Rabbi Schneider - The Seed of Abraham
There's all different types of Messianic prophecy. And in this elongated series, I've covered all the different types of prophecy. It's important to understand this if you're a serious student of the Word of God. Because many naively make the assumption that messianic prophecy is speaking about all the predictions in the Hebrew Bible that were foretelling what Messiah would look like when he came. But the reality is messianic prophecy is much broader than just predictive prophecy. As my friend Dr. Michael Brown says, it's more sometimes music than math and more art than science. In other words, messianic prophecy, in order to be understood correctly, needs to be understood in the sense that it's many different colors. It's a tapestry of the entire Hebrew Bible pointing to Jesus. Some messianic prophecy is typological in nature. They are predictions that were made that were already fulfilled during the time that the Hebrew Bible was still being written. But then they were fulfilled in a greater way when Yeshua came.
Some messianic prophecy exists in the form of shadows. In the series earlier on, I talked about the lives of the biblical patriarchs and leading figures from the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible and showed you how their lives and ministries pointed to the ministry of Messiah Jesus. Because Yeshua is Israel's divine head. His divine representative. And so, Yeshua fulfills all of Israel's history in Himself. The same things that the Bible patriarchs went through, Yeshua oftentimes went through in His own life and ministry. Because the entire Hebrew Bible was pointing to Jesus, Jesus Himself brings it all to a climax within His own life and ministry. And so all the stories in the Hebrew Bible, for example, the story of the bronze serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness when the children of Israel were dying, and they were instructed to look at the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up, that was a type and a shadow of King Jesus.
It wasn't predictive in nature, but it was a shadow. It was a type that pointed to Jesus. And Jesus used that example when He said, "Even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, and everyone that looked upon the serpent was saved, so too," he said, "will, the Son of Man be lifted up, and whoever looks upon Him will be saved". Again, I just wanted to point out today, for those that perhaps weren't able to join me in Season 1 and Season 2, that messianic prophecy is very wide and it's very deep. What we are focusing on today is predictive messianic prophecy-the prophecies in the Tanakh, the Torah or the Hebrew Bible that were objectively verifiable when Messiah came. For example, today, we look in the book of Genesis 22:18. And we read there that Messiah would be from the seed of Abraham. That He would come as one of Abraham's offspring.
In other words, the Messiah wasn't going to come from some other people group. God was very specific this is the people group-the descendants of Abraham. And then we're going to continue to see today, and through Isaac and Jacob and Judah. He gave us the line that Messiah would come through. This is a verifiable fact. So if we have somebody in the world that says they are Messiah-I'm just speaking hypothetically-and they didn't come from this line, we would know they're not the Messiah because the Scriptures gave us an objective track to know what line the Messiah would have to come through. And so, we begin this line by looking at Abraham, who is the father of the Jewish people, and in fact, the father of all believers.
Listen what we read in Genesis 22:18, the Lord speaking to Avraham here-to Abraham. "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed My voice". This is after Abraham surrendered his entire life to the Lord and demonstrated it, when he was willing to offer up to Father God His only begotten son, Isaac. God said, "Because you've done this Abraham and did not withhold your only son from me, now I know you fear me. And in your seed, Abraham, all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed". Two things I want to point out. Number one, we know Messiah would come through the line of Abraham. Secondly, that when Messiah came, it wouldn't just be for Israel, but it would be for all the nations of the earth.
You see, in Messiah Jesus, there are no second class citizens. We're all equal in Him. We're joint heirs, because God is the God of both the Jew and the Gentile. Didn't God create everybody? He created all the people groups. That's why we read in the book of Revelation that every tribe, tongue, and nation will be praising Him. A beautiful tapestry of color. All the tribes and nations and people groups of the earth will praise Him together, one in the spirit, because, through Messiah Jesus, we're all united. But Messiah Yeshua came through the line of Abraham. This is why Yeshua said in John chapter 4 to the woman at the well, he said, "Woman, we know what we worship, for salvation is from the Jews".
This is why it's important for Christians to honor the Jewish people. Paul speaks about this in the book of Romans. He says, "We've received the Torah from the Jewish people, the Bible from the Jewish people, the covenants from the Jewish people, and the Messiah Himself came as a Jew. Therefore, we should honor this great thing that we've received from them". And so, Paul is warning Gentiles about becoming arrogant against Jewish people. And he's saying to the Gentiles, "Listen, if it wasn't for the Jewish people, you would still be alienated from the Lord". Now God loves Jew and Gentile equally, but it's important for us to know that we need to stand with the Jewish people. We need to love them, we need to pray for them, we need to honor them because God came into the world, beloved, through the descendants of Abraham.
We read in the New Testament, Matthew 1:1, Matthew begins here recording his gospel by making a point to tell the church that Yeshua came from Abraham. And so he says here, "The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David, the son of Abraham". Again we read in Galatians 3:16, "Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed". He does not say "and to seeds" as referring to many, but rather to one. And "to your seed," that is Christ. In other words, beloved one, when we look at messianic prophecy, we find that God's redemptive plan would come to the world through the seed of Abraham. Paul was telling us in Galatians that when the Lord made this promise to Abraham, when he said, "Avraham, Abraham, through your seed, all the nations of the earth should be blessed," the Lord wasn't saying it was going to come through many people, through many seeds, but it was going to come through one seed. And that one seed is the crown jewel of Israel, Jesus, who's become the Messiah, hallelujah, of the entire world. The most famous Jew that ever lived or ever will live, Jesus the Son of God, the King of the Jews.
The Lord continues to take us down this trail of Messianic prophecy by helping us to understand that it won't just be from Abraham alone that you'll be able to identify the Messiah, but I'm going to give you further clues. Because we know that Abraham, you know, he had several wives, he had all these different children. And so God continued to give us a clear focus on the bloodline, and the trail, the thin river that Messiah would come into the world through. So not only do we read that He would come from Abraham, that He would also come then through the line of Isaac, and then the line of Jacob. These are the three patriarchs of Israel: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We pick up on this theme in Genesis 17:19. And I know I'm giving you a lot of Scripture today, but I want to just root your faith in the Word of God. Because in today's culture, so many people are just living by their feelings. They're living by the subjective. People have gone from trusting in the Word of God to instead just looking for a direct connection, for an emotional experience, for a feeling.
And I'm all for emotional experiences. I'm all for direct connection, a direct personal connection with God. I love God encounters. But we have to understand that we can be deceived and that also feelings come and go. Our faith needs to be rooted, first of all, beloved, in the soil of God's Word. So my intention is that through seeing how Messiah was revealed in the Hebrew Bible through messianic prophecy, your faith will be grounded. That you'll be able to stand against the ever-changing culture that we're living in, the changing feelings that we have as we're walking through life because your faith is rooted in the solid Word of God that never changes. See, the grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of God, beloved ones, abides forever. Hear the Word of God.
Genesis 17:19, "But God said, 'No...'", He's speaking to Avraham, "...'but Sarah, your wife...'" Because Abraham was thinking it was going to be through Hagar because his wife couldn't conceive. So Abraham was willing to give up on Sarah. You know, "No, it'll be through Hagar". Lord says, "No, it's going to be through Sarah your wife that you'll bear a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish my covenant with him for everlasting..". I love that word. Everlasting. How long will the covenant be? Everlasting. Forever. "An everlasting covenant for his descendants after him". So again, we see that Matthew begins his gospel by tracing Jesus' genealogy back to Abraham. And as we continue down the trail of Messianic prophecy, we see the trail narrowing. That it's going to also now be not just through Abraham broadly, but through Abraham's son, Isaac. And then we know it's not just going to be through Isaac alone that we can get a clue, but it's going to come through Isaac's son, Jacob, through whom the 12 tribes of Israel came.
We read it Numbers 24:17 this prophetic word, this mysterious word, where the writer says this: "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near; a star shall come forth from Jacob, a scepter shall rise from Israel". And so, messianic prophecy. There's a lot of different religions in the world, how do we know that Messiah Yeshua is the right one? How do we know that He is telling us a truth when He said, "I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me". Because these other religious leaders in the world outside of the Judeo Christian faith, they don't come through this bloodline. And we know, beloved, that the Jewish people are the true carriers of the revelation of the one true God that brought the revelation of monotheism, that there is only one God into the world, and through whom Messiah came.
We read in Matthew 1:2, "Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers". And in Luke 3:34, "The son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham". Yeshua follow down the pre-dictated path to being able to show us that He is the true one through which the Scriptures revealed the world would be redeemed through. Again, when we're rooted in the Word of God, we don't have to be insecure when we face somebody from another world religion that seems just as convinced that they're right as all your Christian friends do. Why are you not swayed? You're not swayed, my beloved friend, when you know that the Jewish people are truly God's chosen people. I don't know how I know that. I just know that.
And one of the reasons I know it is because the world God tells me that. And then I look at the lives of the Jewish people and I see the incredible impact that they've had on the earth. It's supernatural. It's beyond understanding. I mean, you look at the Jewish people, they're one-fifth of 1% of the world's population. Yet when you look at the Forbes list of the richest people in the world, of the richest people in America, the amount of them that are Jews, how did that happen? Or you look at the amount of Jews that brought forth scientific breakthroughs, the Einsteins of the world, medical breakthroughs, cures for diseases-and I have a whole show on the different contributions that Jewish people have made to the world creatively-how did this happen? Where do this genius come from? It came from God.
I'm not lifting up Jewish people as much as I'm saying, God's anointing is on the Jewish people as was revealed to us in the word. That He chose the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to carry a special light into the world and through which the Messiah came. So when you know that, and you see how messianic prophecy is rooted in the Bible, how it teaches us that Messiah would come from the Jews, then you can know that you're right. Even when you're standing against, for example, somebody that seems to be just as convinced that they're right from Islam, you're not swayed by it because you say, "You know what, I know there's only one God. I know that the Messiah could only come through the Jewish people. I see the evidence in the world right now that the Jews are God's chosen people because of the incredible creative anointing that's on their life that's unexplainable". And it will root you, beloved, in your faith as you're encountering opposition and resistance.
So, again, we're looking at the bloodline, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then we know Jacob had 12 sons that became the heads of the 12 tribes of Israel. Now, one of those 12 sons was Judah. The Scriptures continue to enlighten us about who Messiah would come through when the scriptures reveal to us that Messiah would come through the tribe of Judah, again, one of Jacob's sons. So I'm reading now Genesis 49:10. "The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh", which is a codename for the Messiah, "until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the people".
So once again, messianic prophecy. Messiah is going to come from Abraham. Then He's going to come through Abraham's son, Isaac. Then He's going to come through Isaac's son, Jacob. Then Jacob's going to have 12 sons, but the son the Messiah is going to come from is going to be Judah. And so we're reading about this all the way back to the first book in the Bible, the book of Bereshit-the book of Genesis. Listen again because this is powerful. Genesis 49:10. "The scepter". A scepter is a ruling rod. It's a kingship. It's a rod of dominion. "The scepter shall not depart from Judah", it's a kingly staff, "The scepter shall not depart from Judah. It will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler staff from between his feet until Shiloh the Messiah comes, and to him, to Shiloh that comes from Judah will be the obedience of the peoples".
We have some powerful testimonies of how Yeshua completed this prophecy in the Brit Chadasha-the New Testament. I want to begin with Revelation 5:5. In this portion of Scripture, John sees a scroll in heaven. And the scroll needs to be opened for the Messiah to be able to return, for judgment to fall upon the world, for God to cleanse the world from evil and for Messiah to come and reign. And as the scroll was revealed in heaven, no one is found worthy to open the scroll. And the Bible says that they began to weep in heaven because no one could open the scroll. It was only if the scroll could be opened that the end could come that Messiah could be revealed.
And so there's weeping in heaven because no one's found worthy. They begin to look into the earth to find somebody that's worthy. They look at the great men and women of history. They look at the biblical figures, they look at their historical figures, they look at Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Daniel, Isaiah, Hezekiah, and all the great heroes of the Bible, none of them could open the scroll. And then they look to the annals of history, the great leaders of the world, they looked at Mother Teresa, they looked at the great kings, the great political leaders, the great presidents of the earth, the great humanitarians, still, no one was found worthy. Then they looked into the skies, into the heavens, into the ocean, no one was found worthy.
Weeping was climaxing in heaven where no one was found worthy to open the scroll. And as a result, Messiah could not take His throne and exercise His full dominion over the world. But suddenly in the midst of the weeping, as the weeping reached a climax, Messiah Jesus is revealed, and we hear this: "stop weeping; behold, the lion that is from the tribe of Judah", that's what we've been focusing on, "the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals". Messiah is from the tribe of Judah. He has come and He has fulfilled once and for all this messianic prophecy.