Messianic prophecies fulfiled

By Rev SEIK PITOI
HAVING commenced our Holy or Passion Week celebrations for this Easter, beginning with the Triumphal entry last Sunday, we are no doubt preparing now for the Good Friday service.
All around the world, Christians celebrate the time when the Lord Jesus offered Himself up to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins. That atoning sacrifice was necessary to open the way for mankind to enter into God’s kingdom. Many people will be aware that the Christian Easter has its roots in the Jewish Passover. Coincidently, the Passover this year will be celebrated on the same day as our Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday.
In studying the roots of our faith, we will be amazed to see how God has woven His redemptive story into the traditions of Biblical Judaism. The redemption story is God’s story. He has allowed us to see the progression of that story since creation. Beginning with Adam and Eve, our first parents, all was well in the beautiful Garden of Eden.
God had fellowship with His children, as He intended it to be. However, sin came in the form of a serpent and mankind was deceived (Gen 3:1ff). Mankind fell and Adam and Eve were subsequently banished from the Garden. The glory of God had departed and man was now on his own.
However, God had a plan. His justice and righteousness demanded that they be expelled from His presence, but, His love and mercy compelled Him to find a way to get them back. His plan was for His Son, the second person of the Godhead, to be born of a woman, fulfil the requirements of the Law, and die as a perfect sacrifice for all humanity.
That would give fallen man an opportunity to choose eternal life through Jesus and return to the Garden to be with God the Father for eternity! That simple plan needed a people and a place to work it out. So God chose Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their seed, the children of Israel, to be the people or “vehicle” to bring forth the Saviour. And the land He chose to work out His salvific plan was Israel (Gen 12:1-3).
However, I find the four-fold curse that God pronounced quite interesting. After the Fall, God passed judgment on Eve, her husband Adam, the land and the serpent. In the curse on the serpent, we find that God hid in it the plan. Wrapped in it is the first mention of a ‘rescue mission’ that would take place to bring His people back!
Gen 3:15 (ESV) “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (The GNB and GW both say “crush your head”, bringing out the correct picture).
This speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman, Eve (Luke 3:23-38), who will defeat the devil on Calvary through His death and resurrection (Col 2:15; 1 John 3:8). His heel will be ‘bruised’ (die on the cross), but He will crush the devil’s head (by His resurrection). Here is God’s grace, amidst His justice!
Notice further a second hint at Christ’s sacrifice. When they realised their nakedness as a result of their sin, Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves to cover themselves. Sewing fig leaves is a picture of man trying to save himself (saved by works). But see God’s grace again: “And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them” (3:21). How do you get “skin” from an animal? The animal has to be killed. So, an animal had to die with its blood being shed in order to cover their shame. This is another picture of Christ’s sacrifice (saved by grace, not works – Ephesians 2:8)!
Jumping far ahead from Genesis to the New Testament, we see the Son of God incarnated in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It this time in the Easter story, He is poised to become the perfect sacrifice to die for all mankind. Because the story is a Jewish or Hebrew story, the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) are replete with prophesies of that event. In fact, it is estimated that over 20 messianic prophesies were fulfilled in a 24-hour period as Christ hung on the cross. This proves the accuracy or inerrancy of Scripture.
Each prophecy in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) is fulfilled in the New Testament with matching scriptures to prove it. These are not mere coincidences as the probability of these events happening by chance in astronomical.
Here are a couple of examples:
OT Prophecy – Zec 13:7 “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me,” declares the LORD of hosts. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.
NT Fulfilment – Mat 26:31 Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’
OT Prophecy – Psalm 22:18 they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.
NT Fulfilment – John 19:24 so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfil the Scripture which says, “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” So the soldiers did these things,
OT Prophecy – Psa 69:21 They gave me also gall for my food; And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
NT Fulfilment – John 19:29 There was set there a vessel full of vinegar: so they put a sponge full of the vinegar upon hyssop, and brought it to his mouth.
OT Prophecy – Psalm 22: 1 – My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
NT Fulfilment – Mat 27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The above are just a handful of verses that show us how God had foretold the sacrifice Christ would make. It proves that Scripture can be relied upon. It is therefore logical that if God fulfilled the prophecies about His death and resurrection, the other prophecies about His imminent return will be fulfilled. As such, I believe we should live our lives in ways that honour God.
Coming back to our Easter story, the plan was carried out successfully in that Jesus was born a Jew as a seed of Abraham (Gen 12:1-3), born of a woman, lived a perfect sinless life fulfilling the requirements of the Law, thus qualifying Him to be our perfect sacrifice (2 Cor 5:21; Gal 4:4, 5).
And on this day over 2,000 years ago, He took your place and mine upon a cruel cross. Through His death and resurrection, we have the opportunity to come back into the Garden to spend eternity with Him. But we have only one thing to do – that is to personally believe in Him and receive Him as our Lord and Saviour (John 1:12).
If you haven’t already, why not do that this Easter? Happy Easter and Hag Sameach Pesach!