The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence

by John E. Remsburg

While the Messianic idea was originally a Persian idea, the materials used in the formation of the Christian Messiah were drawn largely from the Jewish Scriptures. There are passages in the Old Testament, as we have seen, which predict the coming of a Messiah. These furnished a portion of the materials out of which this Messianic deity, Christ, was formed. There are many more which have no reference whatever to a Messiah which have been made to serve as Messianic prophecies. The Old Testament, as we have it, is alleged to be a Jewish work. It is, rather, a Christian work. It is a Christian version of ancient Jewish writings, every book of which has been more or less Christianized. Much of it is scarcely recognizable to a Jewish scholar. This is especially true of so-called Messianic prophecies.

The Christian Messiah was, on the one hand, modeled, to a considerable extent, after the Jewish ideal, while the Jewish materials, on the other hand, were freely altered to fit the new conception. Referring to the work of the Evangelists, M. Renan says: “Sometimes they reasoned thus: ‘The Messiah ought to do such a thing; now Jesus is the Messiah, therefore Jesus has done such a thing.’ At other times, by an inverse process, it was said: ‘Such a thing has happened to Jesus; now Jesus is the Messiah; therefore such a thing was to happen to the Messiah.’” (Jesus, p. 27).

That the so-called Messianic prophecies of the Jewish Scriptures were the immediate source of the Christ is apparent. That he was, however, merely a borrowed idea and not a historical realization of these prophecies is equally apparent. The Jews were expecting a Messiah. Had Jesus realized these expectations they would have accepted him. But he did not realize them. These prophecies were not fulfilled in him. He was not a son of David; he did not deliver his race from bondage; he did not become a king; the important events that were to attend and follow Messiah’s advent form no part even of his alleged history. His rejection by the Jews proves him to be either a false Messiah, or an imaginary being—a historical myth, or a pure myth—in either case a myth.

The Jewish argument against Jesus as the Messiah is unanswerable: “We do not find in the present comparatively imperfect stage of human progress the realization of that blessed condition of mankind which the prophet Isaiah associates with the era when Messiah is to appear. And as our Hebrew Scriptures speak of one Messianic advent only, and not of two advents; and as the inspired Book does not preach Messiah’s kingdom as a matter of faith, but distinctly identifies it with matters of fact which are to be made evident to the senses, we cling to the plain inference to be drawn from the text of the Bible, and we deny that Messiah has yet appeared, and upon the following grounds: First, because of the three distinctive facts which the inspired seer of Judah inseparably connects with the advent of the Messiah, viz., (1) the cessation of war and the uninterrupted reign of peace, (2) the prevalence of a perfect concord of opinion on all matters bearing upon the worship of the one and only God, and (3) the ingathering of the remnant of Judah and of the dispersed ten tribes of Israel—not one has, up to the present time, been accomplished. Second, we dissent from the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah announced by the prophets, because the church which he founded, and which his successors developed, has offered, during a succession of centuries, most singular contrast to what is described by the Hebrew Scriptures as the immediate consequence of Messiah’s advent, and of his glorious kingdom. The prophet Isaiah declares that when the Messiah appears, peace, love, and union will be permanently established; and every candid man must admit that the world has not realized the accomplishment of this prophecy. Again, in the days of Messiah, all men, as Scripture saith, ‘are to serve God with one accord’; and yet it is very certain that since the appearance of him whom Christians believe to be Messiah, mankind has been split into more hostile divisions on the ground of religious belief, and more antagonistic sects have sprung up, than in any historic age before Christianity was preached.”

With orthodox Jews the belief in a Messiah is a deep rooted conviction. For 2500 years there has been displayed in front of the synagogue this sign: “Wanted—a Messiah.” During this time many, including Jesus, Bar-Cocheba, Moses of Candia, and Sabatai Zevi, have applied for the place, but all applicants have been rejected, and the Messianic predictions of the Jewish prophets are yet to be fulfilled. So, too, are those of the Persian prophet. In the meantime the followers of Jesus—turning from the Jews to the Gentiles—have from this borrowed idea evolved a deity who divides with Brahma, Buddha, and Allah, the worship of the world.

11. The Logos (Word).

The exaltation and deification of Jesus is thus described by the Dutch theologian, Dr. Hooykaas: “When Jesus was gone, those who had known him personally insensibly surrounded him with a glory that shone at last with a more than human splendor. The spiritual blessings which flowed in ever rich measure from his person and his gospel compelled the Christians to exalt him ever more and more. The title of Son of God, which his followers had given him as the future Messiah, was elastic and ambiguous enough to lend itself very readily to this process. The idea of his being the Messiah now no longer sufficed; he was something other and something far more than the Jewish Messiah. The philosophy and theology of the day were laid under contribution; and nothing could so well indicate his significance for all humanity and his unapproachable exaltation as the idea that he was the Word” (Bible for Learners, Vol. III, pp. 670, 671).

The doctrine of the Logos, or Word, as an emanation or essence of divine wisdom is very old. It is found in the ancient religions of Egypt and India. It was recognized in the Persian theology, and was incorporated into the Jewish theology by the Babylonian exiles. It constitutes an important element in the Platonic philosophy. It received its highest development and exposition in the writings of the Jewish philosopher Philo, a contemporary of Jesus.

Concerning the Logos, Dean Milman, in his “History of Christianity,” says: “This Being was more or less distinctly impersonated, according to the more popular or more philosophic, the more material or the more abstract, notions of the age of the people. This was the doctrine from the Ganges, or even the shores of the Yellow Sea, to the Ilissus: it was the fundamental principle of the Indian religion and the Indian philosophy; it was the basis of Zoroastrianism; it was pure Platonism; it was the Platonic Judaism of the Alexandrian school.” Another English clergyman, Mr. Lake, says: “We can trace its [the Word’s] birthplace in the philosophic speculations of the ancient world; we can note its gradual development and growth; we can see it in its early youth passing (through Philo and others), from Grecian philosophy into the current of Jewish thought” (Philo, Plato, and Paul, p. 71).