| The Old Testament
gives us a contrasting prophetic picture of both the first
and the second coming of Christ. In His first coming He was
a suffering servant, but in His second coming He will be a
conquering King. Most Jews of the first century rejected Christ
because they wanted Him to be a conquering King during His
first coming who would free them from Roman occupation and
restore the sovereignty they lost in 586 BC. On the day that
Jesus presented Himself as the King of Israel, rather than
riding into Jerusalem on a white horse with the armies of
heaven, He road into Jerusalem on a donkey (Matthew
21:1-11) and shortly thereafter the religious leaders
of the Jews "plotted to take Jesus by trickery and kill
Him" (Matthew 26:4).
Luke 19:41-44 describes Jesus
on His final entry to Jerusalem: "Now as He drew near,
He saw the city and wept over it, saying, 'If you had known,
even you, especially in this your day, the things that make
for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes...'"
During His first coming Jesus came to establish spiritual
peace not political peace. He then said, "For days will
come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around
you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level
you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they
will not leave in you one stone upon another." (v. 43-44)
This prophecy was fulfilled 30 years later when the Roman
Emperor Titus and his army destroyed Jerusalem along with
the Jewish temple there, leaving only the temple foundation
which remains at the heart of Jerusalem to this day.
Jesus went on to say why Jerusalem would be destroyed once
again: "because you did not know the time of your visitation."
(v.44) This statement is most likely a reference to Daniel's
"70 Weeks" prophecy, which identified when Christ
would appear – "the time of your visitation."
After Israel was conquered and Jerusalem destroyed in 586
BC, God revealed to the prophet Daniel that the decree to
"restore and build Jerusalem" would begin a prophetic
time clock that would count down for 69 "weeks of years"
and then Christ would be "cut off." (Daniel
9:24-26) This decree was given to Nehemiah "in
the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes"
(Nehemiah 2:1), which scholars
have identified as March 14, 445 BC. On Jewish calendars a
"week of years" is 7 years and a prophetic year
is 360 days. The following chart shows how this prophecy identified
the probable day that Christ road into Jerusalem, presenting
Himself as the King of Israel, and was rejected ("cut
off"), remembered today as Palm Sunday. To identify
the year or decade would be amazing, let alone the exact day,
483 years before it happened!
According to both the Old and New Testament, Israel as a
nation will embrace Jesus Christ as their Messiah during the
70th "week of years" of Daniel's prophecy. The Old
Testament prophet Zechariah recorded God's words about this
profound change in Israel: "And I will pour on the house
of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of
grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they
pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his
only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn...
They will call on My name, and I will answer them..."
(Zechariah 12:10-14:11). The
apostle Paul wrote, "For I do not desire, brethren, that
you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be
wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened
to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles [non-Jews]
has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
'The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away
ungodliness from Jacob [Israel]; for this is My covenant
with them, when I take away their sins.'" (Romans
11:25-27)
* * * * * * *
When the apostle Paul suffered persecution and stood on trial
for being a Christian, he explained that he wasn't inventing
some new religion; but rather he was simply preaching the
fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy: "Then Paul, after
the governor had nodded to him to speak, answered: 'Inasmuch
as I know that you have been for many years a judge of this
nation, I do the more cheerfully answer for myself, because
you may ascertain that it is no more than twelve days since
I went up to Jerusalem to worship. And they neither found
me in the temple disputing with anyone nor inciting the crowd,
either in the synagogues or in the city. Nor can they prove
the things of which they now accuse me. But this I confess
to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect,
so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all
things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets.'"
(Acts 24:10-14)
The apostle Paul's preaching simply echoed that of Christ:
"Then He [Jesus on the day of His resurrection] said
to them, 'O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in
all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to
have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?' And
beginning at Moses [the Law] and all the Prophets,
He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning
Himself." (Luke 24:25-27)
Before Jesus' final trip to Jerusalem, He told His disciples,
"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all
things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son
of Man [another name for the Son of God] will be
accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles
and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge
Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again."
(Luke 18:31-33)
RELATED ARTICLES:
Seeing
Christ Through Old Testament Prophecy >>
Debunking
The Da Vinci Code With Bible Prophecy About Christ >>
RELATED ANIMATED TRACT:
www.theclockisticking.com
>>
|
