Prophesies described God’s greatest gift in detail hundreds of years before the giving of this gift would take place.
God has never had an afterthought. He has never been surprised. He has never had to change his mind. All events in the scope of time eternal are to Him as the present moment is to us. With those thoughts in mind, consider the majesty of God’s plan for mankind, and how He not only humbled Himself to the point of giving His one and only Son to die for your sins and mine, but that He told the world about these plans hundreds of years before they would be fulfilled.
Some 70 major prophesies and over 200 others describe the coming of Christ in staggering detail. To the people of Israel, this plan was so clear that they eagerly awaited the coming of the Saviour, the Messiah who would deliver men and women throughout the world from the clutches of sin. The plan was outlined in a way that provided mankind with an exact address in time. Only one Man in all of recorded history could possibly fulfill all those specific requirements.
According to historian Peter Stoner, the chance that any one man could fulfill the eight most significant prophesies alone is one in 1017. That’s 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. It’s equivalent to a blindfolded person finding one marked silver dollar in a pile covering the state of Texas to a depth of two feet! The chance that any one person could fulfill 48 of the prophesies is one in 10157 (one followed by 157 zeros).
Here are some of the most significant prophesies concerning the birth of the Messiah, with a principle and application attached to each one. We suggest that you study them one at a time, giving yourself an opportunity to digest the information provided before moving on to the next.
Part I The first prophecy of the coming of Christ from the book of Genesis, which is also a prophecy of the work Christ will perform.
Part II God told king Ahaz that the Messiah would be born to a virgin, and that His name would be “Immanuel” which means “God with Us.”
Part III God announces that unto us a Child would be born, and that the government would be upon His shoulders, and that He would be everlasting and the Prince of Peace.
Part IV Eight centuries before Christ was born, Mica prophecies the place of His birth–a small community with an unremarkable history.
Part V God uses the prophet Daniel to describe to the exact year when Christ would enter Jerusalem in triumph–the date which would prove to be Palm Sunday the very week of His crucifixion.
Part VI Matthew quotes a number of passages from the Old Testament to show that Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecy, all of them written hundreds of years before the birth of Christ.
