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Book Review of
The Messiah by William Varner
Kenzie Caldwell
B101: Old Testament Survey I
Presented to
Dr. Grisanti
September 22, 2017
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The most extravagant commitment made from God is that he would send His one and only son
into the world to offer all of mankind the chance to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, and to be
forgiven of all evil-doings. Dr. William Varner wrote The Messiah: Revealed, Rejected,
Received over a twenty-year period in attempt to “investigate how the Promise of the Messiah
was revealed, then how Israel rejected Him, and also how Israelites and from the Gentiles have
received Him by faith” (xii). Varner’s exploration throughout the Old Testament and New
Testament reveals much evidence to support his ideas, and helps one attain a thorough
knowledge of the unknown Messiah. Dr. Varner explains the Word of God in a light that most
may not comprehend. To understand the coming of a Messiah, Jesus Christ who lived a perfect
life and died for mankind on the cross, and then God to conquer and reign for eternity is
imperative. Three essential roles make up the Messiah: the prophet, the priest, and the king.
Jesus appears on earth to be a Prophet, and to portray to humanity his miraculous, perfect, and
Holy life, and then to die on the cross to save us and resurrect from the dead. He then appears in
Heaven as His role of Priest, and then appear a second time as His role as King to reign over
everything that exists. Jesus’ ministry and the way His supporters believed in Him made it
obvious that He combined each of these roles in His own valuable person and work. Dr. Varner
proposes ideas of the promise of a Messiah by using Scripture and a detailed elucidation of the
nature and the particulars of the promise.
The promise of the coming Messiah is exposed very early on in the Old Testament in
Genesis 3:15 where God promises to put a stop to the entrance of sin in the world through a
future offspring of the woman. Throughout the rest of the Old Testament Scripture, his original
promise in Genesis 3:15 is established and extended so that the total picture of the coming
Messiah is filled in and revealed more precisely and clearer. In Genesis 3:15 we are told that the
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deliverer will come from the seed of a woman, and from there many more verses in Genesis are
revealed that the Messiah is coming. The messianic prophecies and their fulfillments shed light
on the validity of the Old and New Testament. Jesus Christ is the mysterious Messiah, and there
is no doubt about that. The Jews believe that there will be a future Messiah, but when they find
out that the Messiah was already on earth they will be very disillusioned and upset.
In the book, Varner reports of an evident tension that was established between what the
people of that time wanted and even sometimes now, and what God promised. He resolves the
predicament by displaying who the Messiah that God sent was. Although he resolved the
problem for those who are confused today by using Scriptures and biblical knowledge, the
response was different back in that time, nonetheless, the diversity amongst the people between
what was promised and what was anticipated was inevitable. There are seven characteristics that
