Paul and the Death of Messiah
Introduction
In other lessons, we introduced Paul of Tarsus—his identity as a “Hebrew of Hebrews” and his unique calling as an apostle to the Gentiles. As you go through the advanced course, we desire to provide greater depth and context for understanding Paul, particularly by examining the historical setting, the Jewish apocalyptic worldview of the first century, and the key elements that shaped that worldview. We then surveyed Paul’s writings with those elements in mind, showing that Paul consistently shared the same fundamental perspective on the universe, history, and the future as his fellow Jews.
Importantly, the evidence does not suggest that Paul sought to redefine core eschatological themes such as the Day of the Lord, the judgment of the living and the dead, the resurrection of the dead, or the coming Messianic kingdom. To further situate Paul’s thought, we will also compare the Jewish apocalyptic narrative with competing redemptive frameworks of the time—the Greek escapist narrative and the Roman dominionistic narrative. These alternative frameworks have continued to shape church history in various syntheses and adaptations, as Gentile Christians have attempted to interpret a distinctly Jewish story through their own cultural lenses.
In this lesson, we will begin a three-part exploration of what are often called the “novelties” of the New Testament. While the New Testament stands firmly within Second Temple Judaism, it also introduces significant new dimensions. These include: (1) the suffering and death of the Messiah, (2) the unique gift of the Spirit, and (3) the intentional mission to the Gentiles—especially as carried out by Paul. In this lesson, we will begin with the first of these: the suffering and death of the Messiah. This theme has long been treated as the defining point of divergence between Jesus and the apostles on the one hand, and the broader Jewish context of their time on the other.
To frame the discussion, consider the words of Jewish scholar David Ariel in his book What Do Jews Believe? He observes that the difference between Christians and Jews lies here: Jews believe in the eventual fulfillment of a long-awaited dream of a perfect world, while Christians believe that the world has already been redeemed through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, Judaism looks to future redemption, while Christianity has often emphasized realized redemption—or what is sometimes called “realized eschatology.” This sharp contrast, Ariel suggests, is the fundamental divide between the two faiths.
Yet the Book of Acts presents a different picture. There, Jewish believers in Jesus are consistently described as a sect within Judaism, not as a movement entirely separate from it. Early Christians saw themselves, and were seen by others, as fully Jewish, though with a distinctive interpretation of the Messiah. Over time, however, the death of the Messiah came to be interpreted as the fulfillment—or even replacement—of Jewish eschatological expectation.
Our task today is to examine how Paul himself speaks of the Messiah’s death. Does Paul frame it as the realization of Israel’s eschatology, as the beginning of a spiritualized or reimagined fulfillment? We will argue that Paul does not redefine the Jewish expectations. . Nowhere does Paul describe the suffering and death of the Messiah in a way that suggests the eschatological hopes of Israel have been fulfilled, spiritualized, or otherwise redefined. Instead, Paul continues to situate the death of the Messiah within the larger, still-future framework of Jewish apocalyptic expectation.
The Sacrifice of Messiah
The central point of this lesson is that Paul and the apostles consistently spoke of the Messiah’s death in the context of Israel’s sacrificial tradition, which had developed after Sinai and reached its height in the Temple cultus of the late Second Temple period. Within that framework, the death of the Messiah was understood against the backdrop of Jewish apocalyptic expectations.
One of the challenges in understanding this today is that the sacrificial system came to an end in 70 AD with the destruction of the Temple and gradually became marginalized in Jewish tradition as the rabbinic era took shape. Meanwhile, in Christian tradition, sacrifice was reinterpreted and codified around the death of the Messiah, often in contrast—sometimes even negatively—against the Jewish sacrificial system itself.
Another difficulty is that sacrifice, to the modern mind, appears primitive and crude. It seems backward, even offensive. Few cultures today still practice animal sacrifice, and when they do, it often strikes outsiders as foreign or disturbing. The sacrificial scene appears graphic, unsettling, and offensive to our sensibilities. Sacrifice was never meant to be sophisticated or abstract; it was common across the ancient world, predating Sinai. Its logic was simple and stark—blood for blood, life for life.
This is what makes it so difficult for us as modern readers, particularly Western readers, to place ourselves back into that ancient context. There is a tendency in contemporary New Testament scholarship to overanalyze the sacrificial system, reframing it in ways that feel more palatable to modern sensibilities. But the reality is that the sacrificial worldview of the ancient world was straightforward and unsanitized, and the apostles spoke into that world directly.
With this in mind, we must recognize that the sacrificial interpretation of the Messiah’s death is at the heart of apostolic teaching. During the forty days after Jesus’ resurrection, as He spoke with His disciples, this was the central message entrusted to them. Paul summarizes it in 1 Corinthians 15:
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved—if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time… Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”
Paul describes here not his own innovation but what was “delivered” to him—the core apostolic proclamation established in those forty days. The key phrase is that the Messiah “died for our sins.” This language clearly draws from the sacrificial tradition rooted at Sinai.
Paul consistently frames this apostolic message as something he received and passed on. In 1 Corinthians 11, he uses the same language:
“For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread…”
Here Paul recounts the Last Supper and concludes, “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Again, the death of the Messiah is central, but always tethered to the future eschatological hope—“until he comes,” the Parousia, the Day of the Lord, the resurrection, the Messianic kingdom.
This connects directly to the Passover tradition, as recorded in Luke 22. Jesus tells His disciples:
“I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God… I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
This language echoes Isaiah 25’s vision of the Messianic banquet on Mount Zion, when death is swallowed up and salvation comes. The Last Supper, then, was not merely about reinterpreting Passover—it was about situating Jesus’ suffering and death within the sacrificial tradition, while pointing forward to the eschatological fulfillment of the kingdom.
Thus, when Paul recounts the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11, he is not spiritualizing or reimagining sacrifice to fit modern categories. He is faithfully passing on the apostolic message: the Messiah died for sins in accordance with the sacrificial tradition, and that death remains bound to the Jewish apocalyptic hope of the age to come.
At the Last Supper, Jesus said, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” Matthew adds the phrase, “for the forgiveness of sins.” From the beginning, then, the language surrounding the Last Supper—both in Jesus’ own words and in Paul’s recounting—points directly to the Messiah’s death for sins within the framework of Israel’s sacrificial tradition. This is also what Paul identifies as the very heart of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15.
John the Baptist proclaimed the same “good news” in his own way. Luke 3:18 tells us that “with many other exhortations he preached the good news to the people.” For John, the good news was drawn from Jewish eschatology, rooted in Isaiah 40 and Isaiah 52: the God of Israel is coming to establish His Messiah in Jerusalem, to restore all things, to create a new heavens and new earth, and to make Jerusalem a joy for all nations. Yet this good news came with a warning: for the unrepentant—the brood of vipers—it meant wrath, judgment, and fire. Thus, in the first century, Jewish eschatology itself was “the gospel.”
Paul, however, frames the gospel around the Messiah’s death. Not in opposition to Jewish eschatology, but as the means by which it would be fulfilled. The death of the Messiah does not overturn or replace Israel’s apocalyptic hope; rather, it secures it. Where much of Christian tradition has often set Paul’s gospel against the “Jewish gospel” of his day, Paul himself saw no such conflict. Instead, the Messiah’s death for sins was the pathway by which Israel’s hope of eternal life, resurrection, and restoration would come to pass.
The Messiah’s Sacrifice is the Pathway to the Hope of Israel
This leads us back to the sacrificial system. After Sinai, Israel’s covenantal life revolved heavily around sacrifices. Yet the sacrifices were not ends in themselves, nor was the tabernacle or Temple primarily about ritual. Their greater purpose was to signify the dwelling place of God—the divine footstool on earth—and to project, in advance, the ultimate fulfillment of Israel’s covenant in the age to come. Still, the opening chapters of Leviticus emphasize sacrifice, and particularly the role of blood as the mechanism for forgiveness. Again and again, the text links forgiveness with blood.
For example, Leviticus 5 prescribes that if someone sins unintentionally, he must bring a guilt offering, “and the priest shall make atonement for him… and he shall be forgiven.” Forgiveness is not automatic. It requires both repentance and sacrifice. The prophetic critique later in Israel’s history did not reject sacrifice itself but condemned empty ritual without genuine repentance. The two—repentance and sacrifice—were always meant to go together.
At the center of this system was the role of blood. Leviticus 17:11 makes this explicit: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.” The logic here is not abstract theology but something stark and concrete: life is in the blood, and thus blood is required for atonement. Sacrifice is substitutionary—blood for blood, life for life. The laying on of hands, with sins confessed over the animal, dramatizes this reality in the simplest of terms.
To modern readers, such a system may seem crude or even offensive. But in its own ancient context, it was straightforward and powerful. Sacrifice was not symbolic embellishment or theological abstraction—it was a visceral reminder of sin, judgment, and the need for life in place of death. And it is precisely within this framework that Jesus and Paul both place the death of the Messiah: as the once-for-all sacrifice for sins, the means by which the covenant promises of God would be secured for Israel and, ultimately, for the nations.
Suffering to Enter Glory
Isaiah 53 is the primary text used in the New Testament to explain the death of the Messiah within the framework of Israel’s sacrificial tradition. The chapter itself is saturated with sacrificial imagery, and the New Testament explicitly references it multiple times. For example:
“He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities” (v. 5)
“He was led like a lamb to the slaughter” (v. 7)
“The Lord makes his life a guilt offering” (v. 10)
“He will bear their iniquities” (v. 11)
“He bore the sin of many” (v. 12)
Each of these phrases echoes the language of Leviticus and Numbers, where sacrifice and atonement are tied directly to forgiveness and covenant faithfulness. Thus, when the New Testament writers cite Isaiah 53, they do so with the sacrificial system in mind—not as a replacement of Israel’s future eschatological hope.
This comes into focus in Luke 24, on the road to Emmaus. The disciples confess, “We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel” (v. 21). Their expectation was thoroughly Jewish: the Messiah would restore the twelve tribes, establish David’s throne in Jerusalem, renew creation, and bring the age to come. Yet their hopes seemed shattered by Jesus’ crucifixion. In response, Jesus says, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter his glory?” (vv. 25–26).
Far from redefining their hope, Jesus insists they have misunderstood the fullness of the prophetic witness. Beginning with Moses and continuing through the prophets, he shows them what had always been written: the Messiah must suffer before entering glory. “Glory” here functions as a catchword for Jewish eschatology—the age to come, the vindication of the righteous, the restoration of Israel. In other words, Jesus does not correct their expectation of Israel’s redemption; he clarifies the order in which it must occur: first suffering, then glory.
The prophetic witness included texts like Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Psalm 89, and Zechariah 12:10. While the theme of a suffering Messiah was not as prominent as that of a glorious redeemer, it was present—and hinted at in Targumic interpretation and later developed in rabbinic reflection (e.g., Messiah ben Yosef traditions). Jesus draws on this thread to show that his suffering was not a contradiction of Israel’s eschatology, but a hidden dimension of it.
By starting “with Moses,” Jesus also anchors this expectation in the sacrificial system itself. The Torah had already established that sin and guilt required atonement through the shedding of blood. The prophets then built on this foundation, declaring that the Messiah himself would take on that role.
In short, Jesus is not reimagining Israel’s eschatology but situating his death within it. His suffering was necessary—not because Israel’s hope was wrong, but because it could only be realized through his atoning sacrifice. First the cross, then the glory; first the lamb led to slaughter, then the enthroned king on Zion.
Thus, the first coming of the Messiah is best understood as a sin-bearing, substitutionary sacrifice, which secures the eschatological hope of Israel rather than abolishing or spiritualizing it.
He Will Return the Same Way that He Went Up
At Jesus’ ascension in Acts 1, the angels declare that he will return “in the same way” that he went up—on the clouds. This aligns perfectly with Jewish eschatology, particularly the visions of Daniel 7 and Zechariah 14, in which the Messiah comes with the clouds of heaven and with his holy ones.
In Acts 2, Peter interprets the gift of the Spirit within the same prophetic framework: God had promised to pour out his Spirit before the great and terrible Day of the Lord. Peter explains that Jesus was accredited by signs and wonders, yet rejected and crucified by Israel’s leaders. But God raised him up, fulfilling Psalm 110, where the Messiah is exalted to God’s right hand until his enemies are made his footstool. Peter concludes: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
The people are “cut to the heart” not because their eschatology was wrong or their Scriptures misinterpreted, but because they had crucified the very Messiah who will return to judge them at the Day of the Lord. Thousands of Jews in Jerusalem did not suddenly abandon their entire interpretive framework; rather, they recognized that Jesus of Nazareth—whom many had opposed—was indeed the coming Judge and Redeemer!
This explains the force of Psalm 110 in the New Testament. Verse 1—“Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool”—was already central in Second Temple Judaism, and it becomes the most quoted or alluded-to passage in the New Testament. Yet fulfillment of verse 1 does not mean fulfillment of verse 5: “The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.” The apostles understood that one part had been fulfilled—Jesus seated at God’s right hand—but the judgment of the nations awaited his return, when he comes with the clouds and the angels to judge the living and the dead.
Acts 10 further clarifies this. When Peter preaches to Cornelius, he frames the apostolic commission this way: “He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” Here again, the themes converge: Jewish eschatology, the Messiah as Judge, and forgiveness of sins through his sacrificial death.
These passages, together with Paul’s testimony in 1 Corinthians 15, point back to the forty days after the resurrection when Jesus taught his disciples about the kingdom of God. The apostles ask in Acts 1, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus does not reject their expectation; instead, he affirms it while correcting their sense of timing: “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” The expectation of Israel’s restoration remains intact; the question is when, not whether.
Thus, what was delivered during those forty days was twofold: (1) a sacrificial interpretation of the Messiah’s death for sins, and (2) an affirmation of Jewish eschatology, including the restoration of Israel and the final judgment.
While sacrificial language is not emphasized heavily in the Gospels beyond the Last Supper, or in Acts beyond the forgiveness motif, it appears in Paul (e.g., “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” in 1 Corinthians 5; “a fragrant offering and sacrifice” in Ephesians 5) and is developed most fully in Hebrews. Hebrews 9 states, “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”This reflects the widespread Second Temple understanding: forgiveness required both repentance and the shedding of blood.
Only later, after the destruction of Jerusalem and the marginalization of the Temple sacrificial system in Judaism, did Christian tradition begin to contrast Jesus’ death with Israel’s sacrificial tradition. But in the first century, the apostles did not present the two as opposites. Rather, they saw Jesus’ death as the fulfillment and climax of that tradition—God’s appointed means of forgiveness, set firmly within the framework of Jewish apocalyptic hope.
The Sacrifice of Messiah Works in Harmony with Apocalyptic Expectations
There is no evidence in Hebrews—or in Acts—that the Temple sacrificial system is viewed negatively. On the contrary, both books present the sacrificial tradition and the Messiah’s death as functioning in concert, reinforcing and affirming one another. Hebrews summarizes this beautifully:
“But now, at the end of the ages, he has appeared once for all to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so the Messiah was sacrificed once to bear the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to bring salvation to those who are eagerly waiting for him.” (Heb. 9:26–28)
This is a bold interpretation of the Messiah’s death within the context of Jewish expectation and the Temple’s sacrificial tradition, integrated directly into the apocalyptic framework of the two ages. Just as humanity is destined to die once in this age—a reality rooted in Genesis 3—and then face judgment in the age to come, so too the Messiah entered into death as a sacrifice for sin in this age, and will return in the age to come to bring salvation. This encapsulates the apostolic witness across the New Testament: the Messiah’s death for sins, followed by his parousia to bring resurrection, judgment, and the establishment of the Messianic kingdom.
The Implications of Messiah’s Sacrifice
From here, we can turn to the salvific implications of sacrificial blood. While Paul only explicitly uses the word “sacrifice” twice (though he does employ the term hilasmos—atonement language drawn from Leviticus), he frequently emphasizes the blood of the Messiah. And in Paul’s writings, blood always points to sacrifice; it has no other frame of reference.
Paul identifies four primary implications of the Messiah’s sacrificial blood:
Reconciliation
Propitiation
Justification
Redemption
These are not metaphors or subjective impressions. As Leon Morris argued in The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, Paul presents the sacrificial blood as effecting objective realities in the economy of God. The blood accomplishes something, even if the mechanism is not fully explained.
Reconciliation (relational) – Paul writes in Colossians 1:19–22 that God was pleased to reconcile all things to himself “by making peace through the blood of his cross.” Once alienated, believers are now reconciled by Christ’s physical body through death, in order to be presented holy and blameless at his coming. Reconciliation is thus tied both to sacrifice and to eschatological presentation at the parousia.
Propitiation (wrath/anger) – The term hilasmos is heavily associated with atonement in Leviticus. In Romans 3, Paul declares that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory (that is, eternal life in the age to come), but are justified freely through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, “whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood.” Here three categories converge—justification, redemption, and propitiation—emphasizing that the blood deals decisively with sin, wrath, and the coming judgment.
Justification (judicial) – More than any other category, Paul stresses justification, a legal acquittal in light of divine judgment. The sheer frequency of this language outweighs the other descriptions. As Morris observed: terms for “righteous/just” appear over 200 times across Paul’s letters, far surpassing reconciliation, redemption, or propitiation. This reflects the Second Temple emphasis on Torah and covenant faithfulness—judicial categories cultivated within Israel as preparation for the coming day of the Lord. Paul proclaims that the blood of Christ secures acquittal for the people of God before the heavenly court.
Redemption (economic/slavery) – While less frequent, Paul uses redemption to describe the blood’s purchasing power, liberating humanity from bondage to sin and death, and securing a future inheritance in the age to come.
Taken together, these four categories show how Paul understood the blood of the Messiah: not as a metaphor, but as the objective means by which God reconciles, atones, acquits, and redeems his people.
This emphasis fits squarely within the broader Jewish framework. The end of the prophetic tradition (e.g., Malachi 4) tied Torah observance to eschatological expectation: “Remember the law of my servant Moses… Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.” The law and the day of the Lord were held together. Likewise, Paul holds together the sacrificial blood of the Messiah and the apocalyptic hope of Israel—both pointing toward the same climactic future when the kingdom will be restored, judgment executed, and eternal life granted to the righteous.
In Romans 5 Paul writes: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Here the essential language of Paul’s gospel in 1 Corinthians 15 reappears: we have now been justified—acquitted, made righteous—by his blood. In English we often distinguish between “justification” and “righteousness,” but in Greek they belong to the same word group (dikaios). To be justified by his blood is to be declared righteous by his blood. And Paul continues: “How much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!”
That wrath is eschatological. In Romans 2 Paul warns that humanity is storing up wrath for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. Thus, the justification accomplished through the blood of Christ secures acquittal not merely in the present, but in anticipation of the coming day of the Lord.
Much debate has surrounded Paul’s phrase “the righteousness of God.” I would argue that Paul uses it in straightforward judicial terms: the acquittal that comes from God, on our behalf. Philippians 3 makes this explicit: “the righteousness that comes from God” (ek Theou). Even where the preposition is absent, the sense is the same. The Messiah’s death accomplishes an objective reality for us, just as the Temple sacrifices did—atonement through blood. In the sacrificial system, sins were confessed over the animal, which then bore the penalty of death. By faith, worshipers trusted that God would forgive. In the same way, the Messiah’s death is substitutionary: an objective event by which he bears our iniquity.
Paul also uses the language of redemption—an economic metaphor. In Ephesians 1 he writes, “In him we have redemption through his blood.” Redemption conveys the idea of a price paid, a debt canceled, a life bought back. Thus the blood of Christ becomes the foundation from which the various results flow: reconciliation, justification, propitiation, and redemption.
To clarify these categories, consider the prophetic language of the Day of the Lord. It is described as:
A day of wrath—divine anger against sin.
A day of judgment—the court of heaven convenes, and the books are opened.
A day of recompense—repayment for the damage humanity has done to God’s creation and to his image.
We instinctively understand these categories. If someone smashes my car with a sledgehammer, three things happen: I feel anger because my dignity has been violated; I press charges because we live in a society that demands justice; and I demand repayment for the damage. Scripture says the Day of the Lord will work the same way: God’s wrath, God’s judgment, and God’s recompense.
And Paul interprets the death of the Messiah along these same lines:
Wrath propitiated—the coming anger of God is turned aside.
Judgment justified—we are acquitted in the heavenly court.
Recompense redeemed—the debt of our sins has been paid.
In this way, Paul does not portray the Messiah’s death as the fulfillment or realization of Jewish apocalyptic eschatology. Instead, he frames it as a sacrificial death within that worldview. The sacrificial categories interpret the cross, while the apocalyptic framework gives it context.
In other words, Paul isn’t saying that Jesus’ death fulfilled all of Israel’s end-times hopes (the resurrection, kingdom, judgment, restoration). Those things are still in the future.
Instead, Paul says Jesus’ death should be understood in terms of the sacrificial system—like the offerings in the Temple that dealt with sin. The cross was a sacrifice for sins.
But Paul explains this inside the bigger apocalyptic worldview that Jews already had: history is divided into this ageand the age to come. The sacrificial death of the Messiah happened in this age, and it prepares the way for the final events—judgment, resurrection, and the kingdom—in the age to come.
So:
Sacrificial categories = how the death of Jesus works (like the Temple sacrifices).
Apocalyptic framework = the story it fits into (this age → the age to come).
Throughout church history, many have interpreted the first coming and the cross as the fulfillment of Jewish eschatology. Likewise, in modern scholarship—especially in the “New Perspective on Paul”—justification has often been read as a realized eschatology. But Paul himself never describes it this way. His letters consistently tie justification, reconciliation, and redemption to the sacrificial tradition, and always in view of the parousia—the return of Jesus, the resurrection, the judgment, and the coming Messianic kingdom.
This reading more faithfully reflects the apostolic witness and situates Paul’s gospel firmly within the apocalyptic hope of Israel: the Day of the Lord, the resurrection of the dead, and the reign of the Messiah.
In the next lesson, we will turn to the second great novelty of the New Testament: Paul’s teaching on the unique gift of the Spirit.