For the Jewish Reader: The Messiah of the Prophets

This page is written with more care than any other on this site, and it asks only one thing of you: that you read the prophets for yourself and judge before God what they say. Nothing else is being pressed on you here — no argument you must lose, no allegiance you must sign.

And before a word of Scripture, something else has to be said, because it stands between many Jewish readers and any Christian page they might open.

1. An honest word first

Terrible things have been done to Jewish people by those calling themselves Christians. Forced conversions. Expulsions. Blood libels. Ghettos. Pogroms launched on Easter weekends. And in living memory, a continent that had been Christian for a thousand years produced the murder of six million.

Before a word of argument, something must be said, and it must be said without excuses.

An enormous amount of evil has been done to Jewish people by men wearing the name of Christ. Forced baptisms. Expulsions. Blood libels. Ghettos and yellow badges. Pogroms preached from pulpits at Easter. And in living memory, a continent where the machinery of murder ran through nations that called themselves Christian, while most of the churches said nothing.

None of that is exaggerated, and none of it can be explained away. If your family history contains any of it, you have every reason to be wary of the page you are reading.

So let it be said plainly: those men were not obeying the Book they claimed. Whatever they were doing, it was not what the Scriptures teach — and the Scriptures say so in terms sharper than any critic has managed:

"For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written." (Romans 2:24)

And the apostle who wrote most of the New Testament was himself a Jew, who said this about his own people:

"I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." (Romans 9:1-3)

That is not the language of a man who despised his own nation.

None of that can be softened, and no page like this one has any right to move past it in a sentence. Whatever else those crimes were, they were the exact opposite of what the Jewish Messiah taught, and a man who hates Jewish people while claiming to follow a Jewish Saviour has understood nothing whatever.

If your instinct on seeing a cross is to brace yourself, that instinct was not formed without cause, and nobody has any business being impatient with it.

So let this be said plainly: this page contains no accusation and asks for no apology. There is nothing you owe anyone here. There is only an invitation to read what your own prophets wrote.

2. What is not being asked of you

A second thing needs clearing away, because it is often assumed.

It is worth being clear about what this page does not ask, because a great deal of fear attaches to the wrong things.

You are not being asked to stop being Jewish. The first believers were all Jews. They kept the feasts, went to the temple, and did not consider themselves to have left anything.

You are not being asked to join Christendom — not the institutions, the history, or the men described above.

You are not being asked to accept a European figure. The Man in question was born in Bethlehem of Judah, circumcised the eighth day, raised under the law, and never once left the land except as an infant refugee.

And you are not being asked to abandon the Hebrew Scriptures. You are being asked to read them — particularly one chapter.

You are not being asked to stop being Jewish, or to leave your people. That idea would have astonished the first believers, because every one of them was Jewish. The men who wrote almost the whole New Testament were Jewish. The first congregation in Jerusalem was entirely Jewish, and continued to worship in the temple. The question of whether a Gentile could belong at all was so novel that it required a council.

For the first years of its existence, this was a movement within Israel, made up of Jewish men and women who believed that the promises made to their fathers had been kept.

So the question here is not will you join something foreign? It is the question those first Jewish believers had to settle, and it is a question about your own Scriptures: has the One the prophets described already come?

3. Read the fifty-third of Isaiah

If you read nothing else, read this. Read it in a Hebrew Bible, in your own copy, without anyone at your elbow.

"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." (Isaiah 53:3)

"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:4-5)

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:6)

"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth." (Isaiah 53:7)

"And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth." (Isaiah 53:9)

Read that last verse twice, because it contains a detail no forger would invent. A grave with the wicked — and with the rich. Two contradictory burials in one sentence, written seven centuries before a man condemned with criminals was buried in a rich man’s new tomb.

Note also what the chapter never says. It does not say for his own sin. It says the opposite: he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. A sufferer with no guilt of his own, bearing what belonged to others.

"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:3-6)

Sit with that for a moment before going further.

A figure appears who is despised and rejected. He carries griefs that are not his own. He is wounded not for his own transgressions but for the transgressions of others, and the passage says the LORD Himself laid on him the iniquity of us all — which is the language of the sin offering, of a substitute bearing what belonged to another.

Then read on:

"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken." (Isaiah 53:7-8)

For the transgression of my people was he stricken. Weigh whose voice that is. It is the prophet speaking for the nation — and if he was stricken for my people, then he cannot simply be my people. The sufferer and those he suffers for are distinguished in the same sentence.

And the chapter ends with a strange thing: this Servant dies, is buried with the rich, and then prolongs his days, sees the travail of his soul and is satisfied, and justifies many.

"He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities." (Isaiah 53:11)

4. The honest objection

The usual reading offered against this is that the Servant is Israel herself — the nation suffering among the nations. That reading deserves a serious answer rather than a dismissal, because it is not foolish, and it has been held by learned men.

The standard objection is that the servant of Isaiah 53 is Israel itself, suffering among the nations. It is an honest reading and it deserves an honest answer rather than a dismissal.

Three things make it difficult.

First, the servant suffers for the people, and the people are the ones speaking. Read the pronouns: he was wounded for our transgressions, the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. If the servant were the nation, the nation would be suffering for itself.

Second, the servant is sinless. He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Israel’s own prophets never claimed that of the nation; they said the reverse, at length.

And third, the servant dies and then sees the outcome.

"He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities." (Isaiah 53:11)

Cut off out of the land of the living — and afterwards seeing, and being satisfied. That is difficult to apply to a nation, and straightforward to apply to a Man who rose.

But weigh it against the text.

The Servant here suffers for the people — for the transgression of my people was he stricken. If the Servant is the nation, the nation is suffering for itself, which empties the sentence.

The Servant is entirely innocent — he had done no violence, and no deceit was in his mouth. The prophets do not describe Israel that way; they describe her, with grief and love, as a people who had gone astray, and Isaiah himself says so repeatedly in the same book.

The Servant suffers silently and willingly. And the Servant dies, and then lives again and is satisfied — which is not the history of a nation but the account of a person.

Worth knowing too: for many centuries the great Jewish commentators read this passage as messianic. The reading of it as the nation became widespread relatively late, and largely in the context of dispute with Christians. That is simply a matter of record, and it is worth checking rather than taking anyone's word for.

5. The markers the prophets left

Isaiah 53 does not stand alone. The prophets scattered identifying details across centuries, and no one could have arranged them.

The prophets left markers, and several of them are time-bound in a way that closes the window.

The place.

"But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." (Micah 5:2)

The tribe and the timing.

"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." (Genesis 49:10)

The manner of the death — written by David centuries before crucifixion existed as a form of execution:

"For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." (Psalm 22:16-18)

And the pierced One, mourned by His own people.

"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him." (Zechariah 12:10)

The place. Micah names the village — Bethlehem Ephratah, small enough to be barely worth naming — and adds that the one who comes from there has goings forth from of old, from everlasting. A village can be arranged by nobody; a man does not select his birthplace.

The virgin's son.

"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14)

The child who bears divine names.

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 9:6)

Read those titles slowly. They are not titles any prophet of Israel would apply casually to a human king.

The piercing. Zechariah speaks of a day when God pours out a spirit of grace and supplication on the house of David, and they look upon Me whom they have pierced, and mourn for him as one mourns for an only son. And the twenty-second Psalm, written by David centuries before crucifixion was practised in Israel, describes a death by the piercing of hands and feet, with onlookers mocking and casting lots for the sufferer's clothing.

And the timing. Daniel was told that Messiah would be cut off — and that this would occur before the destruction of the city and the sanctuary. Whatever else is disputed about that passage, the order is not: Messiah comes and is cut off, and then the temple falls. The temple fell in the year seventy.

6. The question the year seventy raises

This is the point that most deserves quiet thought, and it is not raised to wound.

Here is a question of timing that is worth sitting with, whatever conclusion you reach.

Daniel gives a period after which the Messiah is cut off — and states plainly what follows: the destruction of the city and the sanctuary.

"And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary." (Daniel 9:26)

Read the order. Messiah cut off first. Then the city and the temple destroyed.

The temple was destroyed in the year seventy, and the genealogical records with it. Whatever else that means, it means the Messiah must have come before then, because the prophecy places His cutting off before the destruction — and because no man since has been able to prove descent from David.

That is not offered as proof. It is offered as a question that a thoughtful person should not leave unexamined.

The Torah appointed a system of atonement — a priesthood, an altar, a Day of Atonement, blood applied for sin. It was not optional. It was the arrangement God Himself gave, and it was the heart of Israel's approach to Him.

That system has been impossible for nineteen centuries. Since the temple fell there has been no altar, no sacrifice, no high priest entering the holiest place. Prayer, repentance and good deeds have taken their place in practice — and every one of those is good and commanded, but none of them is what the Torah appointed for atonement.

So the question is simply this, and it is asked with respect: if God required blood for atonement, and there has been no blood for nineteen hundred years, what happened?

One answer is that God changed the requirement. Another is that the requirement was met — once, finally, by the Servant Isaiah described, and that the sacrificial system stopped because it had reached the thing it always pointed to.

Notice also the timing. The temple was destroyed roughly forty years after the events Christians proclaim. Whatever a person concludes, that is a fact worth sitting with.

7. He came to His own

There is a sentence in the Gospel of John that Jewish readers should hear, because it is written with sorrow rather than accusation: He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

"He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:11-12)

Both halves of that verse matter. He was not received — and some did receive Him, and they were Jews.

And Scripture is emphatic that the rejection is neither total nor final:

"I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin." (Romans 11:1)

"For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in." (Romans 11:25)

Blindness in part. Not total, and not permanent. Anyone who has told you that God is finished with your people has not read the eleventh of Romans.

"For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." (Romans 11:29)

Note what it does not say. It does not say His own were worse than anyone else. Anyone reading the Gospels honestly finds Gentiles behaving abominably in them — a Roman governor washing his hands of an innocent man, Roman soldiers mocking and scourging Him.

And the rejection was never total. Thousands of Jewish people believed in those first years. The first church was Jewish. The rejection Scripture records is of the leadership of one generation, not of a people — and to treat it as a permanent charge against a nation is precisely the error that produced centuries of horror.

Scripture is explicit that God has not cast away His people. The promises to Abraham stand. There is no page in the Bible on which Israel is written off.

8. What it would mean if it is true

Suppose, only for the length of this paragraph, that it is so.

Then the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement was a picture, and the substance has come. Then the exile of the human heart from God, which no ritual ever fully cured, has been dealt with by a Substitute who bore the iniquity of us all. Then the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has done exactly what a covenant-keeping God would do — He has kept the promise, at His own cost.

And then the Messiah is not a departure from your Scriptures but their fulfilment; not the God of the Gentiles who displaced yours, but your own God, come to His own.

9. Read it yourself, and judge

There is an account in the New Testament of a Jewish community that did exactly what is being asked here. When the message was preached to them, they neither swallowed it nor dismissed it. They went home and checked it against the Scriptures.

"These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." (Acts 17:11)

That is the whole request of this page. Not that you accept anything on the word of a stranger — you should not — but that you check.

Here is a way to do it that owes nothing to anyone. Take a Hebrew Bible. Read Isaiah 52:13 through 53:12 slowly, twice. Then read Psalm 22. Then Micah 5, Zechariah 12, and Daniel 9. Read them without a commentary at your elbow, and ask one question: of whom does the prophet speak this?

Then, if you are willing, read one of the Gospels — Matthew is a reasonable place, since it was written for Jewish readers and quotes the prophets constantly. Read it as evidence, not as devotion, and ask whether the Person described is the One the prophets had in view.

Ask God honestly to show you the truth. He is not offended by an honest question, and He has never yet turned away a sincere seeker.

10. The gospel, plainly

If you have come this far, here is the message stated without ornament — the same message offered to every human being, Jew and Gentile alike, on identical terms.

"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31)

Of whom speaketh the prophet this?

A man once sat reading the fifty-third of Isaiah on a desert road, and asked the only question that matters about it: of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?

It was an honest question, asked by a man who wanted an answer more than he wanted to be right. It is still the best question anyone can bring to that chapter.

You do not need permission from anybody to ask it. Take the passage your own prophet wrote, read it as if for the first time, and put the question to God Himself.

He answered that man on the road. He has never refused anyone who came asking honestly.

11. The new covenant was promised to Israel, not to Gentiles

There is a point here that is often missed, and it is worth putting plainly because it reverses the usual assumption.

The new covenant is not a Gentile invention that replaced something Jewish. It was announced by a Hebrew prophet, to the house of Israel, centuries before any Gentile was involved.

"Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt." (Jeremiah 31:31-32)

Read who it is addressed to. The house of Israel, and the house of Judah. Not the nations. And read what it promises:

"But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people." (Jeremiah 31:33)

"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8:12)

A law written inward rather than on stone, and sins remembered no more. Jeremiah did not get that from Christianity; Christianity got it from Jeremiah.

And in the same passage God attaches the survival of the nation to the fixed order of creation:

"Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night... If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever." (Jeremiah 31:35-36)

While the sun rises, Israel stands. Every replacement theology ever taught runs aground on that verse.

12. The Passover, and what it was pointing at

The feast your people have kept for three and a half thousand years contains the whole argument of this page in picture form.

A lamb without blemish. Kept up four days and inspected. Killed at evening. Not a bone broken. The blood applied to the door, and judgment passing over the house.

"Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year." (Exodus 12:5)

"Neither shall ye break a bone thereof." (Exodus 12:46)

Now set beside that what was said of a Man executed at Passover, in Jerusalem, whose legs the soldiers did not break because He was already dead:

"For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken." (John 19:36)

And what the last of the prophets before Him said when he saw Him coming — a Jewish man, speaking to Jewish hearers, using the one word they would all understand:

"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." (John 1:29)

Nobody had to explain to that audience what a lamb was for.

13. What it costs, and what is offered

It would be dishonest to pretend this is a small thing to consider, so let it be named.

For a Jewish person, taking this seriously can mean strained relations at home, a father who will not discuss it, and the accusation of betraying a people who have already suffered enough. That is a real cost and nobody should be told it is imaginary.

Two things are worth weighing against it.

The first believers paid it too. Every one of them was Jewish, and they were not leaving their people; they believed they had found what their people had been promised.

And the question is not what it costs, but whether it is true. If it is not true, no cost is worth paying. If it is true, no cost is too high — and that is a question the Scriptures can settle without any Gentile telling you what to think.

"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." (Isaiah 1:18)

That invitation was issued to Israel, by Israel's God, through a Hebrew prophet. It is still open.

"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be delivered." (Joel 2:32)

Let us Pray:

Our gracious heavenly Father, we come before Your throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Your presence.

We thank You for Your beloved Son, and for Him who came unto His own, and who is the promised Messiah of Israel. We praise You for Your preserved Word, which declares "He was wounded for our transgressions" (Isaiah 53:5), and which cannot be broken.

We confess before You for the crimes done to the Jewish people by those who wore the name of Christ. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

We beseech You for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Your Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Your Son before this day is done.

Strengthen Your people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to open the Scriptures to every Jewish reader as Your Son opened them on the road to Emmaus, for Your glory and not for ours.

We pray all of this to You, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The Most Important Prayer You Will Ever Pray

Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?

You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin — but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.

If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words — but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:

After You Have Prayed

1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).

2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).

3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.

4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved — you already are — but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.

5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).