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The Gospel According to Isaiah
Prophecy is kind of a crazy thing. It’s basically divine revelation given to men (prophets) by God. The Bible has a lot of it, and yesterday I wrote up 5 prophecies Jesus made about his own resurrection.
Fulfillment of prophecy is an even crazier thing. It is basically the word-for-word fulfillment of the long past revelation from God. Many of the prophecies concerning Jesus were spoken hundreds of years before his birth. Yet, he fulfilled them perfectly.
1000 Years Before His Birth, People Were Already Talking About Jesus
Two great examples of different people also prophesying Jesus resurrection can be found in Psalm 16:10 (written about 1000 years before Jesus was born): “because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.” and Isaiah 26:19 (written 700 years before Jesus was born): “But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.” These have their fulfillment in Luke 24:5-6: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!”
This was the proof in the pudding for the disciples that Jesus was the Messiah, that he was God Incarnate, and that worshiping him as God was more than just OK, it was necessary. It is from this point on that the disciples began to develop the early church creeds (1 Corinthians 15:3-5: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.”), and preach the forgiveness of sins through him (Acts 4:10-12: “then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.“)
Never Tell Jesus the Odds
But how likely is it that one man could have fulfilled so many prophecies? Peter Stoner in Science Speaks mathematically calculated the probability that Jesus could have fulfilled only EIGHT prophecies as 1 in 10^17, or 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. He says that’s like filling the entire state of Texas two feet deep with silver dollars, marking one, and letting a blindfolded man walk among the coins, and select the marked one at random on the first try. Pretty crazy, eh?
So, for some fun, I thought I’d lay out all the Messianic prophecies from a single, prophecy-rich portion of Scripture (Isaiah 52:14-53:12 – often referred to as the “Fifth Gospel” because it’s so rich in prophecy about Jesus) and show how they are fulfilled in Jesus. This is just a handful. Enjoy.
The Gospel According to Isaiah 52:14-53:12
14 As many were astonished at you—
his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—
15 so shall he sprinkle many nations;
kings shall shut their mouths because of him;
for that which has not been told them they see,
and that which they have not heard they understand.
Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.
In Christ Alone
————–
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