Thread: The Messiah Divine?

In my reading through Mark, I came across Mark 14:61 - Again the high priest questioned Him, "Are You the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?"

My question is if the phrase "Son of the Blessed One" as used by the high priest indicates Deity, or some sort of special relationship between this person and God. If so, it would seem that even the Jewish leaders made some connection between the coming Messiah and Deity. If not, what does it mean?

I get the impression from reading the NT that the Jewish leaders of the time did indeed expect a Divine Messiah. Modern Jews have a different opinion in reaction to Christianity, I would assert. They only un-deified their messianic expectations as a reaction to us. What do you think?

Good question. I'm not sure to what they were expecting as far as the nature of their Messiah. What their Scriptures said and what they were expecting could have been two different things. It seems they most certainly were expecting a military-type Messiah to throw off Roman rule and re-establish Israel as the ruling Kingdom on earth.
At the times when Jesus either alluded to His Deity (Son of God) or stated it bluntly (before Abraham was, I Am..) they did not respond positively.
This is just food for thought, but perhaps the High Priest was looking to use Jesus' own words against Him. They were already aware of how Jesus spoke of Himself. Jesus' claim to be the Son of the Blessed One is true, but it would have been used by the High Priest against Him as blasphemy. If you recall, Jesus' response to him was affirmative, and then they accused Him of blasphemy...which is what they were wanting. Jesus knew what they were doing. You'll note He didn't answer the first charge of blasphmey...He remained silent.
He did answer the second charge, for which they condemned Him.
The irony is that it was the High Priest that committed the blasphemy.

Whether they thought he was going to be a literal "God with us," or how such an identity might manifest itself, they were certainly aware of God's speech frequently on this wise:

Ps.2

7 I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you....
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Or Ps.80

17 But let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself!

Prov.30

4 Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name? Surely you know!

1Chron.17

13 I will be his father, and he shall be my son: and I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee:

they were certainly aware of God's speech frequently

Familiar with God's speech, yes.....believing it....well, they had a problem with that.
They had a history of knowing what the porphets said, but not believing what they said.

Consider the words of Jesus to them...

LUK 6:23 "Be glad in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for in the same way their fathers used to treat the prophets.
LUK 11:47 "Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them.
LUK 11:50 in order that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation,
LUK 13:34 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!
LUK 16:31 "But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.'"
LUK 24:25 And He said to them, "O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!

I really don't know for sure as to the High Priest's motivation.
Perhaps they did have some sort of anticipation of the Messiah having some sort of divine nature, but their response to Jesus' claims (despite the miracles and signs) resulted in accusations of blasphemy against Him.

Ralph,
I guess I just don't understand your question. I thought you were asking if those people expected a Christ who would be identified as "God's Son." I think the High Priest's words show it pretty clearly they did (and the OT which they claimed to believe has passages declaring it), whether or not they had a full recognition of the manner in which Messiah would be a divine person.

Of course they accused Jesus of blasphemy! They refused to believe he was the Person he claimed to be. By his actions and his teaching, he proclaimed his Messiahship, and those men saw all those evidences, heard those gracious words, and they were very worried that he might just be the Messiah, who would "take away both our place and our nation." OUR'S OUR'S, OUR'S! Not His, no, no, no.

Jesus refused to state his identity as Messiah openly, in so many words, during his public ministry. He saved it for the trial, where he replied unequivocally to the High Priest's adjuration. And in that moment, he said "YES," and they all said, "NO. And we are going to prove it by killing you.... Come down from the cross, and we will believe you!"

If Jesus was NOT who he claimed to be, then he WAS guilty of blasphemy. If he WAS who he claimed, then THEY were guilty of blasphemy.

Ralph,
I guess I just don't understand your question

That's cool....I didn't ask the question.

whether or not they had a full recognition of the manner in which Messiah would be a divine person.

I see what you mean...they may not have equated "Son of God" with actually being divine or deity.

Come down from the cross, and we will believe you!"

That's what they said.....but, you know, I don't think they would have even then.

If he WAS who he claimed, then THEY were guilty of blasphemy.

Yes. That is what I said in my first response.

He did answer the second charge, for which they condemned Him.
The irony is that it was the High Priest that committed the blasphemy.

Thanks for the replies so far. I guess the issue boils down to two questions:

1) Was the title "Christ, the Son of the Blessed" the high priest's own phrase or was he restating Jesus' claim? It seems much more likely that it is the high priest's own understanding of the Messiah, since it is used elsewhere in the Gospels by Jews as a name for the Messiah.

2) What, then, did Son of God signify in their minds? I am unsure of this, although it seems plausible that it did connote some divine connotation. I'm not aware of resources, though, that speak to this.

2) What, then, did Son of God signify in their minds? I am unsure of this, although it seems plausible that it did connote some divine connotation. I'm not aware of resources, though, that speak to this.

I'm not overly sure, but this may shed a little bit of light.....

JOHN 5:18 For this cause therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.



Maybe?

Charlie,
I think that the incarnate Son of God was something that had to be experienced to be fully grasped. IOW, the fulfillment had to come for him to be understood. All else was simply grasping at a reality too big to be contained under the types, too big to be explained in a sentence, or even the whole OT.

The disciples went from thinking of Jesus as "one of us, only better," to recognizing that he was less "like them" than they realized at first. The more they knew Jesus, and saw his glory, the more apparent his uniqueness. The higher they HAD to conceive him, until he was the highest One they could possibly conceive.

This is the principal argument I use against all images of Christ. Not only are they false, and superfluous, but by trying to "ascend to heaven, to bring Christ down," we are conceiving of him "backwards."

We don't need pictures of Jesus to remind us of how much "like us" he was in his human nature. The disciples had more of that than we do while he was with them, and they were being led to envision more and more of his divine reality. If we want to imitate the original Disciples, then we need more of that, not a "humanizing" (or more rather, a de-divinizing) of Jesus.

Our eschatology teaches us that we are to be patient, and wait to "see" Jesus in the flesh, with our eyes, beside the "portrait" we have of him in the Supper.

Charlie, in regards to your original question, I have found it helpful at times to seek the view of one who is Jewish who has converted to faith in Christ. If they are studied in the Jewish background, they may be able to shed light on it from a Semitic angle rather than our western/gentile angle.
You know...if we want to know what a Jewish person may have thought, ask a Jewish person.

Bear in mind, though, that when asking a Jewish person about Jewish views of the Messiah, their views have been affected by 2000 years of living alongside and reacting to Christian beliefs. The modern Jew will deny that any divinity of the Messiah has EVER been believed among Jews, but this opinion has been shaped by two millennia of his culture reacting to the Christian belief that the Messiah is fully God and fully man.

-----Added 8/28/2009 at 10:14:41 EST-----

Ultimately, I think that the Jews of Christ's time had a higher view of the Messiah, but they didn't believe Jesus could be it, for various reasons, so his statements were counted blasphemous. Also, I doubt they would have had a fully formed idea of incarnation. The idea that the Messiah might be God in human form would have been a little much. But did they have some notion of his divinity? I think so. Many of the prophecies the Pharisees considered messianic gave very clear hints of his divine status - e.g. David called him "My Lord," and they acknowledged that this was indeed a messianic prophecy because Jesus quotes it to them as proof, clearly indicating they already believed it was a reference to the coming Messiah.