If it’s true that Jesus actually fulfilled prophecies that
were written hundreds of years before He lived, then His claim that He is God must be true.
Did Jesus fulfill such prophecies? Yes indeed, He did.
Let’s look at just six of the hundreds of prophecies that prove Jesus came from God.
In the book of Genesis-- which was written in about 1450 B.C.--
the text talks about the curse that God was going to put on Satan.
And it says in verse 15 of chapter 3,
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
Now, the question had always been: What is the text talking about there?
The coming Messiah is going to somehow bruise the head of Satan,
but Satan is going to bruise His heel.
But the Messiah is going to be the seed of... Of whom, does the text say?
Well, the seed of woman.
The problem with that, for many people who were reading that text hundreds of years ago,
was how could the Messiah be the seed of woman and not be the seed of Adam as well?
And then we go to the story and life of Jesus Christ.
We read in the text about His birth. The Bible says,
“Then the angel said to her (talking about Mary),
‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son.
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and power of the Highest will overshadow you;
therefore, also, the Holy One Who is to be born will be called the Son of God.’”
You see, the way that that prophecy about Jesus and the Messiah came true,
was that Mary did not know a man and was a virgin when the Holy Spirit came upon her.
And that way, the Messiah was the seed of woman as well as the seed of God there.
And so you can see how the ancients would not have had any way to know
how that particular prophecy could have been fulfilled,
and there’s no way that Jesus could have manipulated that prophecy before He was born--
something that would have been impossible for Him to do.
Prophecy number 2: The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem of Judah or of Judea.
When we look in the Bible at Micah 5, the text says,
“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 going forth have been from old, from everlasting.”
The prophecy says that the Messiah is going to come from Bethlehem.
And when we look in the life of Jesus Christ, we read in Matthew:
“When Herod the king heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together,
he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
So they said to him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet.’”
Now, sometimes we miss what’s going on here.
Micah the prophet had written his material hundreds of years--hundreds of years--before Jesus came.
Because we have those books in one singular book called the Bible,
sometimes we turn a few pages and just simply think,
“Oh, whoever wrote these things must have lived close together.”
But they didn’t.
These records of the life of Jesus were hundreds of years
after the things had been penned by those Old Testament prophets.
Prophecy number 3: The Messiah would die among thieves.
This doesn’t seem like that unique of a prophecy until we start looking at the pattern here.
Many of these prophecies were prophecies
that there’s no way the Messiah could have contrived by Himself.
You see, in Isaiah 53:8-9, the text says, “For He was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked--
but with the rich at His death because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.”
Now, how are they going to make the grave of the Messiah with the wicked?
Something that the Messiah, if He were getting killed and dying, couldn’t have contrived Himself.
And then when we look at the life of Jesus in Luke 23:32, the text says,
“There were also two other criminals led with Him to be put to death.
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.”
Jesus, fulfilling the prophecy from Isaiah, which was some 700 years or more before His life,
was crucified between thieves exactly like the prophecy had said.
No possible way for Jesus to have contrived that Himself.
And then, if you look in that same text, the fourth prophecy that we’ll mention
is that the Messiah would be buried in a rich man’s tomb.
Isaiah 53:9 says, “And they made His grave with the wicked--
but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.”
So, number one, Jesus could not have contrived how He was going to die,
and by whom He was going to die,
and once He was dead, He would have had serious problems contriving how He was going to be buried.
And yet, when we look in the life of Jesus, we see the text there in Luke 23:50-53 says,
“And behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man.
This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.
Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb
that was hewn out of the rock, where no one had ever laid before.”
Number 5 is that the Messiah would be pierced. His hands and feet would be pierced.
When we look in Psalm 22:16 the text says, “For dogs have surrounded Me;
the assembly of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and feet.”
Of all the people that have died, how many have had their hands and feet pierced?
Some, but when you look at how narrow the picture is here, again, these are things
that the Messiah could not have contrived because they are things that are done to Him.
And when we go to the life of Jesus, it’s well known--a fact--that Jesus was crucified,
and that crucifixion involved there, Matthew 27:35: “And they crucified Him.”
And it involved the hands and the feet of Christ.
You can see that Jesus, some thousand years after Psalm 22 was written, was pierced--
His hands and His feet--fulfilling that prophecy.
Finally, prophecy number 6.
We’re going to look at a statement by Jesus when he was hanging on the cross in Matthew 27:46.
It says, “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying,
‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’”
And then it’s translated for us, that is to say, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”
Now, many people have analyzed this verse for many years and wondered why Jesus said that.
But what’s interesting is if you were to go back to Psalm 22,
and you were to look at the very first verse, you would read,
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
You see, Jesus, on the cross, was taking those people in the Jewish audience who were watching,
who were a part of the mob, who were witnessing the events,
and He was taking them to a psalm that was very well known to them. Psalm 22.
And He said, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
And He took their mind to that psalm, and then, as they went through mentally what that psalm said,
they probably then mentally got down to about verse 18.
And they thought about the words of that psalm where it said, “...they look and stare at Me...
they divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.”
And they realized that they were witnessing in real historic time
something that had been predicted a thousand years earlier by the psalmist.
Jesus took their minds back to that psalm with the statement,
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
And then that psalm validated the life of Jesus as the Messiah.
You see, Jesus fulfilled the Messianic prophecy
that was written hundreds or thousands of years before He was born.
It was no wonder, then, that in the 1st century many of those Jews who knew
the Old Testament the very best believed in Jesus and obeyed the Gospel.
You read there in the book of Acts,
“And the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem,
and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.”
Jesus Christ was the Messiah predicted in prophecy, fulfilling every one perfectly.