 We have arrived at the third and final segment of this debate about the real Jewish Messiah. Where do we stand? What have we learned so far? Dr. Brown shared his narrative, the portrait of what he believes about the Messiah. According to Dr. Brown, the Messiah is a perfectly sinless individual who dies for the sins of the world. He is rejected by the Jewish people and he is accepted by the Gentiles. Dr. Brown encourages his audience to put their trust in the sacrifice of this Messiah. I explained that from a Jewish perspective and the testimony of the Jewish people is that every iota of trust that exists in the human heart belongs with God and with God alone. So from a Jewish perspective what we hear Dr. Brown telling us is that our trust in God is inadequate, it's incomplete, until we supplement that trust with the trust that he's advocating, the trust in his Messiah. Dr. Brown's messianic narrative actually has him looking forward to a time when the Jewish trust in God to the exclusion of trust in his Messiah is proven empty and inadequate. Dr. Brown quoted passage after passage from the scriptures in his effort to find scriptural support for this narrative and Dr. Brown accuses me because I reject his narrative. He accused me of ignoring and overlooking all of these scriptures. My response to that accusation is that I have not ignored, I have not overlooked these scriptures, I actually read these scriptures and it is these very scriptures that have directed me to reject Dr. Brown's narratives. These very scriptures testify that Dr. Brown's narrative is false. Let me provide an example. Dr. Brown quoted Psalm 22 several times throughout his presentation. He sees Psalm 22 as a pillar of scriptural support for his narrative. Now again, Dr. Brown's narrative has the Jewish trust in God inadequate because the Jewish trust in God does not include trust in his Messiah. What is Psalm 22 all about? What is the heart? What is the spirit? What is the song of Psalm 22? Verse 4, David identifies God as one, the one who sits enthroned upon the praises of Israel. The praises of Israel, we know who Israel praises and we know who Israel doesn't praise. So we know who David sees as God and he turns to God and he tells him it is a new God that our fathers have trusted and he describes how this trust brought salvation. We were not shamed. So again, David is looking at the trust of his ancestors as an ideal, as a goal, as something beautiful that he himself aspires to and he goes on describing his own suffering and towards the end of the Psalm, David speaks of his salvation and he describes it as God having answered the prayer of the poor. The poor is the one who has nothing and just his trust in God and that trust is vindicated. This Psalm is a Psalm which exalts, which elevates, which shows the beauty and the completeness and the sufficiency of the trust that Israel, David's ancestors, had in God and in God alone. And Dr. Brown wants to turn this Psalm into a song about the inadequacy of Israel's trust in God because it's not supplemented with trust in his Messiah. This is like taking the Declaration of Independence and turning it into the Communist Manifesto. It's like taking a song about love and loyalty and turning it into a song of hate and treachery. Dr. Brown's narrative violates the very heart of our Scripture. In my narrative, I share the Jewish perspective. The Jewish people see the Messiah as a king of the Jewish people. As such, he is to lead the Jewish people to their destiny to be a blessing to all the nations. The Messiah is supposed to validate the message of the Jewish people. The Messiah sits on the throne of David and as such he is supposed to continue and uphold the legacy of David. Interestingly, Dr. Brown did not dispute my understanding of Scripture concerning these foundational truths. Dr. Brown agrees that the Messiah's king of the Jews is supposed to validate the message of the Jewish people. Dr. Brown agrees that the Messiah sits on the throne of David and as such is supposed to uphold and continue the legacy of King David. However, there are three areas of disagreement between myself and Dr. Brown. The first area of disagreement isn't even directly related to our discussion. I mentioned in passing that even when we're in exile, we still fulfill in a minor way our role in God's plan to bring blessing to the nations of the earth because we are a priestly nation. As a priestly nation, we are the guardians of God's truth and we carry God's message. We carry that message of trust in the one God who is the Father of all humanity and individuals amongst the nations and to some degree nations have heard our message, have been inspired and moved towards a better relationship with God and that way we have brought blessing to the nations. Dr. Brown, in response to what I have said, he quoted Scripture after Scripture which describes Israel's sin, Israel's rebelliousness. The behavior of Israel has profaned God's name and therefore Dr. Brown concludes that the people of Israel cannot be a blessing to the nations and instead he tells us that it's his Messiah that brings blessing to the nations. Now, I didn't say a word about the behavior of Israel bringing blessing to the nations. I spoke about the message of Israel bringing blessing to the nations. So whatever Dr. Brown said is completely unrelated to the point I was making. But since Dr. Brown brought the concept of behavior on the table, I would like to understand what he is talking about. Fact of the matter is, is that wherever the Jewish people went, just like Joseph our ancestor, despite being accused of the most vile crimes, still wherever we went we elevated the level of the economy, the justice system, education, philanthropy, medicine, innovation. We championed the rights of the individual. We championed the respect for human life wherever we went and in that sense we were blessing to the nations that we inhabited. John Adams, the second president of the United States, said that no nation has done more to civilize mankind than the Jewish people. Perhaps you want to understand that as a generous exaggeration. Perhaps, but let's contrast that with the impact of Dr. Brown's Messiah. The foundational text of Christianity, the text from which Dr. Brown draws his narrative, tell us that Dr. Brown's Messiah slandered the Jewish people. He called them liars, murderers, hypocrites, enemies of God, children of the devil. Dr. Brown's Messiah tells the world that the Jewish religion is arrogant, it's cruel, it's legalistic, and it's hypocritical. These murderous lies were taught by the most honored names in the church. The followers of Dr. Brown's Messiah were fed these lies together with their mother's milk and the result of this were centuries upon dark centuries of persecution, of degradation, of murder, of massacre, and of genocide. This is the tragic history of the Jewish people in the Western world and as tragic as the history of the Jewish people was a far deeper tragedy. It wasn't so much the people, the victims of these persecutions, of these massacres. The far deeper tragedy was the fact that so many good people were drawn in to become murderers and and persecutors. Again, there were many holy and just and righteous Gentiles throughout history that stood up for the Jews. But sadly, there were many, many Gentiles who were persuaded to murder by the words that are recorded in the Christian scriptures, the words, the lies that the Christian scriptures record against the Jewish people. This was the instigation for so much persecution and I ask, where is this blessing that Dr. Brown is talking about? The secondary of disagreement between myself and Dr. Brown has to do with the content of Israel's message. Dr. Brown agrees that the Messiah is the king of the Jews and as such he's supposed to lead the Jewish people to their destiny to be a blessing to the nations. As king of the Jews, the Messiah is supposed to validate the message of the Jewish people. But Dr. Brown makes the outrageous claim that the Christian Messiah validates the message of the Jewish people. For two thousand years, the Jewish people have been forcefully declaring that the message of the church is not our message. With their very lifeblood, our ancestors testified that the worship that the church is demanding is idolatry, the deepest violation of the covenant that we share with God. And here we have Dr. Brown nonchalantly telling his audience that the message of the Christian Messiah is the message of the Jewish people. In essence, Dr. Brown is telling us, ignore what the Jewish people say, don't listen to the Jewish people. He, the Christian missionary, will tell us what the Jewish people ought to be saying. This behavior is not new. The Christian scriptures, the foundational texts of the church, speak not only on behalf of the church to tell the world about the beliefs of the church, but they speak on behalf of the Jew. They tell the world why it is that the Jew rejects the Christian Messiah. They tell the world the Jew rejects the Christian Messiah not because he loves God, not because he believes that every odor of worship, devotion, and trust belong with God and with God alone, but because he's a child of darkness, because he loves lies. But despite all of the efforts of the church to silence the Jewish people and to try to make sure that the voice is not heard, God preserved us and we are here and we are alive and well. And if you believe what God says in Psalm 78 that he established testimony in Jacob, you go to Jacob to hear that testimony, not to the opponents of Jacob. If you believe what Isaiah wrote in chapter 43 that the Jewish people are God's witnesses, then if you want to hear God's message, you go to the Jewish people, not to the people who would rather have the Jewish people silenced. So that was the second area of disagreement between my narrative and Dr. Brown. The third area of disagreement has to do with the legacy of King David. Again, Dr. Brown agrees that the Messiah sits on the throne of David as such is supposed to uphold and continue the legacy of David. Furthermore, Dr. Brown agrees with me that if we want to understand what King David stands for, we should read the Book of Psalms. But Dr. Brown tells us that the Book of Psalms point to his narrative to the Christian Messiah. Now, the Book of Psalms is the book that guided the Jewish people through the dark years of the Jewish people living under the shadow of the church. The Book of Psalms gave the Jewish people the strength and the fortitude to withstand all of those persecutions. And it's this book that Dr. Brown is pointing to and telling us that it supports his narrative. Well, Dr. Brown says that we have forgotten to look at Psalm 110 and Psalm 22. Okay, we forgot to look at Psalm 110. Which verse in Psalm 110 that we forget to look at was it perhaps verse three, which describes how the Jewish people gladly follow their king? Oh no. According to the Christian narrative, the Jewish people are supposed to reject their king. So it's not verse three of Psalm 110 that we have forgotten. Perhaps it's verse five and six, which describe how the enemies of Israel are destroyed. But again, that doesn't fit the Christian narrative either. According to Dr. Brown, the destruction of Israel's enemies is not part of the blessing to the nations that the Messiah is supposed to bring. So which part of Psalm 110 did we forget? Dr. Brown is talking about one word in Psalm 110. It's the word priest, which he invests with an entire Christological construct. By curious atonement, the scriptures clearly tell us that the priest's role is to be a guardian of God's truth. The scriptures clearly indicate that David, the Messiah, the Davidic dynasty are guardians of God's truth. The nation of Israel is called the priestly nation because they are guardians of God's truth. So we have a clear understanding, a scriptural understanding of that word priest. It is Dr. Brown who has forgotten what the psalmist took the pains to articulate clearly and explicitly. We did not forget Psalm 110. Dr. Brown points to Psalm 22 to support the Christian narrative. Okay, let's take a look at Psalm 22. And again, according to the Christian narrative, it's the salvation of the Messiah, the Gentiles, and then the Jews. And Psalm 110 opens up with the suffering individual, the salvation of the suffering individual, and it ends with the Gentiles. So Dr. Brown says, here we have it, we have the Christian narrative. But did Dr. Brown really read Psalm 22? Psalm 22 opens with the suffering of an individual. The individual is saved, but it's not, the Israel is not cut out of the messianic role as Dr. Brown would have us believe. In fact, Psalm 22 gives us four verses from 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27, five verses that speak about Israel coming to serve God. And only after that do we move in verse 28 and 29 to the Gentiles joining Israel in serving God. Psalm 22 supports the Jewish narrative, which has it David, the individual of Psalm 22, the suffering individual of Psalm 22, his salvation, that message absorbed by the Jewish people, and only then coming to the Gentiles. Psalm 22 is supplemented by Psalm 69. Both of them speak about a suffering individual. And Psalm 69, like Psalm 22, affirms this sequence. It's the suffering individual, and Psalm 69 tells us that the nations come to know God because Zion, Israel, is saved. Furthermore, verse 6, and Psalm 69 tells us that this suffering individual is not sinless. This, he admits his sins before God. So there goes the Christian narrative. The Christian narrative has the suffering servant as a perfectly sinless individual. Psalm 69 and Psalm 22 are not talking about the sinless individual. They're talking about the human king of Israel, David, who inspires Israel with his own experience. Israel absorbs the lesson of David to put their trust in God and in God alone. And that ultimately brings about the salvation of all mankind. That was the third area of disagreement between myself and Dr. Brown. This was a debate about the real Jewish Messiah. The purpose of this debate was to bring the biblical truths about the Messiah to light. What does the Bible teach us about the personality of the Messiah? The most important word that the Bible tells us about the Messiah is the word David. The scriptures call the Messiah by the name David six times. In the book of Isaiah chapter 3, verse 5, when the prophet speaks about yearning for the Messiah, he describes Israel as yearning for their king, David. And everyone agrees that if you want to understand the Messiah, we're supposed to read the Psalms because David is the most open heart in all of scriptures. His heart is right there for all of us to read the 150 Psalms of his beautiful book. And if we read the book of Psalms, we see the personality of the Messiah because the Messiah is just a greater David. David's target audience was primarily the Jewish people. The Messiah will take that same song and make it international. He will take that same song of David. He will amplify it. He will make it resonate in the hearts of all of humanity, of every human being that walks the face of this planet. So let's look into the Psalms, but we're not going to be reading the Psalms as a Christian, as the church would have us read the Psalms, looking for a word here, for a verse there, for a gap there to fill in with a Christian theology. Rather, we'll read the book of Psalms the way the book of Psalms is supposed to be read, with our hearts open to David's heart, with our hearts open to the song that emanates from the book of Psalms. And if we read the book of Psalms, Psalms, we see a king that leads by setting an example of emphasizing his, setting an example of his humility before God, emphasizing his helplessness, his complete helplessness before God, his total dependence on God, not his alleged superiority over other people. When we read the book of Psalms, we see a leader who recognizes that every breath of air that God grants him is an expression of God's love for him. And he encourages us, he encourages his readers to see our existence, every breath of air, every facet of our existence as an expression of God's love. The writer of the book of Psalms, King David, brings every fear, every worry, every problem, and every sin directly to God. And he encourages his readers to do the very same, bring everything to God. Every bit of worship, every bit of devotion of your heart belongs to the God who created your heart and to no one else. That is the underlying message of all of the Psalms. The writer of the book of Psalms, King David, directs all of his audience's attention to God. He doesn't divert an iota of the devotion, of the worship that's coming to God towards himself. And finally, the author of the book of Psalms doesn't stand in front of humanity, emphasizing the differences between him and other human beings. Rather, the author of the book of Psalms sings the praises of God, and he calls all of humanity to join him in singing those praises. Just read Psalm 148. Psalm 148 is already a little bit of a hint of the messianic age. It's where David is singing and encouraging all of creation to join him in singing the praises of God. All the nations of the world are encouraged to join him. The Messiah is not someone who will stand in front of humanity, diverting attention to himself and away from God. Rather, the Messiah is a King who will lead by standing shoulder to shoulder with humanity, singing to God, making that song resonate in the heart of every human being, and he'll call on every human being, and he'll call on all of creation to join him in singing the praises of God.