CHRIST'S TWO ADVENTS

More than three hundred Bible prophecies were fulfilled during Christ's First Coming.  He came as a baby, born of a virgin, to serve His Father as our Passover Lamb (Isa. 7:14/Mt. 1:23; Jn. 1:29/1 Cor. 5:7).  Israel's mistake was, they failed to comprehend that their Messiah would need to come twice in order to fulfill all the prophecies about His coming.  They did not understand that Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 spoke of their Messiah as a Suffering Servant.  Instead, they were focused upon their Christ's coming for His coronation; they were expecting the King of the Jews.

A biblical scholar, Arnold Fruchtenbaum, in his book Jesus Was A Jew, had this to say:

 

"Anyone who sets himself to the task of seeking to know what the Old Testament has to say about the coming of the Messiah soon finds himself involved with a seeming paradox.  At times one even seems to be faced with an outright contradiction. For the Jewish prophets gave a two-fold picture of the Messiah who was to come.  On the one hand, the inquirer will find numerous predictions regarding the Messiah which portray him as one who is going to suffer humiliation, physical harm, and finally death in a violent manner. This death was stated by the Jewish prophets to be a substitutionary death for the sins of the Jewish people.  On the other hand, he will find that the Jewish prophets also spoke of the Messiah coming as a conquering King who will destroy the enemies of Israel and set up the messianic kingdom of peace and prosperity.

 

This is the two-fold picture the Jewish prophets gave of the Messiah. For centuries past, during the formulation of the Talmud, our rabbis made serious studies of messianic prophecies.  They came up with this conclusion:  the prophets spoke of two different Messiahs.  The Messiah who was to come, suffer and die was termed Messiah, the Son of Joseph (Mashiach ben Yoseph).  The second Messiah who would then come following the first was termed Messiah, the Son of David (Mashiach ben David).  This one would raise the first Messiah back to life, and establish the Messianic kingdom of peace on earth.  That the Old Testament presents these two lines of Messianic prophecy was something that all the early rabbis recognized. The Old Testament never clearly states that there will be two Messiahs. In fact, many of the paradoxical descriptions are found side by side in the same passages, in which it seems that only one person is meant. But for the early rabbis the two-Messiah theory seemed to be the best answer."

 

 

Born again believers know "this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11).

The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; 

and He shall reign for ever and ever" (Rev. 11:15).