Jesus of Nazareth was the
Christ or Messiah promised under the Old Testament. That he professed himself
to be that Messiah to whom all the prophets gave witness, and who was, in fact,
at the time of his appearing, expected by the Jews; and that he was received
under that character by his disciples, and by all Christians ever since, is
certain. And if the Old Testament Scriptures afford sufficiently definite marks
by which the long-announced Christ should be infallibly known at his advent,
and these presignations are found realized in our Lord, then is the truth of
his pretensions established. From the books of the Old Testament we learn that
the Messiah was to authenticate his claim by miracles; and in those predictions
respecting him, so many circumstances are recorded, that they meet only in one
person; and so, if they are accomplished in him, they leave no room for doubt,
as far as the evidence of prophecy is deemed conclusive. As to Miracles, we
refer to that article; here only observing, that if the miraculous works
wrought by Christ were really done, they prove his mission, because, from their
nature, and having been wrought to confirm his claim to be the Messiah, they
necessarily imply a divine attestation. With respect to Prophecy, the
principles under which its evidence must be regarded as conclusive will be
given under that head; and here therefore it will only be necessary to show the
completion of the prophecies of the sacred books of the Jews relative to the
Messiah in one person, and that person the Founder of the Christian religion.
The time of the Messiah's appearance in
the world, as predicted in the Old Testament, is defined, says Keith, by a
number of concurring circumstances, which fix it to the very date of the advent
of Christ,
Gen. 49: 10. "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."
Mal. 3: 1. “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way
before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the
messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.
Hag. 2: 7. "For thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is a little
while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry
land;"
Dan. 9: 24, 25. “Seventy
‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish
transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in
everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the
Most Holy Place. 25 “Know and understand this: From the time
the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the
ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be
rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.
Isa. 40: 3-11. A
voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a
highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain
and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a
plain. And the glory of the Lord
will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” A voice
says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” “All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. The
grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people
are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word
of our God endures forever.” You who bring good news to Zion, go up
on a high mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice
with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of
Judah, “Here is your God!” See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and he rules
with a mighty arm. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense
accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He
gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently
leads those that have young.
 |
"and I appointed you to produce good fruit
from the lives that you live, fruit that will
last." John 15:16 |
The plainest inference may be drawn from these prophecies.
All of them, while, in every respect, they presuppose the most perfect
knowledge of futurity; while they were unquestionably delivered and publicly
known for ages previous to the time to which they referred; and while they
refer to different contingent and unconnected events, utterly undeterminable
and inconceivable by all human sagacity; accord in perfect unison to a single
precise period where all their different lines terminate at once, --the very
fullness of time when Jesus appeared. A king then reigned over the Jews in their
own land; they were governed by their own laws; and the council of their nation
exercised its authority and power. Before that period, the other tribes were
extinct or dispersed among the nations. Judah alone remained, and the last
sceptre in Israel had not then departed from it. Every stone of the temple was
then unmoved; it was the admiration of the Romans, and might have stood for
ages. But in a short space, all these concurring testimonies to the time of the
advent of the Messiah passed away. During the very yea, the twelfth of his age,
in which Christ first publicly appeared in the temple, Archelaus the king was
dethroned and banished; Coponius was appointed procurator; and the kingdom of
Judea, the last remnant of the greatness of Israel, was debased into a part of
the province of Syria. The sceptre was smitten from the tribe of Judah; the
crown fell from their heads; their glory departed; and, soon after the death of
Christ, of their temple one stone was not left upon another; their commonwealth
itself became as complete a ruin, and was broken in pieces; and they have ever
since been scattered throughout the world, a name but not a nation. After the
lapse of nearly four hundred years posterior to the time of Malachi, another
prophet appeared who was the herald of the Messiah. And the testimony of
Josephus confirms the account given in Scripture of John the Baptist. Every
mark that denoted the time of the coming of the Messiah was erased soon after
the crucifixion of Christ, and could never afterwards be renewed. And with
respect to the prophecies of Daniel, it is remarkable, at this remote period,
how little discrepancy of opinion has existed among the most learned men, as to
the space from the time of the passing out of the edict to rebuild Jerusalem,
after the Babylonish captivity, to the commencement of the Christian era, and
the subsequent events foretold in the prophecy.
The predictions contained in the Old
Testament respecting both the family out of which the Messiah was to arise, and
the place of his birth, are almost as circumstantial, and are equally
applicable to Christ, as those which refer to the time of his appearance. He
was to be an Israelite, of the tribe of Judah, of the family of David, and of
the town of Bethlehem. That all these predictions were fulfilled in Jesus
Christ; that he was of that country, tribe, and family, of the house and
lineage of David, ad born in Bethlehem, we have the fullest evidence in the
testimony of all the evangelists; in two distinct accounts of the genealogies,
by natural and legal succession, which, according to the custom of the Jews,
were carefully preserved; in the acquiescence of the enemies of Christ in
the truth of the fact, against which there is not a single surmise in history;
and in the appeal made by some of the earliest Christian writers to the
unquestionable testimony of the records of the census, taken at the very time
of our Savior's birth by order of Caesar. Here, indeed, it is impossible not to
be struck with the exact fulfillment of prophecies which are apparently
contradictory and irreconcilable, and with the manner in which they were
providentially accomplished. The spot of Christ's nativity was distant from the
place of the abode of his parents, and the region in which he began his
ministry was remote from the place of his birth; and another prophecy
respecting him was in this manner verified:
Isaiah 9:1.2."In the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, by the way of
the sea beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations, the people that walked in
darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of
death, upon them hath the light shined," Isaiah 9:1.2.
Matt. 4:16. "the people living in darkness have
seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light
has dawned.”
Thus, the time at which the predicted Messiah was to appear;
the nation, the tribe, and the family from which he was to be descended; and
the place of his birth,--no populous city, but of itself an inconsiderable
place, --were all clearly foretold; and as clearly refer to Jesus Christ; and
all meet their completion in him.
But the facts of his life, and the
features of his character, are also drawn with a precision that cannot be
misunderstood. The obscurity, the meanness, and the poverty of his external
condition are represented,
Isa. 53: 2. "He grew up before him like a tender
shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to
attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him."
Isa. 49: 7. "This is what the Lord says - the Redeemer and Holy One of
Israel—
to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation, to the servant of rulers:
“Kings will see you and stand up, princes will see and bow down, because of the
Lord, who is faithful, the Holy
One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
His riding in humble triumph into Jerusalem; his being
betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, and scourged, and buffeted, and spit
upon; the piercing of his hands and of his feet; the last offered draught of
vinegar and gall; the parting of his raiment, and the casting lots upon his
vesture; the manner of his death and of his burial, and his rising again
without seeing corruption, were all expressly predicted, and all these
predictions were literally fulfilled,
Zech. 9:9. Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout,
Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. " and in 11:12. "I told them,
“If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.” So they paid me
thirty pieces of silver. 13 And the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the handsome price
at which they valued me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them
to the potter at the house of the Lord."
Isaiah 1:6. “Listen
to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to
the quarry from which you were hewn;
2 look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you
birth. When I called him he was only one man, and I blessed him and made him
many.
3 The Lord will
surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will
make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in
her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.
4 “Listen to me, my
people; hear me, my nation: Instruction will go out from me; my justice will
become a light to the nations.
5 My righteousness draws near speedily, my salvation is on the
way, and my arm will bring justice to the nations. The islands will look to me
and wait in hope for my arm.
6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath;
the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a
garment and its inhabitants die like flies. But my salvation will last
forever, my righteousness will never fail.
Psalm 22: 16. " Dogs surround me, a pack
of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet. and 69: 21.
" They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my
thirst." and 22: 18. "They divide my clothes among them and
cast lots for my garment."
Isaiah 53: 9. "And they made His grave
with the wicked—But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no
violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth."
Psalm 16: 10. "because you will not abandon me to
the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay."
If all these prophecies admit of any application to the
events of the life of any individual, it can only be to that of the Author of
Christianity. And what other religion can produce a single fact which was
actually foretold of its founder?
The death of Christ was as unparalleled
as his life; and the prophecies are as minutely descriptive of his sufferings
as of his virtues. Not only did the paschal lamb, which was to be killed every
year in all the families of Israel, which was to be taken out of the flock, to
be with out blemish, to be eaten with bitter herbs, to have its blood
sprinkled, and to be kept whole that not a bone of it should be broken; not
only did the offering up of Isaac, and the lifting up of the brazen serpent in
the wilderness, by looking upon which the people were healed, and many ritual
observances of the Jews, prefigure the manner of Christ's death, and the
sacrifice which was to be made for sin; but many express declarations abound in
the prophecies, that Christ was indeed to suffer. But Isaiah, who describes,
with eloquence worthy of a prophet, the glories of the kingdom that was to
come, characterizes, with the accuracy of an historian, and the humiliation,
the trials, and the agonies which were to precede the triumphs of the Redeemer
of a world; and the history of Christ forms, to the very letter, the commentary
and the completion of his every prediction. In a single passage, (Isaiah 53: 13,
&c. 53.) the connection of which is uninterrupted, its antiquity
indisputable, and its application obvious, the sufferings of the servant of God
(who, under
that same denomination, is previously described as he who was to be the light
of the Gentiles, the salvation of God to the ends of the earth, and the elect
of God in whom his soul delighted, Isaiah 42: 10. 49: 6.) are so
minutely foretold, that no illustration is requisite to show that they testify
of Jesus. The whole of this prophecy thus refers to the Messiah. It describes
both his debasement and his dignity; his rejection by the Jews; his humility,
his affliction, and his agony; his magnanimity and his charity; how his words
were disbelieved; how his state was lowly; how his sorrow was severe; how he
opened not his mouth but to make intercession for the transgressors. In diametrical
opposition to every dispensation of Providence which is registered in the
records of the Jews, it represents spotless innocence suffering by the
appointment of Heaven; death as the issue of perfect obedience; God's righteous
servant as forsaken of him; and one who was perfectly immaculate bearing the
chastisement of may guilty; sprinkling many nations from their iniquity, by
virtue of his sacrifice; justifying many by his knowledge; and dividing a
portion with the great and the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured
out his soul in death. This prophecy, therefore, simply as a prediction prior
to the event, renders the very unbelief of the Jews an evidence against them,
converts the scandal of the cross into an argument in favor of Christianity,
and presents us with an epitome of the truth, a miniature of the gospel in some
of its most striking features. The simple exposition of it sufficed at once for
the conversion of the eunuch of Ethiopia. To these prophecies may, in fact, be
added all those which relate to his spiritual kingdom, or the circumstances of
the promulgation, the opposition and the triumphs of his religion; the
accomplishment of which equally proves the divine mission of its Author, and
points him out as that great personage with whom they stand inseparably connected.
