The Meaning of Messiah
If we are going to follow him faithfully, then our understanding of Jesus must be shaped by who he says he is, not merely by who we say he is.
The following essay is adapted from a message I shared at Friends Community Church.
When I was growing up, my poor mom was almost never introduced by her own name. She was "Brianna's mom," or "Ray's wife," or somebody's whatever-she-happened-to-be. To this day, people will still introduce her that way: "This is Brianna's mom." It's actually kind of funny. People know who she is primarily by her relationship to someone else.
As people, we do this all the time. When we introduce others, we instinctively describe them by their relationship to us. "This is my husband, Mike." "This is my mom, Carolyn." "This is my friend..." We define people through the categories that make the most sense to us, but those categories are rarely how people introduce themselves. My mom doesn't walk up to strangers and lead with, "Hi, I'm Brianna's mom." Eventually that relationship may come up, but it isn't the foundation of her identity. It is the foundation of how I know her, but not the foundation of how she knows herself.
I think we often do this very same thing with Jesus.
When we talk about him, we tend to begin introducing him to others in the ways that have meant the most to us personally. We call him Savior, Friend, Teacher, or Rescuer. Every one of those titles is true. They are beautiful, biblical descriptions of who Jesus is.
But are those the categories Jesus would have chosen to introduce himself?
When Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" he wasn't asking strangers. The question was directed at the people who had spent the most time with him, probing whether they truly understood his identity. It is a question that still confronts every one of us today.
If Jesus were introducing himself to us, what title would he place first? How did he understand his own mission? Who is Jesus?
I have a friend who wrestles searches for answers to this question constantly. Over the years, he has heard liturgy that now feels empty to him. He has listened to passionate sermons. He's encountered cultural ideas about Jesus—billboards, commercials, along with familiar phrases like, "Jesus loves you," "Jesus died for you," and "Make Jesus Lord of your life." The problem is that every person seems to describe Jesus a little differently. Each one gives him a slightly different version, and it has left him with the impression that Jesus is simply whoever someone says he is—whoever someone wants him to be.
Our personal testimonies matter. They’re important. They are evidence of God’s faithfulness in our lives. To the addict, Jesus is the one who breaks chains. To the lonely, he is a faithful friend. To the brokenhearted, he is a healer. To the desperate, he is a rescuer. Those stories are real, and they deserve to be told.
But alone, they are not enough.
If we are going to follow Jesus faithfully, there comes a point where we must mature beyond simply talking about what Jesus has done for us and begin asking who Jesus understood himself to be. Our witness may begin with our story, but it must ultimately grow into Jesus' story about himself.
Otherwise, we are left to worship a Jesus of our own making.
If we are going to follow him faithfully, then our understanding of Jesus must be shaped by who he says he is, not merely by who we say he is.
The Question—Who did Jesus believe himself to be?
In John 4, Jesus has a remarkable conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. As they speak about worship, she tells him, "I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will teach us all things." Jesus responds with an astonishing declaration: "I who speak to you am he."
Jesus openly identifies himself as the Messiah she’s waiting for. But that answer only leads to another question: What exactly is a Messiah?
When the woman says the Messiah will "teach us all things," what are those "all things" she has in mind?
She had a very defined expectation of the Messiah, but do we?
Is there a way to outline the role, the mission, and the responsibilities of the one God promised to send?
Jesus certainly thought so. He learned about the Messiah from the Scriptures. They shaped his understanding of who he was, why he came, and what God was doing in the world.
That is why, when Jesus stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth and read from Isaiah,
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor... to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor..." (Luke 4:18–19)
he knew exactly what he was claiming about himself.
The real question is whether we do.
Who were the captives Isaiah was talking about? What is "the year of the Lord's favor" and when does it arrive? What office was Jesus claiming to occupy when he declared that he was the anointed one?
Those are the types of questions that will guide this series.
Over the next several weeks, my goal is to help us learn to see Jesus the way Jesus saw himself. We are going to understand the Messiah through the very Scriptures that shaped his own understanding of his mission. More than that, we're going to ask what it actually means to confess that Jesus is the Messiah.
To do that, we're going to begin where Jesus himself directed his followers after the resurrection: Luke 24.
The Scriptures—Jesus Learned About His Mission
After his resurrection, Jesus encountered two discouraged disciples on the road to Emmaus. They knew the events of the crucifixion. They knew the reports of the empty tomb. They were hoping this man who had been killed at Passover was the one who would “redeem Israel.”
Jesus' response is striking.
He does not begin by appealing to their personal experience, telling them about the death he suffered. He does not perform a miracle. Instead, Luke tells us that, "beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27).
To appreciate what Jesus is doing, it helps to understand the structure of the Bible he was reading.
The Hebrew Scriptures—what Jewish people often call the Tanakh—are traditionally divided into three sections:
the Torah (the books of Moses),
the Prophets,
and the Writings.
The Torah includes Genesis through Deuteronomy. The Prophets include not only Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, but also Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. The final section, the Writings, includes books like Psalms, Proverbs, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles.
Sometimes Jesus refers to these three sections as "Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms," using Psalms—the largest book in the Writings—as a shorthand for the entire final section. “Moses” works the same way—it means the Torah. In other words, Jesus points these discouraged disciples to the whole Hebrew Bible.
Why? Because that is where the Messiah is defined.
A few verses earlier, Jesus asks, "Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" (Luke 24:26).
Notice the language carefully. Jesus doesn't begin by saying, "I had to suffer," speaking in the first person. He says, "The Messiah had to suffer." Jesus is thinking of his own death and resurrection not as something that happened to him personally, but in terms of an office—a role, a vocation, a mission.
An illustration can help. The President of the United States is an office. Today, Donald Trump occupies that office. Before him, others occupied it. Long after him, others will as well. The office itself exists independently of the individual. It carries defined responsibilities, authority, expectations, and duties because the Constitution of the United States establishes what a president is supposed to do as well as the credientials one must have to occupy the office.
The same is true of the Messiah. Jesus is a person. Messiah is an office.
Long before Jesus was born, the Hebrew Scriptures had already described that office. They define what qualifies someone to be the Messiah, what the Messiah is expected to accomplish, why the Messiah suffers, what he inherits, how he reigns, the length of his term, and what God's purposes for him are.
Jesus understood himself as stepping into an existing role. He did not invent the office; he inherited it. That is why he continually returned to the Scriptures. His point was not simply, "Look what happened to me." His point was, "Surely you know—this is what the Messiah must do!"
Once the disciples began to see that pattern in the Scriptures, the identity of Jesus became unmistakable. That is why I think we need to begin here as well. Before we ask what Jesus means to us, or even what he has done for us, we should first ask a more fundamental question: What did Jesus think it meant to be the Messiah?
Because if Jesus understood himself through the office of Messiah, then we need to understand that office too.
What is a Messiah?
The word Messiah comes from the Hebrew word Mashiach. The word Christ comes from the Greek Christos. They are not two different titles. Christos is simply the Greek translation of the Hebrew Mashiach.
Messiah. Christ. Same title. Different languages.
The Hebrew word Mashiach means "anointed one." More literally, it refers to someone who has been anointed with oil.
Throughout the Scriptures, anointing was the act of setting a person or object apart for God's purposes. It marked something as belonging to God and being commissioned for a holy task. People were anointed. Sacred objects were anointed. Even altars and stones could be anointed. Anointing was God's way of publicly designating something for his service.
One of the most surprising discoveries for many Christians is that the Bible doesn't contain only one messiah. It contains many.
Aaron was an anointed priest. David was an anointed king. Solomon was an anointed king. Even Cyrus, the Persian ruler, is called God's anointed in Isaiah 45.
The Scriptures are filled with mashiachs—anointed ones. Priests, kings, prophets, judges, leaders, and deliverers all carry this designation in one way or another. When Jesus spoke about "the Messiah," he wasn't introducing a brand-new concept. He was stepping into a category the Scriptures had been developing for centuries. And this is where things become fascinating.
Each of these anointed figures reveals something about the work of the coming ultimate Messiah. Aaron teaches us about priesthood. David teaches us about kingship. Moses reveals what it means to lead God's people and mediate between God and Israel. The prophets demonstrate what it looks like to speak God's word faithfully. Each one contributes another brushstroke to an unfinished portrait. Together, they create the expectation of an anointed one who would accomplish everything God's earlier servants could accomplish only in part.
When Jesus read the Scriptures, these were the portraits he encountered. These were the categories that shaped his understanding of his own mission. The title "Messiah" was never a label that Jesus was free to define however he wished. Long before he was born, the Scriptures had already begun filling that title with concrete meaning.
That is why the opening verse of Matthew's Gospel is so significant.
The Messiah is Jewish
"The book of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham."
Most of us are eager to skip over the long list of unfamiliar names and get to the "important" parts. Matthew has other ideas. He is introducing us to Jesus's messianic credentials. The first thing Matthew wants us to understand is that the office of Messiah is thoroughly Jewish.
In order to be the Messiah, one must be Jewish.
Christianity did not invent Christ. Jesus did not invent Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah, Christians are disciples of the Messiah, but the Messiah belongs to Israel's story before he belongs to Christianity. To be Messiah, you must belong to the covenant family and story that produced Messiah.
You must belong to Abraham's family. You must stand within Israel's covenant. You must inherit the promises God made to his people.
“Christ” (or Messiah) is not a generic title for a heroic or savior-like figure. It is a covenantal office rooted in the history of Israel.
That is why Matthew begins where he does. He first calls Jesus "the son of Abraham” because in Genesis 12, God chose Abraham and established a covenant with him. Through Abraham's family, God promised blessing, a covenant relationship, and ultimately blessing for all the nations of the earth. From that moment forward, God's redemptive plan for the world would unfold through Abraham's family.
That has never changed.
Jesus is the heir of those promises. Without Abraham, there is no Messiah.
Matthew then identifies Jesus as "the son of David." In 2 Samuel 7, God promised David an everlasting throne, an enduring kingdom, and a descendant who would reign forever. "Son of David" became one of the great messianic titles in Israel because it pointed to God's promise that the coming king would arise from David's royal line. We'll spend much more time exploring that promise in the next message.
But for now, notice what Matthew has done. With a single verse, he places Jesus at the intersection of two great covenant promises.
Abraham points us to the family through whom blessing would come to the nations.
David points us to the King whose kingdom would never end.
Matthew wants us to see that Jesus stands at the convergence of both.
No Abraham, no Messiah.
No David, no Messiah.
No Israel, no Messiah.
No Judaism, no Messiah.
The Mission
When Jesus enters the synagogue in Luke 4, he is handed the scroll of Isaiah, and reads the appointed Haftarah portion for that shabbat. Today we know that as Isaiah 61. I encourage you to go read it in full.
When he finishes reading, he makes an astonishing claim:
"Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
With those words, Jesus publicly announces that he is the one who will bring Isaiah's vision to fullness.
Isaiah 61 is, in many ways, a summary of the Messiah's mission. It describes the work God's Anointed One will accomplish. By reading that passage and declaring its promises underway, Jesus was telling everyone in the synagogue exactly who he believed himself to be.
Most of us, however, were not introduced to Jesus through Isaiah 61. We know the Jesus who forgave us, comforted us, rescued us, who carried us through grief, loss, or uncertainty. Every one of those experiences is real, and every one of them is precious.
But a mature disciple will ask if are they the whole picture?
When Jesus introduced himself, he didn't begin with other people's experiences. He opened Isaiah 61.
Is Isaiah 61 the Jesus you follow?
Do we recognize him as the one who proclaims liberty to captives? The one who comforts those who mourn in Zion? The one who restores ancient ruins and rebuilds ruined cities? The one who causes righteousness to spring up before the nations? The priestly King clothed in righteousness? The one who proclaims both the year of the Lord's favor and the day of God's justice?
Every one of us carries a picture of Jesus. The question is where that picture came from. Was it shaped by the Hebrew Scriptures? By Jesus's own understanding of his mission? Or has it been assembled primarily from our experiences, our traditions, or the fragments of Jesus we've collected along the way?
That is the question I hope this series will, over time, help us answer.
If Jesus learned who he was from the Scriptures, then perhaps we should understand who he is from those same Scriptures too.
Take a few moments to pause and spend some time with two passages: Isaiah 61 and Psalm 110. As you read them, ask yourself a simple question: What did these passages teach Jesus about the meaning of his calling as the Messiah?
The goal of discipleship is to become students of our Teacher. If we call ourselves followers of Jesus, then we are following the Jewish Messiah described by the Hebrew Scriptures. We are disciples of a rabbi from Nazareth.
And if, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we want to see the risen Jesus in all his glory and become like him, we must learn to sit at the feet of our Master. We must be covered in the dust of our rabbi.
Jesus's question still stands before us: "Who do you say that I am?"
If we are going to follow Jesus faithfully, we must understand the Messiah he claimed to be.