As Christians we (very properly) like to look at Old Testament prophecy and discover how it finds its fulfillment in Christ. In particular, we see Jesus as the suffering servant of Isaiah and the Davidic messiah. And we wonder... how was this missed by so many in first century Palestine? At the same time, we understand that we, on our own, would have been among those who did not see.
Supernatural eye-opening aside, one tidbit, if it is true, that would have made recognition difficult in human terms is this: There is no evidence before Jesus that anyone made a firm connection between the two; the suffering servant and the messiah. Some may have been looking for a suffering servant, many more were looking for a messiah king, but nobody was looking for what is superficially a contradiction—a suffering servant who was also an absolute ruler and liberator.
It appears that it was Jesus himself who first taught the connection, with the help of the Father. At his baptism royalty was firmly established as the "beloved son of God" (Mark 1:11). And Jesus himself would repeatedly make the connection to the suffering one, for example announcing that he should “suffer many things, and be treated with contempt.” (Mark 9:12).
This brings us to the Ethiopian treasurer, a Gentile pilgrim who worshipped the God of Israel, who was reading aloud [1] of the suffering servant of Isaiah on the road to Gaza. Philip, upon hearing the reading, more or less accosted the dignitary, and was invited by the Ethiopian to provide an explanation of the passage.
Ironically the treasurer needed a "modern" man to explain that for which the prophetic author of the manuscript would have been at a loss. Philip had no trouble identifying Jesus as the one of whom the Ethiopian read.
Philip's teaching hit home, and upon coming to some water the Ethiopian queried as to what might be preventing him from being baptized? [2] Philip told him: "you must study the bible for several years and then give a credible testimony to a board of elders." Okay, of course Philip did not say that. Luckily for the Ethiopian, that invention (good or bad) would have to come later. So no, there was nothing at all preventing the baptism, and so Philip administered the ordinary means of grace. God's purpose in sending Philip was accomplished, aided in part (providentially) by the fact that the reading was not done silently.
[1] The reading aloud was some combination of providential and cultural. Both the language and the necessity to "spell out" the handwriting on ancient manuscripts (in a foreign language) made reading more interrogative, which is facilitated by reading aloud. In Confessions, Augustine somewhat marvels that Ambrose of Milan read silently.
[2] How the man, just exposed to Christianity in the previous the hour or so, knew that he should be baptized is not recorded. Most likely Philip told him after seeing that his evangelism was generating a positive response.
[3] The older manuscripts end the conversation as described. A well-meaning (aren't they always?) editor, not satisfied to infer that Philip trusted in the Ethiopian's sincerity, inserted a testimony into newer manuscripts which made its way into the KJV and derivatives. This added text was an additional requirement for baptism: "If you believe with all your heart, you may." (Acts 8:37, NKJV) Some places in the New Testament make a similar demand, such as: if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom.10:10), but nowhere else, thankfully, do we find the rather impossible demand to "believe with all your heart".
"nobody was looking for what is superficially a contradiction—a suffering servant who was also an absolute ruler and liberator."
ReplyDelete