The Hebrew Background to the New Testament

I thought the following reproduction of a few paragraph's' from Anthony
Buzzard's booklet "Who Is Jesus?" would be helpful. One of the pitfall's of the average believer today is the failure of current Christianity to understand the Hebrew context of Jesus and His message. Indeed, it would appear that this disconnect happened centuries ago in the time when the creeds of Christianity were formulated. The following is a useful summary of the early Church's understanding of Hebrew Scripture concerning Jesus.

It will be useful by way of summary and to orient ourselves to the thought world of the authors of the New Testament to lay out the principal passages of the Hebrew Scriptures from which they derived their unified understanding of the person of Christ. Nowhere can it be shown that the Messiah was to be an uncreated being, a fact which should cause us to look outside the Bible for the source of such a revolutionary concept.

The original purpose for man, made in the image and glory of God, was to exercise dominion over the earth (Gen 1:26; Psa 8). That ideal is never lost beyond our recovery for the Psalmist speaks of the “glory” with which man has been (potentially) crowned so that “all things are to be subjected under his feet” (Psa 8:5, 6). As the divine plan unfolds it becomes clear that the promised “seed of the woman” who is to reverse the disaster caused by Satan (Gen 3:15) will be a descendant of David (2 Sam. 7:13-16). He will call God his Father (2 Sam. 7:14) and be appointed as God’s Son, the Messiah, to whom God entrusts rulership of the earth (Psa 2). Prior to taking up his royal office, however, the Messiah is to sit at the right hand of the Father and bear the title “Lord” (Psa 110:1).

As Son of Man, representative man, he will take his place in heaven prior to receiving from God authority to administer a universal empire (Dan 2:44; 7:14; Acts 3:20, 21). Having at his first coming suffered for the sins of the people (Isa 53; Psa 22), he is to come again as God’s firstborn, the ruler of the kings of the earth (Psa 89:27), foreshadowed by David who was also chosen from the people (Psa 89:19, 20).

As the second Moses, the Messiah was to arise in Israel (Deut 18:18), deriving his divine Sonship from a supernatural birth from a virgin (Isa 7:14; Luke 1:35), and being confirmed as God’s Son through his resurrection from the dead (Rom 1:4). As High Priest, the Messiah now serves his people from heaven (Heb 8:1) and awaits the time of the restoration of all things (Acts 3:21), when he is destined to be reintroduced into the earth as King of Kings, the divine figure of Psalm 45 (Heb 1:6-8). At that time, in the new age of the Kingdom, he will rule with his disciples (Matt 19:28; Luke 22:28-30; 1 Cor 6:2; 2 Tim 2:12; Rev 2:26; 3:21; 20:4). As Adam heads the original creation of human beings on earth, so Jesus is the created Head of the New Order of humanity, in whom the ideals of the human race will be fulfilled (Heb 2:7).

Within this Messianic framework the person and work of Jesus can be explained in terms understood by the apostles. Their purpose even when presenting the most “advanced” Christology is to proclaim belief in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God (John 20:31), who is the center of God’s whole purpose in history (John 1:14). Though Jesus is obviously coordinated in a most intimate way with his Father, the latter remains the “only true God” of biblical monotheism (John 17:3). Jesus thus represents the presence of the one God, his Father. In the man Jesus, Immanuel, the one God is present with us (John 14:9).

-- Who Is Jesus?, pages 25&26, by Anthony Buzzard