By Raymond Gannon, Ph.D.

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. —2 John 1:7

The Jewish bookstore proprietor, Mr. Golden, was adamant with me. “Jesus can’t be the Jewish Messiah! The world is still in virtual chaos; children are yet hungry; diseases even now kill millions; and war and terrorism are ever-present tragic realities! Just where is the world’s universal peace and prosperity that stem from the Messiah? It didn’t come with Jesus, now did it!?!” 

The normally gentle Orthodox Jewish bookseller did truly believe that a messiah would ultimately come based upon his confidence in Jewish sages and rabbinic opinion. For example, the outstanding 12th century theologian, physician and philosopher, the famous Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon (”Rambam”) mandated in his “Thirteen Articles of Faith” the daily Orthodox Jewish recitation of, “I believe in the coming of the Messiah; and though he tarry, yet will I daily wait for him.”

Yet Rambam also strongly warned Jews against following false messiahs in his Letter to Yemen (1192) in which he recounted the histories of four recent messianic claimants. These false messiahs had not only met with tragic fates themselves, but had brought shame, ridicule and catastrophe upon the Jewish world. Messiahs ranged from reportedly being miracle-working charismatic dreamers to messianic draftees simply compelled by Jewish people desperately needing national redemption. All told, since the time of Jesus, more than 50 documented Jewish messiahs have led Israel down the same dead-end street to amplified grief and depressing disillusionment.The Jewish pursuit of messianic pretenders while simultaneously rejecting Jesus as Messiah befuddles many Bible-savvy Christians. While Evangelical eschatology holds a substitutionary messianic imposter (an antichrist) will yet flash upon the global horizon and have immense though temporary appeal to the Jewish masses, it remains a mystery just how the People of the Book could so entirely miss God’s full messianic revelation in Jesus, Israel’s only God-appointed Anointed One, the Messiah. Paul laid this sin to Satan’s charge, e.g., “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.”  Certainly only the Messiah Jesus has been authenticated by God by His resurrection from the dead.

The Who, What and Why of the Messianic Anointing

The kings since Saul and David and the priests since Aaron in the Hebrew Bible had been anointed for divine service. The verb Mashakh meaning to “anoint” or the “oiling of the body” was applied to the Mashiakh or the “anointed one.” The oil was poured from a shofar (ram’s horn) or alternate vessel upon the head of the anointed one as God’s chosen means of publicly declaring the One carefully chosen for auspicious divine assignment. The act of anointing conferred Kavohd or “honor, weightiness” on the recipient and signified the anointed one’s divine authorization to execute his God-appointed commission. 

The newly anointed one was to be honored by Hebrew society as a solid “heavy weight” in God’ order. It was never enough for the messianic personality to simply be divinely designated. But rather, the very people who stood to benefit from his heavenly ordained administration corporately needed to openly acknowledge him as their God-enabled leader. While the one so anointed was issued authority and provided protection by divine decree, the people of God were under obligation to submit to God’s appointed Anointed or jeopardize their own legitimacy as God’s faithful servants. To reject God’s anointed king or priest was to hazard the social well-being of God’s carefully nurtured faith community.

For instance, despising the unique role of God’s anointed High Priest would make his priestly intercession fairly futile in the wake of communal rejection.  Only full dependence on the High Priest’s ministry would yield the desired and beneficial interaction with Deity that Israel needed.   Likewise, disobedience to the King was insubordination to God.  Refusal to walk in submission to God’s appointed and anointed King would temporarily nullify the direct benefit of the king’s reign that would otherwise be Israel’s immediate experience.  Certainly no God-defying person or community could expect to inherit the divine blessings associated with the Messianic kingdom in the face of active hostility to God and His Anointed (Psalm 2).

The Folly of Faith-lessness

Rejection of God’s true Messiah Jesus led directly to the momentary loss of the riches of God’s Kingdom blessings upon Israel until that day Israel would embrace Jesus and again fully benefit from faithful obedience to God. Paul certainly anticipates that pending day of corporate repentance when “All Israel shall be saved.”  But, in the interim, religious leadership’s defiance of God’s revelation has yielded a long list of tragic episodes in the annals of Jewish history. Following man-chosen messiahs has led to Jewish grief and pain beyond imagination and well illustrates the maxim, “Truth is stranger than fiction.”  

Pretenders and Antichrists

There have been at least 50 messianic imposters since Jesus’ time and up to the present hour. Rambam reported that one Yemenite messiah offered proof of his resurrection power by challenging his adversaries to chop off his head and then witness his resuscitation. Duly impressed, they complied. The story ended right there.

The vast majority of Palestinian Jewry followed Simon Bar Kochba from 132 to 135 A.D. when he claimed messiahship and challenged the might of Rome. At the end of his bloody campaign, most of his colleagues and followers were dead, including the famous Rabbi Akiva. Jerusalem’s name was changed by Rome to Aelia Capitolina and Jews were forbidden entry into the Holy City on pain of death.

Shabbatai Zvi was acknowledged as messiah by some 50% of European Jewry in 1665-1666. A hallucinating Nathan of Gaza, Zvi’s own Elijah the Prophet, announced that the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel were presently waiting the signal to regather with their European Jewish cousins in the Promised Land. Upon diplomatic confrontation with the incredulous and angry Turkish Sultan, Zvi converted to Islam to save his life much to the horror of his multitudes of loyal Jewish followers. But Zvi’s conversion to Islam did not dissuade others from their misguided faith; some even advocated that the messiah had to thusly sin to bring about global redemption. Zvi ultimately died in prison ten years later in the wake of massive disillusionment.

Jakob Frank, another messianic imposter, claimed in the 18th century to be the reincarnation of Shabbatai Zvi. Frank advocated a world of undiminished evil to effectively provoke Deity to release the messianic redemption and kingdom into being. Religious communities were encouraged to engage in gross communal sin to compel a distraught God to immediate messianic action. After some painfully shattering societal episodes, the rabbis condemned Frank as a heretic. He and many his followers ultimately found refuge from their fellow Jewish antagonists by religious conversion to Roman Catholicism.

The most recent internationally proclaimed Jewish messiah was Menachem Schneersohn of Brooklyn, head of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, who died in 1994. Many thousands of his disillusioned followers anticipated his physical resurrection from his New York grave for years leading to inevitable religious group factionalism.

The Zvi and Frank episodes generated such disillusionment in the Jewish world that many thereafter totally disavowed any belief in a coming Messiah. Modern Jews were prepared to disassociate from both the biblical promises of a Messiah and traditional Jewish Orthodoxy due to the sad results of Jewish messianism.  The majority in the Jewish world today has lost all hope for a coming messiah and a corresponding redemption. How utterly tragic this is for Jewish people in light of the fact that Jesus is the Promised Messiah, the Anointed of God, the One still to bring total redemption and complete fulfillment of the biblical promises to the House of Israel.

The Surprising Ancient Rabbinic Correspondence with Christian Teachings

Both intertestamental apocryphal literature and post-New Testament rabbinical Targumim (translations) offer amazing Jewish perspective on the Messiah. While the Mishnah (200 A.D.) does not express messianic hopes, the Targumim include the following: (1) The Messiah’s Kingdom precedes the resurrection and judgment; (2) Messiah will remain hidden due to Israel’s unrighteousness; (3) Messiah is prophet, Torah-teacher, and king; (4) Messiah makes a New Covenant between God and Israel; (5) Messiah does not violate the Torah on any point; (6) Messiah has prophetic gifts for the Holy Spirit rests on Him; (7) Messiah’s task is to establish righteousness and cause others to conform to God’s Law; sinners are hurled into Gehenna; (8) Messiah sanctifies Israel and ushers in peace and prosperity; (9) Messiah will rule in righteousness and rebuild the Temple; (10) Miracles and longevity of man will result from His reign.  But before millions of American Jewish Mr. Goldens can eyewitness the fulfillment of the prophesied messianic blessings, All Israel shall be saved. It behooves Pentecostals everywhere to inspire the Jewish trusting embrace of the True Messiah, Jesus.

Published in the Fall 2004 edition of Enrichment

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