In order to determine whether Jesus fulfilled or subverted the expectations for the Messiah, one should start with identifying and describing the three types of Messiahs that many Jews expected during the first century. The main expectation that the Jews laid upon the future Messiah was that he would return the power that Israel had during King David’s reign and resist the Roman domination. Thus, the Jews expected the Messiah to fulfill three requirements in being the son of God, the son of man, and the son of David. Through the Jews’ expectations, three significant types of messiahs could be defined: the prophet, the priest, and the King.
According to early Christian authors, Jesus fulfilled expectations for each of those three types. Jesus was the son of God, who also was a prophet fulfilling his functions in being the spokesman of God’s word. Besides providing people with God’s teaching and words, the prophets also predicted future events and performed miraculous healings. Furthermore, Jesus also was a son of man, implying his deep connection with the people (New International Version, Matt. 26:62-64).
Although Jesus was not a son of David, Jesus states that he is the Lord of David, meaning that he is more than a son to David (Luke 20:40-42). Thus, Jesus fulfilled the expectations of being the Gond’s son and a prophet of God’s word, and the mortal son of man capable of suffering. Despite not being the offspring of David, Jesus emphasizes that he is greater than David as he refers to Jesus as Lord.
Not being an offspring of David is one of the ways in which Jesus subverted the expectations of Messiah. Many of the expectations of the Messiah in Judaism are connected to his deeds, sourced in fulfilling the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel. Therefore, the Messiah was expected to return the power to Israel, rebuild the temple, and reign as the King and the servant of God and the people in God’s kingdom. Jesus could not rebuild the temple and help Jews return to their homeland as during the time when Jesus lived, the Jews were not exiled, and the Second Temple was standing. Moreover, Jesus never reigned as a King and refused to be made a king (John 6:15).
Jesus died without completing the messianic tasks, reaffirming that he was unfit to be called a Messiah based on Jews’ expectations. However, one of the common themes in gospels is that Jesus still is a Jewish Messiah, despite his inability to fulfill all of his followers’ expectations about what Messiah would be.
In conclusion, this essay analyzed the expectations that many Jews laid upon the Messiah in the first century and connected their expectations to their motivations. Even though Jesus does not meet all of the criteria for the Jewish Messiah, Jesus was able to fit all three significant types of expectations from the Messiah that Jews expressed. Another aspect that raises attention to the topic of Jesus being invalidated as a Messiah in Jewish theology is that Jesus’ duality in represented both God and man, which is heretical in Judaism. However, Jesus still fulfilled some of the requirements for being a Messiah in terms that he was a prophet greater than Moses, a priest greater than Abraham, and a king of Jews from the Judah tribe.
Work Cited
New International Version. BibleGateway, 2011. Web.