luke, the first discourse of Jesus took
place in the Synagogue at Nazareth, where He set forth His programme
and policy, and stated them to be identical with those the prophet
had outlined for the nation centuries before (Luke iv. 16-21; Isa.
lxi. 1, 2); and the evangelist Matthew sees in the methods of Jesus a
fulfilment of the prophecy of the Servant (Matt. xii. 18-21; Isa. xlii.
1-4). It was probably as Jesus saw the clouds gather about His life and
disaster began to threaten that He was led to study the career of that
Servant and see that it involved suffering, being despised and rejected
of men; and so He came to find the key to the mystery of His Cross in
that classic of the vicarious life, the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah.
Jesus was probably the first to interpret that passage in a Messianic
sense.
His reason for adopting the title of "the Son of Man" is exceedingly
difficult to trace; it may be said that no completely satisfactory
explanation of the origin or meaning of the term has yet been
discovered, and in the present state of research on the subject it
would be folly to commit ourselves to any of the theories that have
been propounded. We can only keep in mind the various facts, which
the use of this title in the Gospels presents to us. It is clear that
Jesus did not intend the title to be a declaration to the world that
He had accepted the Messianic call; for all along it was His deliberate
purpose to conceal His Messiahship, and for reasons that are obvious,
when we consider the difference between His conception of Messianic
function and that of the Jews of His day. Again, although there is a
slight difference between Daniel, where we only hear of "one like unto
a son of man," and Jesus who calls Himself "_the_ son of man," yet
when challenged by the high-priest Jesus certainly quotes from Daniel
(Dan. vii. 13; Mark xiv. 62). Now in Daniel it is not a person who is
figured by this title, so much as a humane kingdom which is to replace
the kingdoms that were more like beasts in their character. It is only
in the Book of Enoch that the Son of Man is definitely identified with
the Messiah. Did Jesus ever read that Book, or were its ideas at all
commonly known? If so we should have to concede that the Son of Man
meant the Messiah, both to Jesus and to the people, and yet this is an
apparent contradiction of His general motive in keeping the Messiahship
secret.