____________________________________________________ THE GOSPEL OBSERVER "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations...teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19,20). ____________________________________________________ August 8, 1993 ____________________________________________________ Is Jesus The Messiah? by Tom Edwards How can one really know that the Jesus we read of in the Scriptures is the Messiah who was to come? To many of our Jewish friends, Jesus is not; and perhaps there are many others who have had their doubts. Let us, therefore, consider some truths that will help us build our faith in Jesus Christ as truly being the Son of God, the Savior of the World, and the Messiah who was to come. First of all, if Jesus were not the promised Messiah then the New Testament is false because it shows that He is. But if this be true, that the New Testament is false, where can one turn to learn of the Christ and how to be saved by God? Would the Lord leave the world without access to this knowledge--year after year, decade after decade, and century after century? Isn't it easier to believe that God would make His revelation known to man rather than that He would not? God's inspired word shows of the importance of itself: Man acquires faith through the word of the Lord (Rom. 10:17), and salvation comes through the power of the gospel (Rom. 1:16). We need to, therefore, realize what a vital factor it is in man's reconciliation to--and redemption in--God. Witnesses of Jesus: The Scriptures Jesus spoke about various witnesses that He had in John 5. As we have already considered in the above, the written word of God is one of those witnesses (Jn. 5:39). One cannot have true saving faith in the Lord without the Scriptures. Jesus testified toward the accuracy of the Old Testament when He said that not even ``the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished'' (Matt. 5:18). Since this was said hundreds of years after the Old Testament had been completed--and nothing was to be changed in it--it indicates that the Old Testament contained no errors. The same God who brought about an infallible Old Testament also provided mankind with the inerrant New Testament as well. We are, therefore, warned not to pervert it whether by adding to it or subtracting from it (Gal. 1:6-9; 2 Jn. 9). It is good for one to realize that the Bible was not written all at one time. Rather, it is a collection of various writings. When the book of Malachi was finished, which completed the cannon of the Old Testament, it was about 450 years before the birth of Jesus--and, consequently, a few hundred years before the beginning of the New Testament. Some have said that ``The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.'' In many ways we can see how this is so. For example, various Old Testament prophecies cannot be fully understood without their interpretations found in the New Testament, and many of these prophecies do not find their fulfillment until either the time of Jesus or the New Testament era. The Old Testament, therefore, is a storehouse of prophecies--more than 300--that refer to Jesus Christ, the coming Messiah. Unlike many of the generalizations that various so-called clairvoyants often make today, Bible prophecy was frequently specific. For instance, the prophet Micah shows that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2), which was exactly where Jesus was born (Luke 2:1-20). Isaiah, who prophesied 700 years before Christ came into this world, spoke of Jesus as being ``pierced through for our transgressions'' (Isa. 53:5). And similarly, David, who wrote about 1,000 years before the time of Christ's incarnation, specified this piercing by showing that it would be done in the Lord's hands and feet (Psa. 22:16), which graphically depicts the manner of Jesus' execution. The real amazement in David's description is that the mode of capital punishment during his time was not crucifixion--it was stoning! Crucifixion was not used until much later in Jewish history when the Jews were subservient to the Roman Empire. It has been said that even more excruciating than having the weight of one's body pull against the brutal spikes that have been unmercifully driven through the victim's hands and feet is the agonizingly intense thirst that one who is undergoing crucifixion experiences. This, also, David pointed to--almost 3,000 years ago--when he said in the same context that foretells the Lord's crucifixion, ``My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws'' (Psa. 22:15). Also mentioned in Psalm 22 is the dividing of Christ's garments and the gambling for his clothing by the casting of lots (v. 18), which was fulfilled by the Roman soldiers near the foot of the cross of Jesus (John 19:23,24). Though the soldiers could divide the Lord's outer garment into four equal parts and thus be distributed to each of them, they had decided to gamble for the tunic because it was seamless and would have been ruined, had they attempted to divide it among them. Another specific prophecy pertains to the betrayal money. It was not to be 29, 31, 43, or any other number but ONLY 30 pieces of silver which the Lord would be betrayed for (Zech. 11:12,13); and which is the exact amount that Judas had agreed upon with the chief priests in order to bring Jesus to them (Matt. 26:14-16). These--and various other Old Testament prophecies--are the identifying marks that uniquely distinguish whom the Messiah would be, just as your identification cards, such as your driver's license, would solely pertain to you. If you, therefore, matched up to the various descriptions and other information on a particular driver's license that I had found, as to your height, color of hair, color of eyes, sex, where you live, social security number, etc., who else could the card be pertaining to but you?! It would obviously be yours because you--out of all the people in the world--are the only one who matches up with it completely. There are at least 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that are referring to Jesus Himself. Throughout the history of the world, there has never been anyone else who could have been the fulfiller of all these prophetic declarations than Jesus! These prophecies are so uniquely designed to apply to only Christ that the Christian Victory Publishing Company of Denver, Colorado, was once offering a $1,000 reward to anyone who could find a person--either deceased or still living, other than Jesus--who fulfilled just half the prophecies in a book by Fred John Meldau, entitled The Messiah in Both Testaments. This book dealt with only a portion of the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus--and not the 300 and some. How many were able to receive this reward? Not a one; for only Christ fulfilled all of these prophecies; and, therefore, these revelations were pointing exclusively to Him. So astronomical would be the odds of Bible prophecy if they were simply fulfilled randomly. Peter Stoner once calculated the chance of just 8 of these--and he even eliminated the prophecy of Christ's virgin birth to lesson the odds--to be the equivalent of 1 in 1017; or, in other words, the odds of 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. This he then illustrated by likening it to the odds of finding one specially marked coin out of a mass of silver dollars that was so enormous that it would cover the entire state of Texas two feet deep. When he then calculated the odds of 48 prophecies coming about by mere chance, it was the equivalent of 1 in 10157. And still, 48 prophecies is less than one sixth of all the Old Testament prophecies that pertain to Christ. What this all shows is that chance or coincidence must be ruled out, and the Divine Inspiration of God's word is confirmed! It, therefore, is a message we can truly believe and obey; and it is a message that points to Jesus Christ as being the only Begotten Son of God, the only Savior of the world, and the only promised Messiah who was to come. (concluded next week) ___________________________________________ Selected Sentence Sermons Success comes in CANS; Failure comes in CAN'TS. It is better to fill a little place right than a big place wrong. Life is like a ladder, every step we take is either up or down. It is not the whistling that makes a locomotive go; it is the silent steam. ________________________________________ Tri-State CHURCH OF CHRIST 1314 Montgomery Avenue, Ashland, Kentucky 41101 Sunday: 10:00 A.M. Bible class 10:50 A.M. Worship 6:30 P.M. Worship Wednesday: 7:30 P.M. Bible study evangelist/editor: Tom Edwards (606) 325-9742 e-mail: tedwards@zoomnet.net Gospel Observer web site: http://www.zoomnet.net/~tedwards/go ________________________________________