"With respect to this intermingling of designations, cf. A. H. Blora, De Leer 'van het Messiasrijk bet de eerste Christenen, 1863, p. 48: " It scarcely needs to be said that only the religious-minded were in a position rightly to understand Jesus, and that undoubtedly the most of those who became His followers in the first years belonged to this class. The question thus becomes, What was the conception which they had formed of the Messiah, when they came to know Jesus? And the Book of Acts answers us, that the Messiah, in their view, was to be the offspring and successor of David, a Prophet like to Moses, the Servant of Jehovah, the Son of God and the Son of Man. The three first of these characterizations describe His dignity, while the two last raise the question for us what nature was ascribed to Him." Again, pp. 55-56: "Diverse as were the ideas expressed in these three views of a King like David, a Prophet like Moses, and the Servant of Jehovah, and little as the particulars in which they were developed permitted themselves to be united into a unitary, consistent, concrete conception, yet since the Messiah was seen in all three, they were looked upon as identical. Accordingly what was said of one of them was considered unhesitatingly to be applicable to the others. A striking example of this is afforded by the words applied to Jesus in Mt 17^ — 'This is my Son, the Beloved, In whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him.' Here the predicate, *my Son,' belongs to the idea of the King of Ps 2; the * in whom I am well pleased ' is a trait only of the portrait of the Servant of Jehovah (Is 42I) ; and the 'hear Him' points to what is due to the prophet (Deut iS^^). We meet with a like phenomenon in
2i6 The Designations of Our Lord
In Peter's early discourses ' the Servant (Tra'c) of
God ' is one of the most notable of the designations of
Jesus (3"^'"°, cf. 4-^'^^) ; and along with
^'o£Thks°" 't occurs 'the Holy and Righteous
One ' (3^^)" which belongs to the same
series of designations; and in the same context appeal
is made likewise to Moses' prophecy of a Prophet like
unto himself (3"'"''^) ;^^ while to these is added further
Acts. It is declared that what stands written in Ps 2^ of the King — * The Kings of the earth set themselves and the princes take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed ' — is fulfilled in God's holy Servant (Acts 4-^'-'^, cf. verse 30). Similarly the idea of the prophet is brought into connection with that of the Servant of Jeho- vah when Peter, after adducing the words, ' A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up,' announces that God has actually sent him to them, 'having raised up to you His ser-vant Jesus' (Acts 3-*--*'). And if the splendid successor of David received the glory, which the Holy One of God expected (Acts a-'^-^"), so also the sufferings of the Servant of Jehovah were unhesitatingly assigned to the King (3^*), as Peter de- clares that God through all His prophets has proclaimed that ' His Christ should suffer.'"
^^ Cf. Blom, op. cit,, p. 33: "Whatever weight can be attached here to the appeal to this anointing of Jesus with the Holy Spirit of proph- ecy and with power, as a proof that He must be the Messiah, there was yet another side to the manifestation of Jesus which strongly impressed the Christians and by which they were led to recognize His religious greatness. He was the offto^ (Acts 2^7 1335)^ the dixaio<; (7^^ 22^*, the ayjo9 xai dcxaco^ (3^*)> the ayto(? ■Kal<; too deoo (42^'30). And this He was not only after His exaltation, but already on earth, for the guilt of the Jews was so great just because they had rejected and killed Him, the ayin<i xai diy.aio<; instead of a mur- derer. These general predicates, however, are not enough to give us a just notion of the perfection which they saw in Jesus. It is undoubt- edly wrong for men to see nothing more in them than that He was guiltless in the matters of which He was accused by the Jews. This is already plain from the emphasis with which He is named 6 a-ytog, b dtxatog. . . . And so the predicate 6 ayiog must include in itself a religious and ethical sense . . ."
1® Cf. Blom, op. cit., pp. 50-57 : " Although they [the Jews] applied these words to a particular person, they do not seem to have all thought
The Designations in Acts 217