Avoiding that suffering Messiah

Just as Judaism had consistently avoided the whole notion of a suffering Messiah, so the New Testament witnesses themselves reveal that they too shrank from it but were forced to acknowledge it by the historical interweaving of the particular history of Jesus and the whole history of Israel. It was therefore against their own piety that they were forced to interpret the passion of Jesus in terms of the suffering servant. History would not allow them to do anything else.—T. F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, 17