Is Christianity true (the Bible)?
This blog is part of my series titled “Is Christianity true?” The series addresses four common objections to the truthfulness of the Christian worldview, namely concerns about: (1) the trustworthiness of the Bible; (2) the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection; (3) the compatibility of faith in God with modern science; and (4) the incompatibility of Christian truth claims with those of other worldviews.
IS THE BIBLE TRUSTWORTHY? NEW TESTAMENT FULFILLMENT OF OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY (PART 3)
THE MESSIAH’S ANCESTRAL LINEAGE
The ancestry of the prophesied Messiah unfolds gradually over the course of the Old Testament writings. It begins in the opening chapters of the Bible with God’s pronouncement that the Messiah would be the male offspring of a woman. That narrows it down to about 50 percent of the human race! However, the prophesied lineage then progressively narrows over the following centuries to the lines of the Jewish patriarchs: Abraham, his son Isaac, and Isaac’s son Jacob (aka Israel). The lineage then continues to narrow down to Judah, one of the twelve tribes of Israel, and ultimately to the line of King David.
The idea that the Messiah would be from the line of King David became deeply entrenched in Jewish thinking. Right up to Jesus’ day, one of the Messiah’s most familiar titles was “Son of David,” a title adopted by Jesus and ascribed to Him by the crowds that followed Him (e.g., Matthew 1:1; Matthew 12:23; Mark 10:48).
THE TIMING OF THE MESSIAH’S ARRIVAL
The patriarch Jacob established that the Messiah would arrive before the tribe of Judah lost its self-governing status, which occurred in AD 70 when the Roman army utterly destroyed Jerusalem, including the Second Temple. The prophet Daniel, who lived in Babylon during the time of the Jewish exile, narrowed the timing of the deliverer’s arrival with startling precision. Daniel recorded a vision he received from the archangel Gabriel concerning the timing of the Messiah’s future arrival (see Daniel 9:24–27).
While there is debate over the precise year that Jesus died, most scholars agree that this event fell within these two bookends—prophesied about five centuries earlier!
Although the account sounds strange to contemporary ears, many scholars have carefully studied the text in the original language and concluded that it establishes the arrival of the Messiah within an extremely narrow window of time. Specifically, the Messiah was to suffer and die between the years AD 30 and 37 according to the Christian method of numbering years. While there is debate over the precise year that Jesus died, most scholars agree that this event fell within these two bookends—prophesied about five centuries earlier!
THE PLACE OF THE MESSIAH’S ARRIVAL AND MINISTRY
The prophet Micah, who delivered his message in the eighth century BC, prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah, a small village south of Jerusalem (see Micah 5:2). Interestingly, the prophet says that the Messiah would be pre-existent yet would be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah. This assertion aligns perfectly with the Christian belief that Jesus, the Messiah, was truly God (eternally existent) and truly human (time-limited).
According to Luke’s biography of Jesus, He was born in the unimportant village of Bethlehem, as prophesied by Micah, and there exists no alternative claims concerning the place of His birth. The prophet Isaiah pronounced that the Messiah will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan (Isaiah 9:1 NIV). We understand from the New Testament that not only was Jesus born in Bethlehem Ephrathah, but He lived and ministered primarily (though not exclusively) in the region of Galilee.
Isaiah also wrote that the Messiah would be born in a miraculous manner from a virgin and would be called Immanuel (meaning “God with us”), therefore confirming the godly nature of the Messiah as pronounced by Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah (see Isaiah 7:14).
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
