Messiah in Yom HaBikkurim Chapter 71 Part 1
The 7 Signs and 7 “I Am” Statements of the Messiah:
- PART I. The Seven Signs of Messiah
- The Ultimate and Final Sign (the Resurrection of Messiah)
- The Spiritual meanings of the Seven Signs of Messiah
- PART II. The Seven “I Am” Statements of Messiah
- The “I Am” Statements of Messiah originate from the Tanakh
- “I Am the Bread of Life (i.e. the Bread of Heaven”)
- “I Am the Light of the world”
- “I Am the Gate for the sheep”
- “I Am the Good Shepherd”
- “I Am the Resurrection and the Life”
- “I Am the Way and the Truth and the Life”
- “I Am the true Vine”
The Seven Signs of Messiah:
The Messiah Yeshua performed many miracles or signs which authenticated his messianic ministry. The following Seven Signs were manifested so that we might believe that he is the Messiah ben haElohim and that by believing have life in his name.
Messiah is the Ashrei-Man. Unlike the first Adam ben haElohim, the Messiah is without sin.
Adonai Eloheinu’s desire is that we one day be transformed into the likeness of his Beloved Son the Messiah so that one day all of His children will become perfect in their obedience (love) and devotion to Him. For Adonai nothing is impossible. He is miraculously making a new humanity out of the old one. This New Creation is a work of grace. Our Creator unilaterally is doing the entire work Himself of transforming Man from being sinful to being righteous solely through His own power, strength, and virtue.
The Messiah is the Firstfruits of a new redeemed humanity that will be made perfect on the day of resurrection.
This is why Messiah had to come into the world through a miracle birth, then die, and then be raised up from death to life in a glorious (immortal) body. Man has free-will but the Creator will get what He wants anyway: a new humanity (a New Adam) and a new creation that will be so perfect that not even the taint of remembering that sin and evil ever existed at all will be remembered.
Part I: The Seven Signs of Messiah (שבעת האותות המשיח):
Sign #1: The First Sign, where the Messiah turned water into wine (האות הראשון, איפה המשיח בו הפך מים ליין);
Sign #2: Healing of the Nobleman’s Son (ריפוי בנו של איש הממשל);
Sign #3: Healing man crippled for 38 years (ריפוי האיש שלא יכלו ללכת במשך 38 שנה);
Sign #4: Feeding of the 5,000 (המשיח מאכיל חמשת אלפים איש);
Sign #5: Walking on Water (הליכה על פני המים);
Sign #6: Healing man blind from birth (ריפוי עיוור מלידה);
Sign #7: Messiah Yeshua raises Lazarus from the dead (המשיח ישוע מקים לתחייה את אלעזר).
These Seven Signs were manifested in particular settings as a means of connecting all of the institutions and festivals of Israel to their obvious messianic meanings. Also these 7 Signs are connected to the 7 ‘I Am’ Sayings, the 49 Meshalim(Parables), and the 49 Miracles of the Messiah (cf. following chapters).
Each of the 7 Signs uniquely facilitates faith in the one studying them sufficient to believe that Messiah is no ordinary man. He is the new Adam ben hElohim. He is the first of many sons of glory, who like him (in the future) will miraculously be raised up as righteous ones on the day of their resurrection. Adonai our Father and our God shall raise up a new humanity out of the ashes of our old humanity through the redemptive ministry of His Messiah.
The Ultimate and Final Sign (the Resurrection of Messiah):
What about the Messiah’s own resurrection? Why is it not counted among the Seven Signs?
The resurrection of Messiah stands apart from the Seven Signs. The Messiah was dead. Then he was resurrected from the dead. The Messiah was not the one who performed this sign. Adonai Avinu (our Father) was manifesting His own Divine power upon the lifeless body of His Beloved Son and our Savior—-the Messiah Yeshua. Therefore, this sign was necessarily an authentication by our Father in heaven (Avinu Shebashamayim) that Rabbi Yeshua was His Messiah. The Father has appointed Rabbi Yeshua to be our High Priest forever, according to His priesthood of Malki-Tzedek (Genesis 14:18-20; Psalm 110:4).
וּמַלְכִּי־צֶדֶק מֶלֶךְ שָׁלֵם הֹוצִיא לֶחֶם וָיָיִן וְהוּא כֹהֵן לְאֵל עֶלְיֹֽון׃ וַֽיְבָרְכֵהוּ וַיֹּאמַר בָּרוּךְ אַבְרָם לְאֵל עֶלְיֹון קֹנֵה שָׁמַיִם וָאָֽרֶץ׃ וּבָרוּךְ אֵל עֶלְיֹון אֲשֶׁר־מִגֵּן צָרֶיךָ בְּיָדֶךָ וַיִּתֶּן־לֹו מַעֲשֵׂר מִכֹּֽל׃
And Malki-Tzedek (מַלְכִּי־צֶדֶק) king of Salem (מֶלֶךְ שָׁלֵם-Melek Shalem) brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of El Elyoh (אֵל עֶלְיֹֽון-the Most High God).
He blessed him and said,
“Blessed be Abram (אַבְרָם-Exalted Father, sing.) of El Elyon,
Possessor of heaven and earth;
And blessed be El Elyon,
Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.”
He gave him a tenth of all.
נִשְׁבַּע ה’ וְלֹא יִנָּחֵם אַתָּֽה־כֹהֵן לְעֹולָם עַל־דִּבְרָתִי מַלְכִּי־צֶֽדֶק׃
Adonai has sworn (שְׁבַּע-lit. a seven, i.e. an oath) and will not change His mind,
“You (the Mashiach) are a priest forever (i.e. immortal-eternal priest; not temporal)
According to the order of Malki-Tzedek.”
וְלֹא־יִקָּרֵא עֹוד אֶת־שִׁמְךָ אַבְרָם וְהָיָה שִׁמְךָ אַבְרָהָם כִּי אַב־הֲמֹון גֹּויִם נְתַתִּֽיךָ׃
“No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Avraham;
for I have made you the father of an abundance (הָמוֹן-hamon, a great number, multitude, abundance, wealth) of nations.”
Like Malki-Tzedek, Ha-Mashiach is HaKohen HaGadol of all of the nations, peoples and families of the world.
The temporal priest Malki-Tzedek (the King of Righteousness) passed on his ministry of being the Great High Priest (HaKohen HaGadol) of all the nations and peoples of the earth to father Abraham. After Father Abraham (אַבְרָהָם-Father of a Multitude of Nations, plural; Genesis 17:5) this international priesthood came to the Mashiach, the permanent immortal-eternal High Priest of all of the nations and peoples of the earth; whose unique priestly ministry was confirmed by his miraculous resurrection from the dead. This universal permanent priesthood of the Great High Priest of the Most High was passed on to Abraham by Shem (the international priesthood literally of the “Name”).
Shem’s actual name, parentage, birth, and death were deliberately not mentioned at all in the Genesis Torah narrative so that the mortal life of Shem might prophetically bear witness to the eternal life of the Messiah.
Shem’s new creation (post flood) life is a witness to the priestly life of the Messiah, whose resurrection life made him reborn as a new Adam. This new, immortal Adam was reborn by the power of heaven. The Mashiach is the first of a new kind of righteous humanity. Messiah, by virtue of his new resurrection immortal, invincible, incorruptible life, is the new ben Ha-Elohim who is:
“Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.”
Shem was a type made like the Son of the Eternal One. The resurrected, immortal, glorified Messiah is the one who abides as the Great High Priest of all humankind perpetually (not Shem or any other mortal man). The King of Salem, priest of the Most High, blessed Abraham and in so doing He blessed his seed; his descendants. The blessing of the Malki-Tzedek was offered in the memorial of a grain and drink offering (bread and wine) given to Abraham the father of our faith in Adonai:
And the King of Righteousness and KIng of Peace brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest (כֹּהֵן-kohen) of El Elyon.
This blessing of the King of Righteousness and King of Shalom was a confirmation that through Abraham, the “friend” of the Almighty One, the promised Seed of Messiah would one day fulfill the Most High’s requirement that there be a final atonement for the sin of Israel; and the sin of all the nations and peoples of the world.
This means Messiah’s sacrifice was instituted long “before” the Levitical system of sacrifices ever existed; before the Law was ever given; before the covenant was ratified by blood (cf. Exodus 24). Therefore, it may be said that the Seed of the Woman and the Seed of Abraham was the cause of all the later redemptive sacrifices of the Law, and of the Covenant itself.
Lastly, the one promised sacrifice was not limited to any one class of sacrifices. Messiah was not just a sin-offering. Messiah was not just a peace-offering, but He was the fulfillment of all the sacrifices. Messiah’s sacrifice needed to be made only once-in-eternity. Messiah is the eternal Temple of the Holy One of Israel. [Two points]
First, faith in the Mashiach is the fulfillment of all the aspirations and sacrifices of the Temple. Second, faith in the Mashiach is the fulfillment of all the Law of Moses and the pronouncements of the Prophets.
The Great High Priesthood of Messiah is the only permanent priesthood of the Torah.
The Great High Priesthood of Messiah is permanent (forever). Yet Messiah’s priesthood, being of the tribe of Judah, is not after the order of Aaron, but after the earlier, prophetic royal order of Melchizedek. Therefore, the sacrifice of Messiah, the Pesach of the Patriarchs and the Prophets, was a real Torah sacrifice, yet not after the order of the Levitical sacrifices, but after that of the earlier Pesach sacrifice, through which Israel had become a Royal Nation; that is destined one day to be a bridge of grace between the God of Abraham and all the nations and peoples of the world:
לִֽישׁוּעָתְךָ קִוִּיתִי ה’׃
“For Your Salvation (Yeshuah-יְשׁוּעָה) I wait, O Adonai!“
Therefore, it is clear that Adonai our Father in heaven raised His (second) Son from the dead. In this way Messiah is proven to be who he claimed to be, the Son of God. This post-resurrection Sign (the first Sign of another series of signs that are still to come) sets apart the Messiah from all other men; including his counterpart the first Adam. The sign of the resurrection is our Father in heaven’s own undeniable proof that He has provided us with sufficient means to be redeemed from all of our sins and inherit His gift of eternal life.
The spiritual meanings of the Seven Signs of the Messiah:
The spiritual meanings of each of the Seven Signs of the Messiah will be explained in considerable detail in later chapters of this document (cf. chapters 72, 73, 85, 94, 95, 104, & 107).