This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The History of Salvation” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 2, 1990.

We begin reading at verse 22, and read through verse 30. Chapter 32, verse 22. Now Jacob arose that same night, and took his two wives, and his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them across the stream, and he sent across whatever he had. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. And when he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh, so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.

Then he said, Let me go, for the dawn is breaking. But he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. So he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with me and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked him and said, Please tell me your name. But he said, Why is it that you ask my name? and he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place to Nile, for he said, I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved. Then turning over to the Psalms, Psalm 45, Reading the first nine verses, Psalm 45, my heart overflows with a good theme. I address my verses to the King. My tongue is a pen, is the pen of a ready writer.

Thou art fairer than the sons of men. Grace is poured upon thy lips. Therefore God has blessed thee forever. gird thy sword on thy thigh, O mighty one, in thy splendor and thy majesty, and in thy majesty ride on victoriously. For the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness, let thy right hand teach thee awesome things. Thy arrows are sharp, the peoples fall under thee, thy arrows are in the heart of the king’s Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore God, by God, has anointed thee with the oil of joy above thine fellows. All thy garments are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. Out of ivory palaces stringed instruments have made thee glad. Kings’ daughters are among thy noble ladies. at thy right hand stands the Queen in gold from Ophir.” And then over in Isaiah chapter 9, a familiar passage to you, verses 6 and 7. This is Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 and 7.

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace on the throne of David or over his kingdom. to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.”

Let’s pray together now. Our Father, you have given your word to your church, and your church is to be ruled by Christ through the word. We rejoice that you have raised up for your church servants who will proclaim the word And we thank you, our God, that you have given to your people those who might make judgment with respect to cases brought before them. We thank you, Lord, for wisdom granted to these officers of the Church. We thank you for these governors of your people, for these elders. And we thank you, Lord, for the elders that you have given to this Church. May they prove to be judges of right, and may they also, Lord, prove to be those who stand guardian of your word to ensure that it is proclaimed properly. We ask that not only for our congregation, but for those congregations known by your name, where the truth of your gospel is honored and pursued. We ask these things through the Head and King of the Church, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Tonight we come to the last of our messages on Old Testament times. Tonight we are considering the theme, the coming Messiah. And I hope to place before you the pattern of Old Testament revelation with respect to the matter of the Messiah, that you might understand better the nature of that revelation, the particular features of that revelation as it is given to us from the Old Testament. Now, I wish to begin our consideration this evening, our consideration of the Old Testament’s presentation of the Messiah, by looking at the latter books, by looking at the prophets first of all.

The prophets announce the coming of a deliverer. Repeatedly, that fact is placed before the people of God. The prophets are uniformly expectant. They announce the coming of a Deliverer, and this Deliverer is portrayed by the prophets as one who is fully human. Fully human.

You may recall a passage that we have become accustomed to applying to the Messiah, although it wasn’t all that clear to the people of Isaiah’s day, namely Isaiah 7, verse 14. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. It says in that text, Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, Or as some have translated that, a young maiden will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel. You understand the translation of that name, being God with us.

Well, at least what we can say, if the Deliverer is in view in this text, if the Messiah is in view in this text, He is portrayed here clearly as one who is fully human, born of a woman. We turn over to the ninth chapter of Isaiah from the passage that we read this evening. There again in the sixth verse of that ninth chapter, a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us. Once more, it is difficult to miss the fact that this individual is fully human. This individual is also portrayed for us as arising out of the tribe of Judah and from the shoot of Jesse. Turn a few pages to Isaiah 11, the opening of that, then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse and a branch from his root will bear fruit. So again, fully human, a child coming forth from Jesse’s lineage.

And to this one we are told in other passages in Isaiah, to this one belongs the nations. His inheritance is the nations. He being then their light. This bringing before us the fact that this one born into the world is a ruler, a ruler without precedent, and this one who is ruler, being a source of glory, his reign being glorious itself. The prophets then announced for us the advent, the coming of a fully human deliverer. who will be glorious in his person and in his reign.

But at the same time, the Prophet’s message is overlaid with great ambiguity, so that this deliverer, this figure, this Messiah, if you will, remains a figure clothed in mystery, covered seemingly by a clown or a vain. That is why you see even amongst the most devout, the most pious of Israel, texts that seem transparent to us were not transparent to them. They didn’t see in those texts what we see in them. It was only later, as God made full disclosure of His purpose in the person of Jesus Christ, that the veil would be lifted, the cloud would be lifted, and they would see things clearly. So then, the prophet’s message is also an ambiguous message, so that this messianic figure remains one clothed in mystery. Yes, fully human. Yes, destined for glory. Yet, at the same time, seemingly, one who suffers and suffers greatly. Unprecedented glory, but unparalleled pain. How is he described for us?

Do we look later to the servant passages in Isaiah’s prophecy? You can run through those servant passages in the chapters 40 through 49. You can look at the servant passage par excellence, chapter 53. There you have for you a description of this one. despised, forsaken of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hide their face, despised to be sure, bearing our grief, carrying our sorrows, stricken, smitten of God, afflicted, pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our sins, the chastening of our well-being falling upon Him, His scourging being the source of our health.

We, like sheep gone astray, turned each one to his own way, but the Lord is causing the iniquity of us all to fall upon Him. oppressed, afflicted, opening not his mouth, a lamb led to slaughter, a sheep that is silent before its shearers, yet he opens not his mouth.”

And so it goes. The picture of the One who is coming. Now, it’s true. that even the most devout in Israel had a very difficult time reconciling that expectation of the glorious deliverance with the suffering servant. And only in time, when God would make plain his mystery, would this become clear so that we are benefited through the gospel. The testimony is consistent.

You read in other prophets like Zechariah. He was pierced, writes Zechariah. Chapter 12, verse 10. Depicted as a shepherd stricken. And when he is stricken, the sheep scatter. Chapter 13, verse 7. Yes, the Messiah is a glorious king. But at the same time, the Lamb of God. The Lamb led to slaughter. But even beyond this ambiguity, glory and suffering, we learn further when the veil is lifted, when the cloud rises, If we dare to think of it, and it seems almost as if none in Israel were prepared to think of it, that this Messiah, this coming Deliverer, had the most unique relationship with God.

Isaiah 7.14, we’ve already looked at that passage, does leave us somewhat in murky water.

Who is this Immanuel? Was there a little Immanuel running around the streets of Jerusalem in the days of Ahaz the king? But the name presses itself even further upon us, upon our consciousness, upon our religious response. Immanuel, not just a name for a little boy in Ahaz’s day.

Immanuel, God with us, the name that describes that one who is coming, born not just of a young maiden, but of a virgin, miraculously born. God himself, if you can imagine it, in the flesh. Isaiah 9.6, again, we’re there at that passage once more, helps us and places us on firm ground with regard to our understanding of that 7.14 passage. Yes, there is coming this child born to us, gift to us, that we learn from what Isaiah says, the government will rest upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. Though few, if any, in Israel are prepared to accept this message, yet what is being declared by the prophets is this, A child born, fully human, destined for glory, yet the Lamb of God, a man, yet God, coming in human flesh.

Startle. for presenting this Deliverer as a figure so uniquely related to God as to be indistinguishable from Him, so close, so proximate, so intimate the bond, that He is indistinguishable from God and welcome to all the titles that God Himself You may think of that Micah prophecy, the one that talks about the place of birth for the coming Deliverer being Bethlehem, Micah 5.2. In this passage we are told that this one who is born in that lowly, obscure town, his comings forth are from of old, from everlasting language that is applicable only to God himself.

The figure is further described for us by Daniel, the 7th chapter, verses 13 and 14. Here the description takes a different twist. From Isaiah and others we may learn about a God-like man, but in Daniel he is portrayed as a man like God, who comes up before the Ancient of Days to receive the kingdom which belongs to God alone, this kingdom now given to him.

That which is God’s is his. There is Malachi, the final prophet of the Old Testament. You know the passage, the third chapter, the very first verse. It’s a famous text. Behold, I am going to send my messenger. and he will clear the way before me.” We all know who that is. We recognize the figure of John the Baptist in that one.

But then Malachi goes further, and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says, the Lord of Hosts. Malachi in this passage sees the divinity of the Messiah and calls, calls the Messiah, Lord. But he also sees the humanity and goes on to call this deliverer the messenger of the covenant simultaneously. This text is so striking because it describes the one who comes under two separate categories.

The Lord, on the one hand, and the messenger of the covenant on the other. But you see, the advent of this special messenger is actually the advent of the Lord himself. The coming of the messenger is the coming of God. And that finally is the bottom line with respect to the prophet’s message.

When God works his deliverance, when this special figure arises, when he comes, when he’s born, when he takes to himself human flesh, this one who comes will be God come to us in the flesh. yet in unprecedented fashion, glorious. Human, yet seemingly inexplicably afflicted. Human, glorious, afflicted, yet God himself come to his sanctuary. The coming of God in the coming of the promised one. see the one, and when the cloud is dispersed, you see the coming of the other.

The prophets are unanimous and utterly consistent. We stand against their testimony at our jeopardy. That is why the standing of the liberal gospel is so precarious. It woe be to those who feign orthodoxy, who speak about a divine Messiah, who are clear in their own minds about the divinity of this one. Yet, in their hearts, are far from Him.

So, is it just the Prophet’s message that confronts us with this picture of the Messiah? Is it merely a Prophet’s vision from which arises this portrait? And that’s from the later times in Old Testament history. If we turn to the book of Genesis, the very first book of the Old Testament, what do we find there? Little by little, bit by bit, piece by piece, the same thing.

Genesis 3.15. The coming deliverer promised is of the seed of the woman, fully human. We are told also in this text that this coming one will suffer, his heel shall be bruised, yet he will triumph in crushing the serpent’s head. There it is. There it is for you, in seminal form.

We also see the image of the Messiah, do we not, in the figure of that mysterious priest, King Melchizedek, in Genesis 14, to whom Abram gives a tie of the spoils from his triumph over the king from the east. We see the messianic form in that cloudy figure of the angel of the Lord, who appears repeatedly in Genesis.

As we read the scene, we see the form of the Messiah, the coming one, in that man, that’s what he’s called in Genesis 32, in that man who wrestles with Jacob. You hear What Jacob says after he has wrestled with this man all night, I have seen God face to face. Thus the name of the place, Peniel, which means the face of the Lord, face of God. When these examples, God and man, are brought into such proximity, In this figure that repeatedly asserts itself throughout the pages of Genesis, we see God and man in such proximity that they become indistinguishable.

The Messiah also passes before our eyes. In many figures in that book that typify him, we think of Isaac. a sacrifice let up on the mountain, a picture of the coming one, we think also, maybe especially, of Joseph, the one who knows humiliation, but then is exalted by God’s dealings to greatness. The Messiah being set before us even in these. So not just the prophets at the end, but Genesis at the beginning.

And the picture is consistent, is it not? Human yet divine, glorious yet suffering. There it is, the mystery that will be solved when Jesus Christ comes. And you are the beneficiaries of that revelation. We have the end, then, the prophets. We have the beginning, Genesis. What about the middle? The Psalms. Is it any different when we turn to the Psalms? What picture is given us in the Psalms of Christ? Psalm 2.

He is a king. by divine action. Human, yes, but exalted. Exalted over all other rulers. One who inherits the nation as the one who is designated God’s son. Psalm 2, rehearse it for yourself. You know the psalm. The things that I say with respect to the psalm are accurate.

Here is a king, exalted by God’s action over all other rulers, and one by that divine action who inherits the nation, designated God’s son. The categories applied to him, to this figure who appears throughout the psalm, exceed those applied to any of Israel’s kings. including David and Solomon, so that even David and Solomon looked for one greater, one who exceeded them in glory and honor. We are told in Psalm 110 by David that this one who is coming is no less than David’s Lord. whose eternal kingship is matched by his eternal priesthood, a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” There’s the figure of Melchizedek once more.

That if we are not startled enough by these texts from the Psalms, these Psalms which were sung by Israel, We are startled even more by what we find in Psalm 45, verse 6. It’s a text about which there has been a great deal of debate, a tremendous amount of argument. But the New Testament’s use of this passage, for instance, in Hebrews, leaves no doubt as to the correct interpretation. In verse 6, when we are told about, by Throne, Oh, God is forever and ever.

A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of thy kingdom. In view there is what belongs particularly to the messianic figure, the deliverer. And in this text we come to see one no less than our Savior, Jesus Christ, described here and addressed as God. O God, or thy throne, O Christ, is forever and ever. A scepter of thy rightness is the scepter of thy kingdom.”

Added to these texts are those marvelous texts that talk to us about the coming of God. You cannot simply read those Psalms that speak about the coming of God and not be moved by them in light of what we know concerning the appearance of the Lord’s Christ. We sing with zeal and gusto Psalm 98. But do you remember the last verse of that psalm, which speaks about the Lord’s coming? All of creation erupting before Him, before the Lord, for He is coming to judge the earth, He will judge the world with uprightness and the peoples with equity. We cannot exclude from that description of the coming of God the appearance of this special one, the Lord’s Messiah. The coming of God is seen in keeping of a peace with the messianic visitation. I don’t have to rehearse for you The fact that the psalms simultaneously speak of the Messiah’s suffering. We know of some of those psalms, Psalm 22, 35, 41, 55, 69, 109. All of them speaking of the Messiah’s suffering. So what do we have?

At the end, a picture given to us, fully human, yet divine, glorious, yet suffering. The one expected who comes, whose coming means the coming of God. The same in Genesis. Preparation is made for God’s continuous revelation for the people of Israel. And then in the Psalms, The story is the same, the one fully human, yet divine, glorious, yet suffering. In his coming is the coming of God.

It was a cloudy, veiled, mysterious picture for those Israelites. They could hardly put the pieces together, but now we know how well they fit and form a portrait of Jesus Christ, our Savior. So as we leave the Old Testament now and move into the New, the cloud lifts, the mystery is solved, and how brightly God’s Deliverer shines forth for us and for our salvation. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.