How can I identify messianic prophecies in the Old Testament?

Special attention should be given in this connection to what are called the 'Messianic passages' of the Old Testament; for instance, to Ps. 22:16 and Zech. 11:12. Hengstenberg's 'Christology of the Old Testament' and 'The Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah according to Jewish Interpretation with Introduction by Pusey' (1877) would be helpful in this study. It ranges itself rather under interpretation.

Such is prophecy. It is sorrowful, because it unveils the sin, the ungrateful folly, of God's people. But it reveals the heart of One who is unwearied in love, who loves this people, who seeks their good, although He feels their sin according to His love. It is the heart of God that speaks. These two characters of prophecy throw light upon the two-fold end it has in view, and help us to understand its bearing. First of all, it addresses itself to the actual state of the people, and shews them their sin; it always therefore supposes the people to be in a fallen condition. When they peacefully enjoy the blessings of God, there is no need of displaying their condition to them. But, in the second place, during the period in which the people are still acknowledged, it speaks of present restoration on their repentance, to encourage them to return to Jehovah; and it proclaims deliverance. And in this, the law and so the blessings connected with it, have their place as that to which they should return. Of this the last prophetic word from God (Mal. 4) is an expressive instance. But God well knew the hearts of His people, and that they would not yield to His call. To sustain the faith of the remnant, faithful amidst this unbelief, and for the instruction of His people at all times, He adds promises which will assuredly be fulfilled by the coming of Messiah. These promises are sometimes connected with the circumstances of a near and partial deliverance, sometimes with the consummation of the people's iniquity in the rejection of Christ come in humiliation. It is important to be able to distinguish between that part of a passage which refers to those circumstances which were near at hand, and that which speaks of full deliverance shewn in perspective through those circumstances. This is the difficult part of the interpretation of prophecy.

I would add that, although the subject of prophecy is not a figure, yet figures are not only largely used, but they are often intermingled with literal expressions; so that in explaining the prophetic books one cannot make an exact rule to distinguish between figure and letter. The aid of the Holy Ghost is necessary, as is always the case in the study of the sacred word, to find the true sense of the passage. What I have said is equally applicable to other parts of scripture, and in the most solemn circumstances. Psalm 22, for instance, is a continual mixture of figures, which represent the moral character of certain facts, with other facts recited in the simplicity of the letter. There is no difficulty in understanding it. "Dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me, they pierced my hands and my feet." The word dogs gives the character of those present. This way of speaking is found in all languages. For instance, it would be said, "He drew a fine picture of virtue." Drew a picture is a figure. I say this in order that a difficulty may not be made of that which belongs to the nature of human language.

In the Old Testament the coming of the Lord Jesus is very clearly predicted in many of the prophetic writings. Often "the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow" are found closely entwined, so that it is not to be wondered at that the prophets could not understand the things that they had written concerning the promised Messiah (1 Peter 1:10-12). How very different it is now, for the Lord Jesus has come, and so much of what was written concerning Him has been fulfilled, so that we can understand the writings of the Old Testament, being able, by the Spirit of God, to distinguish between what has been fulfilled, and what remains to be fulfilled at the second coming of the Lord Jesus. Moreover, we also have the plain teaching of the Lord regarding what will take place when He comes again, and it is this that we can consider in Matthew's Gospel.

(1) Direct Prophecy.—This includes all direct statements as to future events. One instance out of many must suffice.

Though Messianic predictions and allusions, in type and song and prophecy, lie scattered over Old Testament pages much as the stars of heaven besprinkle the black face of the night sky, yet all are not of the same distinct and important type; just as, to pursue the analogy, all stars are not of the first magnitude. One striking fact, however, will be noticed; several of the greatest prophecies, true stars of the first magnitude, shone forth in moments of great crisis, when some cherished thought of God, entrusted for a moment to some representative of the "first man," had failed. Let us briefly trace a few examples.

In the Old Testament, as in the New, the greatest variety of moral appeal accompanies prediction almost everywhere, and in volume commonly exceeds it, as being of the utmost importance. But specific predictions are given throughout to be fulfilled in due time. Apply this test to Christ's first advent, incomparably the most momentous of all facts here below, so declared to be by both the Old and the New Testaments; and what can be more decisive? From Moses to Malachi the grand testimony was to the coming Messiah. Even Genesis narrowed the limits down from the first woman to Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, successively; as the Psalms did to One Who should be David's son, yet David's Lord, sitting at Jehovah's right hand before He strike through kings in His wrath (Ps. 110) Who is set on the holy hill of Zion, and sways the universal sceptre as Son of man over all nations (Ps. 8; Dan. 7). The time was fixed by Daniel, the place by Micah, the birth from a virgin by Isaiah, even the strange land (where Israel was a bondman) to the Messiah a shelter from the Edomite king of Judæa, as the Spirit showed by Hosea. (Hosea 11:1-3). So we have in Isaiah and Malachi His herald, "A voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of Jehovah"; for indeed He was Immanuel and Jehovah. By the same prophet His servant-character, so hateful to man's pride and rebelliousness, was fully made known. It told the tale of the world's state, His utter rejection by man, though Jehovah's chosen, in Whom His soul delighted, Whom man despised, Whom the nation abhorred. There, too, the ministry of His life, the atonement of His death, are with equal clearness revealed. So long before, David wrote in Psalm 22. what was immeasurably beyond his own sufferings, and any kingly power of his — indeed, what He alone of all men knew. He is on the one hand the Holy One of God, abandoned by His God, as He must be to make expiation of sins, and on the other raised and glorified in virtue of it, so as to praise "in the midst of the congregation" or church (v. 22) now, as He will ere long "in the great congregation," i.e. "all Israel" then saved (v. 25); when all the ends of the earth shall remember, and all the kingdoms of the nations worship. So it is to be, when the kingdom becomes de facto, as it is de jure, Jehovah's, and He is the ruler over the nations.

The very first announcement concerning the Saviour is to the point here. To the serpent in Eden the Lord God said: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel" (Gen. 3:15) . Three things are here predicted of our Lord: His incarnation; His sufferings, and His victory. But mark the total omission of all reference to the man in this prophecy. The woman, the enemy, and the Deliverer are the only parties mentioned therein. As Revelation unfolded itself, so did the mind of God concerning the coming One. Thus of all Adam's sons Seth was to be His progenitor; later, of Noah's sons, Shem; of Terah's sons, Abram; of Jacob's, Judah; and of Jesse's, David. In due course, the very village was named in which He should be born; and the time of His coming (Mic. 5:2; Dan. 9:25). Then in Isa. 7:14 we read: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel." How this passage is applied by the Spirit of God in Matt. 1:23 is known to every Bible reader.

Another thing, among many, that makes the Bible different from all other books is the prophecies of Scripture. If we confine ourselves to one theme alone — that of the promised Messiah — we find that 4,000 years before He was born it was prophesied that He would come. Micah foretold the place where He would be born (Micah 5:2). Daniel told of the time when He would appear, and named the very day when He would present Himself to the nation as their King, and also indicated how the nation would reject Him (Dan. 9:26). Isaiah portrays the remarkable way in which He would enter into this world (Isa. 7:14); then that He would be despised and rejected, and finally that His death would be the great propitiatory offering for the sin of the world.

Now this special line in their ministry gives great symmetry to the prophets. There is always great propriety in the various prophecies. The prophets do not all bring in the Messiah in the same way. Isaiah is the most comprehensive of all the prophets, and brings in the Messiah in every way. Some of them only foretell the Messiah as a sufferer, and others as a glorious conqueror. One may show Him in both aspects, but usually some present Him in one way and some in another. There is always a relation between the particular scope of the prophecy and the manner in which Christ is introduced in it.

There were a number of predictions concerning the humiliation, the sorrows, the death of the Messiah, though outnumbered by those speaking of His glory, His power, His discriminating judgment. What was the solution? We do not know that Jews debated the possibility of there being two Advents, though we have been given to understand that some held the theory of two Messiahs — a sorrowing One, and a triumphant One. But obviously on this point the Old Testament was indeterminate. Of course God could have made the point quite clear, if it had suited His ways to do so. He could have caused Malachi to write in his last chapter about "the tender mercy of our God; whereby the Day-spring from on high" should visit them rather than about the burning up of the wicked by the rising of "the Sun of righteousness," and to speak plainly about John the Baptist instead of giving a prediction about Elijah the prophet, which as subsequent events proved had a certain reference to him. But no, Malachi's closing note was a prediction as to the far-off coming to reign and not the near-approaching coming to suffer.

The astronomers tell us that not a few stars which are obviously one when viewed by the naked eye, are nevertheless obviously two when seen through a powerful telescope This may serve as an illustration of our point. Take the early part of Isaiah 61 for instance — the passage that the Lord began to read in the synagogue at Nazareth, as recorded in Luke 4. The saint of Old Testament times read it with the "naked eye," and saw one coming, which was to bring the good tidings and the liberty of the acceptable year of the Lord, and also the vengeance that would rid the land of its ashes and mourning. The "telescopic view" began to be apparent when our Lord stopped his reading in the middle of verse 2. There are two comings in that verse, and not one only. The case of Isaiah 61:2 should warn us to be very careful how we handle the predictions of the Old Testament.