Someone has said
that prophecy is history written in advance. This is particularly intriguing
when it comes to the birth of Jesus. There are hundreds of prophecies that
relate to the birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection, and return of our
Savior.
This post is longer
than I prefer, but the subject is too important to abridge. Here are four
prophetic themes that point unmistakably to Jesus’ birth.
First, God’s overall plan for a Savior. Genesis
3:15, set in the Garden of Eden, is a curse God pronounced over Satan. But in
the process He gave strong hints about the birth of Jesus. "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 Lord speaks of two distinct lines of people – the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of
the woman. Spiritually, there are
only two kinds of people in the world. The enemies of God, whom Jesus described
in John 8:44 as “of your father the devil,” and the spiritual descendants of the
Messiah, who was born of a woman.
The prediction is
that, in conflict with the serpent, the woman’s “seed” would mortally wound the
devil – a wound to the head. But the Messiah, though grievously injured, would
recover. All of this – Christ’s virgin conception, atoning sacrifice, resurrection,
and victory over Satan, is expressed in only 16 Hebrew words, penned 1400 years before Jesus’
birth!
Second, a series of prophecies
about the lineage of the Savior. God
promised Abraham that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed
(Genesis 22:18). Though both Abraham and Sarah were elderly (and Sarah unable to conceive), a miracle child was born. ..."you shall call his name
Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his
offspring after him." Genesis 17:19
Now Isaac himself
had two sons – Jacob and Esau. But the Lord selected Jacob to bear the royal
line (cf. Genesis 25:22-23). Jacob was father to twelve sons, and the Lord
planned for the Savior to come through his son Judah: The scepter will not
depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he to
whom it belongs shall come and the
obedience of the nations shall be his. Genesis 49:10
Judah was not a nice man, to
say the least. Chapter 38 in Genesis is the unfortunate tale of his
immorality. He sinned, and fathered twins with his own widowed daughter-in-law. His heir became a man named Perez. But the word of God, in Deuteronomy 23:2, pronounced that no illegitimate
son could enter the Lord’s congregation until the tenth generation.
Which brings us to Isaiah 11:1: There shall come forth a shoot from the stump
of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. Jesse was a descendant of Judah, through Perez. Want to guess his number in the generations? Jesse was the ninth generation descendant of Perez and his son David became the tenth!
The Scripture
promised that the Messiah would come through David: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I
will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal
wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land." Jeremiah 23:5
David had at least
19 sons, and the royal line came through his son Solomon, who succeeded him.
But in Jeremiah 22:30 the Lord actually cursed this royal line because of a king named Jeconiah: Thus says
the Lord: “Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his
days, for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David
and ruling again in Judah.” It
was almost as if God had cast aside His plans for the Savior to come in the way
He said He would come.
But God had an
incredible fulfillment in store: Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a descendant of King
David, but through Nathan. And Joseph her husband was also a descendant of
David, but through King Solomon.
So in the marriage
of Mary and Joseph, Jesus had a unique claim to the throne of David. Through
Mary, Jesus was a physical descendant of David via Nathan, a son who never was
king. Jesus’ adoptive father Joseph was
also a descendant of David, but through Solomon.
No physical son of
Joseph’s could have been the Savior because of the curse of Jeremiah 22. But
Mary’s physical line led right back to David through Nathan. Jesus had the
legal and the physical claim to Messianic lineage. (So the gospel of Luke’s genealogy
is Mary’s, through Nathan, while the gospel of Matthew is Joseph’s lineage,
through Solomon).
Third, the circumstances of Jesus’ birth. He
would be born of a virgin: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name
Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14 And He would be born in the little town of Bethlehem: But
you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from
you shall come forth for me one who
is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Micah 5:2
Remember, Joseph and
Mary were from Nazareth, 80 miles north of Bethlehem. It would have taken them
3-4 days to travel on foot (or by donkey) to Bethlehem. But they ended up there because
God moved the Roman government to institute a tax that required
everybody to go back to their ancestral home. Joseph had to head south, even though Mary was great with child.
Even Herod’s murder
of the children was foretold by Jeremiah 31:15: Thus says the Lord: “A voice is heard in
Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she
refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”
The last thing I
want to remind you about is the prophecies that identity of the baby who was born that day. Here are two verses
from Isaiah, nearly 800 years before Jesus was
born:
And then Isaiah 9:6: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
And then Isaiah 9:6: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Merry Christmas!
