Why Should I Believe in Jesus? (continued)
Why Should I Believe in Jesus? (continued)
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Old Testament Prophecies Fulfilled in the Life and Time of Jesus Short Answer Version When I first became saved, the prevailing popular evidence in favor of believing in Jesus involved the many prophecies from the Old Testament that were later to be fulfilled in Jesus. We can look back today and see that they were. If you are not aware, the Old Testament covered a period from the beginning of civilization to about 500 years before Jesus was born. Any predictions we read in the Old Testament were made during that time. As we will see below, it is thought that hundreds of prophecies from the Old Testament were fulfilled when Jesus came to earth. Starting with the details of His birth, continuing through His resurrection, and even into the spread of Christianity, many details were foretold. Long Answer Version I mentioned that one of the reasons to believe in Jesus is the overwhelming evidence of his existence. The following evidence has been convincing to me and others. To understand in a real sense its significance and profundity requires a deep dive into prophecies believers have purported to foretell the first coming of Jesus. I realize that it could be overwhelming for a person who has never seriously studied the Bible. So you can feel "let off the hook" if you do not enjoy this topic as much as I do. Peter Stoner, author of the book "Science Speaks" calculated the odds for the life of Jesus fulfilling just 48 of the prophecies about His coming. Stoner computed the likelihood to be the ratio of one over 10 to the 157th power. This is 1.57 googols, which is equal to about twice the number of elementary particles in the universe thought to exist when Stoner wrote. The odds are greatly against chance as being the reason prophecies spoken before His birth were fulfilled. From my sense of reasoning, Almighty God apparently directed the foretelling and fulfillment. Nobody can disprove the large number of prophecies from the Old Testament fulfilled in ways Jesus could not have orchestrated humanly speaking. Jesus could not, by His own strategy, have been arrested, whipped, crucified, killed, and risen again. He couldn't be the one to decide He would be born in Bethlehem, or in what area He would grow up, Galillee. The Apostle Matthew cited from "the prophets" that Jesus would be called a Nazarene because He grew up in Nazareth. I wish more people would look into all this evidence. Unique prophecies were given by Old Testament writers living hundreds of years apart from each other. The preponderance of compelling evidence from Old Testament prophecies is voluminous. We will examine some of them below. The Branch is a familiar prophetic term for Jesus Christ, and portrays Him in glory. "The Branch" in Isaiah Chapter 11, is clearly about the Messiah who would be the eventual descendant of King David. Prophecies about the Branch are widely considered to be about Jesus. Some of the ancient prophecies are in the category of typology. A typological prophecy uses a previous person or thing to represent a future person. In this manner, the previous one is called a "type" of the future one. The original character Joshua in the Bible was the one who led the children of Israel into the promised land. Who is to say that that original Joshua was not a prophetic type of our Lord who bore the same name, with the later Aramaic pronunciation of Yeshua? When Moses was nearing death, he assigned his protege Joshua to take over for him. Joshua finished Moses's job as Israel's savior from slavery in Egypt. He brought them into the promise land. He then set up righteousness in the land and fought evil. He taught people to love and worship God. I believe Joshua was a type of Christ. Other people or things I consider types of Jesus were Joseph the son of Jacob (Israel), the the original Passover lamb, Jonah, the ram Abraham saw caught in the thicket, the pole and image of a fiery bronze serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness to heal people, the rock Moses struck that gushed out water in the desert, the atonement sacrifices, and the list goes on. These are action/prophecies that each feature a typology within them, in my opinion. We will look at other types and prophecies later. Jesus and His apostles explained that God deliberately made these prophecies clearer to people who follow Jesus, than to those hundreds or thousands of years beforehand, who first heard them. We can understand because of hindsight and faith-sight with God's enlightenment. These New Testament writers thereby intimate God was wisely shielding the intended future meanings of the types and prophecies from the people of the time (1 Peter 1:10-12, John 12:37-41, Luke 8:10). Many of the prophecies were not clear as to their predictive nature when originally given. However, they had a separate predictive element that was discovered later when things fell into place. For example, Psalm 118 says "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing; It is marvelous in our eyes." Jesus proclaimed the above as a prophecy about Himself. Long before the "builders" strongly rejected Jesus, He told us it would happen, such as in Luke 9:22 where Jesus predicted: "The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day." Long before that statement Psalm 118 foretold it. Today, we can say that Jesus IS the chief cornerstone, widely considered "the name above all names", as the New Testament proclaims. If Jesus hadn't deciphered this building-block prophecy for us, we might still be unaware of its ultimate meaning. Psalm 2:2 is another example: "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed One . . ." This entire verse could have two literal applications. One for King David and one for Jesus about 1,000 years later. At first the prophecy looked like a statement about then current King David. King David was anointed with oil for the office of King by Samuel the prophet in I Samuel 6:12-13. This passage says "the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward." Biblically, to be anointed means to be smeared with the Holy Spirit's power divinely for ministry or service. The words Messiah or Christ literally mean "Anointed One". The New Testament proclaims it is a prophecy about Jesus. -Acts 4:26. As it pertained to Jesus, kings such as Herod the Great, and Herod Antipas set themselves Him as spelled out in the four books of the New Testament. Jesus is the primary Anointed One in human history and in the future". The prophet Micah said "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting." Of course, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, fulfilling the prophecy. His goings were from of old. He claimed "Before Abraham was born, I Am". Isaiah made many prophecies about Jesus. One was that a virgin would conceive and bear a son, and call His name "God with us". Jesus was God with us, according to the New Testament. You know the story of Christ's virgin birth. One of my personal favorite Old Testament Prophecies is in Daniel chapter 9, verses 24 to 27. It is a presented as a message from the angel Gabriel appearing in a vision. "Seventy sevens [translated weeks] are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; " Up to this point in the passage, the prophesy is about the first coming of Jesus, the Messiah. Many commentators and other scholars indicate the 62 weeks coincides with the historical period starting when the command to rebuild Jerusalem was given, to the period just before Jesus died for our sins. Some commentators tend to identify the day as what is called "The triumphal entry", when Jesus rode on donkey to the temple in Jerusalem, thereby proclaiming to the people He was the Messiah, to fulfill another prophecy (Zechariah 9:9). Daniel's vision says after this "Messiah will be cut off, but not for Himself". This is a direct prediction that Jesus would die on behalf of others for their sins, but not for His own (because He was "without sin"). When Jesus did this, He "finished the transgression", "made an end of sins", by making possible "reconciliation for iniquity", leading to "everlasting righteousness". This was a list of the things Jesus accomplished in His atoning death and resurrection. Messiah means "anointed one", Jesus was the Anointed One, "the Most Holy". Jesus, the Prince of Peace, should not be confused with the next verse's "the prince who is to come", because that prince is the opposite kind of prince. "and
the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the
sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, and till the end of the
war desolations are determined. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate." This part of Gabriel's prophecy is often explained as pertaining to our future, because the prince who makes desolate has not yet come. Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70. The people of the evil prince might do that, but not the people of the Prince of Peace. The 7 year covenant did not take place then. Personally, I'm not sure about what will happen in the future, but I'm pretty sure of what happened in the past, and that is that Jesus, the Son of God was crucified for the sins of all mankind at the time the prophecy predicted, right after the triumphal entry. Zechariah's Amazing Prophecies "The Branch" found in the book of the prophet Zechariah is a direct allusion to Isaiah's prophecies we discussed above. I can't prove the symbolic meanings in Zechariah's prophecy I am suggesting here, but they do fit with the history of Jesus and the New Testament in an astonishingly coincidental way. I don't have a need to convince people that the things I am saying about the book of Zechariah here is all true. I just want to point out how interesting it is for me to view it through that lens. I didn't learn this from other sources, but from my own Bible study. There is a series of prophecies I find very fascinating and I'd like to share them with you. The prophecies center around Yeshua (later spelled "Joshua") and "the Branch". Yeshua, the high priest at the time of Zechariah, was a prominent figure in chapters 2-5 of the historical book of Ezra, so we have historical context from a different writer worth reading. It is most probable that this pronunciation and spelling "Yeshua" was used in the time and place Zechariah lived. This is because the Jews who returned from the Babylonian captivity in 537 BC to rebuild the temple spoke, not in Hebrew, but in Aramaic. In the book of Ezra chapter 6 verse 14, which was originally written in Aramaic, it mentioned Zechariah and the rebuilding of the temple. This priest, Yeshua, was a key player in the leadership of the rebuilding, standing alongside Zerubbabel. In the book of Zechariah, there are two parts to the messianic prophecy. In the first part, God through Zechariah says to Yeshua: "Hear, O Yeshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you, for they are a wondrous sign, for behold I am bringing forth My Servant the Branch." Then, in
the second part of the prophecy, God tells Zechariah, ". . . Take
the silver and gold, make an elaborate crown, and set it on the head of
Yeshua, the high priest, the son of Jehozadak. Then speak to him, saying,
‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, saying: There had never been a king/priest in Israel before. For this reason, Zechariah's prophecy was something unheard of. The prophecy continues: "From His place He shall branch out, and He shall build the temple of the LORD; Yes, He shall build the temple of the LORD. He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule on His throne; So He shall be a priest on His throne," and the counsel of peace shall be between them both." (Some Bible translations render "them both" as "between both offices", [King and Priest]".) The part about building the temple of the Lord, came true physically in Yeshua the priest's lifetime. But it most likely had a second meaning, because there are other prophecies about the messiah (Jesus) in the last days building the final temple. The temple built at the time of Zechariah was destroyed in 70 AD as Jesus predicted around 33 AD. A new temple is coming and is for Jesus in His kingdom. He, the King of Kings, will bear the glory and rule on His throne as both king and priest, forever. His sacrificial death for us was the the highest offering of the highest high priest. This is attested to in the New Testament book of Hebrews, which says, "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess." The second part of the prophecy is not a vision, but a command by God to Zechariah to do something in the natural. It is a symbolic, prophetic action. Such symbolic actions are common among prophets in the Old Testament, and are usually as a result of God's direction to the prophet. Yeshua the priest is not being crowned king, but rather he is symbolizing a different priest who will be a king. When Zechariah states "Behold, the Man whose name is the Branch", He is physically referring, perhaps gesturing, to the High Priest. Yeshua was acting out a picturesque role as the coming Messiah who would be crowned king. Behold! Yeshua! The Branch! The Highest King! The Highest Priest! Note, the word "name" has more than one biblical meaning. One is the definition we use today, and the other is the essence of a person, an attribute, or a set of attributes associated with him or her. Here, this older is the only one applicable. "Behold, the Man whose name is the Branch." That priest's name was "Yeshua". Today, 2,500 years later the English language pronounces it "Jesus". It is the name Jesus went by in His native language, Aramaic. Everyone knew Him as Yeshua. It appears that Zechariah's Yeshua the High Priest would fall into the category of typology. This was a real Yeshua son of Jehozadak, a real priest of the day. He was truly a person who built God's temple in the natural. Yet, in the spiritual sense, he represented the ultimate builder of God's ultimate temple. The visions indicate a few things the priestly Yeshua was not, a king, the Branch, and one who branches out and bears the glory, ruling on His throne. To a student of the Bible, this could indicate Yeshua the priest could be considered a "type" of Christ, the priest/king whose reign enlarges, by branching out, one who "bears the glory". I believe that this prophecy identifies by name, Jesus Christ the One rightly called the Branch, the Servant, and the Messiah. Jesus is said to be both "King of Kings" and "Great High Priest" in the New Testament. Note that this Man, the Branch will not merely sit on a king's thrown. He will sit on the LORD's throne according to this prophesy by Zechariah, (assuming you accept the credibility of the many Bible translators who capitalized "His", as in "His throne"). "His" mean's "God's". I like to see this prophesy as saying Yeshua is both Man and God, "Immanuel", God with us as Isaiah predicted. This kind of action-prophecy is an easily recognizable form in which God communicated through Old Testament prophets. It always involved a symbolic act pointing to a more profound prophetic message. This was a prophecy with meaning hidden at the time, and would not be understood until later. Some Bible translations spell the word "Yeshua" as "Joshua". It is the same word in Hebrew. It means "The LORD is salvation". It appears that Yeshua the High Priest would fall into the category of typology. This was a real Yeshua the priest. To a student of the Bible, this could mean Yeshua the priest was being used as a prophetic "type" of Christ. There are other instances of symbolism and typology in Zechariah's two part prophecy. In the first part of the prophecy (Zechariah Chapter 3) Yeshua the high priest was prophetically called a brand plucked from the fire. Maybe that represented the resurrection of Jesus, in which God the Father snatched Him from the fiery place of His death. In Zechariah's vision Yeshua was clothed in filthy garments (perhaps representing the sins of the whole world, which Jesus took on Himself). God said "Take away the filthy garments from him. And he said, "See, I have removed your iniquity from you and I will clothe you with rich robes, let them put a clean turban on his head." Perhaps this represents Jesus going through a glorification process as He said just after His resurrection that He would . The stone in Chapter 3 ornamented with seven eyes, might coincide with the Apostle John's vision of Jesus, the lamb who had been slain having seven eyes which are identified as the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth (Revelation 5:6). God will reserve the right to engrave the stone's inscription. What this indicates to me, is that God is making the meaning a secret, until He reveals it. The passage in Revelation 5:6 is the only other passage in the Bible where seven eyes are mentioned, and they belong to Jesus, described by John in a way suggesting the divine attribute of omniscience. Jesus at that instant takes a scroll out of the right hand of God the Father and all heaven erupts in worship. The next line in Zechariah's prophecy says "I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day." That is what God did through Jesus on the cross, the lamb that was slain, and through His resurrection. It was that act that will have a direct result one day of ridding the world of evil iniquity. What we have discussed here about Old Testament prophecies predicting Jesus, only scratches the surface of the persuasive prophetic evidence. Few writers put forth as evidence the prophecies by Jesus Himself that were fulfilled after He pronounced them. For example, Matthew 12:38-42 says: "Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here." Here Jesus predicts His own death and resurrection, and prophecies that the generation of His time would reject Him. In this passage He also, by the way, proclaims Himself greater than the wisest king known to exist, Solomon". Jesus also made a prediction that was fulfilled six days afterward: "And He said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.” Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them. And Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”— because he did not know what to say, for they were greatly afraid. And a cloud came and overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!” Suddenly, when they had looked around, they saw no one anymore, but only Jesus with themselves. Now as they came down from the mountain, He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept this word to themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead meant." Again here in Mark 9:1-10, He predicts His death and resurrection. He does so several other times before He is crucified. Jesus predicts the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day Pentecost was to take place "not many" days after He leaves the earth and ascends into Heaven. He predicts that the temple in Jerusalem would fall again, with not one stone left upon another, which it did at the hands of Roman soldiers in AD 70. Jesus made many other prophecies that were fulfilled after His death and resurrection. For example, He predicted Peter's means of being led away to martyrdom, the coming persecution of believers, the building of the worldwide Christian church, and the growth of the kingdom of God on earth. For every scriptural claim supporting why a person should want to believe in Jesus, creative people can find a way to question or discredit it. A question never proves anything. Not even a multitude of unanswered questions proves anything. Simarly, the process of discrediting has no credit! No creedence. If something is merely discredited, no proof, one way or another, exists. For example, someone might discredit you in front of others using mere innuendo, without substantiating any of their claims. In the end faith is the answer to being both convinced and saved. You can find out more about faith at our page, "What Does It Mean To Believe?" Keep Your Eyes Open for More Evidence to Support Believing Many more points of evidence abound. Here is one that I discovered. About 20 years ago, I felt I needed to be encouraged, so I went to a popular search engine and typed in "encouragement". All the sites had been created by Christians, giving wonderful messages of encouragement for all who would read them. Today the search results bring up encouragement by many people of different backgrounds and beliefs. I suspect that is the influence of Christianity rippling through our culture. Of course
the Christian messages of encouragement today do more for me than the
secular messages, like "I am deserving of patience and self-love".
A nice sentiment, but missing the point of how much God loves us and wants
the best for us. If, as a result of this website, you decided to believe in Jesus as your Savior, please click here for next steps. _____________________________ |