Jesus as Messiah

Sermon Notes 28th May 2023
Doug Bannerman

Chapters 7 & 8, the keystone of the Book of Signs in the Gospel of John, are dominated by a motif of strong conflict, and describe the manifestation and rejection of Jesus as Messiah.

They include most of Jesus’ responses to objections to messianic claims made for Him; and they are characterised by unusually sustained, sharp, controversial notes; all of which are wrapped in rapid exchanges, in which the narrator does not allow Jesus a speech of any length without interruption. There is a sense of urgency. The evangelist clearly aims to create a vivid and urgent impression of the persistent and murderous intentions of those opposed to Jesus and what He represented. [1]

There are repeated statements that Jesus’ life is in danger, with attempts to arrest him or lynch him on the spot.[2] Jesus avoids going to Judea because the Jews are looking for an opportunity to kill him. The people of Judea are afraid to even mention his name. When Jesus asks, ‘Why do you seek to kill me?’, the people of Jerusalem are surprised at the boldness of ‘one whom they seek to kill’. They try to arrest him ‘but no one laid hands on him’. So they send the police to arrest him, but that effort goes belly up. And, in the Temple, Jesus says bluntly to them, ‘you look for an opportunity to kill me.’ And they pick up stones to throw at him; but, Jesus hides himself and leaves the Temple.

The action is staged during the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus has come up from Galilee for the festival, where the drama unfolds upon a double stage. In the foreground Jesus confronts the crowds attending the feast; in the background, the authorities deliberate and plot against Him. The narrative portrays a context of intense conflict, acute danger and hostility; and, today’s gospel reading is placed bang in the middle of it all.

One of the most distinctive ceremonies of the Feast of Tabernacles[3] was that of libations of water. On each of the seven days of the Feast, water was drawn from the Siloam reservoir, taken to the temple, and poured over the altar of burnt offering. One of the traditional readings for the festival is Zechariah 14, which describes the approaching day of the Lord. The symbolism of the water pouring over the altar summarises, as it were, several OT passages that speak of a river of living water which is to issue from the Temple mount, and become a source of life and healing far and wide.

It is the seventh and last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus enters the Temple with megaphone in hand, and cries out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, let the one who believes in me drink.’

He could not have picked a more dangerous occasion upon which to make this declaration. John reports that some of the crowd think he is the Prophet; others think he is the Messiah; and the crowd are furious.

Now, the Fourth Gospel is the only NT document which uses the term ‘messiah’ (Greek μεσσίας), a Greek transliteration of the OT Hebrew word ‘Māšîaḥ’ [מָשִׁיחַ] or more probably the Aramaic Mšīḥāʾ [משיחא],[4] literally ‘anointed’ or ‘anointed one’. The OT usage of ‘messiah’ is usually of a consecrated person such as a king or priest, or a Messianic prince in apocalyptic literature.

In John, it occurs first in the prologue and is there translated by the familiar word Christos (Χριστός), which is used everywhere in the Gospel, except where the Samaritan woman is made to say, ‘ “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ).’ (John4.25) The combination of Messiah and Christ here, is undoubtedly derived from the Aramaic Mšīḥāʾ Yēšūʿ [יֵשׁוּע משִׁיחָא] again a transliteration which forms the familiar ‘Jesus Christ’.

That said, it is extremely difficult to find satisfactory evidence of the absolute use of the term Messiah [מָשִׁיחַ] in pre-Christian Judaism.[5]

Furthermore, the term, Messiah, does not become common in Rabbinic usage until after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.[6] ‘Messiah’ was not religious currency in the time of Jesus. The earliest traceable Rabbinic reference to the coming of the Messiah, per se, seems to be to Eliezer ben Jacob in 90 CE, the same period when John was writing the gospel.

It is clear, then, the Fourth Evangelist did not take the title Christ (Χριστός) simply from Christian tradition, but was familiar with its Aramaic original. So, John develops a doctrine of the person and work of Jesus with explicit reference to Jewish messianic belief, which we can summarise as: 1. The Messiah of the Jews is to be a descendant of David; 2. He is to appear no one knows whence; 3. He is to work signs and to reign as King; and 4. He is to abide forever.[7]

John does not affirm that Jesus is the Son of David; and if He is a king, His kingship is of an entirely different order; His origin is indeed mysterious, since He comes from another world; He does work signs, but in a more profound sense than the Jews imagine; and the death which appears to be the end of Him is in fact the climax and seal of His manifestation as the eternal Saviour of the world.

So, while formally, John claims for Jesus the Jewish title ‘Messias’ (Μεσσίας), in fact the Jewish concept of messiahship is ignored – and a doctrine of the Person of Christ is mainly worked out under other categories which are not those of Rabbinic Judaism.

However, in a visionary form, John submits the orthodox rabbinic doctrine that the ‘name of the Messiah’ was present with God before the creation of the world – that the Messiah’s coming was a part of the aboriginal design of God for the universe which God purposed to create.

During the first two centuries CE, Rabbinic thinking drifted slowly to associating water with the Spirit of God. The early 3rd century Jewish writer, Joshua ben Levi, like John, associated water with the gift of the Holy Spirit; which is a strong hint that this symbolism was already in view a hundred years earlier, when the John wrote, around 90 CE, that Jesus, ‘on the last, the great day’ of the Feast of Tabernacles cried out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.’

An offering that the OT prophet Joel expressed with perfection.

And in that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine,
and the hills will flow with milk.

All the streams of Judah will run with water,
and a spring will flow from the house of the Lord

(Joel 3.18).

Doug Bannerman © 2023

[1] See C H Dodd The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (London ,New York: Cambridge University Press 1953)pp 345,346

[2] See severally John 7.1; 7.13; 7.19-25; 7.30; 7.33-34; 8.40-47 

[3] Tabernacles, or Shavu`ot [שָׁבוּעוֹ], falls 50 days after Passover. Originally a harvest feast, Shavu`ot now commemorates the sealing of the Old Covenant, when the Lord revealed the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai. The Christian Pentecost falls 50 days after Easter.

[4] Op cit C H Dodd p87

[5] Op cit C H Dodd p87

[6] See Israel Abrahams Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels, and the composite Judaism and Christianity , especially in vol. II, The Contact of Pharisaism with other Cultures, ed. H. Loewe 1937

[7] Op cit C H Dodd p92