Has there ever been any anthem in the history of the church more stirring to the soul, forcing us to our feet the moment we hear its opening strains, as the Hallelujah Chorus? It is Handel’s musical rendition of this scene in the heavenly court, when a lion is introduced, but who appears as a lamb who was slain.
That’s the mystery of the Messiah which was misunderstood by the people in general, and not only by them but also by Simon Peter at Caesarea Philippi. They did not believe that the Messiah could also be the Servant, that the King could also be killed. Only after Jesus was raised from the dead did the early church understand for the first time the classic description of the Messiah as the Suffering Servant of Israel, predicted in Isaiah 53. It was this passage which Philip explained to the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:32–35). Anyone who has been a Christian for a short time is familiar with that chapter. It is so rich, so astonishing, yet it was written hundreds of years before Jesus was born.
Jesus was the Lion who rendered himself as a guilt offering (Isaiah 53:10). That’s what it took to be the Messiah. That’s what Peter failed to understand. But later, after his King was crucified on Calvary, he did understand what he had confessed at Caesarea Philippi: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.’
R. C. Sproul, The Unexpected Jesus: The Truth Behind His Biblical Names (Fearn, UK: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 47.
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