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The Biblical references in this book are from the King James, original Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek versions of the Bible.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I. THE CREDENTIALS OF THE MESSIAH
II. PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF THE MESSIAH
III. PROPHETIC PARADOXES IN PROPHECIES CONCERNING CHRIST
IV. PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE SUFFERINGS, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION OF THE MESSIAH (CHRIST)
V. PROPHECIES DESCRIBING THE MESSIANIC OFFICES OF CHRISTA. PSALM 22
B. ISAIAH 53
VI. THE DEITY OF THE MESSIAH (CHRIST) IN BOTH TESTAMENTS
VII. TYPES AND INDIRECT PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT FULFILLED IN CHRIST
The Greatest Miracle in Print: the Record of
THE MESSIAH
According to Bible Prophecy
“To HIM give all the prophets witness” (Acts 10:43). “In the volume of the Book it is written of Me” (Psa. 40:7, Heb. 10:7).
INTRODUCTION
THE MOST AMAZING DRAMA ever presented to the mind of man—a drama written in prophecy in the Old Testament and in biography in the four Gospels—is the narrative of Jesus the Christ. One outstanding fact, among many, completely isolates HIM. It is this: that only one man in the history of the world has had explicit details given beforehand of His birth, His life, His death, and His resurrection. These details are in documents which were given to the public centuries before He appeared, and no one challenges, or can challenge the fact that these documents were widely circulated long before His birth. Anyone and everyone can compare for himself the actual records of His life with these old documents and see that they match one another perfectly. The challenge of this indisputable miracle is that it happened concerning only one man in the whole history of the world.1
Let’s focus our attention on the unparalleled wonder of this literary miracle. Think for a moment—who could have pre-written a life of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or any other character hundreds and thousands of years before he was born? Nowhere in any of the literature of the world, secular or religious, can one find a duplicate of the astounding miracle of the pre-written life of Christ. The inspiration for that portrait came from the heavenly gallery, not from the studio of an earthly artist. So amazing is this miracle of the pre-written life of Christ and its perfect fulfillment in Jesus of Nazareth that nothing but divine prescience could have foreseen it, and nothing but divine power could accomplish it. As the full evidence is presented here, all thoughtful readers will agree that “the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (II Pet. 1:21).
Four Great Truths Demonstrated by this Fact
With no variations or aberrations between the Old Testament predictions of the coming Messiah and the New Testament fulfillment in Jesus of Nazareth, one instinctively leaps to the conclusion that the hand which drew the image in prophecy molded the portrait in history. The inevitable conclusion is fourfold:
(1) It proves that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, for unaided man is neither capable of writing nor fulfilling such a literary wonder.
(2) It proves that the God of the Bible, the only one who knows the end from the beginning, He who alone has the power to fulfill all His Word, is the true and living God.
(3) It demonstrates that the God of the Bible is both all-knowing, able to foretell the future entwined around numberless men who are free moral agents, and all-powerful, able to bring to pass a perfect fulfillment of His Word in the midst of widespread unbelief, ignorance, and rebellion on the part of men.
(4) It demonstrates that Jesus of Nazareth, who so perfectly and completely fulfilled all the Old Testament predictions, is indeed the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the Son of the living God.
Christ is the Center of History
CHRIST is seen to be the center of all history as well as the central theme of the Bible. The Christ of the New Testament is the fruit of the tree of life, is the tree of prophecy, and is true born by the Spirit. Spiritfilled, washed in the blood of Jesus Christianity is the realization of a plan, the first outlines of which were sketched more than 1500 years before Christ’s birth.
Fulfilled Prophecy is Unique to the Bible
The fact is that fulfilled prophecy is found in the Bible alone; hence, it presents proof of divine inspiration that is positive, conclusive, and overwhelming. Here is the argument in brief: no man, unaided by divine inspiration, foreknows the future, for it is an impenetrable wall, a true “iron curtain” to all mankind. Only an almighty and all-knowing God can infallibly predict the future. If then, one can find true prophecy with definite fulfillment (as one does in the Bible), with sufficient time intervening between the prediction and the fulfillment and with explicit details in the prediction to assure the prophecies are not clever guesses, then the case is perfect and unanswerable. Remember, there were 400 years between the last of the Messianic predictions of the Old Testament and their fulfillment in the Christ of the Gospels.2 Many prophecies are, of course, much older than 400 B.C. During a period of 1100 years, from the age of Moses (1500 B.C.) to that of Malachi (400 B.C.), a succession of prophets arose, Messianic prediction took form, and all of these prophets testified of the Messiah who was to come, as well as the prophecies of Christ to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and many others thereafter, up to the time of Moses.
So minute and so voluminous are these Old Testament predictions, and so complete is their fulfillment in the New Testament, that there would be no honest infidel in the world were Messianic prophecy studied. Nor would there be any doubting disciples if this fact of prediction and fulfillment were fully understood. The sad fact is, we have yet to meet the first honest skeptic or critic who has carefully studied the prophecies which center in Christ. Here indeed is “God’s Rock of Ages, faith’s unshakable standing place.”
“Prophecy” is God’s Own Method of Proving His Truth
The teachings of the Bible are so profoundly opposite from all other religions, and so all-important—telling us that man’s eternal destiny, for salvation or doom, depends on his acceptance of the Christ and His commandments in the Bible (KJV and original texts in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Hellenic Greek, which is the Greek written and spoken by the Jews)—that we have the right to know whether the Bible is or is not a heavenly decree, the absolute and final Word of God, and whether its message is fully authorized by the Almighty. If God has given a revelation of His will in the Bible, there can be no doubt that in some unmistakable way He will show men that the Bible is indeed His revealed will. The way He has chosen to show men that the Bible is His Word is a way that all men of average intelligence can understand. That way is through the giving and the fulfillment of specific, detailed prophecies. It is His divine seal, letting all men know that He has spoken. This seal can never be counterfeited. It is affixed to the truth to which it attests, for His foreknowledge of the actions of free and intelligent agents, men, is not only one of the most incomprehensible attributes of Deity, it is exclusively a divine perfection.
In challenging the
false gods of Isaiah’s time, the true God said, “Produce your
cause…bring forth your strong reasons…show us what shall happen…declare
us things for to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that
we may know that ye are gods” (Isa. 41:21-23).
There are false faiths like Mohammedanism and Buddhism that have tried to
prop up their claims on pretended miracles, but neither these nor any other
religion in the history of the world, except the Bible, have ever ventured
to frame prophecies.
It is the peculiar glory of the Almighty, the all-knowing God, who is “the
Lord, the Creator” (Isa. 40:28) to declare “new things…before
they spring forth” (Isa. 42:9). He will not give that glory to another,
for as He stated, “I am the LORD: that is My name: and My glory will
I not give to another” (Isa. 42:8). The true God alone foreknows and
foretells the future. He has chosen to confine His foretelling to the pages
of Scripture.3
Though there are many other subjects of divine prophecy in the Bible, such
as the Jews, the Gentile nations that surrounded Israel, the ancient cities,
the church, and the last days, the divine perfections of foreknowledge and
fulfillment can be better seen in the realm of prophecies concerning Christ
than in any other sphere.
Here is the clear statement that shows God alone, in the Bible alone, gave
true prophecies: “I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and
there is none like Me, DECLARING THE END FROM THE BEGINNING, and from ancient
times the things that are not yet done, saying, MY COUNSEL SHALL STAND,
AND I WILL DO ALL MY PLEASURE” (Isa. 46:9-10). (The statement by God
that He alone can give and fulfill prophecy, which can only be found in
the Bible, is restated many times in the Bible. See Isa. 45:1-7, II Tim.
3:16, II Pet. 1:19-21, Deut. 18:21-22, Isa. 41:21-23, Jer. 28:9, and John
13:19.)
Note the tremendous force of this fact: To declare a thing shall come to
pass long before it is in being, and to bring it to pass, this or nothing
is the work of God.
“Chance Fulfillment” of Prophecy is Ruled Out
Desperate atheists and other unbelievers, seeking a way to circumvent the fact of fulfilled prophecy and its connotations, have argued that the fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy in the New Testament were “accidental,” “chance,” or “coincidental.” But when a number of details are given, the “chance fulfillment” of prophecy is ruled out. One writer says, “It is conceivable that a prediction, uttered at a venture, and expressing what, in a general way, may happen to result, may seem like a genuine prophecy. But only let the prophecy give several DETAILS of time, place, and accompanying incidents, and it is evident that the possibility of a ‘chance fulfillment,’ by a ‘fortuitous concurrence of events,’ will become extremely desperate—yea, altogether impossible.” The prophecies of heathen antiquity always took good care to confine their predictions to one or two particulars and to express them in the most general and ambiguous terms. Throughout all history, except for the prophecies of Scripture, there is not a single instance of a prediction, expressed in unequivocal language and descending any minute detail, which bears the slightest claim to being fulfilled. Suppose that there were only fifty prophecies in the Old Testament (instead of hundreds) concerning the first advent of Christ, giving details of the coming Messiah. All meet in the person of Jesus. The probability of “chance fulfillment” as calculated by mathematicians using the theory of probabilities is less than one in 1,125,000,000,000,000. If you add only two more elements to these fifty prophecies, and fix the TIME and the PLACE at which they must happen, the immense improbability that they will take place by chance exceeds all the power of numbers to express (or the mind of man to grasp). This is enough, one would think, to dismiss all pleas for chance from unbelievers, giving them no opportunity to escape from the evidence of prophecy.
Let it be further observed that many of the prophecies about the Messiah are of such a nature that only God could fulfill them, such as His virgin birth, His sinless and holy perfection, His resurrection, and His ascension. Only GOD could cause Jesus to be born of a virgin or be raised from the dead.
THE COMING MESSIAH
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT there is a definite, clear, and continuous
teaching that the “Messiah will come.” Dozens of times we read
such promises as “Behold, thy King cometh unto thee”
(Zech. 9:9), “The Lord God will come” (Isa. 40:10), “The
Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple” (Mal. 3:1),
and “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst
of thee” (Deut. 18:15). Isaiah told of the “rod out of the stem
of Jesse” (Isa. 11:1) on whom the Lord would lay the iniquity of us
all (Isa. 53:6). Prophets and seers of old often spoke of the time when
“the desire of all nations” would come (Hag. 2:7, also Gen.
3:15, 49:10, Num. 24:17, Psa. 2:6, 118:26, Isa. 35:4, 62:11, Jer. 23:5-6).
Christ’s Coming is The Central Theme of the Bible
The coming of Christ, including His birth, perfection, work, teachings, sufferings, death and resurrection, promised in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New, is the grand central theme of the Bible. Christ is the bond that ties the two Testaments together. The Old Testament is revealed in the New, the New Testament is concealed in the Old.
The Average Bible Reader Can Understand
The most ordinary reader may examine the old, curious predictions of the Messiah’s person and work found in the Old Testament, follow the gradual progress of these revelations from Genesis to Malachi, and trace the prophecies as they descend into more and more specific and minute details, until at last the full figure of the coming One stands out. Then, with this image clearly fixed in his mind’s eye, he may turn to the New Testament and, beginning with Matthew, see how the historic personage, Jesus of Nazareth, corresponds and coincides in every particular with the prophetic personage depicted by the prophets. There is not one difference, yet there could have been no collusion or contact between the prophets of the Old Testament and the narrators of the New Testament. Observe that I have not gone out of the Bible. I have simply compared two pictures, one which is in the Old Testament of a mysterious Christ. He is mysterious to those who are carnal, but the mystery is solved when a person becomes born again of the Spirit, then seeks the Lord with all their heart by their studying the Word of God, the Bible. When we become born again of the Spirit, we are able, by the Holy Spirit, to decipher all of the mysteries of not only the Old Testament but the New. They all become very clear. The New Testament Christ fulfilled all the Old Testament prophecies of Himself, but again, the carnal mind deciphers none of this. The facts of the Bible are mysteriously obscured from the carnal mind. The spiritual soul and mind is able to decipher everything from the Lord.4 Christ was the very incarnation of the entire Godhead. His incarnation, His presence here on earth, and the entire New Testament testifies to His fulfilled deity and work in and through His church, His body, His bride, the New Jerusalem. Jesus is the Messiah! It is easy for the born-of-the-Spirit Christian, who is washed in the blood of Jesus, to conclude that the prophecies of the Old Testament and the fulfillment of them in the New Testament are one and the same, Jesus, His body, His bride, the New Jerusalem, the church.
A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE PROPHECIES
Let us briefly trace
a few of the outstanding similarities in correspondences between Old Testament
prediction and New Testament fulfillment. The work of redemption was to
be accomplished by one person who was the central figure in both Testaments,
the promised Messiah. As the “Seed of the woman,” He was to
bruise Satan’s head (Gen. 3:15 with Gal. 4:4). As the Seed of Abraham
(Gen. 22:18 with Gal. 3:16) and the Seed of David (Psa. 132:11, Jer. 23:5
with Acts 13:23), He was to come from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10 with
Heb. 7:14).
He was to come at a specified time (Gen. 49:10, Dan. 9:24-25 with Gal. 4:4)
and be born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14 with Matt. 1:18-23; also Luke 1:27, 35),
in Bethlehem of Judaea (Micah 5:2 with Matt. 2:1, Luke 2:4-6). Great persons
were to visit and adore Him (Psa. 72:10 with Matt. 2:1, 11). Through the
rage of a jealous king, innocent children were to be slaughtered (Jer. 31:15
with Matt. 2:16-18).
He was to be preceded by a forerunner, John the Baptist, before entering
His public ministry (Isa. 40:3, Mal. 3:1 with Matt. 3:1-3 and Luke 1:17)
He was to be a prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:18 with Acts 3:20-22) and have a special anointing of the Holy Spirit (Psa. 45:7, Isa. 11:2-4, 61:1-3 with John 3:34-36, Matt. 3:16-17; Luke 4:15-19, 43). He was to be a priest after the order of Melchisedec (Psa. 110:4 with Heb. 5:5-10). As the “Servant of the Lord,” He was to be a faithful and patient redeemer, for the Gentiles as well as the Jews (Gen. 17:5, Isa. 42:1, 6 with Matt. 12:18, 21).
His ministry was to begin in Galilee (Isa. 9:1-2 with Matt. 4:12-17, 23); later, He was to enter Jerusalem (Zech. 9:9 with Matt. 21:1-10) to bring salvation. He was to enter the temple (Hag. 2:7, 9, Mal. 3:1-2 with Matt. 21:12, I Cor. 3:16-17, 6:19, II Cor. 6:16-18, Eph. 2:18-22, Rev. 3:20).
His zeal for the Lord is spoken of in both Testaments (Psa. 69:9 with John 2:15-17). His manner of teaching was to be by parables (Psa. 78:2 with Matt. 13:34-35), and His ministry was to be characterized by miracles (Isa. 35:5-6 with Matt. 11:4-5, John 11:47). He was to be rejected by His brethren (Psa. 69:8, Isa. 53:3 with John 1:11, 7:5), to be a “stone of stumbling” to the Jews and a “rock of offence” (Isa. 8:14 with Rom. 9:32-33, I Pet. 2:7-8).
He was to be hated without a cause (Psa. 22:6-20, Isa. Ch. 53, Zech. 12:10, Psa. 69:4, Isa. 49:7 with John 15:18-25, Matt. 2:13, 26:67-68, 27:28-44, Mark 8:31, Luke 4:28-29, 23:5, 10-11, John 8:37, Ch. 19), rejected by the rulers (Psa. 118:22 with Matt. 21:42-46, John 7:48-53), betrayed by a friend (Psa. 41:9 with John 13:18, 21), forsaken by His disciples (Zech. 13:7 with Matt. 26:31-56) and sold for thirty pieces of silver (Zech. 11:12 with Matt. 26:15). The price paid for Him was to be given for the potter’s field (Zech. 11:13 with Matt. 27:7). He was to be smitten on the cheek (Micah 5:1 with Matt. 27:30), spat on (Isa. 50:6 with Matt. 27:30), mocked (Psa. 22:7-8 with Matt. 27:28-31, 39-44), and beaten (Isa. 50:6 with Matt. 26:67, 27:26, 30).5
His death by crucifixion is given in detail in Psalm 22, and the meaning of His death, as a substitutionary atonement for our sins, is given in Isaiah 53. His hands and His feet were to be pierced (Psa. 22:16, Zech. 12:10 with John 19:18, 37, 20:25), yet not a bone of Him was to be broken (Ex. 12:46, Psa. 34:20 with John 19:33-36). He was to suffer thirst (Psa. 22:15 with John 19:28) and be given vinegar to drink (Psa. 69:21 with Matt. 27:34), and He was to be numbered with the transgressors (Isa. 53:12 with Matt. 27:38).
His body was to be buried with the rich in His death (Isa. 53:9 with Matt.
27:57-60), but was not to see corruption (Psa. 16:10 with Acts 2:31).
He was to be raised from the dead (Psa. 16:10 with Matt. Ch. 28, Mark Ch.
16, Luke Ch. 24, John Ch. 20 and Acts 13:33) and ascend to the right hand
of God (Psa. 68:18 with Luke 24:51, Acts 1:9; also, Psa. 110:1 with Heb.
1:3).
This bare sketch of Old Testament Messianic prophecy with its New Testament
fulfillment is, of course, far from complete; it is merely suggestive, though
we have covered many of the main points. Remember, there are actually hundreds
of predictions concerning the coming Messiah in the Old Testament!
THE MESSIAH WHO HAS COME
Christ’s Testimony to the Fact that He Fulfilled Old Testament Prophecy
Not only was the life of Christ pre-written in the Old Testament, but Jesus the Christ of the New Testament knew it, and fully witnessed to that fact in the New Testament. This is a miracle in itself, one which finds no parallel in the literature of the world. No other person of history—Caesar, Gladstone, Shakespeare, or any other—ever dreamed of saying of the Bible or of any other book, “Search the Scriptures; for...they are they which testify of Me” (John 5:39), as our Lord did. Nor has any false Christ ever appealed to fulfilled prophecy to vindicate his claims.6
The born-of-the-Spirit Christian must face this vast truth. Born-of-the-Spirit Christians are the one and only manifestation of Christ, true salvation, work of God, and presence of God in the world. God has always renounced the so-called “old religions” because they actually are old heresies. Being a born-of-the-Spirit, saved person is the only proper and true way for a human to enter Heaven and stay out of Hell and the lake of fire.
Jesus calmly said, “Abraham rejoiced to see My day” (John 8:56), and “Moses…wrote of Me” (John 5:46). Then, to show the connection between Old Testament prediction and New Testament fulfillment, He stated in His Sermon on the Mount that He had not “come to destroy the law, or the prophets…but to fulfill” them (Matt. 5:17).
The life of Christ was unique. All was according to the divine pattern, as given in the Old Testament. He was the One sent by the Father to fulfill all God’s will, to accomplish His work as Redeemer, and to fulfill all the prophecies concerning Him (John 3:16-17, I John 4:14, Heb. 10:9).
In the beginning of His ministry, after He read the important Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 61:1-2 to the people in the synagogue at Nazareth, He said, when all eyes were fastened on Him, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:16-21).
“Wherefore when He [Christ] cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me,) to do Thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:5-7).
When talking to Him at the well, the woman of Samaria said to Jesus, “I know that Messiah cometh”—all devout readers of the Old Testament knew that. She added “when He is come, He will tell us all things.” Then the Lord Jesus said to her, “I that speak unto thee am He” (John 4:25-26).
When Peter confessed his faith in Jesus as the Messiah—“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16)—the Lord Jesus acknowledged the truth of what he had said by answering, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in Heaven [hath revealed it unto thee]” (Matt. 16:17).
Jesus quoted from Psalm 110 to identify Himself as the Son of David—a Messianic title—and also to prove that David called Him Lord (Matt. 22:41-46). By taking the title Son of Man, He identified Himself with that Messianic title as used in Daniel (Dan. 7:13 with Mark 14:62; also Psa. 8). By taking the title Son of God, He identified Himself with that Messianic title as used in the second Psalm.
Almost everything Christ said or did had some connection with Old Testament prophecy. His miracles were in fulfillment of Old Testament predictions (Isa. 35:5-6), and His ministry was in accord with what Isaiah had predicted concerning Him (Isa. 42:1-4, 61:1-3, Matt. 12:17-21). His sufferings and death at Jerusalem were all in accordance with what had been foretold (Psa. 22, Isa. Ch. 53). When speaking of John the Baptist, Christ called attention to the fact that John was His forerunner, even as was predicted in Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1.
“For this is he [John the Baptist], of whom it is written, Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way before Thee” (Matt. 11:10).
And so, our Lord not only said that John came in fulfillment of prophecy, but that He, Jesus, was the one for whom John came to be forerunner!
As Jesus drew near to the cross, He said to His disciples, “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished” (Luke 18:31). On the eve of His crucifixion, He said, “This that is written must yet be accomplished in Me, And He was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning Me have an end” (Luke 22:37). Note the word “must.”
During the crucial hours of His trial, Jesus said to Peter (who was willing to defend his Master with his sword), “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” (Matt. 26:53-54). Then chiding the multitudes, He said, “Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take Me?...But all this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled” (Matt. 26:55-56). At His trial, when the high priest put Him under oath, and asked Him, “Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus answered, “I AM” (Mark 14:61-62).
After His resurrection, He spoke to two of His disciples on the Emmaus road. He began “at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself?” (Luke 24:27). Later, when meeting with the assembled disciples, He said unto them, “These are the words which I spake unto you…that all things MUST be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me” (Luke 24:44). Notice how the Lord on different occasions spoke of the necessity—“MUST”—of Old Testament prophecy being fulfilled in Him. It was necessary because the Word of God cannot fail, because the God of the Word cannot lie, and because the Son of God who fulfilled the Word cannot fail. “The Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).
After His resurrection, the Lord also gave His disciples the KEY that unlocks Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament: “And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations” (Luke 24:46-47). This great statement is perhaps a summary of Jesus’ teachings during the forty days that He ministered to His disciples between His resurrection and His ascension.
The Jews of His day looked for a triumphant, reigning Messiah. They do to this day. They failed to see from their own Scriptures that Christ must SUFFER for the sins of the people before entering His glory. Peter bears the same testimony of the witness of the Holy Spirit through the prophets of the Old Testament “when it testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow” (I Pet. 1:11).
The Apostles and Writers of the New Testament Also Bear Witness that Jesus the Christ Fulfilled Old Testament Prophecies
Many people professing to be Christians have never had a born-of-the-Spirit experience. Many people live what is seemingly a Christian life, but if they’re not born again of the Holy Spirit, they’re not Christians. Every one of us must be born again of the Spirit, washed in the blood of Jesus, and baptized. Christ with the Father by the Spirit must indeed live within each and every one of us, or we will in no wise enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The New Testament is the fulfillment of the predictions and promises of the Old. Jesus the Christ is the link who binds the two Testaments together. The early New Testament church writers and preachers saw this clearly and constantly pointed out the New Testament fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
When Matthew narrated the virgin birth of Christ, in Matthew 1:18-25, he said it was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prediction of the Messiah’s virgin birth: “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (Matt. 1:22-23, Isa. 7:14).
When King Herod, in a jealous rage, slaughtered the innocent children in his vain effort to kill the Christ child, Matthew called attention to the fact that even this gruesome murder was foreknown by God, who had it written down in the Bible as a prediction that was then fulfilled (Matt. 2:16-18 with Jer. 31:15).
In dozens of places in the Gospels, the evangelists infer or state that Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy. Peter expressed the convictions of the other disciples when he made his great confession: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16).
It is neither practical nor necessary in this brief treatise to list every case in the New Testament where the writers referred to the fulfillment of an Old Testament prediction. But I do want to call attention to the fact that the main theme, not only of the Gospel of John, as stated in John 20:31, but of ALL FOUR GOSPELS, is to prove that Jesus of Nazareth is the predicted Messiah, the Son of God, the One who was to come.
“But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name” (John 20:31).
The gist of John’s proof in his Gospel of John is to show that Jesus has all the qualifications, the perfection, and the works of the Messiah—Jesus fulfills all that was written of the Messiah—hence, He is the Messiah.7
The backbone of Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost was an argument from the Old Testament to prove to the Jews that Jesus of Nazareth, whom they with wicked hands had crucified, but whom God had raised from the dead, was the Messiah that David had written about, and that this “Jesus of Nazareth…God hath raised up...[and] made...both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:22-36).
In Peter’s second sermon in the book of Acts (Acts 3:12-26) at the gate of the temple, he ended and enforced his argument and appeal by saying, “And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it [rejected and killed Jesus, their Messiah], as did also your rulers. But those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of all His prophets, that Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:17-19).
Even in his sermon to the assembled Gentiles in the house of Cornelius, Peter said, “To Him [Jesus] give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins [former sins]” (Acts 10:43).
In Paul’s sermon in the synagogue at Antioch he said, “And when they had fulfilled ALL that was written of Him, they took Him down from the tree, and laid Him in a sepulchre. But God raised Him from the dead” (Acts 13:29-30).
Paul’s method of preaching the gospel to the Jews is given in Acts 17:2-3: “And Paul, as his manner was…reasoned with them out of the Scriptures [Old Testament], opening and alleging, that Christ [the Messiah] must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that THIS JESUS, whom I preach unto you, IS CHRIST.”
When Paul would define the gospel, by which people are saved, he connects the New Testament facts of the death and resurrection of Christ with Old Testament prediction and teaching: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel…By which also ye are saved…how that Christ died for our sins ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES [the Old Testament]; And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES” (I Cor. 15:1-4).
Many more citations could be given to show that the apostles, writers, and preachers of the New Testament constantly pointed out that Jesus the Christ lived, suffered, died, and rose again in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
We must now go into more detail, under different categories, to further
demonstrate that “all Messianic predictions of the Old Testament converge
in Jesus of Nazareth into a focal point of dazzling glory.” We will
present a brief of the voluminous material under these seven headings.
I. THE CREDENTIALS OF THE MESSIAH
II. PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF THE MESSIAH
III. PROPHETIC PARADOXES IN PROPHECIES CONCERNING CHRIST
IV. PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE SUFFERINGS, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION OF THE MESSIAH (CHRIST)
V. PROPHECIES DESCRIBING THE MESSIANIC OFFICES OF CHRIST
VI. THE DEITY OF THE MESSIAH (CHRIST) IN BOTH TESTAMENTS
VII. TYPES AND INDIRECT PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT FULFILLED IN CHRIST
I. THE CREDENTIALS OF THE MESSIAH
Credentials are testimonials, written proofs, such as letters of commendation or legal documents, proving the bearer’s right to office or position, such as an ambassador brings from his government to a foreign court. Our gracious Redeemer, when He came to our earth, condescended to present His “credentials” from the heavenly court. The following facts are the credentials that Jesus is the Savior of our souls, that is for everyone that comes to Him to be saved, filled with His Spirit, and washed in His blood. Matthew, in his first chapter, presents a succinct summary of His credentials: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1).
Reaching One Person Out of a World of People Via Mail
All are familiar with this commonplace fact: any person living in any part of the world having mail service can be picked out from the rest of the people on earth by simply addressing a letter to him, using six or seven definite specifications. For example, if we write a letter to:
LESTER B. SMITH
4143 Madison Ave.
Chicago, IL
USA
we are picking out one man from all the world. We can positively identify him and reach him by selecting, from all the nations of the world, one country where he lives—the USA; and so we eliminate all other countries. By selecting out of the country one state where he lives—Illinois—we eliminate all other states in the world. By designating one city—Chicago—in that state we eliminate all other cities of the world. By pointing out the correct address, the one house in Chicago where he lives—4143 Madison Ave.—we automatically exclude all other houses of the world. And by giving him his one correct name—Lester B. Smith—we not only distinguish him from other individuals who may live in the same house, we also eliminate all other persons in the world!
In like manner, in giving a sufficient number of definite “specifications” in the Old Testament concerning the coming Messiah, God enabled us to pick out one man from all history, from all nations, from all peoples, and be absolutely sure that one man is the Messiah! Let us carefully examine His “credentials,” His “address” as it were. These details, these specifications, these elements of His “address,” were given that all might know who the true Messiah is. As we proceed with the listing and explanation of these predictions—and their cumulative effect is overwhelming—it will soon become obvious that no other person in the history of the world could fulfill all the Messianic predictions—or even a very small percentage of them—except JESUS OF NAZARETH.
(1) In the first place, God eliminated the entire male population of the world as the immediate parent of the Messiah—and at the same time He made it clear the Messiah would come as a man and not as an angel, when He gave the promise that the coming deliverer would be the seed of the woman.
“I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed [the seed of God given her for pregnancy of the Messiah, the Son of God]; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel” (Gen. 3:15).
This, the first of the direct Messianic promises in the Bible, is “the Bible in embryo, the sum of all history and prophecy in a germ.” For here God’s prophets foretold not only the virgin birth of Christ, but also His vicarious sufferings. God said “Thou shalt bruise His heel” and “it [the Messiah] shall bruise thy head”—His complete eventual victory over Satan and his works.
God gave remarkable evidence in Genesis 4:1 that this promise in Genesis 3:15 was well understood by Adam and Eve: for at the birth of her first son, Eve ecstatically exclaimed, “I have gotten a man from the Lord!” (Gen. 4:1). When her firstborn arrived, Eve thought the promised Deliverer had come. But she was mistaken as to the time, place and many other yet-to-be-given specifications. Many centuries must pass before the Messiah could come. “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman…To redeem…” (Gal. 4:4-5).
(2) Next, God eliminated two thirds of the nations, by indicating that the Messiah must come through Shem—not Ham or Japheth—of the sons of Noah. In the very beginning of the history of the nations, God, through His prophet Noah, identified Himself with Shem in a special way: “Blessed be the Lord God of Shem…God shall enlarge Japheth, and He [God] shall dwell in the tents of Shem” (Gen. 9:26-27).
The final fulfillment of the prediction in Genesis 9:27 came when the eternal Word, who was with God and was God (John 1:1), “was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). He came to His people Israel, who are descendants of Shem, through Abraham (Gen. 11:10-27).
(3) Later, another choice was made. All of the hundreds of the nations of the world were eliminated except one: the new nation started by God Himself when He called Abraham. So the God of history divides the nations into two groups: Jew and Gentile (believers in God through the Lord Jesus Christ or nonbelievers in God, those who do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior), and segregates one small nation, the Jews, that through them the Messiah, God in the flesh, must come to the world.
“Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country…unto a land that I will show thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee…And thou shalt be a blessing…and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:1-3). “Unto thy seed will I give this land” (Gen. 12:7; see also Gen. 17:1-8, 15-19).
“By Myself have I sworn, saith the Lord…That in blessing I will bless thee…And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Jews and Gentiles who believe in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and keep His commandments) (Gen. 22:16-18).
Here we have a phenomenon of the first magnitude—a record that goes back 1500 years before Christ in which the writer hazards multiple predictions—that God would bless Abraham, make him a blessing, give him the land of Canaan, and bless the world through him and his seed. A great nation was created and given a land of their own for one purpose—that the Messiah might come to and through them, to bless the entire world of those who would believe in Him! The prediction is a literary fact; it has been in the book of Genesis, unchanged, for thousands of years. Its fulfillment is an age-long miracle, and is as definite and complete as the original prophecy. For not only did God make of Abraham a great nation, giving Canaan to the Jews under the conquest of Joshua, but in due time the Messiah came to them, and the world has been immeasurably blessed through Abraham’s seed, which is Christ (Gal. 3:8, 16). “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed” (Gal. 3:8).
“Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ” (Gal. 3:16).
“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, THE SON OF ABRAHAM” (Matt. 1:1).
So the Messianic story slowly unfolds in the Old Testament—the Messiah must be the “seed of the woman,” come through the line of Shem, and be the “seed of Abraham.” That narrows our search for the Messiah—we now know we must look for Him in the Jewish race, as a descendant of Abraham.
(4) But Abraham had several sons, including Ishmael his firstborn, and Isaac. So, another choice had to be made. We are now informed that the Messiah was to come through Isaac (Gen. 17:19, 21:12, Rom. 9:7, Heb. 11:18, “in Isaac shall thy seed be called”), and not through Ishmael, the progenitor of the modern Arabs. That narrows the line still more.
“And the Lord appeared unto him [Isaac], and said…unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries [the promised land], and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father; And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven…and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 26:2-4).
This is that the Savior of the world, the Messiah, and all of the promised blessings that the human race will receive by believing in Him and by proving it by doing what He tells us to do will come through Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah (both Jews), not at all Hagar, Sarah’s bondwoman, who was an Egyptian. She bore Ishmael, the father of the Arabic races. This fact is documented for added emphasis in Deuteronomy 18:18, where God’s infallible Word states that the Savior of the world, Jesus, the Messiah, God in the flesh, came to the world as a man, a flesh, blood, and bone man,8 who was raised the highest among all Jews like unto thee (Deut. 18:18).
This fact is also clearly given in the New Testament: “Who are Israelites…Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever” (Rom. 9:4-5).
(5) Since Isaac had two sons, the Messianic line must be further narrowed. The prediction is clearly made that Christ must come through Jacob, not Esau; that is, the Messiah could not be an Edomite (the descendants of Esau).
“And, behold, the Lord…said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed…and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 28:13-14).
“I shall see Him, but not now: I shall behold Him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre [a king] shall rise out of Israel…Out of Jacob shall come He that shall have dominion” (Num. 24:17, 19).
(6) But Jacob had twelve sons: so another choice had to be made by the Almighty. One of the twelve, JUDAH, is selected. So, the Messiah cannot come from eleven of the twelve tribes of Israel, He must come through Judah (Gen. 49:8-10).
“Moreover He refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: But chose the tribe of Judah” (Psa. 78:67-68).
“For Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the Chief Ruler” (I Chron. 5:2).
“The sceptre [kings] shall not depart from JUDAH, nor a lawgiver
from between his feet, until SHILOH come; and unto Him shall the gathering
of the people be” (Gen. 49:10).
Coming to the New Testament, we read that Jesus our Lord “sprang out
of Juda” (Heb. 7:14, Rev. 5:5).
(7) Next, of the thousands of families in the tribe of Judah, another choice must be made: the Messiah must come from ONE family line, from the family of Jesse, the father of David. “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon HIM” (Isa. 11:1-2).
The word “rod” appears in but one other passage in the Old Testament (Prov. 14:3), and carries the meaning of “a twig, a shoot such as starts up from the roots of a cut down tree stump.” The passage in Isaiah 11:1-2 is a clear statement that God will take a man with no standing—a mere “stump” of a tree cut down—and ingraft new life into it. Jesse was not the head of a royal family until God made him the father of a king (David) and put him into the Messianic line!
(8) Since Jesse had eight sons, another divine choice must be made: the Messiah is to be a descendant of DAVID, Jesse’s youngest son. “I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish His kingdom. He shall build an house for My name, and I will stablish the throne of His kingdom for ever” (II Sam. 7:12-13, I Chron. 17:11-14, Psa. 89:35-37, Jer. 23:5-6).
“The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David; He will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne” (Psa. 132:11). From this last passage quoted (Psa. 132:11) we see that the Lord not only made a promise to David, He confirmed His promise by an oath. God had done the same for Abraham (Heb. 6:13-18). Turning to the New Testament, we read:
“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, THE SON OF DAVID” (Matt. 1:1).
“Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3, also Luke 1:30-33, Acts 2:30-32, II Tim. 2:7-8, Rev. 5:5, 22:16).
“And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men followed Him, crying, and saying, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us” (Matt. 9:27).
“A woman of Canaan…cried unto Him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David” (Matt. 15:22).
The public knew Jesus as the “Son of David” and so called Him (Matt. 9:27, 12:22-23, 15:22, 20:30-31, 21:9, 15, Mark 10:47-48, Luke 18:38-39).
The Pharisees knew full well that the Messiah must be the Son of David. When Jesus asked them, “What think ye of Christ [the Messiah]? whose son is He? They say unto Him, The Son of David” (Matt. 22:41-46).
It is obvious the Messiah had to be a son of David, according to the flesh—and
Jesus was.
The Genealogical Records
During Bible times, every Jew could trace his genealogy. So the entire population of Israel was reckoned by genealogies (I Chron. 9:1). These records were kept in the cities (Neh. 7:5-6, Ezra 2:1) and were public property. Each Israelite’s genealogical record constituted his title to his farm or home—so he had a pecuniary interest in preserving the genealogical records of his family. These national genealogical records were carefully kept until the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple and the Jewish state in 70 A.D. During the life of Jesus, no one offered to dispute the well-known fact that He was of the house and lineage of David, because it was in the public records that all had access to.
Before King Titus destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D., all the genealogies of the Jews were kept intact so that the authenticity of the Savior of the world, the Messiah, could be preserved and given to those of us in the world, especially those of us who would become members of the one corporate body of Christ. Only those in the corporate body of Christ are true Christians. They are the proof of the authenticity of the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, the Messiah. After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the Jews were dispersed all over the world and were not to return again until the end of time. This happened in 1947 and 1948, and this tells us all that Christ is standing at the door in Heaven, about to descend, return back to earth. This is the end of time, the end of the world! The destruction of this world is at hand. Those who have the capability of thinking have seen many manifestations of the beginning of sorrows in the world already (Matt. Ch. 24).
Because of the genealogies of our Lord Jesus Christ in Bible records, as well as all the hundreds of fulfilled prophecies, it is an indisputable fact that no one in this world or any other world could be the Messiah, the Savior of the world, except for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only-begotten Son of the Almighty Living God and the Living God. The Bible tells us that He is also the entire Word of God Himself, and that there isn’t anything that has been created that was not created by Christ (John 1:3, 10).9 This includes everything in the heavens and everything in the earth.
Another great prophecy is that the Messiah had to come before the year 70 A.D. This also shows that all those who say they are the Messiah today are phonies, are crazy, or at best have not read the Bible with knowledge.
(9) Moreover, of all David’s “many sons,” the Messiah must get His right to the throne of David through Solomon’s regal line.
“And of all my sons, (for the Lord hath given me many sons,) He hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel” (I Chron. 28:5, 29:24).
In the New Testament, Solomon is in the regal line from David to Joseph (Matt. 1:6).
(10) Yet another most important “specification” about the Messiah’s lineage is given: He must be born of a virgin. And since the Messiah must be of the fruit of David’s body (Psa. 132:11) this virgin must be a direct descendant of King David.
“Hear ye now, O house of David…the Lord Himself shall give you a sign [a ‘sign’ in the Bible is a ‘wonder,’ a ‘miracle’]; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel [God with us]” (Isa. 7:13-14).10
It is remarkable that whenever the birth of the Messiah is spoken of in
the Old Testament, reference is made to His mother—or the womb—never
to a human father. See:
Isaiah 49:1: “The Lord hath called Me from the womb.”
Isaiah 49:5: “And now, saith the Lord that formed Me from the womb
to be His servant.”
Jeremiah 31:22: “The Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, A
woman shall compass a man.”
Psalm 22:9: “Thou art He that took Me out of the womb.”
Micah 5:3: “Until the time that she which travaileth hath brought
forth.”
Turning to the New Testament, we find that Jesus indeed was born of a virgin, a virgin who was a direct descendant of King David. After listing the genealogical record from Abraham to Christ, using the oftrepeated phrase “Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob,” etc., showing descent by natural generation, we finally come to the striking statement:
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on THIS wise: When as His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit…for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (Matt. 1:18, 20-23).
We are dependent on a good woman (Mary), a good man (Joseph), a good doctor (Luke), a faithful recorder (Matthew), the word of an angel, and the Word of God (who gave both the prediction and its literal fulfillment), for an honest, accurate account of the birth of Jesus (Matt. 1:16-23, Luke 1:26-38, 2:1-20).
Here indeed is a sign—a WONDER—that only God can fulfill. Obviously, no Messianic pretender can cause himself to be born of a virgin. And since “every truth is consistent with every other truth in the universe” it would not only be difficult, it would be impossible for a pretender to collect five such good witnesses as Mary, Joseph, Luke, Matthew, and the angel of the Lord to lie for him without the fraud being detected sooner or later. We can depend on the testimony of these five witnesses.11
This much is clear: whoever the Almighty sent to earth via the virgin birth is the Messiah: for here is a true “sign,” a wonder of heavenly origin, that cannot be faked. The God who gave the specification in Isaiah 7:14 fulfilled it in the virgin birth of Jesus. “Then said the Lord unto me…I will hasten My Word to perform it” (Jer. 1:12).
Remember, this Messianic chain giving the Messiah’s lineage was formed through many centuries: from Eve, to David, to Isaiah, to the prophet Micah’s time. It was added to by many human agents who spoke in diverse manners, times and places. And every time prophecy made a particular choice, there was new risk, humanly speaking, of selecting the wrong branch, and nothing short of absolute accuracy will do when God claims to speak.
“Absolute accuracy” it was: for when the Messiah came He fulfilled to the letter ALL the specifications of His lineage and was indeed the Seed of the woman, “the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1). No other person in all the world than Jesus of Nazareth could meet all, or even a small part, of these specifications.
Let us illustrate. Remember, there are no two people exactly alike in all the world—not even identical twins. Suppose you are George Bardon. You live at 113 Smith Drive, Detroit, Michigan. You are five feet ten inches tall; you weigh 165 pounds. You are married and have five children: three boys and two girls. You sell life insurance for a living. You have $5,124.76 in the bank. Manifestly, no one else in all the world has ALL of your “specifications.” It is easy to see that, if enough characteristic details are given, identification is positive; the same is true of prophecy: if a sufficient number of details are given, identification is positive. So many details of the Messiah are given, and each one is exactly fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, so that identification is positive.
(11) To further help all know the Messiah when He came, the place
of His birth is given. Prophecy has given us His “address”
in terms of the town where He was to be born.
“But thou, BETHLEHEM Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands
of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be ruler
in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting”
(Mic. 5:2).
Of all the continents, one is chosen—Asia; of all states, one is chosen—Israel. All provinces of Israel are eliminated save one—Judaea; all cities of Judaea are eliminated save one—Bethlehem Ephratah—a tiny village having at that time fewer than a thousand inhabitants. The prophet pinpoints one obscure village on the map of the world, but he speaks infallibly, for the omniscient God was behind his utterance. The prophet spoke clearly, too, with unequivocal certainty; for when King Herod demanded of the chief priests and the scribes of the people where Christ should be born, they told him, “In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet” (Matt. 2:4-6, John 7:42).
The Drama of Fulfilled Prophecy
Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea (Matt. 2:1) in a manner altogether marvelous. Until shortly before the time of Jesus’ birth, Mary was living at the wrong place—that is, if her coming baby was the Messiah. Note now the intricacies of God’s providences in fulfilling His Word. In 1923, at Ankara, Turkey, was found a Roman temple inscription (reported by Sir William Ramsay, noted British chemist and archeologist), which, when deciphered, related that in the reign of Caesar Augustus there were three great tax collections. The second was ordered four years before the birth of Christ. The third, several years after His birth. The second one is the one we are concerned with.
The proud Jews resented the idea of a special tax, so they sent a commission to Rome to protest it. Quirinius, the local governor of Syria, had not the authority to settle the problem. Those were days of slow communications and slower travel. The commission finally failed and the Jews had to submit to the enrollment and taxing. But by the time the official tax collectors had worked their way eastward, town by town, and province by province, and after the time-consuming delays caused by the Jewish protests, exactly enough delay was caused, and all in the natural course of events, so that when the enrollment was put in force in Judea the exact time had come to Mary for the birth of the baby Jesus!
Neither Mary nor Caesar nor the Roman tax collectors did the timing, nor were they in charge of affairs; but the God who rules the world behind the scenes had His hand on the wheel, and He literally “moved the peoples of the world” and timed everything to the very day, so that Mary and Joseph got to Bethlehem in the nick of time, that Jesus, the chosen Messiah, might be born in the right place, the place designated by the infallible finger of prophecy!
Blind indeed is the man who can’t see or who won’t see the mind of the Infinite planning these details and the hand of the Almighty executing His perfect plan!
(12) Finally, to pinpoint the Messiah, the TIME of His coming, as well as the place, is given. Of all generations of earth’s history, the Messiah had to come when Jesus was born! All before Jesus’ time are eliminated; all after His time are disqualified; and since Jesus of Nazareth had no consequential “competitor” in His generation, the finger of prophecy points infallibly to HIM.
There are three general predictions as to the time of the Messiah’s coming, and one specific.
(A) The Messiah must come before the tribe of Judah lost its tribal identity.
“The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto Him shall the gathering of the people be” (Gen. 49:10).12
The tribal identity of Judah shall not pass away—as did that of the other ten tribes of Israel—until Shiloh come.
For ages both Jewish and Christian commentators have taken “Shiloh” to be a name of the Messiah. It means “peace” or “one sent.”
Even though Judah, during the seventy-year period of their captivity at Babylon, had been deprived of national sovereignty, they never lost their “tribal staff,” their national identity; and they always had their own “lawgivers” (judges) even in captivity (Ezra 1:5, 8).
At the time of Christ, though the Romans were overlords of the Jews, the Jews had a king in their own land; moreover, they were to a large extent governed by their own laws, and the Sanhedrin of the nation still exercised its authority. But in the space of a few years, during the year when Jesus was twelve years of age, when He appeared publicly in the temple (Luke 2:41-52), Archelaus, the king of the Jews, was dethroned and banished. Coponius was appointed Roman Procurator, and the kingdom of Judah, the last remnant of the former greatness of the nation of Israel, was formally debased into a part of the province of Syria. For almost another half century, the Jews retained the semblance of a provincial governmental structure; but in 70 A.D. both their city and their temple were destroyed by the armies of the Roman general Titus, and all semblance of Jewish national sovereignty disappeared. But the remarkable thing is this: the Messiah (Shiloh) came before Judah lost its tribal identity, exactly as stated in Genesis 49:10!
(B) The Messiah had to come while the second temple was still standing. “And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts” (Hag. 2:7). “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts” (Hag. 2:9).
Malachi 3:1 confirms the prophecies in Haggai 2:7 and 9: “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple.” This prophecy in Malachi, as well as the one in Haggai, could not be fulfilled after the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. If the Messiah was to come at all, He had to come before the temple was destroyed. Zechariah 11:13 also says that the Messiah had to come before the destruction of the Jewish temple, for that prediction speaks of the thirty pieces of silver being cast to the potter in the house of the Lord. In Psalm 118:26 the prophetic pen informs us that the people who should welcome the Messiah would not only say, “Blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord,” but also “We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord.” That is, the people from the house of the Lord will bless Him when He comes.
This was beautifully fulfilled in the life of Jesus. When He approached Jerusalem for His triumphal entry, the people said, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest” (Matt. 21:9). We can read that Jesus healed many who were blind and lame in the temple (Matt. 21:14). Matthew 21:15 tells us that the children cried in the temple, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David.” Surely, “out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise” (Psa. 8:2, Matt. 21:16). God used children to fulfill His prediction given in Psalm 118:26, which states that the Messiah should be blessed in the house of the Lord!
There are at least five scriptural predictions on the coming of the Messiah that state He must come while the temple at Jerusalem is still standing. This is a fact of great significance, since the temple has NOT been rebuilt since its destruction in 70 A.D. These five Scriptures are: Haggai 2:7-9, Malachi 3:1, Zechariah 11:13, Daniel 9:26, and Psalm 118:26.
Therefore, the public entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and into the temple as recorded was both prearranged and predicted. It was part of the perfect plan that foretold of the Messiah and His activities, including when He should come. They were perfectly fulfilled in the movements of Jesus of Nazareth when He came (Matt. 21:1-16, Mark 11:1-10, Luke 19:29-40).
“And Jesus went into the temple of God…and the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple; and He healed them…and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David” (Matt. 21:12-15).
Two other astonishing Scriptures also speak of this. One tells of when the child Jesus was taken to the temple by His parents, as recorded in Luke 2:25-32. The other states that when Jesus was a boy of twelve He was “in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors…and all that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers” (Luke 2:46-47).
After centuries of waiting, the Messiah suddenly came to His temple! (Mal. 3:1). A few years later, God, with a dramatic gesture, destroyed the temple and the city of Jerusalem, just as Jesus told the people He would. On the old temple site there now stands a heathen shrine, the Dome of the Rock.13 Providence, by these significant facts, is saying to all Jews and to all people everywhere that the Messiah has already come! The Messiah had to come 2,000 years ago, before God had the temple destroyed in 70 A.D. by the Roman general, Titus.
Either Jesus of Nazareth is the true Messiah, or there is no Messiah, no prophecy, no Word of God, no God, and no objective truth. If this were so, all history, as well as all the future, would be as meaningless as the babbling of a dribbling idiot and as purposeless as the driftwood floating on the outskirts of a maddening whirlpool.
(C) By the Holy Spirit, the prophet Daniel foretold the exact days, years, and months the Messiah would be born and would die. Anyone who professed themselves to be the Messiah that was born or died before or after these dates prophesied by Daniel would be an impostor, because the Messiah had to be born and to die on these exact dates. In giving the timetable from Daniel’s time to the coming of the Messiah, Daniel makes it very clear that the Messiah will come and be “cut off [killed as a substitute for the forgiveness of our former sins]” before the “people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city [Jerusalem] and the sanctuary” (Dan. 9:26). This is more proof to the above mentioned prophecies of God’s time that God would come to earth by His Spirit living in a human, a man. The next fact is relative to the time of the Messiah’s coming.
(D) The Messiah had to come 483 years after a specific date in Daniel’s time. This definite prediction as to the exact TIME of the coming of the Messiah is one of the most wonderful prophecies in the entire Bible. It establishes the date of the Messiah’s advent almost five hundred years before He came. Here is the prediction:
“Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto THE MESSIAH THE PRINCE shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary” (Dan. 9:25-26).
The date of the “commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem” was the decree by Artaxerxes in 444 B.C. which granted the Jews permission to return to Israel and rebuild the city of Jerusalem (Neh. 2:1-8).
The Hebrew word translated as “weeks” in the Scripture quoted above (Dan. 9:25-26) means “sevens” or “heptads,” and is used to mean seven years, as when Jacob served his weeks for his wives: seven years, one week, for Leah, and seven years, one week, for Rachel 14 (Gen. 29:27-28, Lev. 25:8). In other words, the “seventy sevens” that are prophetically determined for Israel and the holy city, with specified events (Dan. 9:24), are a period of 490 years.
This period is divided into three sections. The first is seven “weeks,” or seven sevens of years—the 49 years the prophet allotted for the rebuilding of Jerusalem under the leadership of Nehemiah and Ezra and those associated with them (see the books of Nehemiah and Ezra). History tells us it took 49 years to do this rebuilding.
The second period is 62 “weeks,” or 434 years, which would bring the time to the MESSIAH. The third period, the 70th “week,” is a period of seven years some time after the coming of the Messiah.
We now are especially interested in the period “from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem” to “Messiah the Prince,” which is a total of 483 years. Sir Robert Anderson, in his book The Coming Prince, figured it out and gave the world his findings.
Anderson starts with March 14, 444 B.C., the date of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem, and ends with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (which he believes is when all Israel became aware of Christ’s Messiahship. He believes it to be the official presentation of the Messiah as “Prince” to Israel [Matt. 21:1-9, Zech. 9:9]). After careful investigation and consultation with noted astronomers, he gives these startling findings: “From 444 B.C. to 32 A.D. is 476 years; 476 X 365 is 173,740 days; from March 14 to April 6 (the day of Christ’s triumphal entry) is 24 days, add 116 days for leap years (for a year to be a leap year, it must be exactly divisible by four, unless the year ends in two zeros, in which case then it must be divisible by 400), and you get a total of 173,880 days. Since the prophetic year of the Bible is always 360 days, the 69 ‘sevens’ of this prophecy in Daniel (69 X 7 X 360) is 173,880 days! And so the time given by Daniel from the ‘commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem’ to ‘Messiah the Prince’ comes out perfectly—to the very day!” (Anderson).
This is a genuine prophecy, as detailed as a road map, with no taint of ambiguity. It is also a prediction that has been proven to be true. This is a sign that points unerringly to JESUS OF NAZARETH, “Messiah the Prince,” who was “cut off?” but not for Himself. When Jesus began His public ministry, He said significantly, “The TIME is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). The Messiah had to be born at some time; it might have been in any century, or in any year; but with absolute certainty the exact year and the very month of a notable event in His life was foretold.
This wonderful prophecy was given in the prophetic Word so that all might know the Messiah when He came. The accuracy of prediction is minute; the fulfillment is exact. One mistake would be fatal—but all is in perfect agreement: Jesus of Nazareth fulfills ALL the specifications as to His lineage, His birthplace, and the time of His birth. And is it not most remarkable that within a generation of Christ’s sufferings on the cross, the temple was destroyed, the Jewish priesthood ceased to exist, the sacrifices were no longer offered, the Jews’ genealogical records were destroyed, the Jews’ city was destroyed, and the people of Israel were driven out of their land, sold into slavery, and dispersed to the four corners of the earth? Since those dreadful national judgments fell on Israel it has been utterly impossible for a “Messiah” to come with proper “credentials,” credentials such as the Old Testament demands and credentials such as Jesus of Nazareth presented.
II. PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE LIFE
AND MINISTRY OF THE MESSIAH
(1) The Messiah’s divine nature and perfection are clearly outlined by the prophets in hundreds of prophecies: He will be the sinless One—as holy as God.15 He actually is God in a human body.
The Messiah must be as righteous as the Lord Himself (because He is God): for He will be the “righteous Branch…He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jer. 23:5-6). The Messiah must be God’s chosen One in whom He will delight (Isa. 42:1). In Matthew 3:17, we read that the Father said of Jesus, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The Messiah, on His part, will be the obedient servant of the Lord who will ever “delight” to do God’s will (Psa. 40:8). The Lord Jesus could testify, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work” (John 4:34, 6:38).
The Messiah will be anointed by the Holy Spirit in a manner and degree far beyond any man or men (“above” His fellows in that day until Pentecost, Psa. 45:7, Heb. 1:9). Read the remarkable passage in Isaiah 11:2-5 that tells us:
“And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him [original writing, ‘within Him’], the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; And shall make Him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears: But with righteousness shall He judge the poor...And righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins.”
In the New Testament we read of Jesus’ anointing with the Holy Spirit at the time of His baptism, when the Holy Spirit like a dove descended and lit upon Him (original is, “within Him”) (Matt. 3:16). He bare witness that the “Spirit of the Lord” was upon Him (original writing, “within Him”) (Luke 4:18), which was in fulfillment of a prediction about the Messiah’s authenticity and ministry in Isaiah 61:1-3. The people “bare Him [Jesus] witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth” (Luke 4:22).
The Messiah must be a man under the total control of the Holy Spirit of God the Father: “His voice [shall not] be heard in the street[s]” (Isa. 42:2). When He spake, it was the Father speaking from within Him, so human words from Him were never heard in the streets. Hence, His voice was not heard in the streets. We must be like Him. “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works” (John 14:10); “Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done” (Luke 22:42), “In the mean while His disciples prayed Him, saying, Master, eat. But He said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of...Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work” (John 4:31-32, 34). So, again, it’s not His voice heard in the street but the Father’s led by the Holy Spirit. His Father’s voice—whether in anger or otherwise—it was the Father. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one. Because men are frail, He promised them His power, the same power that He possessed enabling Him to be strong to where He could keep all of God’s commandments without sinning once (and now we by Him with His Father by the Spirit in us).16
He will allow men to be free moral agents though His messages are strict and unmovable, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He will allow men to choose the good or the evil so that man chooses his own consequences and destiny: He shall not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax (Isa. 42:3). He will preach the true message in hopes that it will be received, that the soul will not spend eternity in Hell. But, if a person wants to go to Hell after hearing the message of truth, He will not kidnap them or deprogram them from their un-Christian thinking, as evil men today do their best to deprogram Christians from their Christian thoughts and works. People will either do the will of the Father and attain Heaven or they will do their own will and spend eternity in a terrible, everlasting Hell.
The Messiah will have tenacity, perseverance in the course of doing right, His Father’s will; He will have courage and success in that goal, as well as steadfastness of purpose: “He shall not fail nor be discouraged” (Isa. 42:4).
Matthew, in describing the ministry of Jesus, says that Jesus fulfilled what Isaiah had said about Him: “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet [through the Spirit of the Father], saying, Behold My Servant, whom I have chosen; My Beloved, in whom My soul is well pleased: I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He shall show judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till He send forth judgment unto victory. And in His name shall the Gentiles trust” (Matt. 12:17-21).
The Messiah’s compassion and tenderness are revealed in an exquisite figure of touching tenderness: “He shall feed His flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young” (Isa. 40:11). In the New Testament, we read of the compassion of Jesus in Matthew 9:36, 14:14, 15:32 and many other places. In the tenth chapter of John, Christ is presented as the “good Shepherd” who loves His sheep and cares for them, even giving His life for them (John 10:1-18). This does not mean that He doesn’t hate Satan, demons, and those who follow them and never repent.
The Messiah will be “just” and “lowly” (Zech. 9:9), “fairer than the children of men” with “grace…poured into” His lips and blessed by God forever (Psa. 45:2). He will be without violence (no violence towards the Word of God, only rebuke and reproof against evil), have a blameless outward life—and without deceit—an innocent inner life (Isa. 53:9, I Pet. 2:22). He will suffer great personal wrong done to Him (Isa. 50:6, 53:7, Matt. 26:67-68, 27:28-44, Luke 23:11, 35-37, John 19:1-3, 16-18). Coming to the New Testament, we learn that Jesus is “meek and lowly [to do all of the Father’s commandments] in heart” (Matt. 11:29); and the Father testified of Him, “Thou hast loved righteousness [doing all the will of God], and HATED iniquity; therefore God…hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows” (Heb. 1:9). When the Lord Jesus was crucified, He meekly (obediently to God) suffered all the indignities, the insults, the blasphemies, the mental torture, the physical violence heaped upon Him, and He prayed for His flock who fled (Matt. 27:12-14, Luke 23:34) because they were not yet baptized with the Spirit of the ministry, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, which they received on the day of Pentecost in the book of Acts, chapter 2, verses 1-4.
As a teacher, the Messiah “shall not fail…till He have set judgment in the earth” and the nations “shall wait for His law” (Isa. 42:4). Our Lord and Savior, the Messiah, would never fail to fulfill all the prophecies of the Old Testament. This proved Him to be the Savior of the world, the Messiah, and the Judge of all things. He also proved Himself to be God Himself, our Lord and Savior, our Messiah, by His conquering death, Hell, and the grave, His resurrection from the dead and ascension back into Heaven, and His ability to give power to those that believe His words and do them by His living within them and His working through them. They are the continuation of Christ’s life and work on earth, the continuation of the Word’s incarnation. His judgments are just, and through the study of His life the nations can see that His judgments are true, just, and fair to all men, women, and children.
It was pre-written of the Messiah that HE would open His mouth with “parables.” He will “utter dark sayings of old” (Psa. 78:2). When Jesus, the great Teacher, came, He taught “as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (Matt. 7:29). The scribes taught by quoting what such and such a Rabbi had said, but when Jesus taught, He spake God’s words by the Holy Spirit and spoke with finality and assurance: “Verily, verily, I say unto you” (John 5:24, 6:47). Moreover, Christ’s characteristic method of teaching was by the use of parables, “And without a parable spake He not unto them: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open My mouth in parables” (Matt. 13:34-35).
It is plain from the reading of the Old Testament that when our Messiah, our Lord and Savior, would enter into this world, the world we live in, He would be holier, wiser, the Truth, and more powerful than men. He came to bring power and truth. He would be, and still is, as just and as righteous as God Himself because He is God (Isa 9:6, 44:6, Mic. 5:2, Matt. 1:23, John 1:1-3, 14, Rev. 19:13).17 Who in all the history of the world could this be speaking of other than Jesus the Christ, who was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens” (Heb. 7:26)?
The Miracle of All Literature: the Portrayal of the Perfect God-Man
Now we come to the miracle of all literature: the portrayal of the perfect Godman, Jesus the Christ, in the New Testament. That which is given in an abstract way in the Old Testament’s portrayal of the coming perfect Messiah becomes a concrete reality in the flesh and person of Jesus the Christ in the New Testament. In the Lord Jesus we see the One who is altogether lovely, the chiefest among ten thousand, the delight of the heavenly Father.18
Christ’s perfectly poised godliness was not unbalanced by eccentricities or human faults. His perfections were not tainted by pride or His wisdom marred by any folly. His equity was not twisted by prejudice, and His justice was not adulterated by selfish whims. He had a becoming dignity, which was happily blended with God’s gracious humility to do God’s will. He had concern for others, zeal, patience, tact without dishonesty, and frankness without sin. His authority was balanced and blended with gentleness, patience, reproof, rebuke, and great power, as well as a hatred towards Satan and a nononsense toughness against Satan.
He was never defeated. He never had to retract a statement, offer an apology, change His teachings, confess a sin or a mistake, or ask advice from humanity. He always had the right answer—the will and the Word of God.
He went about doing good, prayed always, gave God glory and thanks in all things, and had no interest in the accumulation of material things. He lived and died in temporary poverty, yet He never lacked until His sufferings on the cross.
His miracles were all beneficent and never for vainglory. He was the perfect Teacher, living what He taught. He was one of us in the truest sense as the “Son of Man,” yet He was not one of us, for He never sinned. He was from above, not from the earth, and He was the unique Son of God. “Never man spake like this man” (John 7:46). He was the proof that man could become perfect by His presence with the Father by the Spirit living and working in regenerated man.
He who said, “I am the Light of the world” (John 9:5), opened the eyes of many who were born blind so that all could see His right to the claim and know He was the Messiah. He who said, “I am the Resurrection, and the Life” (John 11:25), proved these were sober words of truth by raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:43-44)! He who said, “I am the Bread of Life [meaning the Word of God]” (John 6:35), gave full evidence that He was all He claimed to be by performing the symbolic miracle of feeding five thousand with a few loaves and fewer fish (John 6:5-14). If Jesus were not the true Messiah, the Savior of the world, what an unmitigated crime against humanity, what brash folly, what unforgivable egotism it would have been for Him to make the promises He did, and so deceive people for time and eternity. Certainly such evil could not come from one as good and as loving as Jesus. We believe and are sure that He is indeed the Christ, the Son of God, the One who came into the world to be the Redeemer of mankind.
Volumes have been written, and more volumes will be written, on the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. It should be sufficient to state that Jesus is the express image of the invisible God (Heb. 1:3), the sum and substance of all good, the One in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead in a real human body (Col. 2:9). His holiness shone with undimmed luster; His loveliness was as pure and genuine as the glory of God; His love was as selfless and as complete as the love of God, for in all the history of the world mankind has never seen, except in the death of Christ, a perfect Godman dying under an unparalleled weight of unmerited agony. The mighty yet lowly royal sufferer uncomplainingly bore the weight of the sin of the race in His atoning death on the cross.
(2) The Messiah’s supernatural “miracle” works are clearly foretold. He must, as His hallmarks, show supernatural works that prove Him to be the Godappointed, Godsent Redeemer. As His “special” work, Jesus, the Savior of the world, the Messiah, offered Himself as a substitutionary sacrifice to pay the penalty of the law in our place for our sins.
The Messiah’s whole ministry must BLESS the people. As Isaiah foretold:
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me; because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord…to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified” (Isa. 61:1-3).
The Messiah, as the Lord God in the midst of His people, must be the miracle worker par excellence:
“Behold, your God will come…He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert” (Isa. 35:4-6).
“I the Lord have called Thee in righteousness…and give Thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; To open the blind eyes [do away with spiritual blindness], to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house” (Isa. 42:6-7). Satan’s power is broken by our faith and our obedience to God by the power of God living and working in us.
The Messiah is the worldwide SAVIOR
for “salvation unto the end of the earth” (Isa. 49:6), a “light
of the Gentiles” (Isa. 42:6, 11:10) and the “Redeemer of Israel”
(Isa. 49:7).
In the New Testament, Christ is the worldwide Savior: “For God so loved
the WORLD, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
When the prophet Simeon, in the temple, saw the child Jesus, he knew this was the Christ. He said, “Lord…mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, Which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32, 1:68-79, Rom. 3:29).
The Messiah’s special work is to offer Himself once, and once only, His soul and His body, as a ransom, an offering, and a sacrifice, so that sinners can be forgiven for their former sins, as well as for sins of ignorance, if they are never committed again (Isa. 53:4-6, 10, 12). This is because if you realize you have ignorantly committed a sin, repent of it, then commit the sin again, it is not construed to be a sin of ignorance any longer, but a deliberate sin. If a sin unto death is committed after salvation, it is no longer forgivable.19 By this supreme sacrifice of Himself, He will “bruise” Satan’s head (Gen. 3:15 with Heb. 2:14, I John 3:8); and by that great work of redemption He will establish a kingdom that will last forever (Dan. 7:14, Isa. 9:7, Luke 1:32-33).
Turning to the New Testament, we see the identification of the Old Testament Messiah with the Christ of the New to be perfect, as far as His holy perfection, His “works,” and His special “work” on the cross are concerned.
The miracles that Jesus wrought—His works—were wellknown by His generation. Peter, in his sermon on the day of Pentecost, uses the fact of Christ’s miracle-working ministry as PROOF of His Messiahship.
“Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by MIRACLES and WONDERS and SIGNS, which God did by Him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know…Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified [whom God hath raised up] both LORD AND CHRIST” (Acts 2:22, 24, 36).
In the Gospels we read that Jesus blessed, saved, and helped all seekers who contacted Him: He healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, opened the eyes of the blind, raised the dead, fed the hungry, walked on the Sea of Galilee, and performed many other miracles.20
John the Baptist, after his imprisonment by King Herod, sent two of His disciples to our Lord Jesus to ask Him, “Art Thou He that should come [the Savior of the world, the Messiah], or do we look for another?” (Matt. 11:2-3). By this question, the Baptist showed Jesus that He doubted that Christ was the Savior of the world, the Messiah. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16). Jesus answered by reminding John of His MIRACLE WORKS, thus assuring them He was the Messiah, the very presence of God Almighty, for only the Messiah, the very presence of God Almighty, could do those works, and only the Messiah, the very presence of God in this world, had the words of eternal life. And why? Because He is the Word, the Word of God, God Himself.21
“Go and show John AGAIN those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Matt. 11:4-5)—and THESE THINGS ARE THE VERY MARKS OF THE MESSIAH GIVEN IN THE OLD TESTAMENT!
Finally, after His benevolent ministry of healing and blessing the people, Christ accomplished the great work for which He came into the world, to which work He was foreordained from before the foundation of the world (I Pet. 1:18-20): He died on the cross, offering Himself as a vicarious sacrifice to redeem the race.
“Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all” (I Tim. 2:56).
“Jesus…by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (Heb. 2:9).
Christ “once in the end of the world…appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Heb. 9:26).
Jesus Himself commanded the people to believe on (or into) Him “for the very works’ sake” (John 14:11). “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very works’ sake” (John 14:10-11).
No mere pretender can have this SEVENFOLD
proof of His genuineness:
(1) Be born of a virgin
(2) Be as perfect as God because God was in Him
(3) Perform “miracle” works
(4) Offer Himself as a sacrifice for the redemption of the race
(5) Be raised from the dead
(6) Ascend into Heaven before hundreds of witnesses
(7) Take His rightful place on the right hand of God
These seven requirements not only eliminate all fake “Messiahs,” but also clearly establish the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the true Messiah, for He fulfilled all seven!
During the last twenty centuries, His
gospel has literally been preached around the world, and millions upon millions
of Gentiles, as well as multitudes of Jews, have trusted and are trusting Him.
Jesus is indeed the universal Savior, the “Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sin of the world” (John 1:29). His love envelops the world (John 3:16);
His gospel is for every creature (Mark 16:15); His is the only “name under
Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
The Overwhelming, Cumulative Effect of Added Signs
We have traced the Messianic line from Shem, through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Jesse, David—and down to the virgin birth, the seed of the woman, at the appointed time and place, and we found all perfectly fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, without one failure! We also saw that since all the genealogical records were destroyed in 70 A.D., no Messianic claimant since then can prove his Messiahship.
We have shown that the Old Testament predicts a Messiah and that He would be a perfect Godman (Immanuel, God with us) with a benevolent ministry characterized by miracles of healing, and that His great work will be to offer Himself as a sacrifice to redeem humanity (that believe on Him). Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of the four Gospels, fulfilled all this perfectly. The cumulative effect of one fulfillment after another, without one failure, is staggering.
We present an illustration to show that comparatively few distinctive “signs”
are sufficient to identify one individual out of billions.
Identifying David Greenglass
When U.S. authorities got on the trail of the traitor, David Greenglass, who gave atomic secrets to the Russians after World War II, he fled to Mexico. His confederates arranged for him to meet the secretary of the Russian ambassador in Mexico City, and to identify himself by these prearranged signs. (Identical instructions were given to both Greenglass and the secretary.) (1) He was to write a note to the secretary and sign his name as “I. Jackson.” (2) After three days he was to go to the Plaza de Colón in Mexico City, and (3) stand before the statue of Columbus, (4) with his middle finger placed in a guidebook. (5) When the secretary approached, Greenglass was to say it was a magnificent statue, and that he was from Oklahoma. (6) The secretary then was to give him a passport. Needless to say, the plan worked.22
They knew—all men know—that with as few as six identifying signs, it would be impossible for an impostor to deceive the secretary, unless he learned what the signs were. God has seen fit to give us not six but hundreds of signs to identify the Messiah and to make the signs of such a nature (such as the virgin birth or resurrection of the Messiah) that no false Messiah could possibly fake them! All who take the time to look into the facts, such as we are presenting here, will come to know positively that a Messiah was predicted and that the only one who could be that Messiah is Jesus the Christ of the New Testament.
A moment’s thought will convince all fair-minded persons that Jesus the Christ of the New Testament who fulfilled ALL of the hundreds of prophecies that relate to His first advent is the only man (God) of all history to qualify as the predicted Messiah; and that there is no other book than the Bible that has anything comparable to Messianic predictions.
III. PROPHETIC PARADOXES IN
PROPHECIES CONCERNING CHRIST
The Old Testament presents a mysterious prophetic puzzle of strange combinations of prophecies concerning the coming Messiah that appear at times so conflicting they seem impossible to fulfill. We call these prophecies that are seemingly contradictory and apparently irreconcilable “prophetic paradoxes.” We define a “prophetic paradox” as two or more prophecies that contain a seeming contradiction, with no real absurdity involved, and presenting an enigma which, without the “clue” or fulfillment, seems impossible to solve. The Old Testament abounds with such prophetic paradoxes concerning Christ which were, and still are, absolute mysteries except as the New Testament solves them in Christ. These paradoxes in prophecy have an element of obscurity, presenting as it were a LOCK for which only the New Testament has the KEY 23—and that key is Jesus the Christ.
This amazing feature of many Messianic predictions prevents both wicked men and overzealous disciples from purposely fulfilling them—if they could. For the prophecies, in at least some instances, were not fully understood until the fulfillment explained and made them plain (I Pet. 1:10-11). Such unique prophecies absolutely prove that the God of prophecy who designed them and the God of providence who fulfilled them are one.
Another astonishing feature about these prophetic paradoxes is the perfectly normal, artless way in which they were providentially, even miraculously, fulfilled in the life of Jesus the Christ in the New Testament. It is not necessary to strain or force either the facts or the predictions to make them match.
Consider for a few moments some of these “impossible” contrasts: God will come to earth, to be born as a child. The Messiah will be begotten by the Holy Spirit (God is the Holy Spirit [John 4:24]), yet He is Himself God (God in a human body).24 He will be a “Son” so far as the flesh is concerned and so far as the Godhead is concerned (i.e. God the Father, God the SON, and God the Holy Spirit), yet He is “The everlasting Father” (Isa. 9:6), the Almighty (Rev. 1:8). He who is the actual Word of God chose with the Father to come to the world in the flesh for the purpose of saving our souls. He is a Godman of sorrows and is acquainted with grief (Isa. 53:3). He did this to show us that He is the Lord, the Savior, the High Priest, and God Almighty, the very presence of God, “Emmanuel...God with us,” 25 that is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Heb. 4:15), because He also was God in the flesh, for He “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). He can relate to us, and we are able to relate to Him now because He’s not only our God, our Savior, our Lord, and our Messiah, but He is our brother as well. Coming to the Jews and rejected by them as a nation, He will be sought by the Gentiles and will be a “light to the Gentiles.” He will be a man who is God and God who is man, sinless, and having a wholly benevolent ministry. He will be “abhorred,” yet extolled and exalted; “cut off,” yet His days will be prolonged. Grief and glory, travail and triumph, humiliation and exaltation, cross and crown are so strongly intermingled that the ancient Jewish expositors could not reconcile these prophecies. The whole prophetic picture of the coming Messiah, with its fulfillment, is so wholly novel, so mysterious, so artless, and yet so intricate, that it was, and is, and must forever remain the wonder of all literature.
Let us examine in more detail a few of the many prophetic paradoxes in the predictions of the coming Messiah.
(1) Concerning His birth—notice in the following predictions these striking irreconcilables: a virgin shall bear a son, something unknown in human experience. And this manchild will be GOD—“God with us.” Godbegotten, yet God incarnate!
“The Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name IMMANUEL” (Isa. 7:14).
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful [Hebrew, miracle], Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6).
To fulfill these amazing prophecies, God performed a “biological miracle” and Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35) and born of the virgin Mary as recorded in Matthew 1:16-25. To fulfill these two predictions quoted above, given seven hundred years before their fulfillment, God, in the person of His Son, came to earth, and the incarnation became a reality: “the Son of the Highest” became Mary’s son, God manifest in the flesh (Luke 1:31-33, John 1:13, 14, I Tim. 3:16)—and all this though Mary knew not a man (Luke 1:34).
Not only was the Messiah to be the GOD-MAN, born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14, 9:6), He was in some mysterious way to be all of these: the Seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15); the Son of Man (Dan. 7:13); the Son of God (Psa. 2:7); the Seed of Abraham (Gen. 22:18); and the “fruit” of David’s body (Psa. 132:11). But how can God be man and man be God, and at the same time be a son of man and Son of God? And how can a person be God and yet be born of God? And how can one be a “Son of Man” and yet have no human father? And how can He be the Seed of the woman when the woman “knew not a man?” How in the world—pardon the expression—could one person be ALL these? Wonder of wonders, Jesus was! The Lord Jesus was and is and always will be God (John 1:1); He was man (John 1:14); He was “made of a woman” (Gal. 4:4); He was the “Son of Man”—the representative man (Luke 19:10); He was the Son of God (John 3:16); He was the Seed of Abraham and the Seed of David (Matt. 1:1). Behold, the miracle of all ages: Christ Jesus, perfect man, yet very God; God begotten, yet God incarnate in one indivisible, loving, matchless personality! John the evangelist explains the supreme mystery called the “mystery of God…and of Christ” (Col. 2:2, 4:3), in these words:
“And the Word [who was God and was with God (John 1:1-2), in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18)] was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
(2) The place of His origin—from whence did He come: Bethlehem? Egypt? Nazareth? Here is another involved series of predictions. Prophecy said, “Out of thee [Bethlehem] shall He come forth…that is to be ruler in Israel” (Micah 5:2). But another Scripture said, “[I have] called My Son out of Egypt” (Hos. 11:1 with Matt. 2:15). And there was a spoken prophecy commonly known among the people of Israel as one of the predictions of the prophets, “He shall be called a Nazarene” (Matt. 2:23), based on Isaiah 11:1, where the Messiah is called the Branch (Hebrew, neh-tzer), meaning the separated one, or “the Nazarene.”
Are these contradictory? Not at all, when the person came who unlocked the puzzle by the course of events in His divinely ordained life. He was born in Bethlehem, as Micah said; soon after, He was taken to Egypt by Joseph and Mary, from whence God “called” Him back to the Holy Land after the death of wicked King Herod (Matt. 2:1321). And when Joseph and Mary came back to Israel with the child Jesus, they settled in Nazareth, the city where the Lord was reared. 26 Hence, in His ministry He was called “Jesus of Nazareth” (Luke 18:37, Acts 2:22). Isn’t it strange that, though He was born in Bethlehem, no one ever calls Him “Jesus of Bethlehem,” and though He is called “Jesus of Nazareth,” everyone knows He was born in Bethleh