Prophecies

A Messiah who would come and save the chosen Jewish people was prophesied throughout the Old Testament, thousands of years before the birth of Jesus.  Some of the more well-known prophesies:  the Messiah would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14); born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2); called out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1); have someone prepare the way for Him (Malachi 4:5-6); minister in Galilee (Isaiah 9:1-2); be betrayed by a confidant (Psalm 41:9); and experience an excruciating persecution, crucifixion, and death (Psalm 22:16-18, Isaiah 53). 

There are 48 specific messianic prophesies, and 324 individual prophecies that related to the Messiah written by different people, in different places, in different times spanning 1000 years.  Prophets were sought after, feared, and courted by Kings.  But being a prophet had some on the job risks.  The Israel law was that a prophet of God had to be right 100 percent of the time.  If you were wrong in any prediction, you were labeled a false prophet and killed.  So prophets took prophesizing very seriously. 

There are 100’s of examples of fulfilled bible prophecy that provides evidence that God is indeed involved in our world and keeps His promises. This tangible proof of fulfilled prophecy leads us to trust God – He does what He says.  Since God’s promises are undeniable and unshakeable, we can trust Him with the specifics of our lives that are less settled and keep us up at night. How many people in the world do you not trust or believe because their words are not backed up by actions, or their money is not where their mouth is? 

Some of these covenants (promises) are one-sided, or strictly God promises – God told Abraham he will have more descendants than stars in the sky.  And some covenants are “if/then”.  God says if you follow me, then you will be blessed (rather than cursed).  In 2 Samuel 7:12-17, via prophet Nathan, God promises David a messiah through his descendants whose kingdom shall endure before God forever.    

Why does God no longer talk to us like He did to Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the lesser known Nathan?   And why do we no longer have these prophets?  Maybe God stopped sending prophets because no one was listening to them.  For the 400 years between the Old Testament and New Testament we did not hear from God.  The prophets were silent, and the word of God was neglected because the people wanted it that way.  In silencing the prophets and the seers, God simply gave Jerusalem what she wanted.  It wasn’t until He sent His Son that we started hearing from God again.  And His Son Jesus has asked His followers to take on the role of the Old Testament prophets.  We are His representatives and are to call out sin, encourage repentance, offer hope and love, love, love.

Before I get started on the prophecies that are hard to dispute, let me give you an example of a prophecy that I initially thought was a stretch until I read and studied Genesis. 

God said to the serpent after Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:15 “And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers: he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” 

Some say this was fulfilled in 1 John 3-8, “The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil (the serpent in Genesis) has been sinning from the beginning.  The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” 

My initial thought – “hey God, why not just destroy the snake, scold Adam and Eve for submitting to temptation, and let sinless life go back to the way of normal.   Let Adam and Eve stay in the perfect Garden of Eden and no doubt they will avoid this tree from now on.”  But God’s plan was not destroyed when Adam and Eve sinned.  They were innocent before the fall.  But God wants more than innocence.  He wants redemption. 

If we let him, Jesus will destroy the devil’s works and temptations within us.  And in the end times, all of the devil’s work will be destroyed. 

I now believe that the head crusher is the prophesized Jesus.  Who else could it be?  Christ is the head of Adam/Eve’s offspring, and Satan is the head of the devil’s offspring; and Jesus had his heel bruised, and he suffered in that bruising of his heel, the crucifixion; but he has crushed the head of the devil, the source of evil that leads to sin.

God wants us to be confident in our faith, and He provides us with ample evidence.  He used Israel’s history and prophets to give us signs of his plans.

 I don’t want to say that some of the 300 messianic prophecies are a stretch, but some are less wishy washy to me than others (I just gave you an example of a prophecy I moved from my once “wishy washy” prophecy group, to my now “confidant” prophecy group). But my overall feeling is 300+ promises made, 300+ promises kept.  

I have grouped select prophecies into three categories:

1.      Prophesies that Jesus could have just been acting out. As a faithful Jew, he was aware of the Old Testament prophesies regarding a Messiah, a King, the son of God.  Could he just have been role playing?  I do this in part to demonstrate that it is okay to question Jesus.  Bring it on….He can take it!  God does not disown us because of our flawed faith.  One of the attributes of God is that He is heroic and comes to our rescue.  Recognize His super power and call out to Him.  He wants us to ask these questions and demand answers as this is how we grow in our faith.

2.     Prophesies that unknowing participants fulfilled.  Non-Jews were most likely not aware of the Old Testament prophesies, but they fulfilled them in a historical way nevertheless.

3.     Amazing prophesies that no human could control (unless He was the son of God), and the amazing odds of them all being fulfilled.

Category 1: Jesus...Savior or Actor?

The following prophesies were fulfilled by knowing actors playing major roles in the divine plan of God:

 “Jesus would teach in parables”.  A parable is a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson.  My favorite Jesus parable from Matthew 13:1-9, “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.” 

This story listing all the options for what can happen to a seed reflects the same options for what  happens to all people.  Each person will meet one of the following options – never stand a chance and die before any growth, start growing but fade fast since faith is not rooted in bible, be devasted by the world around them, too overcome to grow in their faith, or grow and flourish beyond belief.

We make analogies all the time, but there are always exceptions or times when they don’t make sense. No one is always “as sweet as sugar”, no baby is always “as good as gold”, and parts of America are not “a melting pot”.  A gentleman in one of my bible studies once claimed that Jesus’ parables are perfect in that they always apply and are not nonsensical in any instance.  In the above seed parable, can you think of any other option for faith, or potential faith?  I agree with my small group member!

The prophecy:  Psalm 78:1-2 “My people, hear my teaching:  listen to the words of my mouth.  I will open my mouth with a parable; I will utter things, things from of old”.  Without a doubt, this was fulfilled in Matthew 13:34-35. “Jesus always used parables when speaking to the crowds.  In fact, he never spoke to them without using parables to share His teachings.  This fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet:  I will speak to you in parables.  I will explain things hidden since the creation of the world.”

But since Jesus knew of Psalm 78:1-2, if he were trying to convince people He was the Savior, wouldn’t he speak in parables?  Of course.

“Jesus will enter Jerusalem on a donkey”.  The prophecy:  Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!  Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!  See, our king comes to you, righteous and victorious lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”  This was fulfilled in Matthew 21:8-10 the Sunday before his death, what we celebrate today as Palm Sunday.  “A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.  The crowds that went ahead of Him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!  When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”

But again, as a student of the Old Testament scripture, Jesus would have been well aware of this prophecy and an unbeliever could argue he hopped on a donkey to act out the fulfillment of the prophecy for all to see.

“The Messiah will be quiet before his accusers”.  The prophecy:  Psalm 38:12-13 “Those who want to kill me set their traps, those who would harm me talk of my ruin; all day long they scheme and lie.  I am like the deaf, who cannot hear, like the mute, who cannot speak.”  The fulfillment is in Matthew 27:12-14. “When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer.  Then Pilate asked him “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?  But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge – to the great amazement of the governor.”

As a sceptic, I would ask, how do you know Psalm 38:12-13 is prophesizing about the Messiah?  I read it as King David talking to God about himself.  And even assuming it is referring to a Messiah, Jesus had to know at this point he was in big trouble as the priests were calling for his crucifixion.  How could he continue to pretend he was the Messiah quietly, if he didn’t truly believe He was the Messiah?  If he was acting, wouldn’t he have said, “This is getting serious, my jig is up, okay I was just pretending?”

And that is the point I am trying to make with this prophecy category.  Yes, Jesus would be familiar with all the prophecies.  And he had to know when he was checking them off the list as he lived his life here on Earth. 

But he lived out the prophecies because He knew He was the son of God, not to try to convince others he was the Son of God.   He knew God’s plan, and in many of the fulfillments He reminded the people of the original prophecy.

Someone trying to dupe the people is not going to allow himself to be crucified.  If you are pretending to live out the prophecies so that people think you are the long awaited for King, aren’t you going to want to stick around and bask in all the adoration that goes along with being a worldly king?

Category 2: Unknowing Participants Fulfilled Several of the Prophecies

A second category of prophecies from the Old Testament includes those that are fulfilled in the New Testament by individuals who were not likely to know about the actual prophesies themselves. 

The following prophesies were fulfilled by unknowing actors playing major roles in the divine plan of God.

The Magi, also known as Wise Men and Kings, were led by a star (or perhaps an alignment of planets, the sun, the moon? – a topic for another time). Matthew never mentions that there were three Magi, there may have been more.  But based on the three gifts that were brought, Christian tradition has assumed there were three of them.  The “star” prophecy out of Numbers 24:1, A Star shall come out of Jacob; a Scepter shall rise out of Israel.

God led the Magi in their own medium – they were astronomers looking at stars, perhaps familiar with some Bible prophecy, but not Jews schooled in the Torah, intimate with the Numbers 24 prophecy. 

The Magi, following the star, ended up in Jerusalem and were told by the chief priests and scribes that based on Micah 5:2, the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem of Judea.  The Magi set out for Bethlehem.  Unknown to the Magi, Isaiah 60:3, Psalm 68:29 and Psalm 72:10 all describe kings bringing gifts to and worshipping the Messiah.  Jesus was 18 months-2 years old when the Magi showed up with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to worship the prophesized King.

So when setting up your nativity scene for Christmas, the Wise Men should be placed in your garage to adequately reflect a proportional nativity, as they were hundreds of miles away and did not arrive with the shepherds to see Jesus the night He was born as is often depicted.

None of Jesus’ bones were broken, as was required with the Passover Lamb. (Throughout the New Testament, especially in Revelations, Jesus is referred to as the Lamb of God.)  The prophecy: Exodus 12:46 “It (the Passover lamb) must be eaten inside the house; take none of the meat outside the house.  Do not break any of the bones.”  The fulfillment or ironic coincidence is in John 19:31-33 “It was the day of preparation and the Jewish leaders didn’t want the crucified bodies hanging there the next day which was the Sabbath (and a very special Sabbath, because it was Passover week).  So they asked Pilate to hasten their deaths by ordering that their legs be broken.  Then their bodies could be taken down.  So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus.  But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, so they didn’t break his legs”, fulfilling Old Testament scripture that says, “Not one of his bones will be broken.”

The soldiers who did the bone breaking were Roman soldiers, not likely to be at all familiar with the Jewish customs or scripture.  They were following orders, not intentionally fulfilling historic prophecies.

They would pierce Christ’s hand and feet.  The prophecy: Psalms 22:16, “My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs; an evil gang closes in on me.  They have pierced my hand and feet.”  The fulfillment: John 19:27 “They will look on the one they pierced.”

Again, Roman soldiers were fulfilling prophecy without realizing it.  In fact, if they knew the prophesies, they probably would have gone out of their way to avoid fulfilling them as they sure would not want to be held accountable for crucifying the Messiah.  But for the prophecies to be fulfilled, they needed to be ignorant of them.

They would cast lots for Jesus’ clothing.  The prophecy: Psalm 22:18 “They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment”.  The fulfillment: John 19:23-24 “When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they divided his clothes among the four of them.  They also took his robe, but it was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.  So they said, “Rather than tearing it apart, let’s throw dice for it.” So that is what they did.”

A third time that the unknowing soldiers fulfilled Messiah related prophecy.

The Messiah will be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver.  The prophecy: Zechariah 11:11-12, “I told them, ‘If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.’ So they paid me thirty pieces of silver.  And the Lord said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter’ – handsome price at which they valued me!  So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter at the house of the Lord.”  The fulfillment:  Mathew 27:6-10 “The chief priests picked up the coins and said, ‘It is against the law to put this into a treasury, since it is blood money.’  So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners.  That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day.  Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: ‘They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”

Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve original disciples and a Jew.  He too would have known the Old Testament prophecies.  After betraying Jesus, he threw the blood money he was promised to the ground.  He then went and hung himself. 

Was he knowingly playing out the prophecy, knowing that he would go down in history as the one who set up Jesus’ crucifixion?  What positive thing did he have to gain – he was a betrayer and shortly thereafter dead?  Or was the prophecy simply fulfilled?  The priests used the tossed coins to buy the filed called Aceldama (the field of blood) or the “the potter’s field.” 

 

Category 3:  Amazing prophesies that no human could control (unless He was the son of God).

These are the good ones!  No human, unless He was the Son of God, could have fulfilled the following prophecies.  Where Jesus would be born and how he would be born were both prophesized and could not have been manipulated.   Like many of the prophecies, how Jesus would die was described by David in Psalms a thousand years before it happened.  Back then, people were not crucified, but somehow David gave a detailed account of how the Son of Man would be killed. 

I would encourage you to read up on the astronomical odds of even a portion of the prophecies coming true.  I didn’t include them hear as they entail making assumptions.  And I don’t want to get sidetracked from biblically recorded prophecies and their biblically recorded fulfillment.

A 100% human/0% God could not have staged and acted out these prophecies:

A virgin will give birth, and he will be called Immanuel.  The prophecy:  Isaiah 7:14 “All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign.  Look!  The virgin will conceive a child!  She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).”  The fulfillment:  Luke 1:35 “The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.  So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.”  There was no other way for Jesus to be born.  If he had been from a sinful father, he would have possessed a sinful nature.  And only the Son of Man can determine when He would enter the world.  All the rest of us humans have no control over when we are conceived.

God said he would do it in Isaiah, and 800 years later Mary gave birth to our Savior.  Some argue that the Hebrew word “almah” in Isaiah could be translated either “virgin” or “young woman”.  However, the Old Testament never uses the word in a context other than virgin and the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translates almah categorically “virgin”.

The Christ will be born in Bethlehem.  The prophecy: Micah 5:2 “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah.  Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on my behalf.”  The fulfillment:  Matthew 2:4-6 “He (King Herod) called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law and asked, “Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?’  ‘In Bethlehem in Judea,’ they said, ‘for this is what the prophet wrote: “And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are not least among the ruling cities of Judah, for a ruler will come for you who will be the shepherd for my people Israel’”.

Herod the Great, ruler of Judea, ordered the execution of all young male children in and around Bethlehem as he was fearful of a newborn king of the Jews whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi.  The Son of Man can determine not only when He will be born, but where He will be born.  For us other humans, we have no concept of where we are when we are born.

Jesus would perform many miracles.  The prophecy:  Isaiah 35:5-6 “And when he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind and unplug the ears of the deaf.  The lame will leap like a deer, and those who cannot speak will sing for joy!  Springs will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams will water the wasteland.”  The fulfillment:  Matthew 11:2-6, “John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing.  So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, ‘Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?’ Jesus told them, ‘Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen – the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life and the Good News is being preached to the poor.’ And he added, ‘God blesses those who do not fall away because of me.’”  Hey fellow humans, tried performing any miracles lately?  How did it go?

Jesus would be despised and rejected.   The prophecy:  Isaiah 53:3 “He was despised and rejected – a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.  We turned our back on him and looked the other way.  He was despised, and we did not care.” The fulfillment:  Luke 4:28-29 “When they heard this, the people in the synagogue were furious.  Jumping up, they mobbed him and forced him to the edge of the hill on which the town was built.  They intended to push him off the cliff.”  He was not just despised and rejected, He and what He spoke of were feared.  If what He said was true, people would need to change their ways, give up some power, sacrifice some material items, and love those with whom they disagree.  And we all know how difficult that can be.

Jesus will set the captives free.   The prophecy:  Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed.”  The fulfillment:  Luke 4:16-21, “When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures.  The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him.  He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.’  He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down.  All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently.  Then he began to speak to them “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!’”

Nothing to add here.  This is the ultimate "drop the mic moment".

Christ will have a throne that is everlasting.  Prophecy:  Daniel 7:13-14, “As my vision continued that night, I saw someone like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven.  He approached the Ancient One and was led into his presence.  He was given authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world, so that people of every race and nation and language would obey him.  His rule is eternal – it will never end.  His kingdom will never be destroyed.”   The fulfillment:  Luke 1:31-33, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.  He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  The Lord god will give him the throne of his ancestor David.  And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”

The Messiah will be forsaken.  The prophecy:  Psalm 22:1, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?  Why are you so far away when I groan for help?” The fulfillment:  Mathew 27:46, “At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli Iema sabachthani?’ which means ‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’”

The Messiah will be abandoned.  The prophecy:  Psalm 31:11, “I am scorned by all my enemies and despised by my neighbors – even my friends are afraid to come near me.  When they see me on the street, they run the other way.”  The fulfillment:  Mark 14:50, “Then all his disciples deserted him and ran away.”

In fact, the Messiah will be abandoned by those closest to him.  The prophecy:  Psalm 41:9, “Even my best friend, the one I trusted completely, the one who shared my food, has turned against me.”  The fulfillment:  John 13:18, “I am not saying these things to all of you; I know the ones I have chosen.  But this fulfills the Scripture that says, ‘The one who eats my food has turned against me.’”

The Messiah’s predicted resurrection.  There are several, but this is my favorite: Hosea 6:1-2, “Come, let us return to the LORD; for He has torn us, that He may heal us; He has struck us down, and He will bind us up.  After two days, He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him.”  Fulfillment: Luke 24:5-7, “In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!  Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: “The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hand of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’”

The Christ will usher in a new covenant.  Prophecy:  Jeremiah 31:31, “’The days are coming’, declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.’”  The fulfillment:  Matthew 26:28, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for man for the forgiveness of sins.”

The prophecies and their fulfillments helped convince me that I could safely believe that Christ is my Savior and Redeemer.  But how come Jews don’t believe that Jesus is the prophesized Messiah? 

First, the Jewish people believe Messiah will be a land conquering King who would reign over a righteous land.  Jesus showed no interest in this endeavor or defeating armies, and actually suffered and died versus leading military victories. And as far as we know, Jesus never owned anything, let alone kingdoms of land.

Jesus lived during the time when the Roman Empire ruled what was once Israel.  As mentioned before, it was the Romans who killed Jesus, at the urging of the Jewish priests.  During this time there were power struggles among the Jewish priests, and disagreements over how much to cooperate with the Romans.  Jews were hoping for a messianic redeemer who would throw out the foreign occupiers and restore Jewish sovereignty in Israel.  Jesus did not attempt nor accomplish this in their lifetime.

Second, Jews are expecting a human being, not a son of God, as their Messiah.  The thought of God encased in flesh is idolatry, actually anti-God to the Jewish people.  Christians believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Jews believe in the One-ness of God, and consider the worship of a three-part God idolatry. 

Third, Jews have been persecuted by the church throughout history; targets of the crusades for over 200 years, expelled from England in 1290, banished from Spain in 1492.  Later they were and continue to be persecuted for their race. This persecution by Christians did not end with the Holocaust.  Why would Jews want our Jesus who was used as the excuse by humans with only evil in their hearts, for antisemitism?

The Jewish Messiah will rebuild the temple (Ezekiel 37: 26-28), gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6), and usher in world peace ending all suffering (Isaiah 2:4).  Whoever is the King of Israel at this time of perfection on Earth will be hailed as the Jewish Messiah.  

Christians believe all this will be accomplished in Jesus’ second coming.