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The Twelfth Principle - |
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The Mashiach will Come |
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The twelfth principle of Jewish faith is the belief that the Mashiach (Messiah) is coming and he will restore Israel to greatness beyond that known in the days of King Solomon. |
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"I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah, and though he may delay, nevertheless I wait for his coming every day."
In the Tanakh, the key passage on which the idea of the Messianic king who would rule in righteousness and attain universal dominion is found in Nathan's oracle to David (2 Sam 7:11 ff). This covenant cannot have been fulfilled by Solomon, and therefore the Seed of which the oracle refers is another anointed King who would sit on the throne forever and ever. "If a king will arise from the House of David who is learned in Torah and observant of the mitzvot, as prescribed by the written law and the oral law, as David his ancestor was, and will compel all of Israel to walk in the way of the Torah and reinforce the breaches; and fight the wars of G-d, we may, with assurance, consider him the Messiah. If he succeeds in the above, builds the Temple in its place, and gathers the dispersed of Israel, he is definitely the Messiah. ... If he did not succeed to this degree or he was killed, he surely is not the redeemer promised by the Torah..." (Mishneh Torah).
"Messiah son of Joseph was slain, as it is written, "They shall look unto me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son" Zech. 12:10 (Suk. 52a) Messiah son of David Today, we can see with our own eyes how the vision of the Prophet Ezekiel, describing the rebirth of the Jewish People and the ingathering of the exiles in Eretz Yisrael, is being fulfilled. It is true that we are now in mid-process. We are still at the stage of being crystallized as a nation....
It is very common for Jewish objectors to point that "Jesus has not fulfilled all the prophecies," and to scorn the suggestion that some prophecies are for a later time and are to be fulfilled at the "second coming." The fact is, however, that prophecies about Messiah are of two seemingly mutually-exclusive types, as though they were talking about two different Messiahs. Jewish scholarship refers to Messiah ben-David and Messiah ben-Yosef. One is the positive, victorious Messiah who ushers in a kingdom of peace, the other is a suffering servant (as in Isaiah 53). The popular tendency is to think only of ben-David and ignore ben-Yosef, but the Messianic/Christian view accounts for both in one person. Interestingly, these two prophetic strains are named for David and Joseph, both of which suffered first and emerged victorious in the end. Joseph is introduced to us with dreams of grandeur, but he was lost to Israel – actually considered dead – before his dreams came true. Eventually however, he had a "second coming" when he came back into the lives of his brothers who once rejected him. Then they bowed down to him and he became the savior of his people by providing for them in a time of famine. David also, though anointed as King in his youth as far as God was concerned, was rejected by the current King and lived as a fugitive for many years before he finally became the quintessential King of Israel. Both of these historic figures, which Jewish tradition has recognized as being prototypes of Messiah, arrive amid promises, are pushed down, and finally emerge in glory. Shouldn't the ultimate Messiah follow the same pattern? |
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