HARRY WHITTAKER

IN THE VERY first verse the reader of the gospels finds himself face to face with a large-writ signpost: Jesus is the promised Seed of Abraham, and the promised Seed of David (Mt. 1:1). Here is the One for whom the nation has looked and prayed these many centuries.

Luke has woven the same certification of identity into the beginning of his gospel also : “To perform the mercy(Footnote 1) promised to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant; the oath which He sware to our father Abraham” (Lk. 1:72,73). And in the same song of Zacharias : “He hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David” (v. 69). The old childless priest gloried in the birth of his son destined to blaze a trail for the Promised Seed.

And John the Baptist did this in no uncertain fashion :

It is a guess, but a very likely guess, that there, on Jordan’s banks, this austere prophet was able to point to the cairn of twelve stones brought out of the bed of the river when the twelve tribes of Israel crossed Jordan to enter into their inheritance. Thus John made his point, that it is not the man who has the blood of Abraham in his veins who inherits the promise, but the one who follows Joshua-Jesus in a baptism in Jordan water who has this faith reckoned to him for righteousness.

But all along, the adversaries of Jesus insisted on their natural descent as the supreme virtue, when really it was no virtue at all : “We be Abraham’s children and were never in bondage to any man” (Jn. 8:33). Fools! Why hadn’t they the wit to recognise themselves as bondslaves to sin, and therefore—like Ishmael, son of the bondmaid—no true children of the Father of the Faith-full ?

Like Ishmael, they were Abraham’s seed after a fashion, and like Ishmael, they persecuted the true Son of Promise (w. 37, 40). How then could they hope to “abide in the house” for ever? Or even at all?

More positively, Jesus set out his own true claim as the sinless Seed of Abraham, greater than Abraham himself :

This delight of the Friend of God was his open expression of faith in the Almighty’s promise of a child of old age (Gen. 17:17). It was a joy which intensified when he had Isaac given back to him on Mount Moriah, and with Isaac a rich promise of a Seed who would “possess the gate of his enemies”—in token of which Jesus stopped a funeral cortege in the gate of the city of death and displayed his power over the Enemy by restoring an only son to his widowed mother (Lk. 7:12).

Similarly Mark gently reasserts the title of Jesus as Seed of Abraham by his picture of the man of Nazareth walking through the Land in the length of it and in the breadth of it, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward—it was all given to him. “A great multitude from Galilee followed him, and from Judaea, and from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and beyond Jordan, and about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude...” (3:7,8). And there is a surprising variant reading in some manuscripts of all the synoptic gospels reminding the reader that the Girgashites whose land Abraham is to inherit were on the east of Galilee, and there Jesus staked a claim to Abrahamic inheritance by healing a Gergesene demoniac.

Naturally the parable provided by the offering of Isaac does not go ignored in the gospels : “I must walk today and tomorrow, and the day following : for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem” (Lk. 13:33). Here is the picture of the Father and the Son going “both of them together” until, on the third day, they reach Mount Moriah— “the third day I am perfected (consecrated(Footnote 2)— as a sacrifice)”.

John the Baptist had his mind on the same Old Testament Scripture when he declared :

As Jesus ratifies and is heir to God’s Covenant with Abraham, so also faith in him emulates the faith of Abraham and entitles to Abrahamic blessings. That poor bent woman was in the synagogue not just to hear a discourse but with faith in the power and compassion of Christ to heal her. Daughter of Abraham, truly! (Lk. 13:16). And Zacchaeus, seeing Jesus from afar, gladly abandoned his tree to welcome the Lord to his home for a weekend :

Similarly, in another powerful parable, Gentiles accepted into the Covenant are symbolised by a transfigured beggar now relaxing in the bosom of Abraham, whilst those who inherited spiritual purple and fine linen writhe in misery till they give heed to Moses and the prophets.

References to Jacob’s place in the Covenants are less frequent. There are two outstanding allusions to Bethel where the Covenant made with Abraham was renewed : “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man” (Jn. 1:51). It is usual to think of Christ as the ladder of fellowship between heaven and earth. But (following the Greek text) it would be more accurate to see him as the pillar, overturned, re-erected, and anointed. Through him there is access to the heavenly throne and through him the glory of God comes down to bless the House of God. At Bethel, Jacob was promised that his seed should “spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south” to include “all families of the earth” (Gen. 28:14). When a Roman centurion sought the blessing of Christ and, by the way he did it, showed such faith as had not been manifest in Israel, Jesus exulted at this token of Gentile fulfilment of the Bethel promise :

It is not difficult to see where Paul learned his expositions of the Promises!

The Covenant made with David is just as readily traceable in the gospels, literally from beginning to end.

The genealogy in Matthew 1 has its significant allusion to “David the king” (v. 6). And the angel Gabriel’s assurance to Mary combines the Promise to David with the commentary on it in Isaiah 7 and 9:

The links with 2 Samuel 7 are readily recognisable. But one that is often missed is in the phrase : “He shall be great”. David’s gasp of wonder and thankfulness on receiving the promise was : “Thou art great, Ο Lord : for there is none like thee” (2 Sam. 7:22). So this Son to be born was promised not only the royal glory of his father but also the Divine majesty of his Father.

When he was born, angels bubbling over with excitement bade the shepherds find the Lamb of God who would one day shepherd God’s Israel even as David had done. When the baby Jesus became a toddler, there came wise men from the east to worship and honour this King of the Jews born in David’s city.

As time went on, Gentiles like Bartimaeus and the Canaanitish woman added their witness of faith, calling Jesus “Son of David”. How should they know, except they had learned faithfully the Covenants of Promise that belonged to Israel? Even the Lord’s enemies added their unwitting witness. For when the crowd marvelled at his miracles, saying: “Is not this the Son of David (the Messiah)?”, these malevolent men retorted : “Son of David he may be, but he’s a lunatic, casting out devils by the prince of the devils, the god of Ekron”—reminiscent of what Philistine foes said about David himself in the court of Achish : “the man’s mad” (Mt. 12:22-24).

And when Jesus put the crucial question to them : “Why, in Psalm 110, does David refer to his own son as Lord?” (Mt. 22:43,44), they knew the answer well enough : “Because that Son has a higher status, by virtue of his higher birth—Son of God, born of a virgin”. But they dare not say it, so their silence shouted the truth out loud. So too did Galilean pilgrims and children when their King came riding upon an ass : “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed be the kingdom of our father David that cometh in the name of the Lord”.

Thus Jesus was promised to Abraham as the Seed and the Sacrifice, was promised to Moses as the Prophet greater than he, was promised to David as the wise and mighty King. In him, Jesus, all things consist.

It is the fact that in the couple of decades since Israel became a country, more books have been written about Jesus by Jews in Jerusalem alone than had been produced by all the world’s Jewry in the previous eighteen centuries.

Nor are these books being produced by some secret underground movement. The great Hebrew University, focus of Israeli scholarship, also has a title which until recently would have been anathema to any Jew—“Head of Christian Studies”. Its present holder is Professor David Flusser of whom it has been said “he walks with Jesus, thinks Jesus, loves Jesus, but he is still an Orthodox Jew”. And he himself has said, “Jesus asked us to repent and return to God. If for a Jew it is not difficult to understand Jesus’s message, it is imperative for Christians today to accept it . . . If Jewish scholarship could only rediscover Jesus for the Jew, as well as for our Christian brethren, our work would not be in vain”. Significantly, attendances at his lectures are very high.

To quote another Jewish authority, Schalom Ben Chorin, “For this our brother Jesus has been dead for us, and has now come back to life”.

The Cambrian News, February 22nd, 1974.

Blindness in part has happened to Israel

(Romans 11:25)