The Gospel for LifeSample

Mathematics and the Messiah

Getting Our Toes Wet:

A question often asked by unbelievers is, “How do you know Jesus is really the Savior and the Son of God?” Their logic usually goes something like this: Christians put all of their trust in words written thousands of years ago; words that have been translated hundreds of times over. And even if they concede that the original text of the Bible hasn’t been compromised, they still push back by saying that Christians are believing the writings of a group of guys who wanted people to believe in Jesus. They ask, how do we know these men didn’t manipulate events so the narrative of the Bible fits their agenda? 

Diving in Deep:

For most of us who have trusted in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit indwelling in us, gives us faith so that we don’t require “proof” that the Bible is inerrant, that every word in it was breathed out by God, or that Jesus is the Messiah. But our gracious Lord gives it to us anyway! 

Theologian J. Barton Payne has found 574 prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus. For example, there are detailed prophecies that tell when the Messiah would be born, where He would be born, the circumstances surrounding His birth, how He would be betrayed, how He would be beaten, how He would be crucified, how He would be mocked, and how He would be buried. 

Mathematical professor, Peter Stoner, has said the odds of one man fulfilling just eight prophecies, by sheer chance, is 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. Yet, Jesus fulfilled all 574 prophecies! 

But as impossible as that may seem, try to believe that approximately forty different authors, over the course of 1,500 years, wrote the Bible without divine inspiration. To believe that mere mortals could have written a book as cohesive as the Bible, or that it could remain as consistent as it is, if the text had been altered over the years, is a much bigger ask than believing that Jesus is the promised Messiah!

Back on Dry Land:

While we may not need impossible probabilities and crazy mathematical numbers to solidify our belief that God had been preparing the world for Jesus’ coming since creation, it is an incredible encouragement and faith booster to read through the Old Testament and see Jesus in it over and over!