A quarterly magazine for truth, faith, and logic.
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A quarterly magazine for truth, faith, and logic. |
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Vol. 3, Issue 1 | Winter 2009 |
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This Coming ChristProphecies of the Messiahby Paul Lytle As this essay is being published, I realize that it is a few weeks after Christmas. Thus is the nature of this publication, I fear, that we don't really have an issue near Christmas. Still, I felt it worthwhile to explore this topic now, considering that the entire history of the world hinges on this event. It is, of course, the birth of Jesus that we celebrate on Christmas Day. We sometimes can go to the whole season without remembering that, but it is true. Yet even if we do not remember, we, most of us, still celebrate with absolute devotion to the time of year. It is celebrated so fiercely for a very simple reason — because this man changed everything, even for non-Christians. Jesus is the most discussed, the most studied, the most written about, the most painted, the most important man in history. We have even set our calendar on His birth. Even those who would change our calendar to "common era" and "before common era" are still setting the dates according the birth of Jesus, they are just less honest about it. We have picked a pivot point in history, and it is that birth in Bethlehem about two thousand years ago. It was an appropriate choice. Everything that has come after has been affected by Jesus. But so was everything before, and we often forget that. The door frame does not move for the door, but it is there because of the door. So it is with all that came before Jesus. It is there to build up to Him. One time, when Jesus was speaking with the Pharisees, He told them this, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life" (John 5:39-40). So Jesus tells us that, not only is the New Testament about Him, but so the whole Old Testament. The Gospel of Luke describes how Jesus, after His Resurrection, came to a couple of disciples on the Road to Emmaus and went through the whole Old Testament with them, explaining how it was all about Him. This is basically what we're going to do in this essay, in a shortened (and far less cool) form. From Genesis to Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, God was moving history toward the birth and death of His Son. Why are we doing this? I hope that if you see the birth of Jesus in a different way, from a different angle, that you will brush off the familiarity of Christmas and understand it more fully, in a way that God would want you to see it. It is my hope that in seeing the birth of Jesus in the fullness of the Old Testament, that you will see that birth with the awe that it deserves. So I've seen estimates that Jesus fulfilled two or three hundred prophecies from the Old Testament. Don't worry, we're only going to look at a few. The promise of Jesus goes all the way back to the beginning of Genesis, right after the Fall. You'll remember that God made Adam and Eve, and everything was great until they ate of the fruit that was forbidden at the behest of Satan in the form of a serpent, thus introducing sin into the world. When God is cursing the serpent, He says this: I will put enmity between you and the woman, The interesting thing here is that "offspring" in the original Hebrew in singular. This is not at all saying, "All of mankind," but it is talking about one particular Man. In essence, there will be born, at some point, a man who will conquer Satan, sin, and death, even though He will be wounded in the process. That's all we have so far. The first promise is rather vague, but it is hopeful. We have a promise of someone who will restore what has been destroyed. Already, from the beginning, things are being set up for Jesus. The promise becomes more clear soon. We go through history, through the Flood, and to another time. God chooses an elderly man named Abram, and leads him out of his home, a pagan land, and promises to make a nation out of his offspring, of which there is none. In faith Abram, renamed Abraham, goes, and God gives him a son, Isaac. Isaac too walks in faith, and has a son Jacob. Upon these three generations is the Jewish nation built, and most of the book of Genesis is about these three men. I wish I had time to go into their stories more, but they are there to be seen. Jacob has twelve sons, including Joseph, whom God leads into Egypt and reveals to him a coming famine. Because of Joseph's leadership, countless lives are saved. He leads his brothers into Egypt, and there we learn a little more about the coming Christ: The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Judah was one of the twelve sons of Jacob, so this prophecy tells us that Jesus will be Jewish, and that He will come in the House of Judah. Right now the Jewish nation is about seventy people big, so this prophecy is like saying that the Messiah would eventually come out of the descendants of my great-grandfather, and specifically from my father's line. We are about two thousand years before Jesus' birth still. Eventually, the Jews come out of Egypt numbering in the millions. We probably all know how Moses lead them out and into the wilderness. Again, we do not have the time to go into it, but this story is told in Exodus. In forty years they entered the land of promise, but soon after was a terrible and violent time, called the time of the Judges. But even in this horrible time was God still working. In famine, a woman named Naomi, her husband, and their sons, go into a pagan land, and one of their sons marries a pagan girl named Ruth. Ruth is widowed, as is Naomi, and they return to the Jewish people in poverty alone. But Ruth meets God, and she has great faith in Him. She works hard to provide for herself and Naomi, and God leads her to a good, faithful man named Boaz. They marry, and the family is rescued from poverty. They have a son named Obed. And God tells us a little more about Jesus. At the birth of that boy, a prophecy is given to Naomi. Then the women said to Naomi, "Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him." Most people think this passage is about Boaz, as I did at first, but it's not. If you follow the pronouns, it is clearly speaking of Obed and ultimately Obed's line. Jesus, the great Redeemer, will come from that line. We've narrowed it from the House of Judah to a descendent of Obed. Obed is the grandfather of King David. I think we remember David too much for his great sin. Our culture likes to tear down great men, and David was a great man. "A man after God's own heart" he is described. And because of his great faith, he is honored by God in a special way. He is told that the Messiah will come through his line. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. . . . And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever. The Messiah will be a descendant of David. The initial promise was that He would conquer Satan. Look at what we have added. He will be a ruler, a restorer of life, a redeemer. He will establish His Kingdom forever. I hope that you see how God is guiding us down a path of hand-chosen people that are leading us to Jesus. Generation after generation He is making way for Jesus to come. Through Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Ruth, Boaz, and David, we are forging a path through the faithful of each generation. This is the reason those genealogies are in the beginning of Matthew and Luke, the ones most people skip. If you know the stories of these people, that genealogy becomes fascinating, for you can see how God is leading His people. And guess what? Both Mary and Joseph are descendants of David. But now we have a problem, because the Christ, the Messiah, is not only supposed to come from the line of David, but He is coming from a certain place. Actually, three different places. But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, Bethlehem was a tiny little town, hardly worth mentioning, and yet it is famous today because of the birth of Jesus. Micah predicted the place of Jesus' birth 400 years before it happened. That would be like saying, today, that Jesus would one day be born in Beasley, Texas. Don't know where that is? Exactly. But the Old Testament tells us things that are seemingly contradictory. Hosea tells us this: "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son" (11:1). Well, I know we're not all familiar with the geography of the Middle East, so let me explain. Bethlehem is not in Egypt. So we have a problem here. But it gets worse, because there are a group of prophecies that seem to suggest that Jesus will come from Galilee. And Galilee is not in Egypt either. Here is one of those from Isaiah: But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. Which would get a lot of people thinking that the later prophets need to read the earlier ones carefully so they won't get confused, right? It's like we have one guy saying that the Messiah will come from Texas, then another one saying Florida, and another one saying California. And all of them are supposed to be right. But this is the wonderful power of God, because Mary and Joseph were from Galilee, but they had to go to Bethlehem for the census. That is where Jesus was born, fulfilling Micah's teaching. Then Herod, hearing that a new king had come, ordered all the newborns to be killed. So Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt, fulfilling Hosea's prophecy. Then they returned to Galilee, where Jesus began His ministry, fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy. Two political acts, the census and the slaughter of children, even they were used by God to bring about His purposes. We have a place (or three), and a family. Now we need a time of His coming. Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. In this one, we learn that the Messiah will come to the temple in Jerusalem. Well, the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, so there was a limited time for this one to be fulfilled. There is no temple for the Messiah to come to now. In essence, the Messiah had to have come before A.D. 70. God has used yet another world event to point the way to His Son. Now, all of these so far have narrowed down the field a bit, but this one is sort of the clincher. Jesus would be born of a virgin. Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. So, maybe you aren't aware of this, but descendants of David who are virgins who are from Galilee, but give birth in Bethlehem and flee to Egypt, that's pretty rare. In fact, I've only known one such person, and that is Mary, who gave birth to Jesus. Jesus is the Messiah. |
