God's Promised Messiah: Jesus, King of Israelites - Essay Sample

Introduction

In the Christian book, the Bible, there are different messages from prophets and other religious figures, which were written to portray that Jesus was the Messiah who had been expected for the people of Israel. In these books also, Jesus was referred to as the insinuated King of the Israelites. This King, according to the prophecies in most scriptures in the Bible, was not earthly or political but rather a spiritual king of the people concerned with spiritual matters of the Israelites. The four books of the gospels in the Bible mainly describe the prophecies about Jesus as the savior and King of the people of Israel and how these prophecies were later fulfilled by the coming of Jesus Christ. One of the gospels which are Matthew was written for the purpose of proving to the people that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah who had been waited for a very long time in Israel. In addition, it was written to prove him as the King of the entire world, a savior of the people, and lastly, to inform the people more about the kingdom of God. This paper, therefore, aims at explaining deeply how the gospel of Matthew was able to portray Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah, King of the earth, and the savior of the people of Israel.

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The Gospel of Matthew Portrayal of Messiah

The Gospel of Matthew is one of the books known as the gospels in the Bible and was written by Matthew. In it, there are so many things discussed Jesus Christ as the Messiah and savior of the people right from his birth, the prophecies that had been made about him, and how his work on earth proved to the people that he was the true Messiah. The scriptures entailed in this gospel book show the way Matthew portrayed Jesus Christ as the Messiah. The Messiah is associated with bringing to the earth the kingdom of God or rather the kingdom of heaven. The phrase "the kingdom of heaven", for example, has been used thirty-two times in the gospel book of Matthew about the Messiah Jesus Christ and the relationship between this Messiah, God, and the kingdom of God (Novakovic, 1997). There are a few important points to understand about the gospel of Matthew and the way Matthew described Jesus as the Messiah in his scriptures;

As stated earlier, this book of Matthew majors on proving to the Jews that Jesus Christ was the Messiah who had been promised to them and the one they had waited for so long. In reference to the prophets like Jeremiah, Isaiah, and others who talked about the birth and coming of Jesus Christ, Matthew acted as the revealer that the words of these prophets were true and they had come to pass. The gospel of Matthew made the Jewish believers get to know that the savior and King of the earth that they had been waiting for a very long period would come. In other words, when Matthew wrote the scriptures entailed in his book, he was giving the people what they were to expect in the coming Messiah from appearance, through his works and achievement of the work he was supposed to do for them as their Messiah, King, and savior. Some of the things entailed in the book of Matthew are the beatitudes, the golden rule, the Lord's prayer, and the great commission which are all known and associated with Jesus Christ as part of his work on earth where he had come as the promised Messiah of the people.

The gospel of Matthew joins its information with the Old Testament messages, which were focused on the prophecies made by the different prophets of the time. With over 60 quotations from the Septuagint, which is the Old Testament Greek translation, it is clear that there is a lot of relation between the Old Testament and the Matthew gospel of the New Testament. Matthew among the four gospel books is the second-largest and or longest, and all its teachings are about this Messiah Jesus Christ and his teachings about the kingdom of God. The Messiah was associated with bringing about new things which include new faith, the work of missionaries as well the general teachings of the body of Christ that concern the tribe of Israel to which the Messiah was believed to have been sent to.

In presenting Jesus as the Messiah and savior of the people, Matthew shows how the long time prophecies and promises were to be fulfilled by Jesus Christ. In addition, the book shows how the law was fulfilled through Jesus and how God sacrificed his own son so as to redeem the lives of the sinners. Moreover, Matthew was also able to show how the King and Messiah Jesus Christ waste be rejected by the people he had been sent to, and these are the people of Israel. Giving an example, the beginning of this gospel book by Matthew starts with the verse that calls Jesus the son of David, son of Abraham (Novakovic, 1997). Through this verse the entire purpose of the book is shown because he reveals that Jesus is the expected and promised Messiah in the land of the Israelites. Matthew as well showed that Jesus was the King of the people when he called him the son of David, the son of Abraham. This confirmation by Matthew that Jesus was the King and Messiah was out of the fact that David was a king, and Jesus was the descendant of David, which meant that he was to continue the kingship of David.

The genealogy starts with the presentation of Jesus as the Christ in the gospel of Matthew. Jesus was declared as the Messiah in so many instances by Matthew, and one instance is where Matthew draws from prophecy after the other showing the things about the kingdom of God through the teachings and works of Jesus Christ. Matthew presents Jesus as God himself or rather the Messiah because when he talks of God's kingdom, he talks about his kingdom as per the scriptures in the book. It is only through the gospel book of Matthew that Jesus is presented to be the savior who had been promised to the people by God. Through this book, Matthew proves how God was faithful to his people and how he fulfilled his promises to them by making sure that the Messiah he had promised them came (Gagliano, 2017). On top of all that, God allowed the people of Israel to accept the Messiah Jesus as the King of Israel. According to the gospel of Matthew gentiles, Jews and all people were allowed to understand the work and identity of the Lord who had come to them, and that is Jesus Christ the long time promised Messiah.

Matthew shows that what the prophets had prophesied about Jesus Christ as the Messiah, and the Lord was being fulfilled. He does this by referring to the events and details of these prophets about the work of Jesus Christ, the Lord. According to the prophecies which Matthew references, Jesus had been termed or rather referred to as the King of all the people and especially the Jews. However, there are other prophets who talked about the demise of Jesus Christ on the cross for the salvation of mankind. When Matthew references this, he shows that it is true that Jesus was the Messiah. Matthew talks so much about how the coming of Jesus and his work on earth had confirmed the words of the earlier prophets.

A good way that Matthew uses to portray Jesus as the Messiah is by the holy birth of Jesus by the Virgin Mary. Through this, Matthew was able to show how the Messiah was holy, and he referred to the prophecy of prophet Isaiah who had said that the Messiah would be born of a virgin, and his birth would be holy. The name of Jesus, which had been given by Isaiah, is also proof that he was the Messiah, as discussed in the gospel of Matthew. The happenings during the birth of Jesus, the life after he had been born, his growing up, and all the things that he did are all a good proof that he was to be the Messiah who had been waited by the people for a long time. In the first place, Joseph is presented by Matthew as the husband of Mary the mother of Jesus. Joseph was spoken to by an angel when Jesus had been born, and King Herod was pursuing to murder him. The manifestations of the angel to Mary and Joseph were all signs that Matthew used to illustrate that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah of the people of Israel because God himself was with Jesus wherever he went. Matthew adds that Jesus will be the ruler of Israel, and his rule would be everlasting for all the years.

Where Matthew talks of the slaughter of the young children by Herod, he quotes the prophecy of Jeremiah and that of Hosea when he talks of the hiding of Jesus in Egypt and returning to Galilee. Matthew proves that Jesus is the Messiah through the testimony that Jesus Christ himself gives and the prophecy he gives about John the Baptist. In the scriptures Jesus speaks of the words about the sending of John the Baptist to make the way for the Messiah. John the Baptist himself told the people that he had come to make the way for the Messiah who would come after him. Matthew quotes the words of John the Baptist, saying that the Messiah would baptize the people with fire, and the Holy Spirit through John the Baptist had baptized with water in river Jordan (Gagliano, 2017). When Jesus Christ came, all the things that had been spoken by John Baptist were seen in Jesus and the people found the truth of the words of John through the things that Jesus used to do. All these things are discussed in the gospel of Matthew, proving that Jesus was the Messiah and savior to come among the people of Israel. The gospel of Matthew was proved to be true by Jesus when he came after John the Baptist and started his work on earth, baptizing people in the name of the Lord and with the Holy Spirit.

In the gospel of Matthew, the ministry of the coming Messiah, as well as his death as a sacrifice to save human beings, is discussed in details. With this elaboration of the life of Jesus and all the things that he went through in his ministry, Matthew was able to reveal that Jesus was the Messiah and that he would do the work of a savior, King and Messiah to liberate the people of Israel from their long time captivity and sin. In addition to the above, the gospel of Matthew shows that Jesus was coming as the Messiah to make sure that the Mosaic Law was fulfilled (Davis, 1947). The teachings and sermons of Jesus in support of the Mosaic Law are an important aspect to prove Jesus as the Messiah of the Israelites. Matthew gives so many accounts of Jesus' teachings and reference to the Law of Moses. For example it gives the account of the sermon of Jesus on the mount where so many issues were addressed. Jesus justifies that he did not come for the purpose of destroying the Law of Moses which had governed the people for all the years before he came. The way that Matthew proves that Jesus was the Messiah through the reference to the laws of Moses was by presenting Jesus as a holy being without any blemish who worked with the laws of Moses and made sure that the people obeyed them. Therefore this proves that he was the Messiah and the King of the Jews because he was sent by the same God who had sent Moses; thus, Jesus as the Messiah was also required to obey the law, and that precisely is what he did throughout all his time on earth.

There are so many other things that have been elaborated in the gospel book of Matthew, which portray Jesus as the King, Savior, and the Messiah who had been prophesied and promised to the people that he would come. The way that Matthew reveals and or shows the works of Jesus in the new testament of the bible show clearly that the Messiah who had been talked about by the prophets had come. There are many instances where Jesus is shown performing miracles, healing the sick and doing so many other wonderful things to the people in all the areas that he visited during his ministry on earth and this proves to the people that he was the child of God or rather the Messiah the people had always heard about. For many years, Jesus did things that left the people shocke...