So we need to clarify just who he is and who he is not, based on Hebraically-oriented evidence.
But if our ancestors broke the covenant, what gives us the right to just come back and call ourselves part of Israel? The Jews have already returned to the land of their heritage, having lost it only temporarily for a particular transgression. (2 Chron. 36:21) But the Northern Kingdom forsook the covenant altogether. According to the Torah, if someone loses his connection with his inheritance and is too poor to buy it back, a relative must buy it back for him in order to keep it in the family. (Leviticus 25:25) We see an example of this law of the “Kinsman Redeemer” in the book of Ruth.
Only someone with his feet firmly on solid ground can rescue someone else. The Kinsman Redeemer for the lost tribes would thus have to be someone who was still solidly within the covenant. Hoshea 12:1 says Yehudah is in that position. So that relative would have to come from Yehudah, and that is the tribe Messiah will be from. (Gen. 49:10)
Yeshayahu/Isaiah 49:6 says it is not enough for him "to raise up the tribes of Yaaqov and the faithfully-guarded ones of Israel". He was given other privileges as well. But this tells us that his chief role would be to "resuscitate" those from the tribes that YHWH promised to scatter without losing even one of them. (Amos 9; Jer. 16:14)
The prophet Daniel even gave us the time frame so that we could narrow down who Messiah would be:
445 B.C.E. was the 20th year of Artaxerxes, when Nehemiah said the king let him go rebuild Jerusa-lem, on the new moon of Nisan. (Neh. 2) 483 years from then would appear to come out at 38 C.E., but there is another factor. Prior to 701 B.C.E., a year was exactly 360 days long (which is why a circle has 360 degrees). That year, calendars around the world all had to be recalculated due to a planetary passby that changed an earth-year to 365 days. In the 19th century, Sir Robert Anderson recognized that any prophetic year has 360 days. (The Coming Prince) So we are dealing with 173,880 days, or, as we count them today, or 476 years and 25 days.
Taking into account lunar cycles and intercalary years as measured prior to 360 C.E., Anderson calculated that this 483-year period ended in 32 C.E. on Nisan 10--the day Israel is commanded to select a lamb, four days before Passover; the very day on which Y’shua, upon seeing Jerusalem, said,
Prophecy even tells us the Messiah’s name:
The Hellenized “Jesus” is a caricature of the real Jewish Yahshua. But if we strip away all the Gentile misunderstandings of what he said, and see him in his original form, we notice that every significant event in his life fell on one of the biblical festivals. Until A.D. 196, Y'shua's resurrection was always commemor-ated on the Firstfruits of the Barley Harvest, when it actually took place. There is growing evidence that he was even born on Sukkoth. He made it clear that he had no respect for anyone who tried to deny the importance of even one letter of the Torah. (Mat. 5:17-19)
In a definitive meeting at Jerusalem (Acts 15), the leaders of Yahshua's community laid down only four ground rules so that they would not be laying an oppressive burden on those returning from among the Gentiles. The bare essentials—a kosher diet, niddah, and the forsaking of idolatry and immorality--were the first requirement, so they could eat at the same table with Yehudah. But most have missed the very next statement, which qualifies it: "Because Moshe (Torah) is taught every Shabbat in every city's synagogue"! I.e., "Go there and learn the rest at a pace that is not burdensome to you!"
Even Paul (who some say reinterpreted Yahshua) still called himself a Pharisee years after he met Yahshua (Acts 23:6), saying he’d never done any-thing contrary to Israelite custom (28:17), and went to great expense to prove his loyalty. (Acts 21) He spoke of "grace" because his focus was those who were in exile, needing grace like anyone unable to pay the rent on the day it’s due. But he never disputed the fact that there eventually had to be payment!
Kefa (Peter) admitted that in Paul’s letters "there are some things hard to understand, which the unlearned and unstable twist [wrest] ...to their own ruin." (1 Peter 3:16) But there had to be something straight to start with, in order for it to be twisted.
Yaakov (James), Yahshua's own younger brother and the leader he designated in Jerusalem, wrote a letter to clarify what Paul's writings did not mean. But Yaakov also came right out and said what Paul only alluded to, addressing this letter directly to "the twelve tribes in the dispersion"! This gives a very different angle on the "New Testament"!
Y'shua announced the night before his Passover-day death that he had renewed the covenant. (Matt. 26:28) His blood would ratify it in a way the non-human Temple sacrifices could only foreshadow. The letter to the Hebrews goes into great detail on how much more perfect this was. It goes on to say,
To return to YHWH, you had to have known Him at one time. Why else would Paul, who was sent to the “Gentiles”, begin his search in every local synagogue? Because some of those "Gentiles" (Isaiah 42:4) had taken the first step to reunite with their brother, Judah. He later calls them "former Gentiles"! (1 Cor. 12:2; Eph. 2:11) Kefa describes his audience as those "who in time past ... had 'not received mercy' but have now received mercy." (1 Peter 2:10) What can this be but an allusion to Hosea chapter 1? This was no haphazard, shotgun approach aiming at all Gentiles anywhere. Paul went where he expected to find the most.
In the first century they understood what it meant when Y’shua was called "the Word of YHWH". To them, it meant an entity within YHWH, yet at times distinguishable from Him. In Isaiah 63, where the Hebrew text speaks of YHWH as Savior, an Aramaic targum (interpretive translation from the centuries just before Yahshua) says, "the Word [Memra] was their Redeemer." (v. 8) This person-ified aspect of the Word comes out again when it says, "His Memra…fought against them"--an action ascribed directly to YHWH in the original.
Philo, an Egyptian Jew who was Yahshua’s contemporary, wrote that man was not patterned after any other creature, but in the image of YHWH's own uncreated Word (logos, as in John 1): "Man was made a likeness and imitation of the Word." (On the Creation, XLVIII: 139, Loeb Edition I, 110-111)
No one thought Philo was inventing a new religion, but he sounds amazingly like the New Testament! So don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Philo calls YHWH's Word His "firstborn son", saying that YHWH rules creation through his eternally-existing Word:
Paul expressed the same idea in Colossians 1: the Son is the firstborn "in whom all things hold together." (v. 15-17) Hebrews 1:3 depicts the Son as "sustaining all things by his powerful Word."
YHWH tells Moses,
Philo explains: YHWH is "a model of a model" (the model for His Word). The Word in turn be-comes the model for creation. So the Word contains all the qualities of Elohim:
The new factor in the New Testament is that this Word becomes fleshed out as a man, the Head of a restored image of Elohim that Adam lost. (1 Cor. 15:21-23) And Israel is to complete this Body.
In Jewish literature, the angel Metatron is often described as YHWH Himself. In Y'shua there is also identification yet distinction. As YHWH's prime agent (as Joseph was to Pharaoh), he speaks on the father's behalf as if he were Him. Yet He calls Him his Elohim. He is indeed the "son of Elohim", but did not intend to remain the only one, but to be the firstborn of many brothers. (Rom. 8:29) He wants us to be what he is! (Jn. 17:20ff) The Redeemer is our Kinsman! Hosea indeed said the prodigal Northern Kingdom would also one day be called "sons of the living Elohim"! (1:10; Heb. 2:10)
So for us Yahshua can be no marginal figure, but is an indispensable aspect of our return to covenant!
Our Kinsman Redeemer
As the Northern Kingdom of Israel begins to recognize all the paganism it has been involved in, and returns to the Torah, it is easy to go to the opposite extreme. If the House of Yehudah (the Jews), with whom we are to form one nation, does not believe Yahshua (Y'shua) is the Messiah, it’s easy to wonder if he might be just another part of the paganism, and discard him as well.
"Know and act wisely: From the issuing of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the prince, [there will be] 7 weeks, then 62 weeks... Then after the 62 weeks Messiah the prince will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the coming prince will make the city and the sanctuary [into] ruins..." (9:25-26)
So Messiah had to come before the Temple was again destroyed. That places him before 70 C.E. The term "weeks" here can mean "sets of seven (years)". 69 (7+62) sets of seven totals 483. So the Messiah also had to come 483 years after this decree was issued. So… when was it issued?
"If only you had known on this, your day--what could lead to your peace, but... you did not recog-nize the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:42-44)
This was the day anyone reading Daniel should have known the Messiah was to appear.
“I will cause a Branch of Righteousness to sprout for David. He will carry out… righteousness in the Land." (Jer. 33:15)
In Zechariah 3:8, Messiah is again called "My Servant the Branch". In Zech. 6:11-12, as Y’hoshua the high priest is being crowned, YHWH says of him, "Behold a man; his name is [the] Branch!" Ezra 3:2, speaking of the same man, uses the shortened, Aramaic form of his name: Y'shua. So it is not at all a stretch to conclude that the Messiah's name was to be Y'shua.
"He [Yahshua] is the mediator of the new covenant, so that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, those who are called might receive the promise of an eternal inheritance." (Heb. 9:15)
This means the New Testament was specifically addressed to those whose ancestors had been party to the first--and had broken it. This is why forgiveness of sins is so central to its emphasis.
"I alone... sustained the Universe to rest firmly upon the Mighty Word, who is My viceroy." (On Dreams, I:241, Loeb Edition V, pp. 424- 425)
"He it is who... keeps up through all its length Nature's unvanquished course, combining and compacting all its parts. For the Father who begat Him constituted His Word such a Bond of the Universe as nothing can break." (Noah's Work as a Planter, I:8-9, Loeb III, pp. 216-217)"You cannot see My face, for man may not see Me and live. My face must not be seen." (Ex. 33)
Philo said,
“Just as those unable to see the sun itself, see the gleam of the perihelion and take it for the sun, and take the halo round the moon for that luminary itself, some regard the image of YHWH, His messenger, the Word, as His very self." (On Dreams, I:239, Loeb V, pp. 422-423)
Indeed, when viewed through Gentile filters several centuries later, Yahshua was confused with the Father (a form of inadvertent idolatry). Clearly this was not the intent of the authors who knew Yahshua personally. They saw him as "the outshining [manifestation] of His glory" (Heb. 1:3)--the only part of Elohim's nature that people are allowed to see. (John 1:18) Indeed, anywhere the Hebrew text speaks of YHWH being seen, the Aramaic explanatory versions substitute "the Word of YHWH".
"The model or pattern was the Word that contained all His fullness--light, in fact." (On Dreams, I:75, Loeb V, pp. 336-337)
Paul expressed a similar thought when he wrote that in the Son all Elohim's fullness dwells. (Colossians 1:19; 2:9) John opens with, "No one has ever seen YHWH; but the only-begotten Son, who is close at the Father's side--He has manifested Him." (1:18) "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9) must be taken in this context.
