Title: Who is the Messiah?
Jesus, who came to this earth 2,000 years ago, came to this earth as a savior to give God's love and salvation. So, Jesus, who came 2,000 years ago, did not come as a judge, but to save his children. When he comes to this earth as the next Second Coming Lord, he will not come as a savior but now to judge.
If Jesus came to this earth 2,000 years ago as a savior, it must be said that He came to suffer and die. Because he prophesied in the Old Testament. There were people who misunderstood the Messiah, the Son of God, who prophesied in the Old Testament. They are the Jews. They were also members of the Early Church. Even before Paul converted to Christianity, he thought of the Messiah, the Son of God, as the Jews thought. Paul later confessed that fact, and according to the word of God that appeared to him, he devoted his life to the gospel of the right Son of God.
How are we today? Are you not misunderstanding Jesus just as the early church members misunderstood? Just like how our little children understand their parents as parents, this is a very important issue.
False heretics, many leaders disguised as Christian names, have confused the concept of this Son of God. The Christian religion has been reduced to a mere human religion. Heretics are at the forefront of undermining the essence of this gospel.
We, too, have misunderstood the right faith. Not everyone wants to lose. I just want to use it. They even try to use God and even the church. What kind of God do they believe in and what kind of Jesus do they believe in?
This battle was the battle of the early church. It was not a battle with Rome, which the early church did not know about God, but a battle with the workers who believed in God and were servants of that God. Indeed, such unfortunate things are still happening in our churches today.
Because we do not believe in people, we believe in God, so I pray that you will become saints who live with such a center of gravity, enduring the harsh waves of the world and looking at the hope of heaven.
1. Paul's troubles
There were some Jewish Christians who were dissatisfied with Paul's idea that we can be saved only by grace, which is the gospel that Paul preached, and only by faith. They suspected that Paul's apostleship was not like the 12 apostles in Jerusalem. Whenever he writes a letter to a church that doubts his apostolate, he defends his apostolate.
The Corinthian church was one of the churches that doubted Paul's apostleship. That is why 1 Corinthians 1:1 says “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” and 2 Corinthians 1:1 as “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God”.
2 Corinthians 5:16 “Therefore, from now on we know no man according to the flesh, although we also knew Christ according to the flesh, but from now on we do not know him in this way.”
Let's look at 2 Corinthians 3:1-3.
“Are we going to start confessing again? Is it necessary, like any man, that we should send you a letter of recommendation, or entrust it to you? It is a letter from Christ revealed through a letter written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, and not written on tablets of stone, but with hearts and minds of the flesh.”
2. Paul's Change of Perception
Let's look at 2 Corinthians 5:16-17.
“Therefore, from now on we know no man according to the flesh, though we have known Christ according to the flesh, but from now on we do not know this anymore. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
It is true that in the past, Paul did not recognize Jesus as the designated Messiah, but opposed him and persecuted those who believed in him. At that time, he admits that it was because he saw it from a physical point of view. But now he says he doesn't think so. It's a huge change in perception. The change in perception is recorded in 5:14.
2 Corinthians 5:14 “The love of Christ compels us; we consider that if one died for all, then all died.”
Until the moment Paul went to Damascus to persecute Christians, he thought that Jesus' death was a curse from God because of Jesus' own sin. So those who call Jesus the Messiah, that is, the Son of God, think that they dishonor God, so he had a vain zeal to kill those who believed in him.
However, on the road to Damascus, he met Jesus who was resurrected and appeared in the glory of God. Paul realized that Jesus did not receive the curse of God because of his own sins, but that he died as a substitute for the sins of all people according to verse 14 that he just read. It is a change of perception and belief. This realization is precisely expressed in More 5:21.
“God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
In 2 Samuel 7:12-13 in the Old Testament, it says, “When your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your ancestors, I will raise up after you your offspring, and I will establish your kingdom. I will build a house for my name, and I will build it over it will be established forever.”
There is a saying that this word raises up one of the descendants of David and establishes the kingdom. This is prophesying Jesus and prophesying the kingdom of God through Jesus, but they have a different understanding of these words.
Just as David conquered all the Gentiles at that time and established the Davidic dynasty, we are waiting for a political Messiah like David who will liberate us from pagan oppression like Rome. We waited for a Messiah who would achieve the same economic prosperity, social justice, and peace as in those days. In other words, he was waiting for such a military hero who would rebuild the Davidic family and subdue the Gentiles. They waited for such a so-called Messiah, the King.
From the point of view of these Jews, it is whether Jesus did these things. Rather, instead of freeing Israel from Roman oppression, he died on a crucifixion.
How could the one who was brutally killed by Pilate, a Roman provincial governor, was a prophet like Moses and the Messiah who would rebuild the strong Davidic dynasty? Far from bringing political freedom, economic prosperity, and social justice, did he not bring about execution and suffering and death for his followers?
Therefore, in Judaism's view of the Messiah, Jesus cannot be the Messiah. So the Jews do not believe in Jesus as the Messiah or the Son of God until now. I see the Old Testament in a completely different way.
Dear brothers and sisters, are there some among you who have the same view of the Messiah as those Jews? Is He the Messiah only when He brings us economic prosperity? Do you not think of Him as Jesus who brings only peace to our house? If I am perceived as the kind of Jesus that fulfills my requirements, it needs to be corrected and repented of.
Paul's Proclamation of the Gospel Paul says that Judaism's view of the Messiah is fake. The real Messiah's job is not to give us such abundance and political liberty, to feed and live well, but to die a ransom for us who are sinners.
So, he defines the core of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, “I first told you what I received, because according to the scriptures, Christ died for our sins, and was buried, and then rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” There is. He is the One who saves us from our sins and gives us eternal life.
In John 6, the miracle of feeding 5,000 people around the time of the Passover is recorded. If this miracle is a sign (sign), the fact that he is the one who makes us eat well and live well in this world is not revealed as a sign. Rice is a means of giving life.
Therefore, you should know that this miracle is a sign (sign) that Jesus is the life-giver. This miracle should not simply refer to Jesus as a means to satisfy our desires.
John 6:53 "Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."
John 6:55 “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”
John 6:60 “When some of the disciples heard it, they said, These words are difficult; who can hear them?”
How do we understand and believe in Jesus? In a way, doesn't Christianity have the Messianic view of Judaism? We need to review our beliefs and life once again.