No 9

(Prophecies in the Old Testament regarding Jesus Christ)

The Old Testament contains many prophecies that speak of Jesus Christ and there are so many that we cannot discuss them all here, but we will see the very important ones. Since Genesis is the first book of the Bible, it is fitting for us to start there.

Jesus’ humanity is prophesied in Genesis 3 :15 – “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise His heel”.

Jesus’ tribe is prophesied in Genesis 49 :10 – “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come”.

Jesus’ resurrection is prophesied in Psalm 16 :10 – “…neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption”.

Jesus’ rejection and Head of His Church is prophesied in Psalm 118 :22 – “The Stone which the builders refused has become the Head of the corner”.

Jesus’ virgin birth is prophesied in Isaiah 7 :14 – “…Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and shall call His name Emmanuel”.

Jesus’ deity is prophesied in Isaiah 9 :6 – “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given and the government shall be upon His shoulders and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace”.

Jesus’ family is prophesied in Isaiah 11 :1 – “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots”.

Jesus’ suffering is prophesied in Isaiah 52 :13 to Isaiah 53 :12 – “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we are healed”(53 :5).

Jesus’ appearance is prophesied in Daniel 9 :25 – “…to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks :the street shall be built again and the wall even in troublous times”. Jesus’ birthplace is prophesied in Micah 5 :2 – “But thou Bethlehem Ephratah though thou be little among the thousands of Judah yet out of thee shall He come forth”.

Jesus’ presentation to the Jews is prophesied in Zechariah 9 :9 – “…Oh daughter of Jerusalem behold thy King cometh unto thee He is just, and having salvation, lowly and riding upon an ass”.

The mathematical probability of one man filling these eleven prophecies by chance is so high that there is not enough space on this page to put all the zeros. A better way to see this is as follows : We spread silver dollars all over the province of Quebec enough to be waist deep and then place one gold coin somewhere. Then, we tell someone to go find the gold coin. This person has as much chance of finding the gold coin as one person has, by chance, of filling the above prophecies; I suppose it’s possible , but….

A prophecy in the Bible always, always comes true; there are none that don’t come true; our Heavenly Father made sure of that. “For the prophesy came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” 2 Peter 1:21. All the above prophecies came true in the New Testament in the person of Jesus Christ. Not only that; some of them were quoted by authors of the New Testament: a) Psa 16:10 – Acts 13:36, 37 b) Mich 5:1 – Matt 2:6.

The Jews rejected Jesus Christ, but one day, “…they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son” (Zech 12:10). Much will happen until the day when the nation of Israel turns to their Messiah but when they do: “…all Israel shall be saved as it is written: There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer and shall turn away all ungodliness from Jacob” (Rom 11:26). WOW!!!