The Old Testament prophets foretold the birth
and life of Jesus Christ.
The Book of Isaiah was probably written in the
early to middle part of the seventh century B.C. Isaiah prophesied about the birth of Jesus,
the rejection and abuse He suffered, and His trial before He was crucified. He foretold Jesus’ death and burial, His
sacrifice for our sins, and His ministry:
Therefore the
Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a
son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14 ESV)
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be
upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty
God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of
Peace. (Isaiah 9:6 ESV)
The Lord God has opened My ear;
And I was not rebellious,
Nor did I turn away.
I gave My back to those who struck Me,
And My cheeks to those who
plucked out the beard;
I did not hide My face from
shame and spitting. (Isaiah 50:5-6 NKJV)
He was despised and rejected—
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
Yet it was our
weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that
weighed him down.
And we thought his
troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for
his own sins!
But he was pierced
for our rebellion,
crushed for our
sins.
He was beaten so we
could be whole.
He was whipped so
we could be healed.
All of us, like
sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s
paths to follow our own.
Yet the LORD laid
on him
the sins of us all.
He was oppressed and treated harshly,
Yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
Unjustly condemned,
he was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
that his life was cut short in midstream.
But he was struck down
for the rebellion of my people.
He had done no wrong
and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
he was put in a rich man’s grave.
But it was the LORD’s good plan to crush him
and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
and the LORD’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
for he will bear all their sins.
I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels. (Isaiah 53:3-12 NLT)
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. (Isaiah 61:1 NLT)
About 700 years
before it happened, Micah prophesied that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, and
that He existed from eternity before He was born:
“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.” (Micah 5:2 NKJV)
Zechariah spoke of Jesus’ triumphal entry into
Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), around 480 years
before the first Holy Week began.
“Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you;
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9 NKJV)
Finally, the Book of Daniel was written in
the late sixth century B.C. ] In it, Daniel tells of a
vision in which the angel Gabriel told him when the first coming of The Messiah
would be:
Know and understand
this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until
the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and
sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times
of trouble. After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to
death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will
destroy the city and the sanctuary. (Daniel 9:25-26 NIV)
One view of this prophesy maintains that the “sevens”
refer to periods of seven years. Artaxerxes issued the decree to rebuild
Jerusalem on March 14, 445 B.C, and 69 “sevens” is 483 years. At the time, the
Jews calculated a year to be 360 days long.
Therefore, there were 173,880 days in the 483 years. Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Palm
Sunday) was on April 6, 32 A.D., which was 173,880 days after Artaxerxes’
decree. Thus, we may conclude that Jesus
of Nazareth was The Anointed One (Messiah) Gabriel foretold to Daniel. The ruler who destroyed the city and the
sanctuary was Vespasian in 70 A.D.
The
life of Jesus of Nazareth occurred at the exact time Gabriel gave Daniel for
the coming of The Messiah. These
prophesies are a reason to believe.
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