The Messiah's Time and Identity

The Old Testament of the Bible has contained prophesies that would let people know the time and specific identity of the messiah sent by God to provide salvation of his people. The Jews have tended to look for a politico-military deliverer who would lead them in triumph over their oppressors, of whom there has been a recurring stream...but most particularly from Roman times forward. Many Jews (messianic Christian Jews) and all gentile Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the divine Messiah...God as man, having come as an eternal deliverer of the eternal "oppression" of death. That is, Jesus gives believers the triumph over death separated from God, promising eternal salvation in the presence of God.

What Signs Identify the Specific Individual as the Messiah?

Drawing on the witness of Jeff P., a messianic Christian Jew in Bowling Green, Kentucky (who gave our Sunday school class his conversion testimony and some teachings in about 1996), there were three miracles which the ancient Israelite rabbis indicated as miracles which only the Messiah could perform:
bulletHe would heal a Jewish leper...it has already happened (Matthew 8:1-3).
bulletHe would heal a man blind from birth...it has already happened (John 9:1-41).
bulletHe would heal a dumb man...it has already happened (Matthew 12:22-25).

What Signs Identify the Coming of the Messiah?

SM was the tour guide for our church group's June 1999 pilgrimage to Israel. Born a Jew in Boston, Mass., USA, she and her family moved to Israel in about 1976. A highly intelligent, religiously conservative (honoring the demands of Scripture but living "in this world") Jew, she gave us wonderful insights into Biblical and historical Judeo-Christian happenings. A tour guide for 21 years, she indicates that religious Jews see the following as conditions which identify the "times" into which the Messiah will come:

  1. World peace........................................(Isaiah 2:4 and 11:6-8).
  2. Universal knowledge of God....(Isaiah 11:9 [re: the root of Jesse]; Jeremiah 31:3; Zechariah 14:9)...[happening now]
  3. Resurrection of the dead...........(Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2; Ezekiel 37:12-13).
  4. Coming of Elijah...........................(Malachi 3:23-24 or 4:5-6).
  5. Ingathering of the Jews..............(Isaiah 43:5-6;Ezekiel 37:21-22)...[began in 1948: Israel a nation]
  6. Building of the 3rd Temple........(Ezekiel 37:26-28).

Jesus did perform the three identifying miracles. And the above 6 signs of the messianic coming sound quite a lot parallel to signs of the second coming of Jesus the Christ, the Messiah who already came, died for the sins of ALL mankind, was resurrected from the dead and ascended to sit at the right hand of YHWH!

NOTE: My NIV translation of the Bible has a margin note on page 1316 (John 1:32-34) that the rabbis around the turn from BC to AD taught that the Holy Spirit of God had left the earth with the last of the prophets (the 400 silent years from Malachi to Matthew) and would not return and remain until the coming of the Messiah. This is why John the Baptist says what he says in John 1:32-34, having been grilled about his identity by the Pharisees (who were required to investigate any messianic candidate or messianic movement): "And John [John the Baptist] bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon
him [Jesus]. And I knew him not: but he [God] that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he [Jesus] which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that
this [Jesus] is the Son of God."

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(posted 30 July 1999; latest modification 8 September 2002)