Journey To The ResurrectionSample

Centuries before Easter, God began revealing the plan His Son would fulfill in Jerusalem. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus repeatedly appealed to Old Testament predictions regarding Himself. 

As His ministry began, He read a Messianic prediction from Isaiah 61, then said to the waiting crowd, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:21). 

At the Last Supper, He warned His disciples, "For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfillment" (Luke 22:37). 

On Easter Sunday night, Jesus said to the two disciples traveling to Emmaus, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" Then, to explain what He meant, "beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:25–27).

The writers of the New Testament made the same case. Repeatedly, they claimed that Jesus fulfilled the predictions of the prophets concerning the Messiah. 

Peter told Cornelius, "All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name" (Acts 10:43). Paul described his message as "the gospel [God] promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures" (Romans 1:2).

Clearly, if Jesus did not fulfill Old Testament predictions regarding the Messiah, both He and His first followers were deceivers of the worst sort. Their movement depended entirely on the claim that He was the promised Messiah of God. 

More than three hundred times, the Old Testament makes claims or predictions regarding the coming Messiah. Jesus fulfilled everyone of these prophecies. 

In fact, most scholars date Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, at around 400 BC. If my life and work were to fulfill prophecies made nearly two centuries before the founding of the United States, you'd be amazed, and rightly so. 

As you worship Jesus in this Lenten season, be amazed.

Now, compare these predictions and fulfillments made about Jesus during Holy Week: Zechariah 9:9 and Luke 19:35–37; Psalm 41:9 and Matthew 10:4; Zechariah 11:12 and Matthew 26:15; Zechariah 11:13 and Matthew 27, 5, 7; Zechariah 13:7 and Psalm 38:11 and Mark 14:50; Psalm 35:11 and Matthew 26:59–60; Isaiah 53:7 and Matthew 27:12; Isaiah 50:6 and Matthew 26:67; Psalm 22:7 and. Matthew 27:29; Psalm 22:16 and Luke 23:33; Isaiah 53:12 and Matthew 27:29; Isaiah 53:12b and Luke 23:34.