Page 12 - Eschatology - Student Ebook

g. Zechariah 12:10 Prophecy written: Between 520 and 518 BC Prophecy fulfilled: About
31 AD. Messiah would be pierced in his death.
h. Isaiah 53:9 Prophecy written: Between 701-681 BC Prophecy fulfilled: About 31 AD. He
would be buried in a rich man’s tomb.
i. There are over 300 prophecies in the OT that where perfectly fulfilled in the life of Jesus
Christ. If you would like to see them all, go to http://bibleprobe.com/over-300-
prophecies.pdf.

In his Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, J. Barton Payne itemized 127 Messianic predictions involving
more than 3,000 Bible verses, with a remarkable 574 verses referring directly to a personal Messiah!

The word “Messiah” or “Anointed One” (or in Greek, “Christ”), is taken from Psalm 2:2 and Daniel 9:25-
26. The term took its meaning from the Jewish practice of anointing their priests and kings. But this term
was applied in a special sense to the future Ruler who would be sent from God to sit on the throne of
David forever. He is the One that God distinctly identified many years ahead of His arrival on earth, as
Acts 3:18 affirms: “But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying
that his Christ [Messiah] would suffer” (NIV).

Likewise, according to 1 Peter 1:11, the Old Testament prophets predicted “the sufferings of Christ and
the glories that would follow” (NIV). The Messiah’s coming was not a secret left in a corner, but the
repeated revelation of God to His people in the Old Testament.

The prophecies about the Messiah were not a bunch of scattered predictions randomly placed
throughout the Old Testament, but they form a unified promise-plan of redemption, where each
promise is interrelated and connected into a grand series comprising one continuous plan of God. Thus,
a unity builds as the story of God’s call on Israel, and then on the house of David, progresses in each part
of the Old Testament.

However, this eternal plan of God also had multiple fulfillments as it continued to unfold in the life and
times of Israel. For example, every successive Davidic king was, at once, both a fulfillment in that day as
well as a promise of what was to come when Christ, the final One in the Davidic line, arrived. Each of
these successive fulfillments gave confidence that what was in the distant future would certainly
happen, because God was working in the fabric of history as well. And although the promise was made
to specific persons, such as Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David, it was cosmopolitan in its
inclusiveness. What God was doing through Israel and these individuals was to be a source of blessing to
all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:3).

Some insist that the Messiah whom Christians revere is not the same one that Jewish people also look
forward to meeting. To them, ask “It says in Zechariah 12:10 that ‘They will look on me.’ Who is the one
speaking here?”

Their reply will be inevitably, “The Almighty, of course.”

Then ask them, “’They will look on me, the one they have pierced.’ How did He get pierced?” It was at
Calvary that Almighty God was pierced.

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