Biblical Prophecy:
Biblical prophecy is an important key to understanding both the
past and the future!
Around these two major themes almost all other prophecies revolve and find meaning. The Bible is absolutely unique in presenting these prophecies, which it records in specific detail, beginning more than 3000 years ago.
About 30% of the Bible is devoted to prophecy.
In marked contrast, prophecy is completely absent from the Koran, The Hindu Vedas, the sayings of Buddha or Confucius, the Book of Mormon, or any other writings of the world’s religions.
Furthermore, Biblical prophecy’s record of fulfilment is sufficient to authenticate the Bible, in contrast to all other writings, as inspired by God Almighty Himself.
There are many important reasons for Bible prophecy. Firstly, the fulfilment of prophecy provides irrefutable proof for the existence of the very God who inspired the prophets. By foretelling major events of world history centuries and even thousands of years before they happen, the God of the Bible proves that He is the only One true God, the Masster or Creation and history and that the Bible is His inspired revelation through which He communicates His purposes and the way to salvation to all who will believe and obey.
While prophecy reveals God’s purpose for mankind, it also provides foolproof identification of God’s true Messiah, (the Annointed One or Christ) as well as unmasking the ways of evil.
Just as prophecy is unique to the Bible, so it is unique to Messiah Yeshua (Jesus). No prophecies foretold the coming of Buddha, Muhammad, Zoroaster, Confucius, Joseph Smith (Mormons), or any other religious leader.
Yet there are more than 300 Old Testament prophecies which identify Israel’s Messiah.
Centuries before His coming, the Hebrew prophets set forth numerous and specific criteria which has to be met by the Messiah. The fulfilment of these prophecies in minute detail in the life, death, and resurrection of Yeshua of Nazareth demonstrates indisputably the He is the promised Prophet, Son of God and Saviour.
Prophecies re Yeshua:
Let us look at a few of the prophecies concerning the Messiah.
Firstly the prophecies concerning his death (Psalm 22:16; Isaiah 53:5,8-10,12; Zechariah 12:10, etc) were totally ignored by the Jews as incomprehensible mysteries because they seemed totally at odds with other prophecies declaring plainly that the Messiah would ascend David’s throne and rule over a magnificent kingdom.
How could the Messiah establish a kingdom and a peace that would never end (Isaiah 9:7) and yet be rejected and crucified by his own people? It seemed impossible for both to be true so Jewish interpreters chose to ignore what didn’t seem to make sense to them.
Despite the fact the Yeshua had explained ahead of time, that he would come twice; the first to die for man’s sins and the second time to reign on the King David’s throne; when he was crucified (by the sure and perfect plan of his Father) they thought He must have been an impostor or worse, as did perhaps His own disciples until the resurrection, which opened many blind eyes.
While many know well the prophecies that He be born in Bethlehem and be of the seed of David what you may not know is that His birth had to occur before the scepter departed from Judah (Genesis 49:10), while the temple was standing (Malachi 3:1), while the genealogical records were available to prove His lineage (2 Samuel 7:12; Psalm 89; etc) and shortly before the temple and Jerusalem were destroyed (Daniel 9:26).
The scepter departed Judah about 7 AD – i.e. when the Jewish religious leaders (the rabbi’s) lost the role of governing the country and lost the right to exact the death penalty. This right was crucial to the practice of their religion because death was the penalty for certain religious offences. When Pilate told the rabbi’s he wanted nothing to do with Yeshua and for them to judge Him themselves, they replied, “It is not lawful for us to put any man to death” (John 18:31). The Messiah had to be born before that power was lost, and He had to be put to death afterward, for He was not to die by stoning, which was the Jew’s manner of execution, but by Roman crucifixion.
Amazingly, His crucifixion was prophesied centuries before that means of execution was even known: “They pierced my hands and my feet” (Psalm 22:16).
For there to be proof that he was the seed of David, the Messiah had to be born why the genealogical records still existed. These were lost with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD, an event which both Daniel (in 9:26) and Christ prophesied (Matt 24:2). So since 70 AD it has been too late for the Messiah to come even though the majority of Jews still wait for His first coming.
Some other prophecies:
At His crucifixion:
Also:
The Resurrection:
If Christ did not rise from the dead, then the whole thing is a fraud. Almost all of Christ’s disciples went to their deaths as martyrs declaring to the very end that they were eyewitnesses of the fact that Jesus had risen from the dead.
The proofs of the resurrection are numerous and irrefutable but let us look at a proof often overlooked. That Christ had indeed risen from the dead is the only explanation for the fact that Saul of Tarsus, the chief enemy of Christianity, became its chief apostle.
A popular young rabbi, Saul was on the way to great honours for his leadership role in pursuing this deviant sect with arrest, imprisonment and martyrdom. Then suddenly he became one of these despised and persecuted Christians himself and was then repeatedly arrested, beaten and imprisoned. On one occasion he was even stoned and left for dead. Finally he was beheaded.
Why this incredible turn around? Unless?? Paul explained that he had meet the resurrected Christ. By itself his obvious sincerity is not enough. He may have hallucinated.
Paul had not meet Christ before Christ was crucified. Yet suddenly he was the chief authority on what Jesus had taught his disciples. Even Peter submitted to Paul’s authority on what Jesus had taught! (Gal 2:11-14) The disciples who had spent years with Jesus had to admit that Paul, without consulting them, knew all that Jesus taught and even had deeper insights than they. (1 Cor 11:23, Gal 1:16,17)
He wrote most of the New Testament epistles (letters). Paul said “I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not of man. For I neither received it of man neither was I taught it but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. (Gal 1:11,12).
It was clear to the disciples and the first century church that Paul had indeed been taught directly by the resurrected Christ. There was/is no other explanation. Paul’s transformation and intimate knowledge of Christ was another irrefutable proof of the resurrection!
The fulfilment of the prophecies above along with many, many others in the life, death and resurrection of Christ, prove beyond doubt that He is the Messiah of Israel and the Saviour of the world. No one can examine the facts and remain an honest doubter. Those who refuse to believe in the face of such overwhelming evidence are without excuse.
Now let us look at some of the Prophecies re Israel:
In Isaiah 43:10 the God of Israel declares that the Jews are His witnesses to the world that He is God. This is in spite of the fact that 30% of today’s Israelis claim to be atheists and most Jews worldwide would never think of telling the world that God exists. Yet they are the witnesses, both to themselves and to the world, of His existence because of the astonishing fulfilment in history of precisely what God said would happen to these special people.
Though much that the prophets foretold concerning Israel is yet to occur as it is still in the future, nine major prophecies involving specific and historically verifiable details have already been fulfilled precisely as foretold centuries beforehand:
1) God promised a land of clearly defined boundaries (Gen 15:18-21) to Abraham (Gen 12:1; 13:15; 15:7; etc). He renewed that promise to Abraham’s son Isaac (Gen 26:3-5), to his grandson Jacob (Gen 28:13), and to their descendants after them forever (Lev 25:46; Joshua 14:9, etc)
2) It is a historical fact that God brought thses “chosen people” (ex 7:7,8; Deut 7:6; 14:2,etc) into the “Promised Land”, an amazing story of miracles in itself.
3) When the Jewish people entered the Promised Land, God warned them that if they practiced the idolatry and immorality of the land’s previous inhabitants, whom He had destroyed for their evil (Deut 9:4), He would cast them out as well (Deut 28:63; I Kings 9:7; 2 Chronicles 7:20;etc). That this happened is, again, an indisputable fact of history.
4) God declared that His people would be scattered “among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other” (Deut 28:64; cf. 1 Kings 9:7; Nehemiah 1:8; Amos 9:9; Zechariah 7:14, etc). And so it happened. “The wandering Jew” is found everywhere.
5) God warned that wherever they wandered the Jews would be “an astonishment, a proverb, a byword … a curse and a reproach” (Deut 28:37, 2 Chronicles 7:20; Jeremiah 29:18; 44:8, etc). This has been true of Jews all through history. The maligning, the slurs and jokes, the naked hatred known as anti-Semitism, not only among Muslims but even among those who call themselves Christians, is a unique and persistent fact of history peculiar to the Jewish people. Even today, despite the memory of Hitler’s holocaust, anti-Semitism is still alive and increasing.
6) The prophets declared that along with slander, and discrimination, etc as mentioned above that they would be persecuted and killed as no other peoples on the face of the earth. The historical record of no other ethnic or national group of people contains anything that even approaches the nightmare of terror, humiliation, and destruction which the Jews have endured down through history at the hands of peoples among whom they have found themselves. Shamefully, many who claimed to be Christians and thus followers of Christ, who was Himself a Jew, were in the forefront of Jewish persecution and slaughter. The Roman Catholic popes were the first to develop anti-Semitism to a science. Hitler, who remained a Catholic to the end, would claim that he was only following the example of both Catholics and Lutherans in finishing what the Church had begun. Anti-Semitism was a part of his Catholicism from which Martin Luther was never freed. He advocated burning down Jew’s homes and giving them the choice between conversion and having their tongues torn out.1
7) God declared that in spite of such persecution and the periodic wholesale slaughter of Jews, He would not let His chosen people be destroyed, but would preserve them as an identifiable ethnic, national group (Jeremiah 30:11; 31:35-37;, etc). The Jews had every reason to intermarry, to change their names and hide their identity by any possible means in order to escape persecution. Why preserve their bloodline when they had no land of their own, when most of them didn’t take the Bible literally, and when racial identification imposed only the cruellest disadvantages? The Bible declares that God determined to keep His chosen people separated to Himself (Exodus 33:16; Leviticus 20:26, etc)
8) Because He would bring them back into their land in the last days (Jeremiah 30:10, 31:8-12, Ezekiel 36:24, 35-38, etc.) prior to the Messiah’s second coming. This happened in 1948 with the rebirth of Israel some 1900 years after the final dispersion of the Jews in 70 AD when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman armies of Titus. This restoration of a nation after 25 centuries is utterly astonishing, a phenomenon without parallel in the history of any other peoples and inexplicable by natural means, much less by chance.
9) Even more remarkable perhaps is that God declared that in the last days before the Messiah’s second coming Jerusalem would become “a cup of trembling … a burdensome stone for all people” (Zechariah 12:2,3). At the time Zechariah uttered this prophecy 2500 years ago, Jerusalem lay in ruins and was surrounded by wilderness, and remained that way for century after century. Yet today a world of 6 billion has its eyes upon Jerusalem, fearful that the next world war, if it breaks out, will be fought over this tiny city. Israel occupies about 1/6th of 1% of the land that the Arabs possess. The Arabs have the oil, the wealth, and the worldwide influence which such seemingly inexhaustible resources command. Israel’s postage-stamp piece of land is scarcely discernible on a world map and has nothing obvious to make it such a centre of worldwide concern. Jerusalem is a small city of neither commercial importance nor strategic location, yet the eyes of the world are upon it like no other city. Jerusalem is indeed a “burdensome stone” and the most vexing and volatile problem the UN faces today.
These prophecies and many others have been fulfilled in specific detail and can be checked against history and current events.
There are further prophecies concerning Israel and Jerusalem which pertain to the last days and await future fulfilment. Based on the prophecies that have already been filled we can be sure that the rest will also come true.
In fact, these prophecies tell us that the most appalling time of destruction for mankind is still ahead of us – “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7).
Because the prophecies concerning past events have been fulfilled with 100% accuracy we have good reason for believing that those prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled will be and most probably, sometime in the not too distant future.
[1]
Will Durant The Story Of Civilisation vol VI The
Refornation p727 (Simon & Schuster 1950)
This article is mainly a summary of the comments on prophecy in the first chapter or two of Dave Hunt's book "A woman rides the Beast".