Rabbi Schneider - Secrets of the Messiah Revealed
Before I move forward into new content, I think it's really important that we review some of the highlights that I covered in the four episodes that we filmed for season number one. First of all, I pointed out that many people, when they think about Messianic prophecy, how Yeshua or how Jesus fulfilled Messianic prophecy, they have in their mind that there were measurable predictions about the future in the Old Testament, that we call in Hebrew the Tanakh, that Jesus fulfilled in such a way that they could be scientifically measured. Let me give you an example of what I mean. An example of predictive prophecy, or prophecy in the Old Testament or Tanakh, about the future, would be like the Hebrew prophets saying that in the year 2023 Jesus is gonna come again. That's a future predictive prophecy that could be scientifically measured. Either Jesus came in 2023 or He didn't come in 2023.
One specific prophecy that is related to this concept that I'm sharing right now is in the book of Daniel. We're gonna be looking at it later, where Daniel predicted, he foretold that the coming of Messiah would happen before the destruction of the second temple. That is predictive prophecy. Once again, it could be scientifically measured and verified as either true or false. Many prophecies are of this nature, they're measurable. But what I want to point out, beloved, is that the way that the New Testament uses prophecy from the Old Testament is not always predictive in nature like the example that I just shared.
Much of the way in which the New Testament writers use the Hebrew Bible in such a way that they say Yeshua fulfilled it, is not in a sense that He fulfilled a prediction that could be scientifically verified; but rather that the whole Old Testament painted a picture about the forthcoming of Messiah. And when we look deep into the pages of the Hebrew Bible, we find that the Hebrew Bible painted a very colorful picture of what the Messiah would look like in the form of types and shadows. So what I'd like to do as I begin, I want to begin reviewing here some of the things that I covered in the last series. I began by looking at the book of Matthew chapter number 2, verses number 13 through 15. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of the Lord abides forever.
Hear now the Word of God as I read from Matthew chapter 2. "He," speaking of Joseph, Jesus' father, "He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 'Out of Egypt I called My Son'". So what I want you to get first of all here, is that Matthew is using a scripture from the Hebrew Bible. It's taken from the book of Hosea chapter number 11. And the portion of scripture that Matthew is quoting from the book of Hosea is the 11th chapter once again, the 1st verse that reads, "Out of Egypt I called My Son". Matthew is saying that the life of Yeshua was fulfilled or fulfilled His prophecy because God took Joseph and Yeshua and Yeshua's mother Miriam or Mary, out of Egypt after Herod died and brought them back into Israel.
Let me review just to make very simple sense of it. Many of you recall that when Yeshua was born, Herod heard that a king had been born. Remember the magi, they had seen the star and they were able to perceive that a king had been born, the King of Israel. Herod who was the reigning political king at the time was very threatened by this. When he heard that a new king was born, he was concerned about losing his place. So Herod ordered the death of all the Hebrew babies. Then an angel came to Joseph, Yeshua's earthly father; of course not biologically, but the father that raised Him. And the angel said to Joseph, "Take the child," meaning Yeshua, "into Egypt for Herod's gonna be killing the newborn infants here". And so at the angel's command Joseph took his family into Egypt. Then when Herod died the angel again spoke to Joseph and said, "Take Jesus, take Yeshua, back into Israel now". And so this is where Matthew is quoting the scripture "Out of Egypt," because remember Jesus and His family were in Egypt. Now the angel says, "Go back to Israel". God says, "Out of Egypt I called My Son".
Now let's put it together once again. When we go to the book of Hosea chapter 11, verse number 1 and we read this, what we find here is that in its original historic context, this is not a prophecy in the sense that it was predicting the future. In the book of Hosea, all that is simply happening here is God is recounting the history of Israel, His firstborn Son. And so God is speaking through Hosea, "Out of Egypt I called My Son". The Lord had already called Israel out of Egypt. It was not predictive prophecy, but rather the Lord was just going back and recounting to Israel what He had done for them. He took them out of Egypt. Out of Egypt God called Israel. When Israel was in bondage there to Pharaoh, for over 400 years and then the Lord delivered them through the blood of the lamb that was a symbol of Yeshua and delivered Israel out of Egypt. God Called His Son, His firstborn Son Israel.
Now Yeshua's born. His father takes Him into Egypt to protect Him from Herod. Then when Herod dies, Joseph is called to take Yeshua back into Israel. And so now Matthew quotes this scripture from Hosea, "Out of Egypt I called My Son," to fulfill the prophecy. Now what's going on here? What's going on here, beloved, is that the New Testament, called in Hebrew the Brit Chadashah, when it speaks of the fulfillment of prophecy from the Hebrew scriptures, the Tanakh, it's not necessarily speaking of just predictive prophecies in the Tanakh; But rather Matthew is sharing with us that Yeshua fulfills the Hebrew Bible, because He fills Israel's history up with meaning as their divine representative, by going through the same things that Israel as a nation went through. So the Hebrew Bible, it's all prophetic in the sense that all of it is pointing to Jesus, that Yeshua as Israel's divine representative, goes through many of the things Israel went through in their history.
For example, we find, we're gonna look at this a little bit later in more detail, but Moses, Moshe we say in Hebrew, predicted that the Lord is gonna raise up from among you a prophet like me and you shall listen to him and anyone that does not listen to him will be cut off. So Moses said that God was gonna raise up from among Israel a prophet like Himself and anybody that did not listen to this one that was gonna come forth from Israel, like Moses, would be cut off. So what does Yeshua do? He repeats Moses' history, in the sense that many of the same things that Moses does, Yeshua does. So, how many days did Moses fast on top of Mount Sinai? 40 days. How many days did Yeshua fast? 40 days. Like Moses, who interceded for Israel, Yeshua interceded for Israel. You remember for example the story of the golden calf and how God was gonna just wipe out all of Israel, because they built the golden calf when Moses was up on top of Mount Sinai, forsaking the Lord. They lacked the patience and they lacked the trust that was required for them to receive the covenant.
Remember Moses said, "Stay here. I'm gonna go up and I'm gonna meet with Yahweh, your God and I'm gonna come back down from the mountain". But when Moses delayed from coming down the mountain, because he was up there for forty days and forty nights, Israel got impatient. They lacked trust that Moses was gonna come back down. They decided instead to take matters in their own hands and they built this golden calf and began to worship it. A lot of times we put the emphasis on the fact that they worshiped an idol of a golden calf, which is absolutely true. But if you think about the root of their sin, it wasn't just the golden calf. The root was they lacked patience and they lacked trust. They didn't have the patience and trust to wait for Moses to come back down the mountain to fulfill the promise. But the point is, is that even when Moses came down the mountain and he saw the golden calf and God said, "I'm gonna wipe them all out," the children of Israel, "for what they've done".
Moses interceded to Father God that He would not wipe Israel. And so Jesus fulfilling the type of Moses, what does He do? He intercedes for God's people. He's on the cross, like Moses He intercedes. And what does Yeshua say on the cross? "Father forgive them for they know not what they do". Several times in Moses' history, he interceded for the children of Israel to spare them from judgment. Yeshua of course, is the ultimate fulfillment of this. This is why Luke tells us these words, "Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets He explained to them the things concerning Himself". Let me read it again, because it really illustrates what I'm endeavoring to communicate here. Prophecy that the New Testament uses from the Tanakh, it's not all predictive, but rather it's that the entire history of Israel is pointing to Yeshua.
And so once again, Luke says this, "Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He," meaning Yeshua, "explained to them," the apostles, "the things concerning Himself". You see when Jesus brought His disciples on a journey through the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms, revealing Himself in those writings, He wasn't just showing His apostles and disciples predictive prophecy. He wasn't just showing them specific predictions in the Old Testament foretelling of the coming of Messiah, but rather what He was doing, beloved one, was showing how the entire Old Testament was painting a beautiful and colorful picture of Him; because the aim of the entire Bible is Yeshua Hamashiach.
Now I have a saying that I've heard from my friend Michael Brown, "Much of prophecy is more music than math and more poetry than science". In other words, I recently heard a pastor say and I shared this in the last season. I recently heard a pastor say that because Jesus fulfilled 300 prophecies from the Hebrew Bible and the chance of Him fulfilling 300 prophecies from the Hebrew Bible is so impossible that somebody could do that, that's the reason we should put our faith in Jesus.
But the challenge with that type of statement, obviously we have put our faith in Yeshua, but the challenge with the statement that that pastor made is he is saying there were 300 predictive prophecies in the Old Testament that Yeshua fulfilled; prophecies that could be mathematically documented as being fulfilled. But much of the way that the New Testament, once again, uses the Hebrew Bible in the sense that it says, "Yeshua fulfilled it," it's not predictive. It's not that we can say, "Yes, we know that Jesus fulfilled it, because the prophecy said exactly this would happen and it would happen at this time and it would happen in this way and Jesus did it exactly in the way that the Hebrew Bible predicted it". No, the New Testament uses the Hebrew Bible saying that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of it, by showing, beloved, not only how He fulfilled some predictive prophecy; but mostly how Yeshua fulfilled the types and shadows in the Hebrew Bible.
So for example, in the Hebrew scripture we find the importance of blood. The book of Leviticus, or we say in Hebrew Vayikra chapter 17, verse 11 says this, "The life of the flesh is in the blood and I've given it to you," the Lord is speaking to Israel, "on the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it's the blood by reason of its life that makes atonement". All through the Hebrew Bible we hear about the importance of the blood. When Israel, for example, received the covenant, the Ten Commandments, and Moses spoke, he declared the covenant before the people of Israel. Israel replied, "All that Hashem, all that God has said we will do". And then Moses sprinkled them with blood, the blood of the covenant.
Over and over again we see the importance of the blood. Yom Kippur, the highest holiday in the Jewish calendar, where the high priest would take the blood of a bull and the blood of a goat and bring it into the Holy of Holies, that most sacred place; first in the tabernacle and then later in the temple. And the high priest would take that blood and pour it on the top of the Ark of the Covenant, called the Mercy Seat. And when the Lord saw that blood spilled out there, He would forgive Israel for the year. All through the Hebrew Bible we see the importance of the blood.
Now what does Yeshua do? He has His last meal with His disciple, He lifts up the wine, He says a blessing, probably something similar to, "Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam borei p'ri hagafen". Blessed art thou Lord our God, King of the Universe, who gives forth or gives us the fruit of the vine. And then He took that cup and He lifted it up to His disciples and He said, "This is My blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sin, the blood of the covenant". And so Jesus takes the Hebrew Bible that laid the foundation of the importance of blood and then He lifts up that cup and He says, "My blood is the ultimate fulfillment of it all". Then He goes to the cross with the nails through His hands and through His feet, as He's bleeding there, after they whipped Him 39 times. And then what do they finally do? The Roman guard takes the spear, puts it in Jesus' side, the blood comes out and it's finished.
Jesus died on the cross. He said, "It's finished". They put the spear in, the blood comes out. What's the point? The blood of Jesus fulfills all that the Hebrew Bible founded in terms of telling us the importance of the blood. In fact, much of the book of Hebrews shows us how the blood in the Hebrew scripture was a type and a shadow of the blood that will ultimately be shed by God that clothed Himself in humanity, in the earth, in the person of Yeshua Hamashiach. Jesus is the Messiah. And so Jesus fulfilled prophecy. He fulfilled the type and shadow of the importance of blood in the Hebrew Bible. He did it in His own body and in His own ministry.
And so once again when we say that it was impossible, as a pastor would say, that 300 of the prophecies in the Old Testament, Jesus fulfilled. He's thinking that there are 300 predictive prophecies. In other words, predictive prophecy, just to give you an absurd example, would be like Nostradamus, who we don't believe in; but Nostradamus would say, "You know in the year 1923 there's gonna be a big earthquake and it's gonna be happening, you know, in the southern part of South America".
So if there was a huge earthquake in the southern part of South America in 1923, we could say, "Yeah, Nostradamus' prophecy was fulfilled". It would have been a predictive prophecy. But much of the prophecy, once again beloved, that Jesus fulfilled, it's not something that can be measured scientifically, because the New Testament writers aren't using it that way. What they're doing is saying that Yeshua filled Israel's history up to its fullest meaning and that way He fulfilled it. He repeated Israel's destiny in Himself as Israel's divine representative. It's so important for me for you to grasp this, because beloved, we want to be sophisticated and educated in our understanding of scripture. We're gonna continue this next week. Until then beloved, we say Baruch Hashem. I love you. Most importantly God loves you. And until next week shalom aleichem, shalom to you.