First of all, it is obvious that there was a general expectation of the Messiah. For instance, we read of those coming to John the Baptist in Luke 3:15. The people were in expectation and all men mused in their hearts of John whether he was Messiah or not. Consider Philip’s explanation to Nathaniel in John 1:45: "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote." Or the Samaritan woman John 4:25: "I know that Messiah is coming … When He comes he will tell us all things."

Clearly, there were those who were more exercised with regard to his coming—Simeon, for instance, in Luke 2:25, "waiting for the Consolation of Israel", and Anna in Luke 2:38: "Coming in at that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem." So there were those who were particularly exercised with regard to this expectation of the coming of the Messiah.

Secondly, there is some indication of the expected manner of his appearing. From the wise men in Matthew 2:2 who asked, "Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?" We might suppose it was expected that Messiah would be born, but it is more likely that the knowledge of his birth formed part of a particular revelation to Magi because John 7:27 suggest that the more general opinion was that Messiah would appear suddenly and mysteriously: "We know where this Man is from [he had grown up among them] but when the Messiah comes, no one knows where he is from." In the rabbinic writings, Sanhedrin 97a says three things appear "suddenly" or mysteriously: Messiah, a gift and a scorpion.

He was to appear also from Bethlehem. The chief priests answering Herod in Matthew 2:5 said that he would come to Bethlehem in Judea, "for thus it was written by the prophet". The people in John 7:41 say, "Has not the Scripture said that Messiah comes from the seed of David and from the town of Bethlehem where David was."

Furthermore, it seems it was a general belief that Elijah would prepare the way for Messiah. The priests and the Levites ask John the Baptist in John 1:21, "Are you Elijah?" and "Are you the Prophet?" The disciples ask Jesus Matthew 17:10, "Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?"

Fourthly, the expectation of his office and his work was also indicated because the title "son of David" clearly contained more than just the question of his lineage. It pointed also to his office and work as the king. Nathaniel responds in recognising Jesus as the Messiah, in John 1:49, "You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" The crowds respond to the feeding of the 5,000 in John 6:15 by trying to make him king.

At his triumphal entry into Jerusalem in Mark 11:9,10, the crowds cry, "Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David!" Luke 19:38 records the words, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!" and John 12:13 has "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! The king of Israel!"

They also saw him as a prophet. The people respond to the feeding of the 5,000 in John 6:14 by saying, "This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world." The Samaritan woman in John 4 viewed Messiah as a prophet. Although for some the Prophet and the Messiah seem to have been distinct personalities. The priests and the Levites in John 1:25, for example, ask, "Why then do you baptise if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"

However, though we are able to detect in the Jewish expectation of the Messiah a recognition of his functions as king and prophet, there is in comparison little or no recognition of his priestly office. In other words, except for the significant statement of John the Baptist in John 1:29, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" there is little evidence of any expectation of the Messiah which would include humiliation and suffering. Indeed there are many indications that the suffering of Messiah was not part of their expectation.

When Jesus spoke of his death in John 12:34, the people say, "We have heard from the law that Messiah remains forever; and how can you say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up?’ Who is this Son of Man?" In Matthew 17:23, the disciples respond with great sorrow to the announcement by Jesus of his impending death. Matthew 16:22 records Peter’s rebuke following Christ’s prediction of his death: "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall never happen to You!".

One final question of the New Testament concerns the character of Messiah. Did the people anticipate a divine Messiah, or simply a human saviour? Is there any indication as to the current view in this connection?

We have just one or two of the statements that would seem to have a bearing upon the question. Take, for instance, the witness of John the Baptist in John 1:34: "I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God." Of course John the Baptist stood in a unique position and that was likely part of his particular revelation. But what of Nathaniel in John 1:49, when he says, "You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"? What had happened convinced him of the powers of the Saviour and drew this response, but the expression used could indicate that this was an accepted designation of the Messiah, that he would be the Son of God.

Martha calls Jesus, in John 11:27, "the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world." Notice the two designations: "the Messiah" and the one "who is to come into the world" and, in between them, "the Son of God" which seems likely, therefore, to be another designation for the Messiah.

Further, we have Peter’s confession in Matthew 16:15: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God" and his statement John 6:69, "You are the holy one of God". Though that may not necessarily be an indication of the general expectation, there is the high priest’s question in Mark 14:61: "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the blessed?" That seems to indicate more clearly that this was an accepted designation of the Messiah, "the Son of the blessed".

I remember a Jew asking me two questions: "First of all", he asked, "is there any indication in our Scriptures that Messiah will be divine? And secondly, did Jesus himself actually claim to be divine?"

So far, I’ve tried to avoid looking at this question of the concept of the Messiah with the hindsight of Christian fulfilment. Now let us see if we can come to anything like a full picture of the expectation with regards to the Messiah in his divinity from Old Testament scripture. This is important because, as the Jewish scholar David Daube says, "The conflict between the synagogue and the church always was, and still is, about the question of the divinity of Jesus, not about minor issues."

In Genesis 1:1, the very first name by which God reveals himself, Elohim, is plural and at the creation of man he says, "Let us make man in our image".

The Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4 reads, "Hear, O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one". In the Hebrew you have Elohim, the plural name of God, and the word one 'echad', a word that in other places is used with the idea of a composite unity. So there is a sense in which you could say, "the Lord our Gods, the Lord is one" in the sense of unity.

Though this does not prove the Trinity, even in the classic doctrinal confessional statement of the Jewish people there is nothing that militates against the ultimate full revelation of the mystery —and it must ever remain a mystery to us—of the Trinity.

In Isaiah 7:14 we have the son who is Immanuel, God with us. And in Isaiah 9, one of the most powerful evidences in the Old Testament, we see the child who is "the Mighty God" and "the everlasting Father".

Isaiah 52:13 is often overlooked, but the prophet speaks of Messiah as being "exalted and extolled and very high", the very same expression he uses in Isaiah 57:15 to describe the One who is "high and lifted up whose name is holy". The same expression is used in Isaiah 6: "I saw the Lord high and lifted up".

Another area of study is the concept of "the Angel of the Lord".

• Who was it who met Moses at the burning bush? It was the angel of the Lord. But it was God who was speaking.
• Who was it who met Hagar at the fountain? It was the angel of the Lord, but she was convinced that Jehovah had spoken to her.
• What about Jacob wrestling? With whom was he wrestling? The prophet Hosea tells us that he was wrestling with the angel of the Lord. But Jacob was convinced he had met with God. He called the name of the place Peniel, the face of God.
• When the angel of the Lord appeared to Samson’s parents in Judges 13, they said, "We have seen God. We shall surely die."

Zechariah has some interesting comments on this in chapter 2. Verse 10 says that the Lord will come to his people and the next verse says, "you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me". Now, is it God who comes or God who sends? And you’re left in a little bit of a mystery there at the end of it all Malachi 3 - the angel of the covenant, the angel of the Lord, seems to be linked clearly with the Messiah who will come. Now the rabbis made a study of 'the angel of the Lord' and they asked these questions. Is it an angel through whom God speaks? Is it God himself, or is it one who stands in such unity of nature that he’s able to speak as God and yet be distinct from God? The conclusions the rabbis came to is that one who promises in the first person and accepts worship cannot be a mere angel. Secondly, he cannot simply be God himself because he is a distinct person. And thirdly, they said, he is the one who always mediates between God and man. It’s interesting that they’ve come that far. We would say that if he speaks in the first person as God, and if he is distinct as a person, then there must be a unity of nature that makes him one with God. And the key to that mystery is only to be found in the further revelation of the New Testament scriptures. Similarly, the sufferings of Messiah, with which even the Jews of old struggled, are surely only understandable, and wonderfully so, in the fulfilment of them in the person of Jesus.

I remember a rabbi in Glasgow saying, at the end of a meeting, "If you forget everything else tonight, remember the words of Jesus as he died upon the cross: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ I cannot possibly believe that Jesus could be both Lord and Messiah and at the same time be forsaken by God." But Jesus was quoting from a passage which is unbelievably descriptive of the world that was at the cross. Psalm 22 begins, "My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me" and goes on to say, "they have pierced my hands and feet", "they cast lots upon my vesture and parted my garments among them". It ends in the words "it is finished" or "He has done this". And its the most amazing description of the work of the cross. Put it against the actual event of the cross and the connection is impressive.

There existed at the time of the New Testament a body of tradition, the teaching of the elders, which was gathered and put into writing about 200 AD as the Mishnah. For the next 300 years it was debated in the rabbinic schools and the comments of the rabbis were added to it. These additions were know as the Gemara. The two together constitute the Talmud.

In the Mishnah there are just two cursory references to the Messiah. However, in the Gemara, there is considerable comment on the Messiah and the Messianic Age. Indeed there are many more Old Testament references to the Messiah in the Talmud than in the New Testament. And many of the passages referred to would not seem to be clear predictions of the Messiah from our perspective. The truth that Messiah is, in fact, the sum and substance of all the history, the institutions, and the predictions, of Israel is very clear through that work. It seems also to underline the rabbinic handling of scripture. For there are two classic statements in Talmud. Firstly, "all the prophets prophesied only of the days of the Messiah". And secondly, "the world was only created for the Messiah". Therefore almost everything in Old Testament should be given this messianic application. It’s somewhat like Pointillism, that form of painting in which myriad flecks of paint combine to form a picture. But, of course, the resulting picture might be viewed in  different ways and the picture painted by the Talmud is certainly very different to that painted by the New Testament scripture. However, if the rabbinic references to the Messiah are analysed, you will find that many of them are in accordance with the fundamental points of Christian belief with regard to Messiah.

Alfred Edersheim in his Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah gives a list of beliefs clearly deducible from rabbinic writings. He states that they recognise

• his pre-earthly existence,
• his superiority over Moses and the angels
• his representative character
• his sufferings and death for people
• his redemption and restoration of Israel.

This is particularly interesting with regard to his sufferings and death, as this aspect of Messiah's role is rarely considered by modern rabbis, if not actually avoided. However, the sufferings and death of the Messiah in connection with sin are not infrequently referred to in rabbinic writings. Messiah is seen willing to take upon himself sufferings that Israel be saved and, on the ground of his messianic work, God and Israel are reconciled. We could also cite ancient liturgy. The additional service of the day of atonement contains a fascinating prayer that is clearly lifted from Isaiah 53 and speaks of a Messiah who bears our sins. All this gives some indication that, going back into ancient days, the attitude of the rabbis, or those who wrote such prayers, was of messiah suffering. It would be altogether unacceptable today. The modern rabbis in their handling of these many messianic references seem to have been influenced in such a way as to produce a radically different picture of the Messiah.

Edersheim in his Prophecy and History in Relation to the Messiah says, "Israel’s apostasy began not with the appearance of Jesus. Rather it was the logical outcome of what had preceded. Israel’s rejection began with the return from exile in Babylon." A return from Babylon resulted not in a return to the religion of the Old Testament but to Judaism, and Edersheim sees the spirit of this change evidenced in the apocryphal and the apocalyptical writings. He lists the following recognisable changes: First of all, God himself is no longer the God of the Old Testament. Sometimes he’s in Greek form, sometimes in a Judaic, narrow, nationalistic form. The idea of placating God by one’s works and good living is also sometimes introduced. Secondly, there was an externalising spirit in the realm of morals. There was an absolute silence with regard to the doctrine of original sin and with regard to the Messiah.  Even in the apocalyptic writings attention was being focused more and more on the period of the messianic age rather than the person of the Messiah.

So although there are many references to Messiah in the rabbinic writings which seem to concur with the Christian view, the overall emphasis of the rabbis moved from a personal Messiah to the glory of the nation. Even the Messiah could be seen as a means to that end. This overall Israel-centred view governs messianic concepts in the Talmud and therefore is the view we find current amongst the Jewish people of today. They will say, "You make far too much of Messiah. To you he’s all important. To us he’s no such important person, whoever he is".