Barack Obama: “The Lord’s Anointed One”

During the exile in Babylon Isaiah the prophet announced that God would anoint the Persian king Cyrus the Great and through him liberate the Jews:

Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have grasped
to subdue nations before him
and strip kings of their robes,
to open doors before him—
and the gates shall not be closed:
(Isaiah 45:1 NRSV)

The word “anointed” in the first line above is the same word that is used elsewhere as “messiah”. “Anointed” is derived from the Hebrew word mashiach a verbal adjective meaning anointed one. From mashiach we know the NT equivalent, christos (Christ). In the words of the prophet Isaiah Cyrus was God’s mashiach to deliver His people back to the promised Land.

“If mashiach is envisioned as an ideal king, godly and upright, then the designation of “anointed” causes difficulty, for Cyrus was a worshiper of Marduk and other pagan deities. Yet Cyrus was the Lord’s appointee for a definite task. The Isaiah passage suggests that mashiach be understood as one singled out or “chosen” (bāḥar q.v.) for a task, characteristically one of deliverance” (TWOT, 531).

With this meaning in mind I suggest that conservative Christians stop referring to Barack as the antichristos but instead as a mashiach. This is for primarily two reasons:

1. If Barack is the tool that God uses to cause the USA to be a major player in bringing around the Apocalypse then Christians should be happy: They’re going home soon!
2. If the End Times do not come and Barack’s party in the next couple of years fixes some of the economy, and restores some stability, then obviously God continues to show his favor to his special people by continuing to bless them; therefore, making Barack a tool for blessing

So there you go. Barack is not the messiah, but a messiah: a tool of God’s deliverance from either this sinful world or harsh economic circumstances.

Of course, there is a third possibility as well: The Democrats win the election, the end of the world does not come, the economy does not get better, and Americans find themselves in the same set of voting circumstances in 2012. If this sequence of events were to play out are there any takers on the chances that Dobson and his ilk apologize for being wrong? Yeah, I wouldn’t take that bet either. Stupidity, ignorance, and biblical lunacy usually breed long term memory loss, and a need to be right that means ignoring such obvious errors so that you can keep convincing the sheeple of your “authority” to lead on all matters.

However, if this third sequence of events does play out the Republicans are in a much better position to put forward the real antichristos at the election in 2012.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you!