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Jesus Christ
The Real Story
Who was Jesus? Few will dispute that a man named Jesus lived 2,000 years ago and that He was a great teacher who impacted the world from His time forward.
He made a claim that was breathtaking in its audacity—that He was the very Son of God. For much of His lifetime He commanded only a small following, people who believed that claim and considered Him their promised Deliverer and King. Many others later came to believe that He was the Son of God as a result of the testimony of those followers.
Yet during His time the religious authorities rejected Him as the Son of God. Many of His statements were so contrary to their teachings and traditions that they opposed Him and eventually succeeded in having Him put to death.
Likewise, the local Roman authorities also saw Him as a threat and became complicit in His execution, being the ones who actually carried it out. The religions of His day opposed the growth of His teachings and used unlawful and violent means to try to destroy the Church He founded. The government of Rome also came to vigorously persecute the followers of this Jewish teacher from Galilee.
Controversy about Jesus continues
Today Jesus remains a controversial figure. The record of Jesus’ life as recorded in the Gospel accounts has come into question in many ways. For example, the Gospel writers presented the miracles of Jesus as supernatural. Today, however, many rationalize them away as a normal function of nature misunderstood at the time, or they simply dismiss them altogether as fables.
Yet another and more modern reconstruction of the true Jesus appears in books and movies about His life. For example, most people have come to accept a popular likeness of Jesus far different from the way He really looked 2,000 years ago. These portrayals give an inaccurate picture of Christ’s humanity. Such movies as The Last Temptation of Christ and the stage play Jesus Christ Superstar , along with countless television productions, have left a lasting impression on our minds and in the process distorted, as we will see, the true historical Jesus.
Of course, one can easily point to variations in the beliefs and practices of those who’ve claimed to be Jesus’ followers down through the centuries and rightfully ask the questions, “Who is the real Jesus, anyway? And why should I want to follow Him?”
Certainly if you take His statements as recorded by His first-century disciples literally, and then you consider all that has happened since, you may well perceive that most of those who have professed to follow Jesus over the centuries actually haven’t—and the same is true today.
Yet you might conclude that this is only to be expected—that Jesus taught nice but impractical ideas, things that can’t really work in the real world. Then again, perhaps the old saying, “the trouble with Christianity is that it has never been tried,” has a lot of truth to it.
Discovering the real Jesus
What is the real story? Can the true picture of Jesus emerge after 2,000 years of differing views? Who should we believe as we try to find it?
To know the real Jesus would include the fact that what He really taught, and what He really did, is essential for eternal life. Praying to His Father, Jesus said, “ This is eternal life : to know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent ” (John 17:3, Revised English Bible, emphasis added throughout).
Did Jesus do what the records show? Was He—is He—really who He claimed to be? Can it be proved historically? Or are we left to simply accept it on blind faith?
And then perhaps the most important question: Does it really matter?
Let’s put it this way: If the story of Jesus is a myth, if the reported events of His life along with His claims and teachings are the fabrication of a small group of conspirators, then it certainly doesn’t matter. We are then left to devise the meaning of human life from our own imaginations.
But if Jesus Christ is who He says He was—the Son of God who came to earth to live as a human being, who died at the hands of fellow human beings and who was raised from the dead three days and three nights later— then that changes everything.
For this one single event—God living and dying as a man—then becomes the most amazing event in the entire history of humanity.
It puts all of us in a situation that requires our full attention—because it leaves us ultimately accountable for how we choose to respond.
Can we know the real story?
Who - and What - Was Jesus Christ?
“None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8, New Revised Standard Version).
The Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, faced a difficult situation when Jesus was brought before him. Apprehensively, he attempted to dismiss the picture that was emerging in front of him. When Pilate heard the accusation, it struck fear into his heart. “He has claimed to be the Son of God” (John 19:7, NRSV).
Pilate’s next question betrayed his fear that he was not dealing with an ordinary man. He had just been given a message from his wife, who received a warning in a dream not to have anything to do with this innocent man (Matthew 27:19). Pilate himself knew that Jesus had been delivered to him because the chief priests were jealous of and despised Him (Matthew 27:18). Yet Pilate couldn’t avoid his date with destiny.
He next asked Jesus, “Where are You from?” (John 19:9). Pilate already knew He was Galilean. But what geographical area this Jewish teacher came from was not the question. Where are you really from is what Pilate wanted to know. Jesus was silent. His claim to be the Son of God had already answered this question. But Pilate did not have the courage to deal with this answer.
Accepting the real answer would have made all the difference. The apostle Paul said that none of the rulers of this world knew who Jesus was, where He came from and His purpose for coming, “for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8).
Pilate could not face this issue. He knew what was right in this instance, but he feared losing power. He feared Caesar’s reaction if it were reported that he did not deal with someone who posed a threat to Roman control in the region (John 19:12). He feared a popular uprising if he did not agree to the Jewish leaders’ political demands. He also feared Jesus, because he was not quite sure with whom he was dealing.
Avoiding a difficult choice
In the end political expediency won out. The stage was set to both indict all mankind of guilt and make provision for their forgiveness. Pilate gave the order for Jesus to be crucified. The reality was denied, left for all to confront at a later time.
Most of us tend to ignore unpleasant realities and make choices that we think are beneficial to us. Confronted with evidence as to who Jesus really was, would you face a reality that is too difficult for you to accept? Deep down, maybe we intuitively realize it would change life as we know it. So perhaps it’s better, we reason, not to look into this matter too deeply to leave ourselves an out. That’s the route Pilate took.
But this is where we have to begin. Who, really, was Jesus of Nazareth? Where did He really come from? If we understand that, it explains everything He did and said.
Most see Jesus as a teacher, a wise man, a Jewish sage who died an unjust and horrible death and founded a great religion.
Is there more to it than that? One of the most controversial topics is the true identity of Jesus Christ—and at the same time it is perhaps the most crucial. It lies at the heart of the Christian faith. What this entails is the understanding that Jesus was not simply an extraordinary human being, but that Jesus was actually God in human flesh.
But if He was God in the flesh, how was He God? This is the part that is often neglected in many explanations—and, as a result, many have difficulty grasping how this could be.
Jesus certainly regarded Himself as much more than only a man, prophet or teacher.
Some say that Jesus made no claims to be God. Some scholars even insist that, years later, leaders of the Christian Church concocted and edited into the record the titles Jesus used, the miracles and His claims and actions that showed He believed He was God. In other words, the argument is that the record has been fabricated and the Jesus portrayed in the New Testament is a legend, a theological product of the early Church.
However, this is historically impossible for several reasons—not the least of which is that immediately after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Church grew explosively based on the conviction that He was God. There was no time for a legend to develop around exaggerated claims of who Jesus might be.
Peter immediately preached that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead and that He was indeed the Christ and Lord and equated Him with God (Acts 2:27-35). The disciples and the Church knew who Jesus was, as the powerful growth of the Church shows.
The fact of the matter, staggering though it is, is that Jesus of Nazareth was God in the flesh. This fact, which we will further explore, is what makes Christianity unique and authoritative. If Jesus was not God, then the Christian faith doesn’t differ in kind from other religions. If Jesus was not God, those in the early Christian Church would have had no basis for their beliefs—beliefs that, in the words of their enemies, “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).
Jesus, the I AM
Perhaps the boldest claim Jesus made about His identity was the statement, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). Translated into English, His statement may appear or sound confusing. But in the Aramaic or Hebrew language in which He spoke, He was making a claim that immediately led the people to try to stone Him for blasphemy.
What was going on here? Jesus was revealing His identity as the actual One whom the Jews knew as God in the Old Testament. He was saying in one breath that He existed before Abraham and that He was the same Being as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Anciently when the great God first revealed Himself to Moses in Exodus 3:13-14, Moses asked Him what His name was. “I AM WHO I AM,” was the awesome reply. “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Jesus clearly claimed to be this same Being—the “I AM” of Exodus 3:14, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exodus 3:15).
“I AM” is related to the personal name for God in the Old Testament, the Hebrew name YHWH. When this name appears in our English Bibles, it is commonly rendered using small capital letters as LORD. It is transliterated as “Jehovah” in some Bible versions.
When Jesus made this startling statement, the Jews knew exactly what He meant. They picked up stones to kill Him because they thought He was guilty of blasphemy.
“I AM” and the related YHWH are the names of God that infer absolute timeless self-existence. Although impossible to translate accurately and directly into English, YHWH conveys meanings of “The Eternal One,” “The One Who Always Exists” or “The One Who Was, Is and Always Will Be.” These distinctions can apply only to God, whose existence is eternal and everlasting.
In Isaiah 42:8 this same Being says, “I am the LORD [ YHWH ], that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to carved images.” A few chapters later He says: “Thus says the LORD [ YHWH ], the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God” (Isaiah 44:6).
To the Jews, there was no mistaking who Jesus claimed to be. He said He was the One the nation of Israel understood to be the one true God. By Jesus making claim to the name “I AM,” He was saying that He was the God whom the Hebrews knew as YHWH. This name was considered so holy that a devout Jew would not pronounce it. This was a special name for God that can only refer to the one true God.
In view of the fact that the Jehovah of the Jewish Old Testament would not give his name, honor, or glory to another, it is little wonder that the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth drew stones and cries of ‘blasphemy’ from first-century Jews. The very things that the Jehovah of the Old Testament claimed for himself Jesus of Nazareth also claimed.
Jesus equated Himself with YHWH of the Old Testament.
Jesus said of Himself, “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11). David, in the first verse of the famous 23rd Psalm, declared that “The LORD [ YHWH ] is my shepherd.” Jesus claimed to be judge of all men and nations (John 5:22-27). Yet Joel 3:12 says the LORD [ YHWH ] “will sit to judge all …nations.”
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). Isaiah 60:19 says, “The LORD will be to you an everlasting light, and your God your glory.” Also, David says in Psalms 27:1, “The LORD ( YHWH ) is my light.”
Jesus asked in prayer that the Father would share His eternal glory: “O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5). Yet Isaiah 42:8 says, “I am the LORD, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another .”
Jesus spoke of Himself as the coming bridegroom (Matthew 25:1), which is how YHWH is characterized in Isaiah 62:5 and Hosea 2:16.
In Revelation 1:17 Jesus says He is the first and the last, which is identical to what YHWH says of Himself in Isaiah 44:6: “I am the First and I am the Last.”
There is no question that Jesus understood Himself as the LORD ( YHWH ) of the Old Testament.
When Jesus was arrested, His use of the same term had an electrifying effect on those in the arresting party. “Now when He said to them, ‘I am He,’ they drew back and fell to the ground” (John 18:6). Notice here that “He” is in italics, meaning the word was added by the translators and isn’t in the original wording. However, their attempt to make Jesus’ answer more grammatically correct obscures the fact that He was likely again claiming to be the “I AM” of the Old Testament Scriptures.
“I and My Father are one”
The Jews confronted Jesus on another occasion, asking Him, “How long do You keep us in doubt? If you are the Christ [the prophesied Messiah], tell us plainly” (John 10:24). Jesus’ answer is quite revealing: “I told you, and you do not believe” (John 10:25). He had indeed confirmed His divine identity on a previous occasion (John 5:17-18).
Jesus adds, “The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me” (John 10:25). The works He did were miracles that only God could do. They could not refute the miraculous works Jesus did.
He made another statement that incensed them: “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30). That is, the Father and Jesus were both divine. Again, there was no mistaking the intent of what He said, because “then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him” (John 10:31).
Jesus countered, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?” The Jews responded, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God” (John 10:32-33).
The Jews understood perfectly well what Jesus meant. He was telling them plainly of His divinity.
The Gospel of John records yet another instance in which Jesus infuriated the Jews with His claims of divinity. It happened just after Jesus had healed a crippled man at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath. The Jews sought to kill Him because He did this on the Sabbath, a day on which the law of God had stated no work was to be done (which they misinterpreted to include what Jesus was doing).
Jesus then made a statement that the Jews could take in only one way: “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” Their response to His words? “Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath [according to their interpretation of it], but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God” (John 5:16-18).
Jesus was equating His works with God’s works and claiming God as His Father in a special way.
Jesus claimed authority to forgive sins
Jesus claimed to be divine in various other ways.
When Jesus healed one paralyzed man, He also said to him, “Son, your sins are forgiven you” (Mark 2:5). The scribes who heard this reasoned He was blaspheming, because, as they rightly understood and asked, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:6-7).
Responding to the scribes, Jesus said: “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts?…But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic—”I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home” (Mark 2:8-11, NRSV).
The scribes knew Jesus was claiming an authority that belonged to God only. Again, the LORD ( YHWH ) is the One pictured in the Old Testament who forgives sin (Jeremiah 31:34).
Christ claimed power to raise the dead
Jesus claimed yet another power that God alone possessed—to raise and judge the dead. Notice His statements in John 5:25-29:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live…All who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”
There was no doubt about what He meant. He added in John 5:21,”For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.” When Jesus resurrected Lazarus from the dead, He said to Lazarus’ sister, Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).
Compare this to 1 Samuel 2:6, which tells us that “the LORD [ YHWH ] kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up.”
Jesus accepted honor and worship
Jesus demonstrated His divinity in yet another way when He said, “All should honor the Son just as they honor the Father” (John 5:23). Over and over, Jesus told His disciples to believe in Him as they would believe in God. “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me” (John 14:1).
Jesus received worship on many occasions without forbidding such acts. A leper worshipped Him (Matthew 8:2). A ruler worshipped Him with his plea to raise his daughter from the dead (Matthew 9:18). When Jesus had stilled the storm, those in the boat worshipped Him as the Son of God (Matthew 14:33).
A Canaanite woman worshipped Him (Matthew 15:25). When Jesus met the women who came to His tomb after His resurrection, they worshipped Him, as did His apostles (Matthew 28:9-17). The demon-possessed man of the Gadarenes, “when He saw Jesus from afar …ran and worshiped Him” (Mark 5:6). The blind man whom Jesus healed in John 9 worshipped Him (John 9:38).
The First and Second of the Ten Commandments forbid worship of anyone or anything other than God (Exodus 20:2-5). Barnabas and Paul were very disturbed when the people of Lystra tried to worship them after their healing of a crippled man (Acts 14:13-15). In Revelation 22:8-9, when John the apostle fell down to worship the angel, the angel refused to accept worship, saying, “You must not do that!…Worship God!” (Revelation 22:8-9, NRSV).
Yet Jesus accepted worship and did not rebuke those who chose to kneel before Him and worship.
Jesus’ instruction to pray in His name
Jesus not only tells His followers to believe in Him, but that when we pray to the Father, we are to pray in Christ’s name. “And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13). Jesus made it clear that access to the Father is through Him, telling us that “no one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
The apostle Paul states of Jesus: “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).
Paul is telling us that God the Father Himself is upholding the fact that Jesus is God, by exalting His name to the level of the One through whom we make our requests and the One before whom we bow. Jesus also assures us that He will be the One who will give the answer to our prayers (“…that I will do,” John 14:13).
In so many ways Jesus revealed Himself as the God of the Old Testament. The Jews saw Him do many things that only God would or could do. They heard Him say things about Himself that could only apply to God. They were angered and responded with outrage and charged Him with blasphemy. They were so infuriated by His claims that they wanted to kill Him on the spot.
Jesus’ special relationship with God
Jesus understood Himself to be unique in His close relationship with the Father in that He was the only One who could reveal the Father. “All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27).
Jesus claimed to be the Son of God in an exclusive and absolute sense. Jesus says here that his relationship of sonship to God is unique. And he also claims to be the only one who can reveal the Father to men. In other words, Jesus claims to be the absolute revelation of God.
Christ’s claims to hold people’s eternal destiny
On several occasions Jesus asserted that He was the One through whom men and women could attain eternal life. “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40; compare John 6:47 and John 6:54). He not only says that people must believe in Him, but also that He will be the One to resurrect them at the end. No mere man can take this role.
Jesus held that people’s attitudes toward himself would be the determining factor in God’s judgment on the judgment day. ‘Also I say to you, whoever confesses Me before men, him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God. But he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God’ (Luke 12:8-9).
Make no mistake: if Jesus were not the divine son of God, then this claim could only be regarded as the most narrow and objectionable dogmatism. For Jesus is saying that people’s salvation depends on their confession to Jesus himself.
The conclusion is inescapable: Jesus understood Himself as divine along with the Father and as possessing the right to do things only God has the right to do.
The claim of Jesus’ disciples
Those who personally knew and were taught by Jesus, and who then wrote most of the New Testament, are thoroughly consistent with Jesus’ statements about Himself. His disciples were monotheistic Jews. For them to agree that Jesus was God, and then to give their lives for this belief, tells us that they had come to see for themselves that the claims Jesus made about Himself were so convincing as to leave no doubt in their minds.
The first Gospel writer, Matthew, opens with the story of the virgin birth of Jesus. Matthew comments on this miraculous event with the quote from Isaiah 7:14, “ ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which is translated, ‘God with us’ ” (Matthew 1:23). Matthew is making it clear that he understands that this child is God— “God with us.”
John is likewise explicit in the prologue to his Gospel. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1-14).
Some of them called Him God directly. When Thomas saw His wounds, he exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). Paul refers to Jesus in Titus 1:3 and Titus 2:10 as “God our Savior.”
The book of Hebrews is most emphatic that Jesus is God. Hebrews 1:8, applying Psalms 45:6 to Jesus Christ, states: “But to the Son He says: ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.’” Other parts of this book explain that Jesus is higher than the angels (Hebrews 1:4-13), superior to Moses (Hebrews 3:1-6), and greater than the high priests (Hebrews 4:14-5:10). He is greater than all these because He is God.
He left us no middle ground
Some people might say, "I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher …
You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Jesus' Amazing Fulfillment of Prophecy
“But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets…He has thus fulfilled” (Acts 3:18).
To claim that you are God is one thing—but to convince people that you are indeed what you say you are is quite another. So how did Jesus’ closest followers come to be so convinced that they would lay down their lives for that belief?
Many Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah were fulfilled in precise detail by Jesus of Nazareth. Neither the Jews nor the disciples of Jesus understood at the time that Jesus was fulfilling the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament—even though at times He told them this was the case (Luke 18:31; Matthew 26:56). They were looking for a far different Messiah than the One so many prophecies actually described.
One of Jesus’ defenses to the Jews was to appeal to the Old Testament Scriptures themselves, which identified Him as the One to come. “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me,” He told them (John 5:39).
After Jesus was resurrected, He began to help His disciples understand the Scriptures, and the disciples were inspired to declare that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. The proof they offered was the very Scriptures they had not previously understood.
Putting together the prophetic puzzle
Shortly after His resurrection, Jesus met two of His disciples who were deep in discussion as they walked along the road to the town of Emmaus. Not recognizing Him, they openly reasoned how such events as the death of the Messiah could possibly happen. Jesus began to explain to them that His suffering and crucifixion were foretold in the Scriptures.
He gently chided them: “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:25-26, NRSV). Then, “beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27).
Later that same day He appeared to nearly all of His apostles and clarified what He had been telling them before His death. “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me” (Luke 24:44).
“Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” referred to the three major divisions of the Old Testament, something every believing Jew, as these apostles were, understood. “And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day’ ” (Luke 24:45-46).
God’s Spirit opens the Scriptures to understanding
Within days the apostles began quoting passages from Scripture, declaring that these prophecies had been fulfilled by Jesus Christ.
Peter speaks of the death of Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, in Acts 1:20, quoting from Psalms 69:25 and Psalms 109:8: “Let his dwelling place be desolate, and let no one live in it,” and “Let another take his office.” Peter and the disciples had begun to understand that the Scriptures spoke in detail of many aspects of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
After receiving the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, their understanding of the Scriptures would increase greatly (John 14:26). Speaking on that day, Peter quotes from Joel 2:28-29, telling us that the sending of the Holy Spirit was a fulfillment of that prophecy (Acts 2:14-18).
Peter continues his message to the crowds gathered in Jerusalem by explaining the resurrection of Jesus with a reference to Psalms 16:8-11: “For David says concerning Him [Jesus]: ‘I foresaw the LORD always before my face, for He is at my right hand… For You will not leave my soul in Hades [the grave], nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption [decay after death]…You will make me full of joy in Your presence [through resurrection from the grave]’” (Acts 2:25-28). Peter asserts that David was a prophet and foresaw the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah.
Even more astounding is David’s picture of the resurrected Christ that Peter quotes: “The LORD said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool’ ” (Acts 2:34-36). Peter now sees clearly that the Old Testament pictured the coming of Jesus the Messiah—the Messiah whom he followed for more than three years. Now Peter is quoting Scripture to his countrymen to prove to them that Jesus is the Messiah.
Many years later we find Paul, who originally violently opposed those who accepted Jesus as the promised Messiah, reasoning with the Jews in synagogues that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the Christ (Acts 17:1-4). Likewise Apollos “refuted the Jews publicly, showing from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 18:28). Some of the Jews they addressed were beginning to understand their own Scriptures in the light of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.
Fulfilled prophecies in the Gospels
Those Jews who believed that Jesus fulfilled the messianic prophecies were in the minority. The Gospel writers, however, are relentless in their quotations from the Scriptures to demonstrate how Jesus fulfilled in detail the many messianic prophecies.
The apostle Matthew, for example, appears to have specifically written his Gospel to a first-century Jewish audience. Through a series of Old Testament quotations, Matthew documents Jesus Christ’s claim to be the Messiah. Jesus’ genealogy, baptism, messages and miracles all point to the same inescapable conclusion: He is the prophesied Messiah.
Matthew’s Gospel cites 21 prophecies that were fulfilled in circumstances surrounding the life and death of Christ. Eleven passages point out these fulfillments using such introductions as “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of by the prophet…” or “then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet…”
Accidental fulfillment of prophecies?
The New Testament writers cite messianic prophecies from the Old Testament more than 130 times. By some estimates the Old Testament contains 300 prophetic passages that describe who the Messiah is and what He will do. Of these, 60 are major prophecies. What are the chances of these prophecies being fulfilled in one person?
God makes no mistakes. It is virtually inconceivable that God would allow either a total deception in His name or an accidental fulfillment in the life of the wrong person. Such things rule out a chance fulfillment.
One might argue there is still that possibility—however remote. But the mathematical odds that all of these prophecies could have converged by chance in the events of the life of Jesus are staggeringly minute—to the point of eliminating any such possibility.
Astronomer and mathematician Peter Stoner, in his book Science Speaks, offers a mathematical analysis showing that it is impossible that the precise statements about the One to come could be fulfilled in a single person by mere coincidence.
The chance of only eight of these dozens of prophecies being fulfilled in the life of one man has been estimated at 1 in 10 to the 17th power. That would be 1 chance in 100,000,000,000,000,000.
How can we put this in terms we can comprehend? Take 10 17 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas [with its approximate land area of 262,000 square miles]. 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.
But that is only eight of the dozens of prophecies of the Messiah. Using the science of probability, the chance of as many as 48 of these prophecies coming to pass in one person is 1 in 10 to the 157th power—a 1 followed by 157 zeros.
One or two fulfillments in Jesus’ life could be dismissed as coincidental. But when the instances of fulfilled prophecies are counted up, the law of probability quickly reaches the point where mere probability becomes certainty. This is one of the proofs Jesus was the promised Messiah—the messianic prophecies were accurately and precisely fulfilled in Him.
Let’s review some of these.
The Seed of Abraham and descendant of David
In Galatians 3:8 and Galatians 3:16, Paul explains that the promise made to Abraham, “In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 18:18; Genesis 22:18), was a reference to the coming Messiah. This promise was later repeated to Abraham’s son Isaac (Genesis 26:4) and then later passed on through Abraham’s grandson Jacob (Genesis 28:14).
Several hundred years later the future Messiah was prophesied to come through Jesse, the father of King David, of the tribe of Judah—one of Jacob’s 12 sons. “There shall come forth a Rod [Shoot] from the stem [stock] of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of His roots” (Isaiah 11:1).
David was the son of Jesse from whom the line would come that would produce Jesus of Nazareth some 30 generations later. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God foretold that He would “raise up to David a righteous Branch” (Jeremiah 23:5, New International Version).
In this amazing progression of prophecies, beginning some 1,500 years before the Messiah would come, we are told in precise terms what the human lineage of the Christ would be. Jesus fulfilled these promises, as the apostle Matthew shows us in recording the descent of Jesus through the line of King David. The number of people who potentially could have fulfilled the messianic prophecies narrows greatly when limited to this family.
Messiah to come from Bethlehem
The Jews of Jesus’ day also knew that the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem (Matthew 2:3-6). This was plainly understood from Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.”
There were two Bethlehems, one in the region of Ephrathah in Judea and the other to the north, in the region of the tribe of Zebulun. But Micah’s prophecy is precise. The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem of Ephrathah. Jesus was born in this Bethlehem in Judea (Matthew 2:1).
The prophecies discussed so far strongly point to Jesus, but they are not conclusive. Other people could have qualified if you use only these three as the criteria. But these are only the beginning.
Jesus was a prophet
Moses, considered the greatest of the Hebrew prophets and teachers, wrote the messianic prophecy that God would raise up a Prophet like himself from among Israel, and He would directly represent God (Deuteronomy 18:15-18).
Jesus was regarded as a prophet (Matthew 21:46; Luke 7:16; Luke 24:19; John 4:19; John 9:17). After He had miraculously multiplied fish and bread to feed the 5,000, Jesus was regarded specifically as the prophet of whom Moses had spoken (John 6:14; compare John 7:40). Peter later explicitly referred to Jesus as this prophet (Acts 3:20-23).
A sacrifice for sins
The Old Testament prophecies of the details of the suffering and death of the Messiah were not at all well understood in Jesus’ day. The Jews believed that the Messiah they were looking for would be a victorious king who would deliver them from the hated Romans and restore an Israelite kingdom—not a humble Teacher who would endure suffering and death for the sins of mankind.
Yet this is a major area of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament fulfillment. Virtually every aspect of Jesus’ suffering and death was spelled out in considerable detail centuries before it actually happened.
The true picture revealed in these prophecies is that the Messiah would be “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The people did not expect the promised Deliverer, the conquering King, to be One who would first give His life for others.
Hebrews 10:12 tells us that the death of Christ was the offering for sin once and for all: “But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.” Hebrews 10:5-7 quote Psalms 40:6-8 in describing the willingness of Christ to surrender Himself as a sacrifice to pay the price for the sins of everyone.
The sacrificial system God instituted in ancient Israel was a representation of Jesus’ sacrifice that would pay this price once and for all. Shedding the blood of bulls, heifers, sheep and goats could not take away sin (Hebrews 10:4).
Only the shed blood of the Creator Himself could atone for their sins as well as the sins of every other human being. The sacrifices that were commanded under Moses pictured in a very graphic way the future sacrificial death of humanity’s Savior for our sins. In this sense the sacrificial system itself was prophetic of the Messiah.
The Lamb of God
The Passover lambs that were slain on the 14th day of the first month by the Israelites (Exodus 12:3-6; Leviticus 23:5) were a powerful and poignant depiction of the sacrifice of the Messiah, though the Israelites never understood it at the time.
It was on this same day of the Hebrew calendar, the day the Passover lambs were slain, that Jesus was arrested, tried and executed. He truly was “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” as spoken of by John the Baptist (John 1:29).
For centuries the Israelites missed this prophetic picture, as did the Jews of Jesus’ day, and only after the fact did the disciples understand that Jesus fulfilled whole sections of Scripture that no one suspected would be fulfilled by the Messiah.
Prophecies surrounding His betrayal, suffering and death
No fewer than 29 prophecies were fulfilled in the 24-hour period leading up to Jesus’ death. Some of the more notable are:
• He would be crucified. “They pierced My hands and My feet” (Psalms 22:16). This statement was written some 1,000 years before the event that fulfilled it (see John 20:25-27). Perhaps even more remarkable, this prophecy described a form of execution that would not come into practice for centuries—some 800 years would pass before the Romans adopted crucifixion as a form of punishment for condemned criminals.
• His body would be pierced. “They will look on Me whom they pierced” (Zechariah 12:10). John tells us what happened: “One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out” (John 19:34). John tells us that he was an eyewitness to this event (John 19:35) and verifies this was fulfillment of that prophecy: “And again another Scripture says, ‘They shall look on Him whom they pierced’ ” (John 19:37).
• None of His bones would be broken. “He guards all his bones; not one of them is broken” (Psalms 34:20). John tells us: “Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs” (John 19:32-33).
John verifies that this is a prophecy that was fulfilled: “For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, ‘Not one of His bones shall be broken’ ” (John 19:36).
• People would cast lots for His clothing. “They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots” (Psalms 22:18). John testifies that this detail, too, was fulfilled.
“Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to each soldier a part, and also the tunic. Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top in one piece. They said therefore among themselves, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be,’ that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (John 19:23-24).
• He would pray for his executioners. “He… made intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34).
• He would be executed with criminals. “And He was numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). Matthew 27:38 tells us that “two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and another on the left.”
• He would not retaliate. “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).
Matthew 27:12 tells us that “while He was being accused by the chief priests and elders, He answered nothing.” Pilate, the Roman governor, also tried to get Him to answer, “but He answered him not one word, so that the governor marveled greatly” (Matthew 27:13-14).
• He would be forsaken by His followers. “Strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered” (Zechariah 13:7). When Jesus was arrested, all His disciples “forsook Him and fled” (Mark 14:50).
• He would be betrayed by a trusted friend. The betrayal of Jesus by Judas, one of His disciples, was prophesied in Psalms 41:9: “Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.” Jesus proclaims this prophecy to be fulfilled when He gives Judas the piece of bread in John 13:18 and John 13:26.
• The price of the betrayal would be 30 pieces of silver. The 30 pieces of silver paid to Judas for the betrayal of Jesus (Matthew 26:14-15) is understood to have been prophesied in Zechariah 11:12: “So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver.”
• He would be offered vinegar and gall. Jesus being offered vinegar with gall to drink while being crucified (Matthew 27:34) is understood to be referred to in Psalms 69:21: “They also gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”
Once again, the sheer number of prophecies and their precision all point to their being fulfilled by one person, Jesus of Nazareth. Yet in spite of so much specific, eyewitness testimony to fulfilled prophecies, some people still raise various objections.
Was their fulfillment contrived?
A common objection some raise is that Jesus and His followers deliberately attempted to fulfill these prophecies. Several books have proposed variations of this theory, among them The Passover Plot. Advocates of this idea allege that Jesus manipulated events to make it look like He fulfilled the prophecies. Somehow Jesus managed to fake His own death, to be revived later.
There is no doubt that Jesus did take some steps to directly fulfill prophecy, such as securing the donkey on which to ride into Jerusalem and making sure that His disciples had swords to be reckoned as criminals (see Matthew 21:1-7; Luke 22:36-38). This was not, however, deceptive. After all, God explained in the Old Testament how He is able to foretell the future: “I am God… declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done… Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass” (Isaiah 46:9-11).
Christ, as God made flesh, was simply bringing to pass what He had foretold. However, if only a typical human being, Jesus would not have been able to fulfill everything foretold about the Messiah.
While the idea might sound intriguing, it’s impossible when you consider what Jesus would actually have had to do. To begin, He would have to have successfully manipulated His own place of birth and His human lineage. He would have to have arranged for His time to be born, so that as an adult He could begin His ministry and arrange for His death all according to the time frame of the prophecy of Daniel 9. On top of that, He would have to have engineered His own miraculous virgin birth.
If this theory had any sense of plausibility, it still would make no sense that Jesus would not fulfill the Jewish expectation of a Messiah who was to come as a king to rule the people at that time. Jesus certainly had that opportunity if He had wanted to become a physical king and leader of the Jewish nation. Many were willing to follow Him and make Him king (John 6:15; 12:12-19). Instead He took the route that led to His horrible suffering and death.
He accurately fulfilled the prophecies according to the intent of God, but contrary to the common understanding at the time. He became a servant and was willing to give His life as payment for the sins of all (Matthew 20:28). The character of such a person hardly qualifies Him to be a charlatan and a fake—one who manipulates events for His own benefit.
Fulfillment of prophecy is proof
God, who is able to control all events, caused these prophecies to be written hundreds of years before they were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. As Peter proclaimed, “Those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He [Jesus] has thus fulfilled” (Acts 3:18).
Paul reaffirmed that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” and that “He was buried, and…He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
To accurately foretell these events 200 to 800 years in advance is nothing less than a miracle—one that required divine knowledge and power to bring them to pass as foretold. God doesn’t do things by chance. He knew even from the foundation of the world that His Son would have to come to earth (1 Peter 1:20), and He foretold the events of His birth, death and life so we would have firm evidence on which to base our belief.
The Bible Prophesied the Exact Year the Messiah Would Appear
An amazing prophecy in Daniel 9:25 gives the specific year the Messiah would appear. The angel Gabriel revealed this information to Daniel approximately 580 years before its fulfillment. Let’s examine this remarkable prophecy and how it was fulfilled.
“Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks …”
The word translated “weeks” here literally means “sevens.” While it could mean seven-day weeks, that is evidently not the case here. Daniel had been specifically praying earlier in the chapter about a prophetic period of 70 years. In this answer to his prayer, he is told of a period of 70 sevens—clearly meaning 70 sevens of years in this context, i.e. 70 seven-year periods.
Adding 7 plus 62 (69) of these seven-year periods—that is, a total of 483 years—from a decree to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem gives the year the Messiah would appear on the scene.
After Jerusalem’s destruction by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., the Babylonian Empire was succeeded by the Medo-Persian Empire. This empire’s kings issued several such decrees that were recorded in the Bible (by Cyrus in 538 B.C., found in Ezra 1:1-2, and by Darius in 520 B.C., described in Ezra 6:8).
But the one that was issued by Artaxerxes Longimanus in 457 B.C.(Ezra 7:11-26) points us specifically to Christ’s ministry. Counting 483 years from the 457 B.C. date of this decree brings us to A.D. 27 (keep in mind that because there is no year “0” we have to add one year to the calculation).
A.D. 27 was a significant year. Jesus was baptized this year and began His public ministry.
The Jews of Christ’s day were certainly familiar with Daniel’s prophecy. And regardless of which decree one might choose as the starting point of the 483 years, the time for the Messiah to appear had elapsed during Jesus’ day. Messianic fervor was rampant with the realization that the fulfillment of this prophecy was near at hand (compare John 1:41; John 4:25).
If the Messiah was to come, He would have to arrive on the scene just when Jesus did—in the exact year!
Did Jesus Really Die and Live Again?
“This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses” (Acts 2:32).
One of the greatest proofs that Jesus is exactly who He said He was—the Son of God and the only One through whom eternal life is offered—is His resurrection from the dead.
His followers were convinced that He was the Messiah and the Son of God. His miracles, His sinless life and His teachings all proved to them who He was. But His resurrection confirms every claim Jesus made to all people for all time.
What is astounding is that Jesus put everything on the line with His own statements that He would die and be raised to life again. He foretold His own resurrection on several occasions. “And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31).
When the scribes and Pharisees wanted a sign from Him, He said only one sign would be given: “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40).
It is quite risky to foretell your own resurrection. Yet Jesus not only foretold His resurrection, but announced precisely when He would be resurrected.
So it comes down to this one event. How do we know that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead happened? If it didn’t happen just as He said, then we have no reason to believe that the way of life that Christ brought was any better or more right than any other religion. There would be nothing earthshaking about Jesus of Nazareth; He would be simply another religious fraud.
But if it did happen, there is one great difference between Jesus and all other religious leaders: Jesus’ teachings are true, and everything He said is true, and He is exactly who He claimed to be.
The evidence for Jesus’ resurrection rests: the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances and the origin of the Christian faith. Let’s examine the details and implications of each of these.
The agony of crucifixion
Because of the terrible effects of these beatings and the scourging, from a medical standpoint Jesus would have already been in serious to critical condition even before He was taken away to be crucified.
In a crucifixion, the Romans typically used iron nails, five to seven inches long and about three eighths of an inch square, driven into the victim’s wrists and feet to fasten him to the wooden members. The Bible says nails were driven through Jesus’ hands, but in the language of the day the wrist was considered part of the hand. Nails were driven into the wrists, between the arm bones, because the hands themselves could not support the weight of the body.
This placement of nails is supported by the 1968 discovery in Jerusalem of the bones of a man who had been crucified and buried in a first-century tomb. His right heel bone still had a large iron nail embedded in it, and one of his right forearm bones had a groove and wear marks consistent with a nail being driven between the two arm bones near his wrist.
The nails pounded through the wrists would have crushed the median nerve, the largest nerve going to the hand, causing indescribable pain. The pain was absolutely unbearable. In fact, it was literally beyond words to describe; they had to invent a new word: excruciating . Literally, excruciating means ‘out of the cross.
Think of that: they needed to create a new word, because there was nothing in the language that could describe the intense anguish caused during the crucifixion. Nails driven through the feet would have brought similar pain.
We can’t know for sure whether Jesus was crucified on a simple stake or a cross with a crossbeam. Either way, being hung by His arms would have caused great stresses on His body. His arms would have been stretched several inches and both shoulders likely were dislocated.
The prophecy of Christ’s suffering in Psalms 22:14 refers to His tortured condition: “I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; it has melted within me.”
Once a person is hanging in the vertical position…crucifixion is essentially an agonizingly slow death by asphyxiation. The reason is that the stresses on the muscles and diaphragm put the chest into the inhaled position; basically, in order to exhale, the individual must push up on his feet so the tension on the muscles would be eased for a moment. In doing so, the nail would tear through the foot, eventually locking up against the tarsal bones.
After managing to exhale, the person would then be able to relax down and take another breath in. Again he’d have to push himself up to exhale, scraping his bloodied back against the coarse wood of the cross. This would go on and on until complete exhaustion would take over, and the person wouldn’t be able to push up and breathe anymore.
What was the cause of Jesus’ death?
Many people assume that Jesus simply expired from the trauma or suffocated, which were the common causes of death in crucifixion. Various medical doctors have studied execution by crucifixion and come to similar conclusions. Some theologians and churches have taught that Jesus died of a broken heart. Can we know what actually killed Him?
Zechariah 12:10 contains a prophecy of Jesus’ crucifixion. Referring to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, it says: “They will look on me, the one they have pierced” (NIV). Time and time again the Scriptures speak of the importance of Christ’s shed blood (Acts 20:28; Ephesians 2:13; Hebrews 9:11-14; 1 Peter 1:18-19). Jesus Himself said that the wine of the New Testament Passover represented “my blood…which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28, NIV).
Clearly a central focus of Christ’s sacrifice was His blood, which He shed as a sacrifice for the sins of all humanity. Regrettably, this is obscured somewhat in John 19:30-34, which makes it appear that Jesus died and then later was stabbed by one of the Roman soldiers, “bringing a sudden flow of blood and water” (John 19:34, NIV). However, there is a problem if this were the specific order of events, because dead bodies, once the heart has stopped its pumping action, no longer bleed like that.
This problem is resolved when we consider many older manuscripts of Matthew’s Gospel, which contain words that appear in a few Bible translations but were left out of most modern versions. These missing words tell us the proper sequence of events.
The Twentieth Century New Testament, which includes these words, reads: “And about three [o’clock in the afternoon] Jesus called out loudly: ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani’—that is to say, ‘O my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?’ Some of those standing by heard this, and said [mistakenly]: ‘The man is calling for Elijah!’
“One of them immediately ran and took a sponge, and, filling it with common wine, put it on the end of a rod, and offered it to him to drink. But the rest said: ‘Wait and let us see if Elijah is coming to save him.’ However another man took a spear, and pierced his side; and water and blood flowed from it. But Jesus, uttering another loud cry, gave up his spirit” (Matthew 27:46-50).
The missing words, noted here in italics, show that Jesus was stabbed in the side with a spear, uttered a loud cry and then died. Other versions that contain the missing words include the Moffatt Translation and the Rotherham Emphasized Bible, and various other Bible versions include a footnote or marginal reference noting the omitted words.
So does Matthew’s account conflict with John’s? No. Both describe the same events, but from different perspectives.
Matthew jumps immediately from Jesus’ death to a description of the temple veil being torn in half, while John focuses on the fact that, in contrast to the two criminals crucified with Jesus, not one of His bones was broken. John then explains parenthetically how Jesus had already died so that His bones did not need to be broken—His side had been pierced with a spear (John 19:31-34).
John then tells us in verse 36 that this took place in fulfillment of Psalms 34:20 and the symbolism of the Passover lambs, which were to be slain and not have a single bone broken (Exodus 12:6, Exodus 12:46; Numbers 9:12). The Passover lambs that had their blood shed to save the Israelites (Exodus 12:6-13) pictured Jesus, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
The final fatal blow
Continuing in John 19:37, John explains that the prophecy of Zechariah 12:10 that Jesus’ body would be pierced was fulfilled. What was this final, fatal thrust like that ended Jesus’ life?
The soldier was a Roman: he would be well trained, proficient, and would know his duty. He would know which part of the body to pierce in order that he might obtain a speedily fatal result or ensure that the victim was undeniably dead…
The soldier, standing below our crucified Lord as He hung on the cross, would thrust upwards under the left ribs. The broad, clean cutting, two-edged spearhead would enter the left side of the upper abdomen, would open the…stomach, would pierce the diaphragm, would cut, wide open, the heart and great blood vessels, arteries and veins…, and would lacerate the lung.
The wound would be large enough to permit the open hand to be thrust into it [compare John 20:24-27]. Blood…, together with water from the…stomach, would flow forth in abundance. The whole event as described by St. John must, indeed, have happened, for no writer could have presented in such coherent detail so recognizable an event, unless he or someone had actually witnessed its occurrence.
The idea that Jesus didn’t really die, that He fainted or was drugged and was later resuscitated, has no basis in fact when you consider the clear statements that He died. The apostle John had been an eyewitness to that death, having been right there with others as these events unfolded (John 19:25-35).
The Roman soldiers, too, knew He was dead. They may not have been medical experts, but they were used to seeing executions and knew when someone was dead. Before releasing the body of Jesus to Joseph of Arimathea, Pilate confirmed with the centurion overseeing the execution detail that Jesus was indeed dead (Mark 15:43-45).
Even if we assume Jesus could have physically survived the crucifixion, how could He then have lived for three days and nights in a tomb, sealed away from any kind of medical care or treatment?
There is one other point we should make here. Assuming the seemingly impossible notion that a man could somehow have lived through all this, the accounts of Jesus appearing to His disciples after the ordeal would have been just that much more impossible. And even if He had somehow managed it, He certainly couldn’t have appeared as One who would inspire His disciples to proclaim that He had been resurrected to a glorious and powerful state. He would’ve been a severely broken, wounded man—psychologically traumatized, physically crippled and maimed for life.
Any theory to explain that Jesus really didn’t die cannot be taken seriously in light of the clear evidence we have.
Jesus’ burial
Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in a new tomb that Joseph had reserved for himself.
Because Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the same Jewish high court that condemned Jesus, he is unlikely to be a Christian invention. Mark’s Gospel tells us that “Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent council member,… taking courage, went in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus” (Mark 15:43).
Given permission to take the body, Joseph “bought fine linen, took Him down, and wrapped Him in linen. And he laid Him in a tomb which had been hewn out of the rock, and rolled a stone against the door of the tomb” (verse 46).
No one trying to contrive and pawn off a fabrication would have invented a person who did not exist and say he was a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jewish nation.
Members of the Sanhedrin were widely known. Because Joseph was a respected public figure, many people would have known the location of his tomb. If Jesus had not been buried in his tomb, the ruse would have been all too easy to expose.
Notice also the precautions taken to make sure nothing could happen to the body of Jesus once it had been placed in the tomb: “The next day…the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, “After three days I will rise again.”
“ ‘So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.’ ‘Take a guard,’ Pilate answered. ‘Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.’ So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard” (Matthew 27:62-66, NIV).
Roman guards were placed around the tomb the day after Jesus’ burial. Surely they would have noticed had Jesus awakened from a near-death state or His body been stolen by His followers. Their orders were clear: They were to make sure nothing happened to the body of Jesus. If they failed at this duty, they could be put to death just as Jesus had been.
Both the Jews and the disciples of Christ would have known the location of this tomb. The women who would figure prominently in the discovery of the empty tomb observed where the tomb was and that Jesus was in fact laid inside it (Luke 23:55). They also knew a massive stone had been rolled over the entrance of the tomb (Mark 15:46-47) and knew it had to be rolled back when they returned to the same location to apply the burial spices they had prepared (Mark 16:3).
There was no question in the mind of the women and His other disciples that Jesus was in that tomb.
Women discover the empty tomb
Mark also records for us the detail that three women—Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome—approached the tomb before sunrise to anoint the body of Jesus with spices. Finding the heavy stone rolled away, they entered the tomb and were shocked and afraid when they saw “a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side.” The man told the women, “He is risen!” and instructed them to go and tell Jesus’ other disciples (Mark 16:1-8).
In the society of the day, the testimony of women was held in such low regard that they were not even permitted to serve as witnesses in a court of law. How remarkable it is, then, that women were the acknowledged discoverers of Jesus’ empty tomb!
Had someone fabricated the story at a later date, as many critics assume to have been the case, the plot surely would have made male disciples such as Peter and John the discoverers of the empty tomb. That it was women who were the chief witnesses to the fact of the empty tomb is best explained by the straightforward truth that the women named were indeed the actual discoverers.
The Gospel writers faithfully recorded what for them was an awkward and potentially embarrassing detail.
Jesus’ enemies acknowledged that the tomb was empty
What was the reaction of Jesus’ enemies to the disciples’ stunning declaration that Jesus was alive again after having been publicly executed?
Their reaction is very revealing. Did they respond that the disciples were lying, that Jesus’ body still lay in the rock-hewn tomb? No. Did they claim that the disciples were hallucinating? No. Instead, they bribed the Roman soldiers responsible for guarding the sealed tomb to spread what they knew was a lie . They told them to spread a cover story, to claim that Jesus’ disciples had come and stolen His body while they slept, and that they would cover for the soldiers if they got in trouble with the Roman governor.
Read the account in Matthew 28:11-15. This was the best excuse the authorities could come up with to explain why Jesus’ body was missing and could not be found!
Here we have evidence from the very enemies of Christ that His tomb was empty. The best rationale they could come up with they knew to be a lie. There is no other explanation for how the tomb became empty except that Jesus was resurrected bodily and left the tomb.
Eyewitness accounts of His appearances
On multiple occasions and under various circumstances individuals and groups of people saw Jesus alive after knowing He had died.
Notice what the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church: “He was seen by Cephas [Peter], then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time” (1 Corinthians 15:5-8).
How did Paul receive this information? He was acquainted and had spoken with the people involved. He had heard the account in their own words. Most who could verify it were still alive. He is making this assertion knowing he could be proven wrong if it were not true!
Such eyewitness accounts cannot be dismissed as fantasy. They must refer to actual events that were witnessed by many people alive at the time of Paul’s writing. Paul even lists the names of the best known of the witnesses so others could verify the facts of Jesus’ resurrection for themselves!
Appearances in bodily form
All of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances in the Gospels are in bodily form. “Why do doubts arise in your hearts?” He asked His apostles when He appeared to them, as recorded in Luke 24:36-43.
He invited them, “Behold [look at] My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” When they still did not believe, perhaps because it was too good to be true, He asked them for food, which He took and ate in front of them.
Then there is the occasion when Jesus appeared to all His apostles, including Thomas, who apparently was missing on the previous occasion. Thomas was adamant that he would not believe unless he saw Jesus’ wounds with his own eyes and felt the wounds with his own hands (John 20:24-29). Yet he was absolutely convinced when Jesus appeared to them all and specifically invited Thomas to verify that He was indeed the same Jesus whom Thomas and the rest had known for so long.
On yet another occasion Jesus appeared to the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. On this occasion He performed a miracle, fixed and ate a breakfast of bread and fish with them and gently rebuked Peter for returning to his life as a fisherman rather than taking care of the far more important business of tending to His Church (John 21:1-23).
It’s been suggested that these appearances were merely hallucinations on the part of the disciples. But this theory cannot account for the fact that the appearances were in different places, at different times and in front of different groups of people. Jesus appeared in ways that were convincing to all the apostles. These appearances left no doubt in their minds—including that of Thomas, who staked out his position that he wouldn’t believe unless he literally saw and felt the Jesus whom he knew.
The disciples’ astounding transformation
One of the major proofs of the resurrection of Jesus is the dramatic change in the lives of His disciples.
The Gospel accounts are not flattering to the apostles (which is further evidence that they didn’t fabricate the story). At the time of Christ’s arrest and trial, all His apostles forsook Him and fled (Matthew 26:56). Peter, who vowed that he would always stand by Jesus, even cursed and swore in denying that he knew Him (Matthew 26:69-75).
Jesus, we remember, foretold Peter’s weakness and even forewarned His apostles that they would also stumble because of their association with Him (Matthew 26:31-35).
Within a short time, however, we see a dramatic change. We find the apostles speaking to large crowds and openly declaring that Jesus had risen from the dead. Far from running away and hiding, now they boldly confronted the civil and religious authorities with the fact that Jesus had been killed and raised to life again.
They defied orders threatening them with imprisonment if they continued to speak about this man Jesus (Acts 4:1-23). They courageously faced beatings and endured death threats because they preached that Jesus was alive and was the Messiah (Acts 5:17-42).
Whereas only weeks before they had denied they even knew Him, now nothing could stop them from openly publicizing what they obviously knew to be true. Only one explanation for their new unshakable belief even in the face of imprisonment and execution is plausible: They saw Jesus Christ alive after they knew He was dead. They spoke with Him, ate with Him, received extensive instructions from Him, spent time with Him and touched Him.
These men gave the remaining years of their lives, and ultimately life itself, for the One they knew had conquered death. Had they all been only participants in a giant hoax, could we believe these men would give their lives for something they knew to be a lie?
Roman Forms of Crucifixion
Crucifixion wasn’t always carried out the way we’ve seen it typically depicted in paintings and pictures. In fact, as noted in this chapter, a crucifixion victim likely wasn’t nailed through the hands, since their structure cannot support the weight of a human body. Most likely victims were nailed through the wrist or, in some instances, had their arms tied rather than being nailed.
Nor were victims always crucified on the kind of cross typically shown in depictions of Christ’s crucifixion. Note what The Anchor Bible Dictionary says in its article on crucifixion:
“At times the cross was only one vertical stake. Frequently, however, there was a cross-piece attached either at the top to give the shape of a ‘T’ ( crux commissa ) or just below the top, as in the form most familiar in Christian symbolism ( crux immissa ). The victims carried the cross or at least a transverse beam ( patibulum ) to the place of execution, where they were stripped and bound or nailed to the beam, raised up, and seated on a sedile or small wooden peg in the upright beam…
“Executioners could vary the form of punishment, as [Roman historian] Seneca the Younger indicates: ‘I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways: some have their victims with head down to the ground; some impale their private parts; others stretch out their arms on the [cross-piece]’…
“In his account of what happened to Jewish refugees from Jerusalem [in the Jewish war of A.D. 67-70], [first-century historian] Josephus also lets us see that there was no fixed pattern for crucifying people.
“The accursed tree”
The Roman historian Seneca, describing the horror of crucifixion, argued that it would be better to commit suicide than endure such a tortured death. Can anyone be found who would prefer wasting away in pain dying limb by limb, or letting out his life drop by drop, rather than expiring once for all? Can any man be found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly weals on shoulders and chest, and drawing the breath of life amid long-drawn-out agony? He would have many excuses for dying even before mounting the cross.
Seneca’s reference to “the accursed tree” is strongly reminiscent of Peter’s words when he speaks of Jesus, “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24; compare Acts 5:30). In some cases crucifixions seem to have been carried out on a literal tree, albeit one that was basically only a trunk from which the branches had been cut away.
In these crucifixions the condemned victim would be nailed to the upright trunk or would carry his own crossbeam, which would then be fastened to the trunk and him nailed to both. It’s possible that the “cross” Jesus carried to His execution, carried part of the time by Simon of Cyrene, was simply a large beam of wood.
Much More Than a Man
“Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” (Matthew 16:13).
Today it isn’t politically correct to state dogmatically that Jesus was more than an extraordinarily gifted person, a moral person, a wise philosopher, a Jewish sage or a political reformist. Nor is it acceptable to say that His teachings are the only route to a life beyond the grave and to lasting peace for the world.
After all, we live in a world that dislikes such absolutes. And some dislike even more the authority that One who claimed to be God might claim over their lives. Thus throughout history all kinds of ideas have sprung up about Jesus of Nazareth.
Why is there so much controversy over one man? He regularly makes the cover of weekly newsmagazines. More books have been written and more scholarly work done about this Jewish teacher from Galilee than any other man who ever lived.
The simple answer is that He claimed to be God—and from the record was able to support that claim, as we have seen.
He assures us He will prove it to the entire world when He comes to earth a second time in glory, majesty and divine supernatural power that will astound people all around the globe.
God comes to earth
The question remains: How was Jesus God? If Jesus was God, then who was the Father He spoke of so often? How could Jesus and the Father both be God at the same time?
Where did Jesus come from? Was He created at some point? Did He come into existence when He was born of Mary? Was He an angel? Was He a spiritual essence or “thought” in the Father’s mind prior to His human existence?
The story of how Jesus came to be born tells us that He was no ordinary human being. The record takes great pains to explain that He did not have a human father, but that His Father was God Himself.
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18).
“Betrothed” in their culture meant the agreement for them to marry was binding even though the marriage itself had not yet taken place. Both Joseph and Mary knew they had not been together in physical union, and Mary certainly knew she was a virgin. But Joseph was naturally questioning why his intended bride was pregnant, and he worried over how to handle this crisis.
“Then Joseph her [betrothed] husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins’ ” (Matthew 1:19-21).
Joseph needed reassurance that Mary was telling the truth about her pregnancy, and the obvious way to convince him was by having an angel speak to him. Mary had received a similar message as recorded in Luke 1:26-38. The angel Gabriel appeared and announced to Mary that she would conceive a son whom she was to name Jesus. She insisted that she had never been with a man—she was a virgin.
Gabriel then explained how this would happen. He said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).
In traditional theological terms, this is something of an enigma. Jesus recognized that God was His Father, but we are told that what Mary conceived in her womb was by the Holy Spirit. Most people believe the Holy Spirit is the third person in the Trinity. But since the Holy Spirit engendered Jesus in Mary’s womb, how could God the Father be Jesus’ Father?
The answer is simply that the Holy Spirit is not a person, as is assumed in the traditional teaching of the Trinity. The Bible nowhere teaches that the Holy Spirit is a distinct person. It does, however, refer to the Holy Spirit as the power of God.
God, whom Jesus referred to as His Father, used His own power, referred to as the “Holy Spirit,” to beget Jesus in the womb of Mary. Therefore, Jesus is the Son of God by birth.
Matthew, writing under divine inspiration, explained the significance of the angel’s message to Joseph, showing that it fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy of the virgin birth of “ ‘Immanuel,’ which is translated, ‘God with us’ ” (Matthew 1:23).
When Jesus was born, He was God in the flesh— “God with us.” This was what the angel was saying and what God had foretold long before.
Who was Jesus before His human birth?
The most definitive and clear statement about Jesus before His human birth is recorded in the first few verses of John’s Gospel. John, Jesus’ closest disciple, takes great care to explain that this Jesus is no ordinary man.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Who was this “Word”? “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). John goes on to explain that the Word who “became flesh and dwelt among us” was Jesus of Nazareth. He also gives us explicit and definitive statements containing important details about Jesus prior to His human birth.
“The Word” is Jesus and He was with God, and He was God. This language is unmistakable and can mean only one thing: There were two beings—God and the Word.
The Word “was in the beginning with God” (John 1:2). The beginning of what?
Jesus existed before the beginning
Since John’s Gospel begins with the words “In the beginning,” it seems likely that John is alluding to Genesis 1:1. But while Genesis 1:1 continues with, “God created…,” John begins his Gospel with, “In the beginning was the Word…” He tells us that the Word already existed “in the beginning.”
In Genesis the creation of the universe and time itself marks “the beginning”; in John the existence of the Word precedes that beginning.
The Creator of the universe obviously existed before the universe because He caused the universe to come into being.
John explicitly says that it was the Word—Jesus Christ—through whom all things were created (John 1:3). Paul agrees completely with John in language that is unmistakable (Ephesians 3:9), adding, “He is before all things and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:16-17).
Paul makes the logical point that since Christ was the agent by whom all things were created, then He must have necessarily existed before the creation. Jesus also referred to His existing before the creation when, in praying to the Father, He spoke of “the glory I had with you before the world began” (John 17:5, NIV).
Jesus speaks of the relationship between Himself and the Father “before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24), a phrase echoed by Paul in Ephesians 1:4.
The Word
The preexistent Jesus is characterized by the name or title “the Word.” Perhaps one of the reasons the Greek word logos, translated “Word,” is used is that this best describes one of the major roles of Christ—He was to reveal the Father. Logos means “the expression of thought” ( Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, “Word”).
Logos is used in the New Testament of a saying or statement of God, the word of God, the revealed will of God and direct revelation given by Christ, and could be spoken and delivered (ibid.). John applied this word as a personal title to the One who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
What John is saying is that a personal Being, whom he calls the logos or “the Word,” became incarnate—became a flesh-and-blood human being—in the person of Jesus Christ. The fact that the Word became a flesh-and-blood person implies that the Word was a specific individual being prior to His becoming a physical human baby born to Mary.
John also tells us that the Word is personally distinct from the Father, though He is at the same time one with the Father. They are the same, eternal, and are of the same nature and essence. The Word is God as truly as is the One with whom He exists in the closest union of being and life. As Jesus said, “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30).
The oneness between the Father and the Word has to do with their complete harmony and agreement in working together—not that they constitute only one Being as the Trinitarian theory mistakenly teaches.
Who and what is God?
John’s simple but clear statements give us an understanding of God that was now made plain by the appearance of Jesus Christ. The language used expresses to us that there are two Beings, coexisting and called God—God and the Word who is also God.
If they existed in some other form than two self-existing beings, both the Greek and the English language are capable of describing something altogether different. But the language does not do this. It speaks clearly of two, together, both of whom are God. If there was only one, alone, then John wouldn’t have said, “the Word was with God.”
The question arises: If Jesus was the Word, and thus God, how could God who is infinite become finite? What happened to the Word at the moment He became an ovum begotten with life from the Father in the womb of Mary?
We don’t know exactly how God performed this miracle, but it’s evident from Scripture that God could become a physical human being and therefore become subject to a finite, physical existence—limited to time and space, subject to pain, suffering and death and to being tempted.
And Jesus did this. As Paul described it: “He, who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his privileges as God’s equal, but stripped himself of every advantage by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born a man. And, plainly seen as a human being, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, to the point of death, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal” (Philippians 2:6-8, New Testament in Modern English).
Jesus could die. Jesus could experience human emotion. Jesus could feel hunger and pain. He could agonize at the prospect of pain and death. Yes, God could die. But only if He were to become a physical human being. This He did. And who was He? He was the same person He had always been, even having memories of His past eternity with the Father.
Notice Jesus’ prayer in John 17:5: “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began” (NIV). Here He speaks straightforwardly of His past experiences and memories with the Father, confirming everything John wrote in the first few verses of his Gospel.
Yes, Jesus’ sacrifice was one of virtually unimaginable proportions. And knowing who He was and what He willingly gave up should make all the difference to you and me when coming to terms with the enormous magnitude of His sacrifice.
Time for a restored kingdom?
When the people desired the appearance of “the Son of David,” they were hoping for the prophesied One who would restore the kingdom of Israel under the Davidic dynasty.
At one point when Jesus miraculously fed a following of 5,000 men, they were convinced that He was “the Prophet who is to come into the world” (John 6:14). This is an allusion to Moses’ prophecy of “a Prophet like me” in Deuteronomy 18:15-19. The disciples of Jesus identified Jesus as this same Prophet, “Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45).
What better king can you have than one who will miraculously feed you? This miracle caused a groundswell of support to make Him king then and there. But “when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone” (John 6:14-15). He made Himself scarce. To become a human king over a powerful Israel was not a part of Jesus’ mission at that time.
Even after His death and resurrection, His disciples were still focused on the idea that He would restore the Davidic kingdom to Israel then and there. They asked Him, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). They didn’t yet understand all the pieces of the prophetic puzzle He was unveiling to them.
Understanding the messianic prophecies
These misconceptions were based in part on misunderstanding the timing of the prophecies from their own Scriptures. On close examination, Jesus spoke and acted in a way that revealed His true mission for His first coming—which was spelled out in Bible prophecy, though not in a way that they understood.
The Messiah was indeed prophesied to come to His people. We have already shown that many of those prophecies were fulfilled when He came to earth in the flesh. He was a servant, suffered during His life and willingly offered His life as a sacrifice. But there were many prophecies that were not fulfilled—at least not at that time .
There are the great prophecies of Isaiah, for instance, that tell us that “in the latter days … the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it” (Isaiah 2:2).
In Bible prophecy, mountains and hills are used to represent governments or nations. This prophecy foretells a time when the future Kingdom of the Messiah will be established and will reign over all earthly governments and nations. The prophetic understanding of this divine Kingdom was at the heart of Jesus Christ’s message as well as the ultimate role of the Messiah.
When Jesus announced the Kingdom of God is at hand (Mark 1:15), He was simply speaking of the future Kingdom of God that would come to earth—and He was the way into that Kingdom. Many times, when the Gospels say that “they believed in Him,” they believed He was the Messiah who would create a kingdom of Israel at that time!
Jesus the King
At Jesus’ trial the high priest asked him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus answered: “I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:61-62). The high priest immediately accused Jesus of blasphemy and deserving of death (Mark 14:64).
Yes, Jesus was indeed the Messiah, sent from God and born to be king. He made this fact clear when He stood before Pilate. However, Jesus had preached the Kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of Israel.
The Jews accused Him before Pilate of claiming to be “Christ, a King,” which would make Him a direct threat to Roman authority (Luke 23:2).
Pilate, concerned about this allegation, asked Jesus about the charge. Jesus answered by saying, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here” (John 18:36). Pilate pressed Jesus further, asking if He were indeed a king. Jesus replied: “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world” (John 18:37).
However, Pilate got the impression that Caesar’s kingdom was under no threat from Jesus. Yet, in the end, the Jews convinced Pilate to have Him executed on the grounds that He claimed to be a king (John 19:12). Pilate even had the title ” King of the Jews” placed above Jesus’ head as He was crucified (John 19:19-22).
After having ordered Jesus to be scourged, Pilate brought Him out to the crowd and announced, “Behold your King,” apparently thinking the heinous beating He had endured would satisfy them. “But they cried out, ‘Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar!’” (John 19:14-15).
They didn’t recognize their own King.
The future Kingdom
Jesus plainly told Pilate His Kingdom was not then, not there. It would not be one of the kingdoms of this present world—of this present age of man. But there is a future age coming, in which His Kingdom will be established on the earth to rule all nations.
Many prophecies about Jesus’ role as the Messiah were indeed fulfilled by Him during His 3 1⁄ 2-year ministry. But the fulfillment of many more—those about the establishment of the Kingdom of God over the whole earth—are yet to be fulfilled by Jesus Christ.
When Jesus began to speak about the Kingdom of God, the people did not fully understand. In the thinking of most first-century Jews, there was no distinction between the prophecies of the Messiah’s first coming and those of His second.
To the people of His day, the prophecies of the Messiah and the Messianic Kingdom were like looking at the stars. They all appear to be as a canopy above us, all about the same distance. But in reality there are vast distances between the stars. With the naked eye, we cannot tell which ones are closer and which are farther away. The messianic prophecies appeared like that to the Jews. Most expected all prophecies to be fulfilled in a single coming of the Messiah.
His second coming
Although most people missed Jesus’ first coming, no one will miss His second. Jesus said all the people of the earth “will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30).
But when He comes the second time, will He be accepted then? What will people expect? Will the Jews think that He will come just to them? Will Christians think they are going to be taken away from the earth? Will the world think He is an invader from somewhere?
Jesus gave a vision to His apostle John, recorded for us in the book of Revelation. In it Jesus completes the prophecies He gave during His earthly ministry. It’s most interesting to note that He will not be accepted by the world the second time, just as He wasn’t accepted at His first coming. When He comes the second time, He won’t come as one announcing the Kingdom of God, He will come as Ruler to establish the Kingdom of God!
Make no mistake—the nations will again reject Him. He speaks of the time of His return as being “the great day of His wrath,” when the nations are angry at God’s intervention (Revelation 6:16-17; Revelation 11:17-18). Leaders of the world will “gather … to the battle of that great day of God Almighty,” in which they will fight against Him (Revelation 16:14).
At Jesus’ second coming He is pictured as One who “judges and makes war” (Revelation 19:11). He will “strike the nations” with a sword and tread “the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God” (Revelation 19:15).
Such passages make it clear that the world will not receive Christ with open arms when He comes back. This is the other side of the picture of Jesus that is not taught very much today. When He returns, He will meet with a hostile reception from the world—just as He did the first time.
This leads us to ask the question, do we really know the real Jesus? Do we really know what He is doing? Are we really preparing ourselves to be accepted and rewarded by Him when He establishes His Kingdom? And what is that Kingdom all about? We’ll address those crucial questions in the next chapter.
Alive Again Today and Forever
In an act of supreme sacrifice, Jesus of Nazareth gave His life for all mankind. Yet the grave couldn’t hold Him; He rose to life everlasting. What is He like today?
The apostle John was given a vision of the resurrected, glorified Jesus Christ in Revelation 1:12-18: “I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone ‘like a son of man,’ dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest.
“His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: ‘Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!’” (NIV).
Jesus now lives forever as an eternal, immortal spirit being. John also tells us that His faithful followers, in the resurrection, will be like Him— “and everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:2-3).
Jesus now sits at the right hand of God the Father “with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him” (1 Peter 3:22, NIV). He is the living, active, Head of His Church (Colossians 1:18), and as “the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29) He continually helps bring others to salvation in God’s family.
How is He serving His brothers and sisters on earth? Remember that Christ is the Mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5). One of the major themes of the book of Hebrews is to show how Christ carries out His sacred role as our High Priest.
Sin has seriously damaged the human race. “Sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4, KJV). Sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:1-2) and threatens our eternal reward. It is the implacable enemy of every human being and must be conquered. This is not easy and never has been.
But Christ knows what it is like to have human nature, to be tempted to sin, to be tempted to transgress God’s spiritual law. “For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted” (Hebrews 2:18).
Christ did whatever was necessary to resist the pulls of the flesh and temptations to sin. He never underestimated them. He prayed and fasted, but mostly He continually relied on and looked to the Father for help.
By never once transgressing God’s law, “He condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). In contrast, sin has tainted us, and one of our major goals as Christians is to learn to overcome its entanglements. Yet we cannot do this apart from our Savior, who told us, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
Notice Hebrews 4:14-16: “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession [‘profession,’ KJV]. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Christ is the author and captain of our salvation. “Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession [with the Father] for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Christ sits at the Father’s right hand “to appear in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24).
Paul says that, through the indwelling of God’s Spirit, Jesus lives again within converted Christians (Galatians 2:20), empowering us to live a new, godly life patterned after His life. Through His sacrifice and living again within us, we can be redeemed “from every lawless deed” and purified as “His own special people, zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14).