The Messiah In The Old Testament

The Messiah In The Old Testament

Introduction

It is quite a feat to squeeze out of the Old Testament proofs of Messianic themes in to make it fit for Christian reading . Of course , this premise will sound right and legitimate if indeed the Old Testament canon has its own theme that is occupies the minds of the New Testament . Unless it is proven correct that Jesus Christ is in fact the overall motif of the Old Testament which is in all respect true , and verified by Walter C . Kaiser Jr . in his

book The Messiah in the Old Testament

Primary Audience

Like the Gospel of Matthew , Kaiser , in his book , seem to be addressing a Jewish audience in that it argues for the validity of Jesus Messiahship , and he argued this through the continuity of the promised blessing ' The book though is unlike Matthew in that it is not directed primarily with Jewish audience in mind . In its strategy of highlighting the Messianic theme and how the same subject runs through the different books of Old Testament , the threat of preconceived difficulty because of the presumed complexity for factors such as different authors , dates of writings , and the work of piecing together all the data is minimized , if not applied by Kaiser was upbeat and in a perspective that follows prophecies /promises to their fulfillments . Thus , the book is very insightful . One of the author 's keen arguments is the nature of the prophecies /promises . He noted that Old Testament authors had no single meaning in mind in terms of fulfillment to what they prophesied . They in fact , were seeing multiple ' fulfillments . At times , they see fulfillment and application during their time , but also they could see farther to the future and there realization of the promise is to a degree that is more complete and exact . The book clarifies for its readers the fact that the Old Testament authors were all aware of the theme of what they were writing . The progressive revelation of God was unfolding within each period and generation where the inspired were either recording or writing or the scribes were copying (putting into inscription ) prophecies or the history of God 's people . A marked difference between Kaiser and other authors who have worked on the same intent of relating the Old Testament to its fulfillment in the New Testament is his highlighting on the authorial intents or the overall intention of their message . The result for the readers was a reading that understands the full context of the Old Testament - with its background and the future fulfillment of particular promises

Overall Message and Content

If one might state in one sentence the gist of the book , it is the legitimacy or the rightness of the expectation of the coming Messiah Following the presumed intention of God from the very beginning , the focus went from the seed of the woman ' to the unfolding of the blessing ' to Abraham until it would reach...