John 7:40-44
“When they heard these words, sone of the people said, ‘This really is the Prophet.’ Others said, ‘This is the Christ.’ But some said, ‘Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?’ So there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him”.
Recently, I was taken back to the amazement to what it meant to for Jesus to be our personal Lord and Savior. Many times, I believe that we lose sight of what it means to have Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior. However, when I look back at what is in Scripture, it must have been extremely difficult for the Israelites to understand who Jesus was.
Jesus showed up as a teacher of the Word to the Jewish people. In His early thirties, Jesus was a young man, who knew the Torah, The Prophets, and Psalms/Proverbs backward and forward. However, by name, Jesus was only the son of Joseph, a carpenter. Not many people knew him as the prophesized messiah. In John 1: 46, Nathanael said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus came into a scene where people believed that nothing good can come from this man.
Then, we see that as Jesus gets more renown with the people of Israel, they believe that He is either Elijah or some type of prophet. Jesus wasn’t just some prophet, teacher, or even carpenter, but their coming Savior. In our verses today, we see Jesus described as “The Prophet”, and then later discussed that Jesus is the Christ.
What is a prophet? What is the difference between a Savior and a Prophet? Which one do we classify Jesus as?
In Scripture, we see that a prophet is a chosen person from God to speak on behalf of Him. Some examples of prophets were Elijah, Elisha, Isiah, Daniel, etc. God used each one of these individuals to speak to the people of Israel. Also, each one of these prophets foretold an aspect of the coming Christ. These prophets spoke to the people of Israel and did help them through certain situations, but they were not the ones saving them.
However, Jesus, as the Messiah is someone that was to come and save the people from the World. The Jewish people of this time expected an overpowered prophet to save them from the Romans. However, Jesus came as fully man and God to save them from their sins.
The people wanted an overpowered prophet, just as we do sometimes because dealing with the knowledge of having a personal Savior who has delivered them from their sins requires a lot more effort. Jesus is our personal Lord and Savior. He is the ultimate Prophet that fulfilled every prophesy because He has loved us.
What would it look like if we saw Jesus just as a child does? Take a look at a clip from The Chosen episode 3 to get a real idea of what it looks like to view Jesus in a real way!