Beginning in 1956, a new TV game show hit the American airwaves. The popular show ran for twelve years and was titled “To Tell The Truth.” A team of celebrity panelists tried to guess which of several seated guest contestants was telling the truth about who they were. They all claimed to be the very same person. The pretenders could lie to the panel when questioned, but the actual person had to respond truthfully. At the conclusion of the game, the host would say, “would the real person please stand up.” The phony contestants were often quite artful in their deception and many times able to fool the seasoned panel.

In terms of Jewish history, many would-be Messiahs have appeared on the scene. Many have claimed to be, or their followers have believed them to be, but there can be only one true Messiah. Each of us are panelists on the real life version of “To Tell The Truth,” but the big advantage we have is that God has made the identity of the Messiah crystal clear if we will only open our eyes and see. Prophecy specifies the Real Messiah’s qualifications definitively so we can Know Who He Is.

The TORAH DOES NOT LIE and we learned from Yaakov’s prophecy that of neccessity, Messiah had to appear on the scene before 70 A.D. Another essential characteristic that identifies the Messiah is that He must first be rejected. There are five separate sections of Scripture that detail this fact very succinctly. This seems counterintuitive, but our intuitions are irrelevant. What is relevant is what the Torah has to say about Messiah. Every man ever hailed as Messiah has proved to be a false Messiah.

Due in part to a just desire to throw off the yoke of Roman domination, the first century was an era of rapt Messianic expectation. Jewish scholars confronted a puzzling dichotomy regarding Messianic prophecy however. They had an understanding of the Messianic timetable and the verses which spoke of a King Messiah, who was coming in judgement to inaugurate an eternal rule of peace from Jerusalem. Many other verses described a different Messiah, a humble Servant Messiah who is rejected and dies for the sins of mankind but is then resurrected by God.

Out of this seeming paradox, the rabbis proposed the idea of two Messiahs: one they referred to as Messiah ben David, the conquering King and the other as Messiah ben Yosef, the suffering servant. Of course the preferred Messiah at that time was King Messiah! What the rabbis failed to see was the vividly colored parallel God had painted for us in the life story of Yosef who was rejected by his own brothers.

Yosef suffered greatly until at last God exalted him over all the land of Egypt. Pharaoh gave his own ring of rulership to Yosef and named him “Zaphenath-paneah” which is translated as “abundance of life” or “Savior of the world.” This was of God, for in the time of great famine when his brothers humbled themselves before their own not yet recognized, Yosef wept aloud and revealed himself to them for he loved them. He said to them: “Now don't be grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.” (Bereshith 45:5) And he reassured them again after the death of their father Yisra'el: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save many people alive.” (Bereshith 50:20)

The Real Messiah came to save many people alive, both Jew and Gentile. There is another such time rapidly approaching called “the time of Jacob’s trouble.” Jeremiah the prophet completes verse seven of chapter thirty by saying “but he shall be saved out of it.” There are not two Messiahs, but only one who has visited this earth once before as the Suffering Servant to deal with the problem of sin. He is coming again soon, but this time as King Messiah to save the nation of Yisra'el out of a time of great trouble.

A review of REAL MESSIAH QUALIFICATIONS makes it obvious that God has provided us with a resplendent resume in Scripture we can use to identify the Messiah. There is only one man in history who fulfills these prophecies. He is not just a man, for no mere man can fulfill all of these supernatural requirements. Messiah is both God and man. The storms of life compel us all to seek out and know the truth. Life is not a game show. Why simply guess, make unstudied assumptions, or apathetically “go with the flow” about something of such eternal consequence?

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates. Wise words from an Athenian Greek philosopher who lived (470-399 BC) at the same time as a Jewish prophet not so far across the Mediterranean named Mal'akhi, who cried out:

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, behold, he comes!" says the LORD of hosts.” (Mal’akhi 3:1)

The messenger sent to prepare the way for Messiah was named Yochanan, son of a certain Kohen named Zekharyah, of the priestly division of Aviyah who ministered in the Temple during the rule of Herod. In the Brit HaDashah, a Jewish book that teaches us about the spiritual blessings promised to Avraham by God, we find recorded (Yochanan 1:19-29):

“This is Yochanan's testimony, when the Yehudim sent Kohanim and Levites from Yerushalayim to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, and didn't deny, but he confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” They asked him, “What then? Are you Eliyah?” He said, “I am not.”“Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.”

They said therefore to him, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as Yesha`yahu the prophet said.” The ones who had been sent were from the Perushim. They asked him, “Why then do you immerse, if you are not the Messiah, nor Eliyah, nor the Prophet?”

Yochanan answered them, “I immerse in water, but among you stands one whom you don't know. He is the one who comes after me, who is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I'm not worthy to loosen.” These things were done in Beit-Anyah beyond the Yarden, where Yochanan was immersing. The next day, he saw Yeshua coming to him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”