Messiah Who Was and Is and Is to Come!
Everywhere you go, at this time of the year, you will hear or see something about Jesus. Signs in front yards that say, “Jesus is the reason for the season”, or “Put Jesus back in Christmas”. You hear carols being sung, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, “…Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day”, and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”. Because of this, this is a great time to talk to people about Jesus, when their hearts are more receptive. But what you need to say, and what they need to hear has nothing to do with Christmas.
Whenever we study with others about Christ, we need them to see, by reading the Bible that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one, or the Messiah, the Chosen One of whom the law and the prophets wrote (John 1:45). As we have been studying the Sermon on the Mount on Wednesdays the one paramount issue is to understand, “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” Understanding Jesus as the anointed One of God requires that we reference the Old Testament prophecies which tell us of the coming Messiah. So many times, Jesus would find Himself at odds with Jewish leaders of His day and He would say to them, “39 You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. 40 But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” (John 5: 39-40) To fully appreciate the words of Jesus in His message from the mountain we need to examine the words that were written before concerning the Messiah. The phrase comes to mine, “If the shoe fits, wear it”, and now if we read the scripture and they accurately describe Jesus then accept Him and His teaching, if not reject Him. Jesus said, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” 27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:25-27). Rich and powerful is the testimony of the prophets throughout the scriptures which prove without doubt the deity of Jesus.
Is Jesus the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies written as far back as 1500 years before He appeared on this earth? There are many to study but these that follow should be sufficient proof for anyone. Since so many are falsely enamored with Jesus’ birth at this time of year, it is obviously a good place to start. He was born of a virgin. So many believed Messiah would come down in power and glory as God and destroy their enemies, but the scripture teaches otherwise. Messiah would lower Himself coming in human form. Astounding are these twenty-five prophecies, facts that detail everything from His birth to His death, and even more astonishing, they were fully given long before they happened. One: He was to be born of a virgin and given a special name “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). This was fulfilled and recorded in the New Testament (Matt. 1:18-2:12; Luke 2:1-38). Two: He was born in the city of Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) fulfilled (Matt 2:1) of the lineage of Abraham (Gen. 12:3) and David (Psalm 13 2: 11), (See Matthew 1:1-17). We will always have skeptics who will claim Jesus had knowledge of the prophecies and just faked all these things concerning the Messiah, and deceived people into believing that He was the Christ. I don’t know about you, but I had no part in selecting who my parents were. I was not offered a choice of which city I would be born in. Apparently neither did Joseph and Mary for they lived in Galilee but because of a decree from Rome (Luke 2:1), they found themselves in Bethlehem, and according to prophecy, that is where Jesus was born.
Another area of study that will help pin down and authenticate Him as Messiah is that of His earthly ministry, of which there is no lack of prophecies. Three: Prophecy, “Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me….” (Mal. 3:1). In comes John the Baptist who continually spoke of Jesus’ coming, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose” (Mark 1:7) and of Who Jesus was, “Behold, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). Four: Where will the Christ preach? Isaiah 9:1 states, “Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, as when at first He lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward more heavily oppressed her, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles.” Much of His teaching was done in Galilee (Matt 4:23-25). Five: Messiah would purge the temple (Psalm 69:9) fulfilled in (John 2:13-22). Six: He was to heal the oppressed (Isaiah 35:5-6). And Matthew records, “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (v.11:5). Seven: Messiah would enter Jerusalem in Triumph riding on an ass (Zech. 9:9), recorded just so by John, (John 12:12-19). A deceiver could have done some of these things, but the blind receiving sight, lame walking, lepers cured, deaf hear, the dead raised, only Messiah could have done these things.
Eight: Jesus endured being betrayed by a friend, “Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who ate My bread, has lifted up his heel against me” (Psalm 41:9). Nine: How much this betrayer was paid was also prophesied, “…So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver…” (Zech. 11:12-13). This is what was fulfilled in Judas as recorded in Matthew 26:14-15. Ten: Deserted by His own disciples (Zech. 13:7), and that is what happened (Mark 14:50). Eleven: He was to be mocked and insulted (Psalm 35:15, 16), and so He was (Matt 27:41). Twelve: He would remain silent (Isaiah 53:7) and Matthew recorded, “When He was accused by the chief priests and the elders, He gave no answer” (Matt 27:12). Thirteen: He would finally die by an unjust judgment (Isaiah 53:8) and so it was, it ended on the cross when the Christ said, “it is finished” (John 19:30). Jesus without a doubt fulfilled all these prophecies concerning the Messiah.
But wait! There’s more. When you seriously consider the ways Jesus taught and the ways He handled every situation it becomes clear that He was rational. No rational person would go through what He did just to prove He was someone He was not. Fourteen: Consider, “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting” (Isaiah 50:6) and they scourged Him (John 19:1). Fifteen: Of His treatment we read, “Then they spat in His face and beat Him; and others struck Him with the palms of their hands” (Matt 26:67, 27:30). Sixteen: He was to be given vinegar and gall (Psalm 69:21) and it happened as “the soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar” (Luke 23:36). Seventeen: His cries on the cross were a matter of prophecy “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me…” (Psalm 22:1; Matt 27:46) “Into Your hand I commit my spirit;” (Psalm 31:5 and Luke 23:46). Eighteen: Who He was crucified with is a matter of prophecy and record, “transgressors”, (Isaiah 53:12) fulfilled, “And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left” (Luke 23:33). Nineteen: He was to be nailed hand and foot to the cross (Psalm 22:16) fulfilled in (Luke 23:33). Twenty: Not one bone was to be broken (Psalm 34:20) and we read “but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs” (John 19:33). Twenty-One: What happened to His garments, prophecy, “They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots” (Psalm 22:18), exactly this way (Mark 15:24). Twenty-Two: Where He would be laid after death, foretold “…Yet He was with a rich man in His death…” (Isaiah 53:9). “Now when evening had come, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. 58 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him. 59 When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60 and laid it in his new tomb which he had hewn out of the rock” (Matt 27:57-60). For all these to happen is impossible, and more impossible is to predict, who would be crucified with Him, and what would happen to His body after death, yet it did happen all according to prophecy.
Twenty-Three: The good news in all this is that it was also foretold that Jesus would not remain in the grave but would arise (Isaiah 53:10-11) and “For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.” (Psalm 16: 10). And HE IS RISEN! (Matt 28:6). Twenty-Four: After His resurrection, He was to ascend back on high (Psalm 68:18-24). “Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9).
Twenty-Four prophecies, from the Lord’s virgin birth, ministry, death and resurrection, all fulfilled. Jesus is the Christ, Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Someone much more apt at mathematics calculate that the possibility of one person fulfilling all of these prophecies in one lifetime is one chance in 8,490,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
But there is one more. Twenty-Five: He is coming back. “Holy,[a] holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!” (Rev. 4:8). “Is to come” means Jesus will return. With all these proofs what more do you need to believe? Anyone who wants to have eternal life will confess like Peter, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. What do you say?
David Scarpino