ABOUT FUTURISM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv3csvd4pr0
As I write this, reports of mass murder in Las Vegas hold the air waves hostage. We hear the sniper killer's name over and over. The press has questioned his brother and friends asking them for some idea, if they saw this coming. It is among the stupidest questions always asked. The press seems to think everyone is a profiler and seems aimed at adding to the guilt of the family. They are already asking themselves that question. It doesn't need to be their public face: "Hi, I didn't see that my brother as a killer. What do you do for a living?"
Meanwhile, the press trots out experts who know nothing yet of the person doing the killing and they get to make expert guesses. What was the stressor? What was the motive? Tom Brokaw says he owns lots of guns but they aren't military type weapons and we need to have a discussion free of emotion about the use of those weapons. No offense to Tom, but if that were possible we would have "solved" the problem long ago.
Whatever the killer's name or motive, whatever the names of those other killers, mass murderers over the decades with some sort of vendetta or religious crusade and their troubles and dreams or nightmares, the simple truth that never gets touched on, the reason behind all of it is our sin. That primal sin in Eden. The cumulative effect of sin after sin after sin in a world already fallen and dying, one we all seem intent on killing with our various discards and wastes. One we do our best to deny killing even as we do our best to find some reason beyond the terrors of life itself for the insane person with the weapon in the Las Vegas motel, someone who arrived with an arsenal he easily slipped past whatever passed as security there and intended to kill or be killed and got both.
The truth is humanity has a killer instinct and the situation with guns in the USA in particular is designed to feed that urge. If it continues that way, it doesn't take a prophet to predict another shooting some time soon. Nor does it take a prophet to suggest we will do little to stop the flow of altered and unaltered military weapons, their collection and resale. If you ask a "gun guy" why he has to have the weapons it most often comes out: "To keep the government from taking my weapons." The idea that the government is coming for him, for HIM. Don't suggest that the government probably wouldn't be coming for him if he didn't have military weapons to begin with. Nor does it help that the "not gun guys" want to take the weapons and want the government to do it. Thus feeding the seizure fears. It is also pointless to mention basic rights and the idea of just how many of those rights we all would have to give up for the successful seizure of those weapons.
In our Fallen Flesh, we seek our own way, wrote a constitution guaranteeing our rights in an era 200 years ago then persist in demanding rights not specifically included or denying rights that are there, calling valid press "fake" and demanding the firing of those who knell during pre game National Anthems to show disapproval of what they perceive as ingrained institutional bigotry and assassination agenda. And run the ideas by courts that get "loaded" with judges who are seen to support one side or the other.
What does this have to do with futurism?
Some people think that prophecies are the same as bills of rights. written thousands of years ago and not really applicable today. They were meant for the time of the prophesy, but if you apply them today, they don't fit. Some even believe this:
"Christians have long understood prophecy to be a special quality of spirituality and courage; theologians speak of the prophetic obedience of Saint Francis, who knew that the institutional church was misguided in some ways, and who on occasion respectfully defied it authority out of a desire to lead it closer to the truth. The vulgar notion of a prophet as merely a fortune-teller or seer of the kind featured nowadays in supermarket tabloids has nothing to do with the traditional Christian concept of prophesy and everything to do with the contemporary American infatuation with astrology, magic tricks, psychic readings and the like. Yes, the Old Testament prophets occasionally predicted that certain events-whether messianic or cataclysmic-would occur at some time in the future and the Gospel writers adjusted elements of the story of Jesus so that they would seem to be fulfillments of some of those predictions. Yet this kind of prognostication was always only a minor element of the prophetic role and no one ever interpreted those prophesies in the extremely specific way that Lindsey does. (Hal Lindsey in The Late Great Planet Earth. W) Being a prophet in\biblical times was not about forecasting future events but about being close to God and helping God's people to feel closer to Him. In the true biblical sense,the prophets of the twentieth-century Christian world are not people like Jeane Dixon of National Enquirer fame but people like Catholic Worker founder Dorthy Day and South African archbishop Desmond Tutu- people who, often in tension with established church authority, have spoken bravely and inspiringly of. what it means and doesn't mean to be a Christian and have shown by their example what posture Christians should take toward the established order."
Books worth of discussion concerning End Times belief exist and I usually assume my readers have seen many of the arguments and have sorted through them to arrive a some level agreement with me on futurists views. But something got to me as I was researching other things and reading books I stumbled on along the way. That something was the above, indeed, the entire text of Bruce Bawer's Stealing Jesus: how fundamentalism betrays Christianity. The quote comes from pages 146-7 of that paperback text published in 1997.
To begin, let me say those few sentences testify to everything I agree and disagree with in the liberal ideals of religious America.
Modern prophets for me include Martin Luther King and Chuck Smith. Chuck Swindoll and Billy Graham. Corrie Ten Boom and Brennan Manning. John Piper and Watchman Nee. Philip Yancey and John MacArthur. These are people who speak God's truth filtered by the experience and study God has given them, guided by the Holy Spirit to bring people closer to God. Some like Billy Graham are gifted in evangelism. In bringing people to God in the beginning of their rebirth. Like King, gifted in social activism. In letting people see the power of a knee down against injustice, of arms linked against police with trained killer dogs and weapons. Like Manning and Yancey, in personal activism that sometimes expanded into social activism. Gifted to show the struggles of the common man in our attempts to understand this Christ, the Savior so unlike an human being, yet composed of all our flesh. Like Nee and Corrie Ten Boom, in perseverance against repression, in rising above the tides of evil. Like MacArthur and Piper, gifted in teaching. In letting us see what we can be by giving ourselves to the study and immersion in the Word. Like Swindoll, gifted in teaching and as a speaker. I think I once suggested as a new Christian listening to him I came to think of God as having that slight Texas twang in his voice. Like Chuck Smith, gifted in the founding of a new "denomination" which is loathe to call itself such. Gifted to teach the Bible from beginning to end. None of them would be called perfect or untouched by controversy. Some of them would laugh at me for mentioning them in the presence of some of the others.
They are prophets in the modern sense in that they interpret the Word of God in new ways that reach others and increase their connection with the Lord through the power of the Spirit leading them. From the net dictionary:
a person chosen to speak for God and to guide the people of Israel: Moses was the greatest of Old Testament prophets. (often initial capital letter) one of the Major or Minor Prophets
There are many Old Testament prophecies about Jesus Christ. Some interpreters place the number of Messianic prophecies in the hundreds. The following are those that are considered the clearest and most important.
Regarding Jesus’ birth—Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
Isaiah 9:6: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”
Concerning Jesus' ministry and death—
Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Psalm 22:16-18: “Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”
Likely the clearest prophecy about Jesus is the entire 53rd chapter of Isaiah.
Isaiah 53:3-7 is especially unmistakable: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
The “seventy sevens” prophecy in Daniel chapter 9 predicted the precise date that Jesus, the Messiah, would be “cut off.”
For reference:
Da 9:1 In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldaeans;
2 In the first year of his rule, I, Daniel, saw clearly from the books the number of years given by the word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah, in which the making waste of Jerusalem was to be complete, that is, seventy years.
3 And turning my face to the Lord God, I gave myself up to prayer, requesting his grace, going without food, in haircloth and dust.
4 And I made prayer to the Lord my God, putting our sins before him, and said, O Lord, the great God, greatly to be feared. keeping your agreement and mercy with those who have love for you and do your orders;
5 We are sinners, acting wrongly and doing evil; we have gone against you, turning away from your orders and from your laws:
6 We have not given ear to your servants the prophets, who said words in your name to our kings and our rulers and our fathers and all the people of the land.
7 O Lord, righteousness is yours, but shame is on us, even to this day; and on the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, and on all Israel, those who are near and those who are far off, in all the countries where you have sent them because of the sin which they have done against you.
8 O Lord, shame is on us, on our kings and our rulers and our fathers, because of our sin against you.
9 With the Lord our God are mercies and forgiveness, for we have gone against him;
10 And have not given ear to the voice of the Lord our God to go in the way of his laws which he put before us by the mouth of his servants the prophets.
11 And all Israel have been sinners against your law, turning away so as not to give ear to your voice: and the curse has been let loose on us, and the oath recorded in the law of Moses, the servant of God, for we have done evil against him.
12 And he has given effect to his words which he said against us and against those who were our judges, by sending a great evil on us: for under all heaven there has not been done what has been done to Jerusalem.
13 As it was recorded in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us: but we have made no prayer for grace from the Lord our God that we might be turned from our evil doings and come to true wisdom.
14 So the Lord has been watching over this evil and has made it come on us: for the Lord our God is upright in all his acts which he has done, and we have not given ear to his voice.
15 And now, O Lord our God, who took your people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand and made a great name for yourself even to this day; we are sinners, we have done evil.
16 O Lord, because of your righteousness, let your wrath and your passion be turned away from your town Jerusalem, your holy mountain: because, through our sins and the evil-doing of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a cause of shame to all who are round about us.
17 And now, give ear, O our God, to the prayer of your servant and to his request for grace, and let your face be shining on your holy place which is made waste, because of your servants, O Lord.
18 O my God, let your ear be turned and give hearing; let your eyes be open and see how we have been made waste and the town which is named by your name: for we are not offering our prayers before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercies.
19 O Lord, give ear; O Lord, have forgiveness; O Lord, take note and do; let there be no more waiting; for the honour of your name, O my God, because your town and your people are named by your name.
20 And while I was still saying these words in prayer, and putting my sins and the sins of my people Israel before the Lord, and requesting grace from the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God;
21 Even while I was still in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at first when my weariness was great, put his hand on me about the time of the evening offering.
22 And teaching me and talking to me he said, O Daniel, I have come now to give you wisdom.
23 At the first word of your prayer a word went out, and I have come to give you knowledge; for you are a man dearly loved: so give thought to the word and let the vision be clear to you.
24 Seventy weeks have been fixed for your people and your holy town, to let wrongdoing be complete and sin come to its full limit, and for the clearing away of evil-doing and the coming in of eternal righteousness: so that the vision and the word of the prophet may be stamped as true, and to put the holy oil on a most holy place.
25 Have then the certain knowledge that from the going out of the word for the building again of Jerusalem till the coming of a prince, on whom the holy oil has been put, will be seven weeks: in sixty-two weeks its building will be complete, with square and earthwork.
26 And at the end of the times, even after the sixty-two weeks, one on whom the holy oil has been put will be cut off and have no...;and the town and the holy place will be made waste together with a prince; and the end will come with an overflowing of waters, and even to the end there will be war; the making waste which has been fixed.
27 And a strong order will be sent out against the great number for one week; and so for half of the week the offering and the meal offering will come to an end; and in its place will be an unclean thing causing fear; till the destruction which has been fixed is let loose on him who has made waste.
(BBE)
Isaiah 50:6 accurately describes the beating that Jesus endured.
Isa 50:1 This is the word of the Lord: Where is the statement which I gave your mother when I put her away? or to which of my creditors have I given you for money? It was for your sins that you were given into the hands of others, and for your evil-doing was your mother put away.
2 Why, then, when I came, was there no man? and no one to give answer to my voice? has my hand become feeble, so that it is unable to take up your cause? or have I no power to make you free? See, at my word the sea becomes dry, I make the rivers a waste land: their fish are dead for need of water, and make an evil smell.
3 By me the heavens are clothed with black, and I make haircloth their robe.
4 The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are experienced, so that I may be able to give the word a special sense for the feeble: every morning my ear is open to his teaching, like those who are experienced:
5 And I have not put myself against him, or let my heart be turned back from him.
6 I was offering my back to those who gave me blows, and my face to those who were pulling out my hair: I did not keep my face covered from marks of shame.
7 For the Lord God is my helper; I will not be put to shame: so I have made my face like a rock, and I am certain that he will give me my right.
8 He who takes up my cause is near; who will go to law with me? let us come together before the judge: who is against me? let him come near to me.
9 See, the Lord God is my helper; who will give a decision against me? truly, all of them will become old like a robe; they will be food for the worm.
10 Who among you has the fear of the Lord, giving ear to the voice of his servant who has been walking in the dark and has no light? Let him put his faith in the name of the Lord, looking to his God for support.
11 See, all you who make a fire, arming yourselves with burning branches: go in the flame of your fire, and among the branches you have put a light to. This will you have from my hand, you will make your bed in sorrow.
(BBE)
Zechariah 12:10 predicts the “piercing” of the Messiah, which occurred after Jesus died on the cross.
Zec 12:1 The word of the Lord about Israel. The Lord by whom the heavens are stretched out and the bases of the earth put in place, and the spirit of man formed inside him, has said:
2 See, I will make Jerusalem a cup of shaking fear to all the peoples round about, when Jerusalem is shut in.
3 And it will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a stone of great weight for all the peoples; all those who take it up will be badly wounded; and all the nations of the earth will come together against it.
4 In that day, says the Lord, I will put fear into every horse and make every horseman go off his head: and my eyes will be open on the people of Judah, and I will make every horse of the peoples blind.
5 And the families of Judah will say in their hearts, The people of Jerusalem have their strength in the Lord of armies, their God.
6 In that day I will make the families of Judah like a pot with fire in it among trees, and like a flaming stick among cut grain; they will send destruction on all the peoples round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem will be living again in the place which is hers, that is, in Jerusalem.
7 And the Lord will give salvation to the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the family of David and the glory of the people of Jerusalem may not be greater than that of Judah.
8 In that day the Lord will be a cover over the people of Jerusalem; and he who is feeble among them in that day will be as strong as David, and the family of David will be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.
9 And it will come about on that day that I will take in hand the destruction of all the nations who come against Jerusalem.
10 And I will send down on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of prayer; and their eyes will be turned to the one who was wounded by their hands: and they will be weeping for him as for an only son, and their grief for him will be bitter, like the grief of one sorrowing for his oldest son.
11 In that day there will be a great weeping in Jerusalem, like the weeping of Hadad-rimmon in the valley of Megiddon.
12 And the land will give itself to weeping, every family separately; the family of David by themselves, and their wives by themselves; the family of Nathan by themselves, and their wives by themselves;
13 The family of Levi by themselves, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by themselves, and their wives by themselves;
14 And all the other families by themselves, and their wives by themselves.
(BBE)
Many more examples could be provided, but these will suffice.
The Old Testament most definitely prophesies the coming of Jesus as the Messiah.
The books of the Old Testament contain many passages about the Messiah—all prophecies Jesus Christ fulfilled. For instance, the crucifixion of Jesus was foretold in Psalm 22:16-18 approximately 1,000 years before Christ was born, long before this method of execution was even practiced.
After Christ's resurrection, preachers of the New Testament church began to declare officially that Jesus was the Messiah by divine appointment:
"Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." (Acts 2:36, ESV)
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 1:1-4, ESV)
STATISTICAL IMPROBABILITY
Some Bible scholars suggest there are more than 300 prophetic Scriptures completed in the life of Jesus. Circumstances such as his birthplace, lineage, and method of execution were beyond his control and could not have been accidentally or deliberately fulfilled.
In the book Science Speaks, Peter Stoner and Robert Newman discuss the statistical improbability of one man, whether accidentally or deliberately, fulfilling just eight of the prophecies Jesus fulfilled.
The chance of this happening, they say, is 1 in 1017 power. Stoner gives an illustration that helps visualize the magnitude of such odds:
Suppose that we take 1017 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote using their own wisdom.
The mathematical improbability of 300, or 44, or even just eight fulfilled prophesies of Jesus stands as evidence to his messiahship.
PROPHECIES OF JESUS CHRIST
Although this list is not exhaustive, you'll find 44 messianic predictions clearly fulfilled in Jesus Christ, along with supporting references from the Old Testament and fulfillment in the New Testament.
44 Messianic Prophecies of Jesus
Prophecies of Jesus Old Testament
Scripture New Testament
Fulfillment
1 Messiah would be born of a woman. Genesis 3:15 Matthew 1:20
Galatians 4:4
2 Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Micah 5:2 Matthew 2:1
Luke 2:4-6
3 Messiah would be born of a virgin. Isaiah 7:14 Matthew 1:22-23
Luke 1:26-31
4 Messiah would come from the line of Abraham. Genesis 12:3
Genesis 22:18 Matthew 1:1
Romans 9:5
5 Messiah would be a descendant of Isaac. Genesis 17:19
Genesis 21:12 Luke 3:34
6 Messiah would be a descendant of Jacob. Numbers 24:17 Matthew 1:2
7 Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah. Genesis 49:10 Luke 3:33
Hebrews 7:14
8 Messiah would be heir to King David's throne. 2 Samuel 7:12-13
Isaiah 9:7 Luke 1:32-33
Romans 1:3
9 Messiah's throne will be anointed and eternal. Psalm 45:6-7
Daniel 2:44 Luke 1:33
Hebrews 1:8-12
10 Messiah would be called Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14 Matthew 1:23
11 Messiah would spend a season in Egypt. Hosea 11:1 Matthew 2:14-15
12 A massacre of children would happen at Messiah's birthplace. Jeremiah 31:15 Matthew 2:16-18
13 A messenger would prepare the way for Messiah Isaiah 40:3-5 Luke 3:3-6
14 Messiah would be rejected by his own people. Psalm 69:8
Isaiah 53:3 John 1:11
John 7:5
15 Messiah would be a prophet. Deuteronomy 18:15 Acts 3:20-22
16 Messiah would be preceded by Elijah. Malachi 4:5-6 Matthew 11:13-14
17 Messiah would be declared the Son of God. Psalm 2:7 Matthew 3:16-17
18 Messiah would be called a Nazarene. Isaiah 11:1 Matthew 2:23
19 Messiah would bring light to Galilee. Isaiah 9:1-2 Matthew 4:13-16
20 Messiah would speak in parables. Psalm 78:2-4
Isaiah 6:9-10 Matthew 13:10-15, 34-35
21 Messiah would be sent to heal the brokenhearted. Isaiah 61:1-2 Luke 4:18-19
22 Messiah would be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Psalm 110:4 Hebrews 5:5-6
23 Messiah would be called King. Psalm 2:6
Zechariah 9:9 Matthew 27:37
Mark 11:7-11
24 Messiah would be praised by little children. Psalm 8:2 Matthew 21:16
25 Messiah would be betrayed. Psalm 41:9
Zechariah 11:12-13 Luke 22:47-48
Matthew 26:14-16
26 Messiah's price money would be used to buy a potter's field. Zechariah 11:12-13 Matthew 27:9-10
27 Messiah would be falsely accused. Psalm 35:11 Mark 14:57-58
28 Messiah would be silent before his accusers. Isaiah 53:7 Mark 15:4-5
29 Messiah would be spat upon and struck. Isaiah 50:6 Matthew 26:67
30 Messiah would be hated without cause. Psalm 35:19
Psalm 69:4 John 15:24-25
31 Messiah would be crucified with criminals. Isaiah 53:12 Matthew 27:38
Mark 15:27-28
32 Messiah would be given vinegar to drink. Psalm 69:21 Matthew 27:34
John 19:28-30
33 Messiah's hands and feet would be pierced. Psalm 22:16
Zechariah 12:10 John 20:25-27
34 Messiah would be mocked and ridiculed. Psalm 22:7-8 Luke 23:35
35 Soldiers would gamble for Messiah's garments. Psalm 22:18 Luke 23:34
Matthew 27:35-36
36 Messiah's bones would not be broken. Exodus 12:46
Psalm 34:20 John 19:33-36
37 Messiah would be forsaken by God. Psalm 22:1 Matthew 27:46
38 Messiah would pray for his enemies. Psalm 109:4 Luke 23:34
39 Soldiers would pierce Messiah's side. Zechariah 12:10 John 19:34
40 Messiah would be buried with the rich. Isaiah 53:9 Matthew 27:57-60
41 Messiah would resurrect from the dead. Psalm 16:10
Psalm 49:15 Matthew 28:2-7
Acts 2:22-32
42 Messiah would ascend to heaven. Psalm 24:7-10 Mark 16:19
Luke 24:51
43 Messiah would be seated at God's right hand. Psalm 68:18
Psalm 110:1 Mark 16:19
Matthew 22:44
44 Messiah would be a sacrifice for sin. Isaiah 53:5-12 Romans 5:6-8
At this point, we now need to look again at that blue section of Mr. Bawer's text to understand our differences:
Yes, the Old Testament prophets occasionally predicted that certain events-whether messianic or cataclysmic-would occur at some time in the future and the Gospel writers adjusted elements of the story of Jesus so that they would seem to be fulfillments of some of those predictions.
The literalist literally falls in a swoon hearing such talk. She realizes that suggesting that essentially guts the whole notion of the story of Christ being true. If the Apostles "adjusted elements" of the story, which elements? What else did they adjust? Did he really die? Did he really come back from the dead? Did he even live at all? Can the reader select which elements to believe? Bawer suggests essentially that we can ignore the idea of facts and still accept the concepts of love and life that Jesus offered.
Bawer loves the ideas and the ideals of Jesus. Bawer seems to love the revolutionary, the man against tradition, the one correcting the church even as Bawer expresses his love of Day and Tutu for being against traditions of the Church. He loves the guy who partied with sinners. He likes the man talking to the woman at the well. He would adore the guy throwing the moneychangers out.
I know. I do, too. My rebellious streak loves Him. Anyone who misuses God's goods for their own gain fails in my eyes. But I have to recall that I could as easily fail given the opportunity of a massive national ministry and the money and the temptations the money brings with it.
Yet Bawer's basic attack here and elsewhere in his book is that this view of the prophets as predicting the future is against church tradition! Read again that opening:
"Christians have long understood prophecy to be a special quality of spirituality and courage; theologians speak of the prophetic obedience of Saint Francis, who knew that the institutional church was misguided in some ways, and who on occasion respectfully defied it authority out of a desire to lead it closer to the truth.
Clearly, tradition that matches his prejudice is acceptable. One could easily view the literalist believers as kicking over the tables of generalists and cleansing the temple of misguided teaching.
Bawer spends a good deal of time in his book discussing the idea that claiming a tradition of literalism for the church is false, that it is a new-fangled "Merican" (spoken with a deep South drawl) notion. And calling it "legalistic." (Several chapters are devoted to it and he does a marvelous though slanted view on the history of literalism, even pointing out it's existence in earlier church eras.) He uses that word is used to define literalism. I can see his point. Many such people are legalistic and caustic and part of what has become the stereotype.
But legalism and literalism are not actually the same.
The Literalist believes the Word of God to be literally true except when obvious allusion is employed. He believes the common creed we earlier discussed about the identity of Christ, one established long ago in Nicea. Indeed, making that a founding tradition long before modernist thinking or the early corrupt Catholic Church variations on the Word.
And the Word of God that offers common ground for both Bruce Bawer and I is found among other places in the 12th chapter of Mark where Jesus is confronted by various sects of the ruling Jewish classes. Bawer:
"Finally, one of the scribes asks an apparently sincere question: "What is the first of all the commandments?"
"Jesus replies by quoting form the fifth book of Moses in the Hebrew Scriptures. "The first is, "Hear, Oh Israel: the Lord our God is one lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You must love your neighbor as yourself.' No other commandment is greater than these."
"These are the most treasured verses in Judaism, ' note the edition of the standard biblical commentary. These verses are also at the heart of any true Christianity."
Now Bruce goes on to elaborate on this view.
"'Righteousness,' the editors of the commentary point out, 'is not to be understood as strict obedience to a complex code of laws and customs. The one commandment that is central is the principle of love." Jesus' u equivocal elevation of these verses above all other commandments demands we test all scripture, all dogma, and even everything that Jesus is reported to have said and done against this commandment, which many Christians call the Great Commandment, and which Anglicans call the Summary of the Law-for mystery of mysteries, the law itself is summed up in a law that not only allows but compels violation of lesser laws. 'When there is wholehearted love for the All, for the universal good we might say,' writes Huston Smith, 'Then the will wants that good and needs no rules.'"
pages 50-51
To Bawer: "Sir, you are still obeying a commandment. It is in fact the greatest but you need to realize, Jesus added ways to expand on that commandment. (I list them in at yourtruelifnow,com.) Jesus himself says it does not abrogate the Law.
New International Version
Matthew 5:18
For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
We would likely have a long argument about what was meant by "it is finished" from the cross, but clearly not everything including the Resurrection is accomplished. Those who do not accept Him still face the judgement of the Law. but if you ignore those parts of salvation and think just living right does "the trick" then, Bawer is following a shadow of Jesus as much as so many of my literalist brothers who ignore the love part.
My follow up question is this: if we can't trust the Word to be literally true, how can we trust THIS PARTICULAR word? Maybe Jesus was just saying that to placate his killers and stall for the perfect time to be killed that he might resemble that Messiah of the Scriptures more aptly and earn his name for eternity.
Bawer knows this is true because he likes the ideas and he find them thoroughly comforting and fitting for him.
I find them that way on one level, too. But I know they are true because they are accurately recorded by the Apostles, repeated elsewhere and affirmed by James as the Royal Law in his letter. Not because they are the focus of a church canon that edifies me.
(For a discussion of how the apostles agree but each puts a light of understanding on a different emphasis see http://www.jamesbrotherofjesus.com/
I read Scripture as true and when it seems to contradict I ask God to explain things to me in a way I can understand and I also understand that sometimes, not often, but sometimes, I will find something I can't understand. I could not understand the idea of the OT slaughter of other tribes until I realized they were invaded by genetic abnormality. I could, ot understand God's taking the life of some of his believers until I realized they were washed in sin as we all are and God could as easily have taken us all long ago, wiped the slate clean except that the sacrifice of his Son reached back and protected us all and that examples had to be made sometimes that we could learn. The Holy Spirit did no operate the same then as now because Jesus actual death had not happened, but it operated enough to sort the lines of man and to touch those who would listen and so some who would not listen were also made examples. They were spiritually defective and the genetics of those others were a reflection of that defect.
Because I believe the word, I believe we are meant to love and carry His love in us empowered by the Spirit to live it out.
So I arrive at the most basic difference between Bawer and myself: he made a personal choice to follow God and goes forward on his own power. I have made a personal choice to follow God and go forward on His power. I truly hope i am wrong in this and that we both are under his power, both saved by grace.
You see, God is concerned about both this life AND the next one. His eternal focus is beyond us to a degree. He doesn't always correct errors of scientific ignorance made by humans, e.g. Joshua calling for the stopping of the sun in it's course across then sky because he is more concerned with the faith in Him that Joshua shows by asking for that. (Bawer: p. 88) (I can believe He did that because He did create the universe and we humans always seem so intent on the notion that the universe has rules that must be obeyed that we forget it, like us, has a Master who makes the real rules. We have yet to work out a math to cover all the contingencies of astronomy and are hoping dark matter will explain some of those oddities. Our understanding is just starting.) But as we saw in the case of Balaam, he will even use a donkey to correct spiritual errors. His wrath in the OT was to get people to realize who He is and to turn to Him before they were lost forever like the ones who were examples.
I mentioned the sniper attacks because people wonder why God did not stop them. Bawer wonders how the OT God could seem so savage and really sees it as an incongruity not to be understood. My answer is that God explains himself very clearly in Revelation as he issues some truly devastating harm on the people and the planet during the Tribulation time. Please see clearly what he is saying so often after each event of destruction from heaven: "And still they will not repent."
With Bawer, I would call for that common creed sung above. The creed of Nicea, yes, but the deeper creed even one who doesn't see perfection in Scripture can grasp and admire: Love God with all your being, love your neighbor as yourself, in all things do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Oh, the others matter, things like loving your enemy and studying the Word and prayer as often as possible. But because the Word is true that love comes only with the fullness of Christ and the definition of actual love only from the Spirit within us after salvation no matter what creed we claim or the focus of it, We live for Christ. May we repent our own failings in that.
As for me, I hope to carry on til next time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o5WhC-n4pU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv3csvd4pr0
As I write this, reports of mass murder in Las Vegas hold the air waves hostage. We hear the sniper killer's name over and over. The press has questioned his brother and friends asking them for some idea, if they saw this coming. It is among the stupidest questions always asked. The press seems to think everyone is a profiler and seems aimed at adding to the guilt of the family. They are already asking themselves that question. It doesn't need to be their public face: "Hi, I didn't see that my brother as a killer. What do you do for a living?"
Meanwhile, the press trots out experts who know nothing yet of the person doing the killing and they get to make expert guesses. What was the stressor? What was the motive? Tom Brokaw says he owns lots of guns but they aren't military type weapons and we need to have a discussion free of emotion about the use of those weapons. No offense to Tom, but if that were possible we would have "solved" the problem long ago.
Whatever the killer's name or motive, whatever the names of those other killers, mass murderers over the decades with some sort of vendetta or religious crusade and their troubles and dreams or nightmares, the simple truth that never gets touched on, the reason behind all of it is our sin. That primal sin in Eden. The cumulative effect of sin after sin after sin in a world already fallen and dying, one we all seem intent on killing with our various discards and wastes. One we do our best to deny killing even as we do our best to find some reason beyond the terrors of life itself for the insane person with the weapon in the Las Vegas motel, someone who arrived with an arsenal he easily slipped past whatever passed as security there and intended to kill or be killed and got both.
The truth is humanity has a killer instinct and the situation with guns in the USA in particular is designed to feed that urge. If it continues that way, it doesn't take a prophet to predict another shooting some time soon. Nor does it take a prophet to suggest we will do little to stop the flow of altered and unaltered military weapons, their collection and resale. If you ask a "gun guy" why he has to have the weapons it most often comes out: "To keep the government from taking my weapons." The idea that the government is coming for him, for HIM. Don't suggest that the government probably wouldn't be coming for him if he didn't have military weapons to begin with. Nor does it help that the "not gun guys" want to take the weapons and want the government to do it. Thus feeding the seizure fears. It is also pointless to mention basic rights and the idea of just how many of those rights we all would have to give up for the successful seizure of those weapons.
In our Fallen Flesh, we seek our own way, wrote a constitution guaranteeing our rights in an era 200 years ago then persist in demanding rights not specifically included or denying rights that are there, calling valid press "fake" and demanding the firing of those who knell during pre game National Anthems to show disapproval of what they perceive as ingrained institutional bigotry and assassination agenda. And run the ideas by courts that get "loaded" with judges who are seen to support one side or the other.
What does this have to do with futurism?
Some people think that prophecies are the same as bills of rights. written thousands of years ago and not really applicable today. They were meant for the time of the prophesy, but if you apply them today, they don't fit. Some even believe this:
"Christians have long understood prophecy to be a special quality of spirituality and courage; theologians speak of the prophetic obedience of Saint Francis, who knew that the institutional church was misguided in some ways, and who on occasion respectfully defied it authority out of a desire to lead it closer to the truth. The vulgar notion of a prophet as merely a fortune-teller or seer of the kind featured nowadays in supermarket tabloids has nothing to do with the traditional Christian concept of prophesy and everything to do with the contemporary American infatuation with astrology, magic tricks, psychic readings and the like. Yes, the Old Testament prophets occasionally predicted that certain events-whether messianic or cataclysmic-would occur at some time in the future and the Gospel writers adjusted elements of the story of Jesus so that they would seem to be fulfillments of some of those predictions. Yet this kind of prognostication was always only a minor element of the prophetic role and no one ever interpreted those prophesies in the extremely specific way that Lindsey does. (Hal Lindsey in The Late Great Planet Earth. W) Being a prophet in\biblical times was not about forecasting future events but about being close to God and helping God's people to feel closer to Him. In the true biblical sense,the prophets of the twentieth-century Christian world are not people like Jeane Dixon of National Enquirer fame but people like Catholic Worker founder Dorthy Day and South African archbishop Desmond Tutu- people who, often in tension with established church authority, have spoken bravely and inspiringly of. what it means and doesn't mean to be a Christian and have shown by their example what posture Christians should take toward the established order."
Books worth of discussion concerning End Times belief exist and I usually assume my readers have seen many of the arguments and have sorted through them to arrive a some level agreement with me on futurists views. But something got to me as I was researching other things and reading books I stumbled on along the way. That something was the above, indeed, the entire text of Bruce Bawer's Stealing Jesus: how fundamentalism betrays Christianity. The quote comes from pages 146-7 of that paperback text published in 1997.
To begin, let me say those few sentences testify to everything I agree and disagree with in the liberal ideals of religious America.
Modern prophets for me include Martin Luther King and Chuck Smith. Chuck Swindoll and Billy Graham. Corrie Ten Boom and Brennan Manning. John Piper and Watchman Nee. Philip Yancey and John MacArthur. These are people who speak God's truth filtered by the experience and study God has given them, guided by the Holy Spirit to bring people closer to God. Some like Billy Graham are gifted in evangelism. In bringing people to God in the beginning of their rebirth. Like King, gifted in social activism. In letting people see the power of a knee down against injustice, of arms linked against police with trained killer dogs and weapons. Like Manning and Yancey, in personal activism that sometimes expanded into social activism. Gifted to show the struggles of the common man in our attempts to understand this Christ, the Savior so unlike an human being, yet composed of all our flesh. Like Nee and Corrie Ten Boom, in perseverance against repression, in rising above the tides of evil. Like MacArthur and Piper, gifted in teaching. In letting us see what we can be by giving ourselves to the study and immersion in the Word. Like Swindoll, gifted in teaching and as a speaker. I think I once suggested as a new Christian listening to him I came to think of God as having that slight Texas twang in his voice. Like Chuck Smith, gifted in the founding of a new "denomination" which is loathe to call itself such. Gifted to teach the Bible from beginning to end. None of them would be called perfect or untouched by controversy. Some of them would laugh at me for mentioning them in the presence of some of the others.
They are prophets in the modern sense in that they interpret the Word of God in new ways that reach others and increase their connection with the Lord through the power of the Spirit leading them. From the net dictionary:
a person chosen to speak for God and to guide the people of Israel: Moses was the greatest of Old Testament prophets. (often initial capital letter) one of the Major or Minor Prophets
"Guide the people of God in Christ" might well be added to that.
So Bawer and I are on common ground except some of those people, maybe all of them, would not meet his idea of the way the leading needs to be done. Because many are literalists. i.e., they believe the Bible to be literally true. The prophets and apostles in the Bible clearly believed in the literal truth of Scripture. And that defines our separation.
(Note: as I do this I realize the somewhat silly nature of quoting Scripture as evidence to someone who does not accept it's inerrancy. But I do it anyway.)
(Note: as I do this I realize the somewhat silly nature of quoting Scripture as evidence to someone who does not accept it's inerrancy. But I do it anyway.)
But let's discuss the prophesies a bit. Go to:
There are many Old Testament prophecies about Jesus Christ. Some interpreters place the number of Messianic prophecies in the hundreds. The following are those that are considered the clearest and most important.
Regarding Jesus’ birth—Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
Isaiah 9:6: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”
Concerning Jesus' ministry and death—
Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Psalm 22:16-18: “Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”
Likely the clearest prophecy about Jesus is the entire 53rd chapter of Isaiah.
Isaiah 53:3-7 is especially unmistakable: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”
The “seventy sevens” prophecy in Daniel chapter 9 predicted the precise date that Jesus, the Messiah, would be “cut off.”
For reference:
Da 9:1 In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldaeans;
2 In the first year of his rule, I, Daniel, saw clearly from the books the number of years given by the word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah, in which the making waste of Jerusalem was to be complete, that is, seventy years.
3 And turning my face to the Lord God, I gave myself up to prayer, requesting his grace, going without food, in haircloth and dust.
4 And I made prayer to the Lord my God, putting our sins before him, and said, O Lord, the great God, greatly to be feared. keeping your agreement and mercy with those who have love for you and do your orders;
5 We are sinners, acting wrongly and doing evil; we have gone against you, turning away from your orders and from your laws:
6 We have not given ear to your servants the prophets, who said words in your name to our kings and our rulers and our fathers and all the people of the land.
7 O Lord, righteousness is yours, but shame is on us, even to this day; and on the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, and on all Israel, those who are near and those who are far off, in all the countries where you have sent them because of the sin which they have done against you.
8 O Lord, shame is on us, on our kings and our rulers and our fathers, because of our sin against you.
9 With the Lord our God are mercies and forgiveness, for we have gone against him;
10 And have not given ear to the voice of the Lord our God to go in the way of his laws which he put before us by the mouth of his servants the prophets.
11 And all Israel have been sinners against your law, turning away so as not to give ear to your voice: and the curse has been let loose on us, and the oath recorded in the law of Moses, the servant of God, for we have done evil against him.
12 And he has given effect to his words which he said against us and against those who were our judges, by sending a great evil on us: for under all heaven there has not been done what has been done to Jerusalem.
13 As it was recorded in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us: but we have made no prayer for grace from the Lord our God that we might be turned from our evil doings and come to true wisdom.
14 So the Lord has been watching over this evil and has made it come on us: for the Lord our God is upright in all his acts which he has done, and we have not given ear to his voice.
15 And now, O Lord our God, who took your people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand and made a great name for yourself even to this day; we are sinners, we have done evil.
16 O Lord, because of your righteousness, let your wrath and your passion be turned away from your town Jerusalem, your holy mountain: because, through our sins and the evil-doing of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a cause of shame to all who are round about us.
17 And now, give ear, O our God, to the prayer of your servant and to his request for grace, and let your face be shining on your holy place which is made waste, because of your servants, O Lord.
18 O my God, let your ear be turned and give hearing; let your eyes be open and see how we have been made waste and the town which is named by your name: for we are not offering our prayers before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercies.
19 O Lord, give ear; O Lord, have forgiveness; O Lord, take note and do; let there be no more waiting; for the honour of your name, O my God, because your town and your people are named by your name.
20 And while I was still saying these words in prayer, and putting my sins and the sins of my people Israel before the Lord, and requesting grace from the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God;
21 Even while I was still in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at first when my weariness was great, put his hand on me about the time of the evening offering.
22 And teaching me and talking to me he said, O Daniel, I have come now to give you wisdom.
23 At the first word of your prayer a word went out, and I have come to give you knowledge; for you are a man dearly loved: so give thought to the word and let the vision be clear to you.
24 Seventy weeks have been fixed for your people and your holy town, to let wrongdoing be complete and sin come to its full limit, and for the clearing away of evil-doing and the coming in of eternal righteousness: so that the vision and the word of the prophet may be stamped as true, and to put the holy oil on a most holy place.
25 Have then the certain knowledge that from the going out of the word for the building again of Jerusalem till the coming of a prince, on whom the holy oil has been put, will be seven weeks: in sixty-two weeks its building will be complete, with square and earthwork.
26 And at the end of the times, even after the sixty-two weeks, one on whom the holy oil has been put will be cut off and have no...;and the town and the holy place will be made waste together with a prince; and the end will come with an overflowing of waters, and even to the end there will be war; the making waste which has been fixed.
27 And a strong order will be sent out against the great number for one week; and so for half of the week the offering and the meal offering will come to an end; and in its place will be an unclean thing causing fear; till the destruction which has been fixed is let loose on him who has made waste.
(BBE)
Isaiah 50:6 accurately describes the beating that Jesus endured.
Isa 50:1 This is the word of the Lord: Where is the statement which I gave your mother when I put her away? or to which of my creditors have I given you for money? It was for your sins that you were given into the hands of others, and for your evil-doing was your mother put away.
2 Why, then, when I came, was there no man? and no one to give answer to my voice? has my hand become feeble, so that it is unable to take up your cause? or have I no power to make you free? See, at my word the sea becomes dry, I make the rivers a waste land: their fish are dead for need of water, and make an evil smell.
3 By me the heavens are clothed with black, and I make haircloth their robe.
4 The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are experienced, so that I may be able to give the word a special sense for the feeble: every morning my ear is open to his teaching, like those who are experienced:
5 And I have not put myself against him, or let my heart be turned back from him.
6 I was offering my back to those who gave me blows, and my face to those who were pulling out my hair: I did not keep my face covered from marks of shame.
7 For the Lord God is my helper; I will not be put to shame: so I have made my face like a rock, and I am certain that he will give me my right.
8 He who takes up my cause is near; who will go to law with me? let us come together before the judge: who is against me? let him come near to me.
9 See, the Lord God is my helper; who will give a decision against me? truly, all of them will become old like a robe; they will be food for the worm.
10 Who among you has the fear of the Lord, giving ear to the voice of his servant who has been walking in the dark and has no light? Let him put his faith in the name of the Lord, looking to his God for support.
11 See, all you who make a fire, arming yourselves with burning branches: go in the flame of your fire, and among the branches you have put a light to. This will you have from my hand, you will make your bed in sorrow.
(BBE)
Zechariah 12:10 predicts the “piercing” of the Messiah, which occurred after Jesus died on the cross.
Zec 12:1 The word of the Lord about Israel. The Lord by whom the heavens are stretched out and the bases of the earth put in place, and the spirit of man formed inside him, has said:
2 See, I will make Jerusalem a cup of shaking fear to all the peoples round about, when Jerusalem is shut in.
3 And it will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a stone of great weight for all the peoples; all those who take it up will be badly wounded; and all the nations of the earth will come together against it.
4 In that day, says the Lord, I will put fear into every horse and make every horseman go off his head: and my eyes will be open on the people of Judah, and I will make every horse of the peoples blind.
5 And the families of Judah will say in their hearts, The people of Jerusalem have their strength in the Lord of armies, their God.
6 In that day I will make the families of Judah like a pot with fire in it among trees, and like a flaming stick among cut grain; they will send destruction on all the peoples round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem will be living again in the place which is hers, that is, in Jerusalem.
7 And the Lord will give salvation to the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the family of David and the glory of the people of Jerusalem may not be greater than that of Judah.
8 In that day the Lord will be a cover over the people of Jerusalem; and he who is feeble among them in that day will be as strong as David, and the family of David will be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.
9 And it will come about on that day that I will take in hand the destruction of all the nations who come against Jerusalem.
10 And I will send down on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of prayer; and their eyes will be turned to the one who was wounded by their hands: and they will be weeping for him as for an only son, and their grief for him will be bitter, like the grief of one sorrowing for his oldest son.
11 In that day there will be a great weeping in Jerusalem, like the weeping of Hadad-rimmon in the valley of Megiddon.
12 And the land will give itself to weeping, every family separately; the family of David by themselves, and their wives by themselves; the family of Nathan by themselves, and their wives by themselves;
13 The family of Levi by themselves, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by themselves, and their wives by themselves;
14 And all the other families by themselves, and their wives by themselves.
(BBE)
Many more examples could be provided, but these will suffice.
The Old Testament most definitely prophesies the coming of Jesus as the Messiah.
That last also prophesies the end times Armageddon. If we believe the one telling of Him, then that confirms the other.
This link listed 353 prophesies fulfilled by Christ's birth, life. death and resurrection.
After Christ's resurrection, preachers of the New Testament church began to declare officially that Jesus was the Messiah by divine appointment:
"Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." (Acts 2:36, ESV)
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 1:1-4, ESV)
STATISTICAL IMPROBABILITY
Some Bible scholars suggest there are more than 300 prophetic Scriptures completed in the life of Jesus. Circumstances such as his birthplace, lineage, and method of execution were beyond his control and could not have been accidentally or deliberately fulfilled.
In the book Science Speaks, Peter Stoner and Robert Newman discuss the statistical improbability of one man, whether accidentally or deliberately, fulfilling just eight of the prophecies Jesus fulfilled.
The chance of this happening, they say, is 1 in 1017 power. Stoner gives an illustration that helps visualize the magnitude of such odds:
Suppose that we take 1017 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote using their own wisdom.
The mathematical improbability of 300, or 44, or even just eight fulfilled prophesies of Jesus stands as evidence to his messiahship.
PROPHECIES OF JESUS CHRIST
Although this list is not exhaustive, you'll find 44 messianic predictions clearly fulfilled in Jesus Christ, along with supporting references from the Old Testament and fulfillment in the New Testament.
44 Messianic Prophecies of Jesus
Prophecies of Jesus Old Testament
Scripture New Testament
Fulfillment
1 Messiah would be born of a woman. Genesis 3:15 Matthew 1:20
Galatians 4:4
2 Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Micah 5:2 Matthew 2:1
Luke 2:4-6
3 Messiah would be born of a virgin. Isaiah 7:14 Matthew 1:22-23
Luke 1:26-31
4 Messiah would come from the line of Abraham. Genesis 12:3
Genesis 22:18 Matthew 1:1
Romans 9:5
5 Messiah would be a descendant of Isaac. Genesis 17:19
Genesis 21:12 Luke 3:34
6 Messiah would be a descendant of Jacob. Numbers 24:17 Matthew 1:2
7 Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah. Genesis 49:10 Luke 3:33
Hebrews 7:14
8 Messiah would be heir to King David's throne. 2 Samuel 7:12-13
Isaiah 9:7 Luke 1:32-33
Romans 1:3
9 Messiah's throne will be anointed and eternal. Psalm 45:6-7
Daniel 2:44 Luke 1:33
Hebrews 1:8-12
10 Messiah would be called Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14 Matthew 1:23
11 Messiah would spend a season in Egypt. Hosea 11:1 Matthew 2:14-15
12 A massacre of children would happen at Messiah's birthplace. Jeremiah 31:15 Matthew 2:16-18
13 A messenger would prepare the way for Messiah Isaiah 40:3-5 Luke 3:3-6
14 Messiah would be rejected by his own people. Psalm 69:8
Isaiah 53:3 John 1:11
John 7:5
15 Messiah would be a prophet. Deuteronomy 18:15 Acts 3:20-22
16 Messiah would be preceded by Elijah. Malachi 4:5-6 Matthew 11:13-14
17 Messiah would be declared the Son of God. Psalm 2:7 Matthew 3:16-17
18 Messiah would be called a Nazarene. Isaiah 11:1 Matthew 2:23
19 Messiah would bring light to Galilee. Isaiah 9:1-2 Matthew 4:13-16
20 Messiah would speak in parables. Psalm 78:2-4
Isaiah 6:9-10 Matthew 13:10-15, 34-35
21 Messiah would be sent to heal the brokenhearted. Isaiah 61:1-2 Luke 4:18-19
22 Messiah would be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Psalm 110:4 Hebrews 5:5-6
23 Messiah would be called King. Psalm 2:6
Zechariah 9:9 Matthew 27:37
Mark 11:7-11
24 Messiah would be praised by little children. Psalm 8:2 Matthew 21:16
25 Messiah would be betrayed. Psalm 41:9
Zechariah 11:12-13 Luke 22:47-48
Matthew 26:14-16
26 Messiah's price money would be used to buy a potter's field. Zechariah 11:12-13 Matthew 27:9-10
27 Messiah would be falsely accused. Psalm 35:11 Mark 14:57-58
28 Messiah would be silent before his accusers. Isaiah 53:7 Mark 15:4-5
29 Messiah would be spat upon and struck. Isaiah 50:6 Matthew 26:67
30 Messiah would be hated without cause. Psalm 35:19
Psalm 69:4 John 15:24-25
31 Messiah would be crucified with criminals. Isaiah 53:12 Matthew 27:38
Mark 15:27-28
32 Messiah would be given vinegar to drink. Psalm 69:21 Matthew 27:34
John 19:28-30
33 Messiah's hands and feet would be pierced. Psalm 22:16
Zechariah 12:10 John 20:25-27
34 Messiah would be mocked and ridiculed. Psalm 22:7-8 Luke 23:35
35 Soldiers would gamble for Messiah's garments. Psalm 22:18 Luke 23:34
Matthew 27:35-36
36 Messiah's bones would not be broken. Exodus 12:46
Psalm 34:20 John 19:33-36
37 Messiah would be forsaken by God. Psalm 22:1 Matthew 27:46
38 Messiah would pray for his enemies. Psalm 109:4 Luke 23:34
39 Soldiers would pierce Messiah's side. Zechariah 12:10 John 19:34
40 Messiah would be buried with the rich. Isaiah 53:9 Matthew 27:57-60
41 Messiah would resurrect from the dead. Psalm 16:10
Psalm 49:15 Matthew 28:2-7
Acts 2:22-32
42 Messiah would ascend to heaven. Psalm 24:7-10 Mark 16:19
Luke 24:51
43 Messiah would be seated at God's right hand. Psalm 68:18
Psalm 110:1 Mark 16:19
Matthew 22:44
44 Messiah would be a sacrifice for sin. Isaiah 53:5-12 Romans 5:6-8
At this point, we now need to look again at that blue section of Mr. Bawer's text to understand our differences:
Yes, the Old Testament prophets occasionally predicted that certain events-whether messianic or cataclysmic-would occur at some time in the future and the Gospel writers adjusted elements of the story of Jesus so that they would seem to be fulfillments of some of those predictions.
The literalist literally falls in a swoon hearing such talk. She realizes that suggesting that essentially guts the whole notion of the story of Christ being true. If the Apostles "adjusted elements" of the story, which elements? What else did they adjust? Did he really die? Did he really come back from the dead? Did he even live at all? Can the reader select which elements to believe? Bawer suggests essentially that we can ignore the idea of facts and still accept the concepts of love and life that Jesus offered.
Bawer loves the ideas and the ideals of Jesus. Bawer seems to love the revolutionary, the man against tradition, the one correcting the church even as Bawer expresses his love of Day and Tutu for being against traditions of the Church. He loves the guy who partied with sinners. He likes the man talking to the woman at the well. He would adore the guy throwing the moneychangers out.
I know. I do, too. My rebellious streak loves Him. Anyone who misuses God's goods for their own gain fails in my eyes. But I have to recall that I could as easily fail given the opportunity of a massive national ministry and the money and the temptations the money brings with it.
Yet Bawer's basic attack here and elsewhere in his book is that this view of the prophets as predicting the future is against church tradition! Read again that opening:
"Christians have long understood prophecy to be a special quality of spirituality and courage; theologians speak of the prophetic obedience of Saint Francis, who knew that the institutional church was misguided in some ways, and who on occasion respectfully defied it authority out of a desire to lead it closer to the truth.
Clearly, tradition that matches his prejudice is acceptable. One could easily view the literalist believers as kicking over the tables of generalists and cleansing the temple of misguided teaching.
Bawer spends a good deal of time in his book discussing the idea that claiming a tradition of literalism for the church is false, that it is a new-fangled "Merican" (spoken with a deep South drawl) notion. And calling it "legalistic." (Several chapters are devoted to it and he does a marvelous though slanted view on the history of literalism, even pointing out it's existence in earlier church eras.) He uses that word is used to define literalism. I can see his point. Many such people are legalistic and caustic and part of what has become the stereotype.
But legalism and literalism are not actually the same.
The Literalist believes the Word of God to be literally true except when obvious allusion is employed. He believes the common creed we earlier discussed about the identity of Christ, one established long ago in Nicea. Indeed, making that a founding tradition long before modernist thinking or the early corrupt Catholic Church variations on the Word.
And the Word of God that offers common ground for both Bruce Bawer and I is found among other places in the 12th chapter of Mark where Jesus is confronted by various sects of the ruling Jewish classes. Bawer:
"Finally, one of the scribes asks an apparently sincere question: "What is the first of all the commandments?"
"Jesus replies by quoting form the fifth book of Moses in the Hebrew Scriptures. "The first is, "Hear, Oh Israel: the Lord our God is one lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You must love your neighbor as yourself.' No other commandment is greater than these."
"These are the most treasured verses in Judaism, ' note the edition of the standard biblical commentary. These verses are also at the heart of any true Christianity."
Now Bruce goes on to elaborate on this view.
"'Righteousness,' the editors of the commentary point out, 'is not to be understood as strict obedience to a complex code of laws and customs. The one commandment that is central is the principle of love." Jesus' u equivocal elevation of these verses above all other commandments demands we test all scripture, all dogma, and even everything that Jesus is reported to have said and done against this commandment, which many Christians call the Great Commandment, and which Anglicans call the Summary of the Law-for mystery of mysteries, the law itself is summed up in a law that not only allows but compels violation of lesser laws. 'When there is wholehearted love for the All, for the universal good we might say,' writes Huston Smith, 'Then the will wants that good and needs no rules.'"
pages 50-51
To Bawer: "Sir, you are still obeying a commandment. It is in fact the greatest but you need to realize, Jesus added ways to expand on that commandment. (I list them in at yourtruelifnow,com.) Jesus himself says it does not abrogate the Law.
New International Version
Matthew 5:18
For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
We would likely have a long argument about what was meant by "it is finished" from the cross, but clearly not everything including the Resurrection is accomplished. Those who do not accept Him still face the judgement of the Law. but if you ignore those parts of salvation and think just living right does "the trick" then, Bawer is following a shadow of Jesus as much as so many of my literalist brothers who ignore the love part.
My follow up question is this: if we can't trust the Word to be literally true, how can we trust THIS PARTICULAR word? Maybe Jesus was just saying that to placate his killers and stall for the perfect time to be killed that he might resemble that Messiah of the Scriptures more aptly and earn his name for eternity.
Bawer knows this is true because he likes the ideas and he find them thoroughly comforting and fitting for him.
I find them that way on one level, too. But I know they are true because they are accurately recorded by the Apostles, repeated elsewhere and affirmed by James as the Royal Law in his letter. Not because they are the focus of a church canon that edifies me.
(For a discussion of how the apostles agree but each puts a light of understanding on a different emphasis see http://www.jamesbrotherofjesus.com/
I read Scripture as true and when it seems to contradict I ask God to explain things to me in a way I can understand and I also understand that sometimes, not often, but sometimes, I will find something I can't understand. I could not understand the idea of the OT slaughter of other tribes until I realized they were invaded by genetic abnormality. I could, ot understand God's taking the life of some of his believers until I realized they were washed in sin as we all are and God could as easily have taken us all long ago, wiped the slate clean except that the sacrifice of his Son reached back and protected us all and that examples had to be made sometimes that we could learn. The Holy Spirit did no operate the same then as now because Jesus actual death had not happened, but it operated enough to sort the lines of man and to touch those who would listen and so some who would not listen were also made examples. They were spiritually defective and the genetics of those others were a reflection of that defect.
Because I believe the word, I believe we are meant to love and carry His love in us empowered by the Spirit to live it out.
So I arrive at the most basic difference between Bawer and myself: he made a personal choice to follow God and goes forward on his own power. I have made a personal choice to follow God and go forward on His power. I truly hope i am wrong in this and that we both are under his power, both saved by grace.
You see, God is concerned about both this life AND the next one. His eternal focus is beyond us to a degree. He doesn't always correct errors of scientific ignorance made by humans, e.g. Joshua calling for the stopping of the sun in it's course across then sky because he is more concerned with the faith in Him that Joshua shows by asking for that. (Bawer: p. 88) (I can believe He did that because He did create the universe and we humans always seem so intent on the notion that the universe has rules that must be obeyed that we forget it, like us, has a Master who makes the real rules. We have yet to work out a math to cover all the contingencies of astronomy and are hoping dark matter will explain some of those oddities. Our understanding is just starting.) But as we saw in the case of Balaam, he will even use a donkey to correct spiritual errors. His wrath in the OT was to get people to realize who He is and to turn to Him before they were lost forever like the ones who were examples.
I mentioned the sniper attacks because people wonder why God did not stop them. Bawer wonders how the OT God could seem so savage and really sees it as an incongruity not to be understood. My answer is that God explains himself very clearly in Revelation as he issues some truly devastating harm on the people and the planet during the Tribulation time. Please see clearly what he is saying so often after each event of destruction from heaven: "And still they will not repent."
With Bawer, I would call for that common creed sung above. The creed of Nicea, yes, but the deeper creed even one who doesn't see perfection in Scripture can grasp and admire: Love God with all your being, love your neighbor as yourself, in all things do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Oh, the others matter, things like loving your enemy and studying the Word and prayer as often as possible. But because the Word is true that love comes only with the fullness of Christ and the definition of actual love only from the Spirit within us after salvation no matter what creed we claim or the focus of it, We live for Christ. May we repent our own failings in that.
As for me, I hope to carry on til next time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o5WhC-n4pU
