Messiah - Christianity

Christianity

Main article: Christ See also: Christian views of Jesus and Redeemer (Christianity)

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Christianity emerged early in the first century AD as a movement among Jews (Jewish Christians) and their Gentile converts (sometimes called Godfearers) who believed that Jesus is the Christ or Messiah. The Greek translation for 'Messiah' is khristos (χριστος), anglicized as Christ. Christians commonly refer to Jesus as either the "Christ" or the "Messiah." In Christian theology the two words are synonymous. Christians believe Jesus to be the Messiah that the Jews were expecting:

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.

The Christian concept of the Christ/Messiah as "the Word made Flesh" (see also Logos) is fundamentally different from the Jewish and Islamic. The majority of historical and mainline Christian theologies, as seen within the Nicene Creed, consider Jesus to be God or God the Son.

Christians believe that Daniel (Hebrew: דָּנִיֵּאל, or Daniyyel) was a prophet and gave an indication of when the Messiah, the prince mashiyach nagiyd, would come in the Prophecy of Seventy Weeks. Daniel's prophecies refer to him as a descendant of King David, a Son of Man, who will rebuild the nation of Israel, destroy the wicked, and ultimately judge the whole world.

In Christian theology, the Christ/Messiah serves a number of roles. The Nicene Creed of 325 and 381 A.D. provides a convenient framework:

• He suffers and dies to make reconciliation with God.
• He was raised from the dead on the third day after He was crucified to prove that He has defeated death and the power of Satan, thus enabling those that receive Him as their Savior to live under God's grace.
• He ascended to heaven where He currently reigns over the world at God's right hand and from where he will return
• He serves as the pioneer and embodiment of the culture and living presence of the Kingdom of God
• When he returns he will judge the world and reign over a new creation. Christian believers are invited to spend eternity in this new world. (The exact order of these things differs according to the preferred theological framework of Millennialism used to interpret the passages)
• He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and he came to earth as a human. John 1:1-2,14a: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. 14a And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. John 8:58: Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.

In the New Testament, Jesus often referred to himself as 'Son of Man', a clear reference to the first century apocrophal book of Enoch

""He was chosen and hidden with God before the world was created, and will remain in His presence forevermore ... He will judge all hidden things, and no one will be able to make vain excuses to him"

Yet for "son of Man (Ben-Adam), one is also wise to note that HaShem, throughout the Book of "Ezekial," refers to the prophet himself only by the title "ben-Adam."

Christianity often interprets the phrase as a reference to Daniel 7:13-14 (KJV):

"I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."

Because Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah and that he claimed to be the Son of Man referred to by Daniel, Christianity interprets Daniel 7:13-14 as a statement of the Messiah's authority and that the Messiah will have an everlasting kingdom in the Messianic Age. Jesus' use of this title is seen as a direct claim to be the Messiah.

Some identified Jesus as the Messiah, his opponents accused him of such a claim, and he is recorded at least twice as asserting it himself directly.

Christianity interprets a wide range of biblical passages in the Old Testament (Hebrew scripture) as predicting the coming of the Messiah (see Christianity and Biblical prophecy for examples), and believes that they are fulfilled in Jesus' own explicit life and teaching:

• Will be born in Bethlehem
• The root of Jesse ...to whom the Gentiles will seek.
• He said to them..."Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself."
• "Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."
• The Gospel of Matthew repeatedly says, "This was to fulfill the prophecy…."
• Psalm 22 describes the actions of the crucifixion in John 19

Christians believe the Messianic prophecies were fulfilled in the mission, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and seeks to spread throughout the world its interpretation that the Messiah (Jesus) is the only God, and that Jesus will return to fulfill the rest of Messianic prophecy.