As Peter spoke to the crowd in the temple courts following the healing of a man crippled from birth, he made it clear that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies (see Acts 3:18,24). But could Jesus have merely fulfilled these prophecies by accident? Could it be that he’s just one of many throughout history who have coincidentally fit the prophetic fingerprint?
“Not a chance,” comes the response of Louis Lapides, a Christian convert from Judaism. “The odds are so astronomical that they rule that out. Someone did the math and estimated that the probability of just eight prophecies being fulfilled is one chance in one hundred million billion. That number is millions of times greater than the total number of people who’ve ever walked the planet!
“That same person calculated that if you took this number of silver dollars, they would cover the state of Texas to a depth of two feet. If you marked one silver dollar among them and then had a blindfolded person wander the whole state and bend down to pick up one coin, what would be the odds he’d choose the one that had been marked? The same odds that anybody in history could have fulfilled just eight of the prophecies.”
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14, ESV)
It is common today to think of Jesus only in conjunction with the New Testament. We look at Jesus as the baby in the manger as the place where the story begins and sadly miss what He fulfilled – the promises that came to pass. Jesus is mentioned and prophesied about all throughout the Old Testament. Jesus was with God before creation even began and was with God and His chosen people all throughout the Old Testament until it was time for Him to be revealed.
God sent prophetic words and promises about salvation to the prophets of the Old Testament – promises of freedom from sin and an eternal life with God. One of the most common of these scriptures is in Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
by Tim Chaffey, AiG–U.S
Another Reason to Rejoice this Season
Then the shepherds returned, glorifying God and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them. (Luke 2:20)
Millions of Christians around the world choose to celebrate the birth of Jesus during this time of year—some on December 24 or 25 and others around January 7—while some choose not to celebrate at all. Whenever a Christian decides to celebrate, or if he elects not to celebrate His birth, we can all rejoice in the fact that, by putting on humanity, the Son of God became one of us to deal with our sin by dying in our place before conquering death when He rose from the dead.
History in Advance
