| Prophecy is a simple yet powerful proof that the four
Gospels of the Bible are accurate in their description of
the life of Jesus Christ. The portrait of Jesus Christ in
the four Gospels perfectly matches the portrait of Christ
in the prophecies that God gave to ancient Israel. The prophecies
weren't entrusted to some obscure person in the middle of
nowhere, but rather they were entrusted to the entire nation
of ancient Israel in the middle of world history! The prophecies
weren't kept hidden in a secret place, but rather they were
carefully documented in the Jewish Scriptures (the Old Testament)
which were an integral part of every aspect of life in ancient
Israel.
After Israel was conquered in 586 BC the Jews were assimilated
into foreign cultures and many of them stopped speaking the
Hebrew language of the Old Testament. By approximately 150
BC the entire Old Testament was translated into the universal
language of Greek so the common Jew could once again read
it. The most popular translation was called the Septuagint,
and it's circulation throughout the Greek Empire and later
the Roman Empire provides concrete evidence that every prophecy
fulfilled by Jesus Christ was put into writing long before
His birth. To this day, these prophecies can be read in any
copy of the Jewish Scriptures. Though most Jews still refuse
to believe that Jesus fulfilled them, in spite of the overwhelming
evidence; but even this unbelief is a fulfillment of prophecy,
as Jesus Himself explained (Matthew
13:14-17, Romans 11).
One classic example of prophecy fulfilled by Jesus Christ
is found in Isaiah 53:
"... when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should
desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief. ... But He was wounded for our
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement
for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
... He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep
before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.
... For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the
transgressions of My people He was stricken. ... For He shall
bear their iniquities. ... He poured out His soul unto death.
... And He bore the sins of many. ... And made intercession
for the transgressors. "
The Da Vinci Code tries to make a case that the
concept of Jesus Christ dying on a cross to bear our sins
is nothing more than fiction made up centuries after the life
of Christ; but this concept was written in Isaiah 53 approximately
700 years before the life of Christ! From the time of Moses
(c.1500 BC) to the time of Christ, God commanded Israel to
follow religious ceremony filled with symbolic meaning that
pointed to Christ. For example, the lamb that was sacrificed
during the annual Passover ceremony was symbolic of how the
death of Christ would make it possible for our sins to be
forgiven. The requirement that the Passover lamb be "without
blemish" (Exodus 12:5) was
symbolic of the fact that Christ would be without sin. Because
Jesus Christ is God in human flesh and has no sin of His own,
He was able to bear our sins and thus fulfill Isaiah 53 –
"led as a lamb to the slaughter..." John the Baptist
understood this fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and
therefore introduced Jesus Christ as "the Lamb of God
who takes away the sins of the world" (John
1:29).
The consequence of sin is death (Romans
6:23), but when we place our trust in Jesus Christ
(Ephesians 1:13) He bears our
sin and dies in our place nearly 2000 years ago so that we
don’t have to die the "second death" (Revelation
21:8) in eternity. Through dimensions of reality beyond
our comprehension, God left eternity and died in a moment
of time to save us from death in eternity!
The following are a few more examples of the many prophecies
that Jesus Christ fulfilled. The Jewish passages (the Old
Testament) are followed by the New Testament passages which
explain Jesus' fulfillment.
--God would become a man and be born to a virgin:
 Isaiah
7:14 .... Matthew 1:20-23; John 1:1-3, 14
--He would be a descendant of King David and legal heir to
the throne of King David:
Isaiah
9:6-7 .... Matthew 1:6, 16-17; Romans 1:1-4
--He would be born in Bethlehem:
Micah 5:2
... Matthew 2:1
--He would come out of Egypt:
Hosea 11:1
... Matthew 2:14-15
--He would come from the region of Galilee:
Isaiah
9:1-2 ... Matthew 4:13-16
--He would bring salvation to both Jews and Gentiles (non-Jews):
Isaiah
42:6, Genesis 22:18 ... Luke 2:30-32, Romans 15:12-13
--He would present Himself as Israel's King riding into Jerusalem
on a donkey:
Zechariah
9:9 ...Matthew 21:1-11
--He would be despised, rejected, and hated without cause:
Isaiah
53:3; Isaiah 49:7; Psalm 69:4 ... John 15:24-25
--the rulers of Israel would reject Him:
Psalm 118:22
... Matthew 21:42-46; John 7:40-49
--He would be rejected by His own brothers:
Psalms
69:8 ... John 7:1-5
--His disciples would scatter:
Zechariah
13:7 ... Matthew 26:31
--His hands and feet would be pierced (written hundreds of
years before Roman crucifixion was invented):
Psalm 22:16;
Isaiah 53:5-6 ... John 20:25
--His bones would not be broken during His crucifixion:
Psalm 22:17;
Psalm 34:20 ... John 19:31-37
--He would rise from the grave and sit at the right hand of
God the Father in heaven:
Psalms
16:9-11 ... Acts 2:22-47 |
