The Prophet Isaiah’s Prophecy concerning the Messiah
“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).
This prophecy was fulfilled in Mary the Virgin, as is narrated by two Evangelists, Matt. 1: 18-25 and Luke 1: 26-38. Matthew adds the following details: “Now all this occurred, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, means, God is with us.”
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, whose authority was placed upon his shoulder, and he shall be called Messenger of the Great Plan, Wonderful Counsellor, God, the Powerful Sovereign, the Ruler of Peace, the Father of the Future world. For I will bring peace upon the rulers, peace and health by him. Great shall be his authority, and of his peace there is no limit upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to establish it an;d to take possession of it in judgment and in justice, henceforth and for all time. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do these things” (Isaiah 9:6-7).
Such will be Emmanuel, the Son of the Virgin: perfectly peaceful, a powerful and pacific God, pacifying man with God and man with man, and conciliating all and reconciling them with God. This prophecy has been fulfilled, as is attested by the Evangelist St. Luke (Chap. 2 of his gospel).
“And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of the root: and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety; the spirit of the fear of God shall fill him” (Isaiah 11: 1-2).
The gifts of the Holy Spirit ate seven in number, namely: The spirit of wisdom, of understanding, of counsel, of might, of knowledge, of piety, and of the fear of God. The Messiah, who was born of the royal lineage of David the son of Jesse, received the entire Holy Spirit in the form of a dove when He was being baptized in the river Jordan, as affirmed by John the Baptist himself, who said: “I saw the spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him . . . And I saw, and bare record as a witness that this is the Son of God” (John 1: 32,34).
The Prophet Jeremiah’s Prophecy concerning the Messiah
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise up unto David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king, and he shall understand, and shall execute judgment and justice on earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell in confidence; and this is the name whereby the Lord will call him, Josedek, among the prophets” (Jeremiah 28:6).
“Josedek” in Hebrew means “Jehovah’s Word,” or the Messiah. This prophecy, therefore, prophesies the coming of the kingdom of Christ the Messiah on earth. Having overcome and defeated by His death on the cross the Devil, who had conquered Adam, He is coming soon to reign as king, in accordance with the prophecies that have been made repeatedly in the past (Isaiah 2:1-6; 11:1- 10; Daniel 7:18, 27, 2: 44).
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not abide in my covenant, and I neglected them, saith the Lord. For this shall be the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: having given laws of mine to their intellect, I will also write them in their hearts, and will see them, and will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:31-33).
Israel was a name given to Jacob (Gen. 32:28) and means “the Pious” between God and men and powerful. Israel is a name also given to the Christian people of God, but as New Israel in contrast to the Old Israel. The Old Testament was abrogated at once when the New Testament was put into effect by Christ the Messiah and His twelve disciples and apostles at the “Mystic Supper” and into execution on the following evening by Christ the Messiah on the precious and life-creating Cross through His unjust and illegal sentence to death and the unjust and illegal shedding of His sacrosanct blood when He was nailed to the cross.
”And he took bread, and gave. thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:19-20).
St. Matthew adds also the words
“Take, eat . . Drink all ye of it. For this is my blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of their sins” (Matt. 26:26-28).
When the new king, Christ the Messiah, finally appeared in the house of Israel and in the house of Judah, He gave the New Covenant, commonly though mistakenly known as the New Testament, to the New Israel (which included both the house of Israel and the house of Judah aforementioned), the God-fearing Jews, who, in turn, imparted this New Covenant to the nations, beginning with the Holy Pentecost (Acts 2:37). Those Jews, on the other hand, who had lost faith in the house of Israel and the house of Judah, and who rejected Christ the Messiah and His New Covenant, are still waiting for Christ the Messiah to come and reign over them in Jerusalem only, because they have been deceived by the false prophets known as Pharisees. “This do in remembrance of me.” All who do so, that is, all who eat the bread and drink out of the cup of the New Covenant, or New Testament, in accordance with foregoing prophecy, will have the laws of God written and deeply inscribed in their hearts and will cherish and hold them in mind in their intellects, and they will be God’s people, while the rest of mankind wander in error and know not whither they are headed.
The Prophet Ezekiel’s Prophecy concerning the Messiah
“Thus saith the lord God, O shepherds of Israel, do the shepherds feed themselves? Behold, ye eat up the milk, and ye clothe you with the wool, and ye slaughter them that are fat and ye have not pastured my flock. The weakened ye have failed to strengthen, and the sick ye have failed to restore to health, neither have ye searched for the lost;. but with fiendish cruelty ye have imprisoned and oppressed them. And my sheep accordingly have been scattered abroad for lack of shepherds, and they have become a prey to all the beasts of the field . . . . Behold, I, even I, will seek out my sheep and will visit them and give them due consideration . . . . and I will gather them from the various countries in which they have been scattered abroad, and will rescue them from the nations . . . . I, even I, will pasture and feed my sheep . . . . And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall pasture them, even my servant David; and he shall be their shepherd and I the Lord will be their God, and David shall be the ruler amidst them; I the Lord have spoken. And I will make with David a covenant of peace, and will cause the wild beasts to disappear from the earth . . . Thus shall they know what I the Lord their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people, saith the Lord God” (Ezek. 34 : 2-5, 11, 13, 14, 23, 24, 30).
This prophecy of divine Ezekiel’s first of all disapproves of the bad shepherds of old Israel, known as Scribes and Pharisees, who scattered God’s people (who in the prophecy are called sheep) among the nations of the earth, whose high mountains symbolize the governments or rulers of the nations. The Scribes and Pharisees, after crucifying Christ the Messiah as being a false Messiah, scattered God’s people, for even before the Messiah’s coming they were pasturing themselves and not the sheep, and consequently were unworthy and unscrupulous shepherds; that is to say, they victimized and exploited God’s people whenever and wherever they found an opportunity, and did nothing to benefit it. In the second place, the prophecy disapproves of the bad shepherds of new Israel – that is to say, the unworthy and unscrupulous Christian shepherds, or, as they are usually called in English, pastors, as well as priests, who by simony and traffic in things divine pasture only themselves, and not the sheep of Christ the shepherd; instead they regard them as their own sheep to do with as they please – on which account St. Paul calls them “grievous wolves” (Acts 20:29). The Pope of Rome, likewise, has put himself forward instead of Christ as being an infallible shepherd, and has seduced a great number of sheep away from Christ’s flocks through guile and deceit. The Protestants, on the other hand, have also allegedly disapproved of the bad shepherds, naming Roman Catholics and Orthodox Greek Christians as such, and putting themselves in Christ’s place as shepherds, or pastors, as they call themselves in English, which word, properly speaking, means shepherds, the word priest being disclaimed by them on the ground that it is used by the Roman Catholics and Orthodox Greek Christians. Thus, each Protestant pastor persuades his followers to accept his interpretation of Christ and of the Bible, so that in consequence there are nearly as many sects among them as there are pastors and thus we have a multitude of bad shepherds, or pastors.
Having foreseen all these things, God sent His people the promised Messiah in the person of Christ, whom the bad shepherds put to death on the alleged ground that He was a false Messiah but illegally and without the slightest proof. But the Good Shepherd, before being put to death, sternly denounced the bad shepherds – the Scribes and Pharisees – and warned them of their fate in the following words:
“Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matt. 21:43).
Afterwards He asseverated:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you,He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and robber. But he that entereth by the door is the shepherd of the sheep . . . . I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep . . . . And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice and hearken unto it; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd” (John 10: 1-16).
Since the prophecy applies also to the bad shepherds in times after Christ, He foretells all men that He will raise up a single shepherd, David His servant, to be their ruler and shepherd. He says He will crush the yoke laid upon their necks and shatter it to pieces, and will make a covenant of peace with him, that is to say, with David, who is none other than Christ the Messiah, who, according to Daniel (2:44, 7:17-18) will establish a new kingdom on earth, which the saints of the Most High will take possession of, and there will be one flock and one shepherd over it. The end and fulfilment of these prophecies is nigh at hand, and the time is fast approaching when peace will reign upon the earth. So be it!
Apostolos Makrakis 