I love Christmas. It brings so much joy to be around those you love, celebrating the miracle of Jesus’s birth. It always is a wonderful time of reflection for me. One of the things I find myself thinking about a lot during this season is the miracle of prophecy. It truly leaves me in awe at times as I remember the miraculous ways that God prepared His people for the arrival of His Son, using prophecy as a wonderful and remarkable sign of His coming.
So, what exactly is PROPHECY?
In the Bible, we see that prophecy is the prediction of something to take place in the future. It affirms the truth and trustworthiness of God’s Word to us when we see His words come true as they were predicted many years before, and the Bible is full of prophecy! The Bible contains approximately 1,000 prophecies of which approximately two thirds have already been fulfilled. The remaining prophecies will be fulfilled during the end times, the days when Jesus returns for the second time!
Why is PROPHECY important?
It is exciting that God chose to use prophecy to show us that He is God. He tells us in the book of Isaiah that He proves Himself to us in this unique way. It is an amazing evidence to us that God is who He says He is, and it is a foundation for our trust in Jesus and the Bible!
Isa 46:9-11 says, “For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’…I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.”
So, as we examine a few of the prophecies fulfilled by the birth of Jesus, I pray that this will give you a greater view of the magnificence of our God and the gift of His Son!
Here are 8 prophecies fulfilled in the birth of Jesus:
1. That the Messiah the son of God would be born of a woman (Gen 3:15, Gal 4:4-5)
2. That the Messiah would be from the line of Abraham (Gen 12:1-3, Gal 3:16, Matt1:1-17)
3. That the Messiah would be from the house of David (2 Sam 7:12-13, Rom 1:1-6, Matt 1:1-17)
4. That the Messiah would be born of a virgin and be called Emmanuel (Isa 7:14, Matt 1:22-23)
5. That the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2, Matt 2:3-6)
6. That the Messiah would be worshipped by wise men and presented gifts (Ps 72:10, Isa 60:6, Matt 2:1;11)
7. That the Messiah birthplace would suffer a massacre of infants (Jer 31:15, Matt 2:16-18)
8. That the Messiah would be in Egypt for a season (Num 24:8, Hosea 11:1, Matt 2:13-15)
Why did God give PROPHECY about JESUS?
God wanted us to know that Jesus was the Messiah! He demonstrated this by giving us so many unmistakable prophecies about the coming of His Son. The undeniable odds of all of these prophecies being fulfilled in the life of one man, Jesus, are almost incomprehensible. It is truly amazing that God did give such specific details about the nature of Jesus’s birth so that we could recognize Him upon His coming.
In the article, “Jesus is the Greatest Gift ever Foretold,” Jim Muelhausen puts this miracle in perspective in a tangible analogy:
“There are so many prophecies which are fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ that it is difficult to fathom how extraordinary their fulfillment is. To help conceptualize the remoteness of the probability that one man could fulfill the prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ, Dr. Peter Stoner, a renowned professor of mathematics, calculated the probability to be 1 in 10 to the 17th power that a person would fulfill 8 of the prophecies which were fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ.
To better understand 1 in 10 to the 17th power, imagine that the state of Texas was covered with 1,000,000,000,000,000 silver dollars — this would bury the entire state of Texas 2 feet deep in silver dollars. Now assume that an “x” is placed upon one silver dollar and that it is mixed together with all the other silver dollars covering the state of Texas. The probability that one man would fulfill just eight of the prophecies which were fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ is equal to the probability that a blindfolded man would randomly select the silver dollar marked with the “x” from the two foot thick mass of silver dollars covering the state of Texas. As if that isn’t impossible enough, Jesus fulfilled more than 300 Old Testament prophecies, not just 8.”
Isn’t that incredible? God wants you to know and worship Jesus as the Messiah, and that is why He gave us such an amazing gift to let us know that He is God! Our God is gracious and the giver of all good gifts. Let this gift of prophecy cause you to be grateful and have an attitude of thankfulness. God want us to know His power and grace this Christmas season.
May we enjoy His grace this season by worshipping His Son.
-Pastor Daniel