THE SECRETS OF MESSIAH

 

 

The Hebrew Scriptures had kept the Messiah hidden:

 

·       “He made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away.” (Isaiah 49:2)

 

He was hidden until the time when He would reveal the fullness of the “Glory of the Lord”:

 

·       “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:1-5)

 

We know from the NT that the “glory” of the unseen Father (Exodus 33:20; 1 Timothy 6:16) is the promised Son (Mark 1:2-4, Mathew 3:3; Luke 3:4).

 

Yet, the OT promises that God will come among the people and be seen, but how? It will be through the Arm of the Lord that the Father reigns:

 

·       “Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.” (Isaiah 40:9-11; John 10)

 

What is the arm of the Lord? A figure of speech, a metaphor signifying the strength of the Lord or more than that? Here we see that the arm of the Lord is a “he,” the One who intimately carries His lambs.

 

We often encounter the arm of the Lord. These various instances help us to better understand His identity:

 

·       “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over”? (Isaiah 51:9-10, 5)

 

 

 

The Arm is referred to as a “you,” not an impersonal “it.” He was the One who had parted the sea to lead His people to safety and destroyed the pursuing Egyptians.

 

Surprisingly, it was not the Father who had led Israel out of Egypt. Instead, it was His Angel. Usually, the term “angel” conjures up the image of a created, winged creature. However, the Hebrew term can also be translated “Messenger”

 

·       “I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” (Exodus 33:2-3,14)

 

God the Father could not be in proximity with Israel or sinfulness. His righteous nature required Him to destroy the source of evil. Yet the Bible claims that Yahweh had led Israel out of Egypt. How can we resolve this seeming contradiction?

 

It also seems that the Messenger is Divine. Why? He even shares the “Name,” the character of God:

 

·       “Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him…When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites…” (Exodus 23:20-21,23)

 

Again, hadn’t Yahweh led Israel out of Egypt? Yes, but it was not the Father, who couldn’t be in the proximity to Israel lest He’d destroy His people. Instead, it was the Angel, the Arm of the Lord:

 

·       “And when we cried to the Lord, he heard our voice and sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt. And here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your territory.” (Numbers 20:16)

 

This Angel is often mentioned interchangeably with “Yahweh.” (Exodus 3:2-4; 13:21; 14:19, 24; Genesis 32:30)

 

·       “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice; together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” (Isaiah 52:7-10)

 

Here, the Arm, the Person who brings the Gospel and salvation is referred to as “Holy.” He is Someone we can see, who will come to His people. However, the Father cannot be seen:

 

·       [The Father] alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:16)

 

Therefore, it is likely that the Arm of Isaiah 52 refers to the Son, the Redeemer, who pays the ultimate price to redeem us from our sins:

 

·       In all their affliction he was afflicted [Hebrews 4:15], and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. (Isaiah 63:9, 5, 12; 59:16)

 

The “the angel of his presence” is both the Savior and Redeemer. In this context (Isaiah 63:5-14), the “Arm” is explicitly mentioned three times (this includes the one reference to the “Angel”), and the Holy Spirit and “Yahweh” are also referred to three times. The OT abounds in shadows and symbols, but are these cryptic references intended to point to the Trinity as are many others? In any event, the identity of this Arm or Messenger should be plain by now:

 

·       “Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not...But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:1-3, 5)

 

This Angel or Arm of the Lord is Israel’s Messiah, the One through whom we see the Glory of the Father. But what is His Glory? I was surprised to learn that Jesus’ glory wasn’t so much a matter of His creating the world or even His victorious return and establishment of His Kingdom. Instead, His Glory consisted of the greatest display of love this world has ever seen – the Cross:

·       And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:23–24)

 

But why did the OT so carefully hide the God’s Good News? And why was Jesus so guarded about His teachings – His Divine Personhood and the New Covenant? He had explained that there was much He had wanted to reveal to His disciples, but they weren’t ready to hear it (John 16:12). When they had asked Him why He taught in parables, He answered them:

 

·       “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear.” (Matthew 13:13-14)

 

Jesus refused to cast His pearls of wisdom before swine who wouldn’t appreciate them and might even use them against Him (Matthew 7:6). However, even these explanations fail to give us a complete understanding. To assist us, Paul added:

·       But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Corinthians 2:7–8)

 

His perplexing hiddenness about many things also conveys something very important to this skeptical mind – Intelligent Design, which lurks consistently throughout the pages of the OT, as if it had been designed into the entire plan of God. Human authorship would have instead screamed out glowingly about the hope of Israel, the Messiah, our freedom in Christ, and heaven. Instead the writers prophesied doom and gloom.