MESSIAHS
One thing that Jews and Christians agree about is the need for a Messiah. They agree on the fact of a messiah, but when the messiah comes and what the messiah does when he comes is a matter of great dispute. Jews focus on scriptures that frame expectations about the coming Messiah. Christians, on the other hand, believe the messiah has already come in the person of the man/god called Jesus. Beyond that, they relish prophesies that anticipate the messiah whom they believe will come again. This is the messiah in whom they place trust for their eternal salvation. These very different perspectives prove that neither Jews nor  Christians really understand who the messiah is, what he does or when he comes.

Even though the New Testament picture of Jesus clearly represents him as an in-your-face antagonist of religious authorities, Christians ignore that characterization in favor of a more passive, loving person who went around doing good things for people like healing them, feeding them and leading them into peaceful pastures that relieve them from the stresses of everyday life. Even in the face of his impending crucifixion, Jesus remained passive like a sheep led to slaughter.

The main images of Jesus are of him hanging bloody on a cross and holding a little lamb. These are selective images that fail to inform about the complexity of a messiah.

Lacking a complete picture of what a messiah does, Christians claim to be followers of Jesus but their concept of following does not include suffering and dying. The war-like imagery of Jesus that Christians acknowledge is as an aggressive warrior found in the apocalyptic prophecy of Revelation when he comes on a white horse with a sword in his mouth.

STUDY TIP: See Blood, Swords and Arrows for more understanding of swords.

Lacking symbolic understanding of this image, they see Jesus’ second coming as a future event that probably will not affect them directly. They do not see him as a model of what it means to be a New Covenant warrior/disciple. Thus they do not know how to apply the image to their own lives.

For Christians, the image of a passive messiah causes them to say little about Jesus’ conflicts with Pharisees or throwing down the tables of the money-changers.  It never occurs to religious leaders that they have good reason to fear Jesus or anyone who is conformed to his likeness. They do not understand that Jesus and his followers are on a mission to destroy their little kingdoms.

Many other scriptures supply the clues need to establish the identity of the messiah. But they are not as easy to interpret as we might hope or expect. Generations of Jewish scholars have interpreted these scriptures to create the following expectations about the signs that would indicate the real messiah:

Based on these scriptures and their literal interpretations, Jews expect that the messiah will have these qualities:

From these expectations we see that Jews think of the messiah as a unique human person who will come at a particular natural time. This expectation is only a little different from the Christian perspective which says that a unique human messiah (i.e. Jesus) has already come at a unique time.

Neither Christians nor Jews understand that the messiah does not function in these natural, human spheres but does his work in a purely spiritual kingdom of the heart of man where God places his spiritual laws. None of this makes any sense, of course, to Christians who believe that the messiah has already come. Christians are correct in their belief that the messiah has already come, but err in thinking that his coming was a one-time event in the person of Jesus. They do not see that the Jews have the right idea about the messiah but are wrong in thinking that the future messiah will function in the natural spheres of politics, government, law and the military.

Both Jews and Christians fail to understand that references to the messiah are not to a singular, unique messiah. They are, however, references to all New Covenant disciples who serve God as true prophets, warriors, angels and messiahs.