Who is Jesus?/Book 1/Part 2/Chapter 5
V. ANOTHER VIEW OF THE MESSIAH
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THERE can be no doubtwhatever, as we have seen, that the Jews expected a Messiah, and it is equally certain that the kind of Messiah that Jesus proved to be was distasteful to them. Yet the important point for us is that he did claim to be the Messiah; his religion is founded upon this claim, and it is a claim that we see was fulfilled in numberless ways.
Now we shall present another view of the Messiah which is always slurred over by Christians, but which is the most important view of it, as we shall show; for if Jesus is the Messiah, as he claimed, and Christians believe, Jehovah and Jesus are identical.
The view that we have in mind is this: Jehovah said again and again that He Himself was to come into the world as the Messiah, the deliverer of the Jews. We shall prove it.
"O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountains; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God." (Isa. 40:9.)
There is no equivocation about this; their deliverer, who was foretold, was to be God Himself, the indivisible. That this was Jehovah and not another is shown by what follows:
"Behold, the Lord Jehovah will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him." (Isa. 40:10.)
And yet we immediately identify this picture of Jehovah coming into the world with Jesus, "the Good Shepherd," by what is related in the next verse:
"He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and shall carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." (Isa. 40:11.)
Jesus himself is our warrant for thinking of him as the Good Shepherd: "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." (John 10:11.) And he tells us very many other beautiful and affecting things about himself as the true shepherd of the sheep.
But Jehovah, who has prophesied of Himself coming as the good shepherd, insists that we shall think of him as he "who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance." (Isa. 40:12.) Now if Jesus is the good shepherd prophesied of here; if Jesus is this Messiah foretold, he must be Jehovah. Jesus must somehow be the manifestation in time and space in the terms of a human being of Jehovah. He must be identical with Jehovah, not a separate being in harmony or agreement with him, for Jehovah, as we have seen, is indivisible, complete in himself, nor will ht give his glory to another.
Another statement from Isaiah in regard to the coming of the Messiah will bring this thought of the identity of Jehovah and the Messiah to us:
"For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me." (Isa. 63:4, 5.)
This thought is also brought to our attention by the prophecy in connection with the coming of John the Baptist:
"The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight in the desert a highway for our GOD." (Isa. 40: 3.)
This forerunner is predicted as one who shall precede the coming of Jehovah Himself, who a little later says: "Behold, the Lord Jehovah will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him." And there follow these words:
"And the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." (Isa. 40:5.)
In the parallel passage in Malachi concerning this forerunner of Jehovah we read:
"Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me." (Mal. 3:1.)
Now Jesus tells us in Matthew that John the Baptist was he of whom the prophecies in Isaiah and in Malachi were written. This one of whom John was to be the herald was Jehovah, for we read in Malachi: "And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple." This identifies Jesus with Jehovah, who promised to come suddenly to his temple.
But we find that Jehovah was coming into the world in the person of a child born of a virgin: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign, Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isa. 7:14.) This we are told was fulfilled in the birth of Jesus as recorded in Matthew, where the meaning of the word Immanuel is brought to our attention as "God-with-us." (Matt. 1:23.)
This is made even stronger in Isaiah 9:6, 7:
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."
In other words, Jehovah was to come into the world through the gate of human birth as a little child, who would later be the servant foretold in other places, yet who would always be The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, identical with Jehovah.