Revelation 19:10 tells us that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
The word “spirit” here can be better understood as “essence.” That is, all that the Old Testament Scriptures prophesied about were to testify concerning the Christ. The Old Testament prophecies were “inquiries” and “searchings” into salvation (see 1 Pt. 1:10-11).
This implies that we would find “messianic prophecies” in what the Prophets wrote. The word “messiah” is from the Hebrew term “mashiach” which means “anointed, one consecrated unto the Lord’s service.”
It was a word used for kings and priests (those anointed to stand in an office). In Jesus’ case, the “office” would be that of the Saviour.
The Hebrew word for “prophecy” is “nebuah.” It has a double sense;
1) a foretelling (to predict the future)
2) a forthtelling (to give an inspired message).
Prophecy in the Old Testament was majorly a foretelling than a forthtelling. They spoke concerning what God would in the future do. By telling us in Rev. 19:10 that Jesus is the essence of the Old Testament prophecies, we can immediately streamline our focus. We see then that those prophecies are MAJORLY messianic — they spoke of the coming Messiah — He who is anointed to save from sin!
Hence, it is a fool’s errand to attempt to discredit Jesus using the Hebrew Scriptures. The manner in which Jesus fulfilled those prophecies is ODDLY specific.
Mathematics & Astronomy Professor Paul Stoner gives a series of mathematical explanations to prove the degree of this specificity:
He says that the chances of just 8 prophecies coming true by sheer chance is 1 in 1017
(100,000,000,000,000,000). That would be equivalent to covering the whole state of Texas with silver dollars two feet deep and then expecting a blindfolded man to walk across the state and on the very first try find the ONE coin you marked (roughly equivalent to the Province of Ontario) being 1.5 feet deep.
Professor Stoner then made the comment that, “Any man who rejects Christ as the Son of God is rejecting a fact proved perhaps more absolutely than any other fact in the
world.”
Jesus literally fulfilled every messianic prophecy, so much so that you can call Him “Prophecy fulfilled.” He is literally the “Amen” (fulfillment) of all the Prophets foretold concerning salvation. This means that you cannot use the Hebrew Scriptures (Genesis to Malachi) to disprove Jesus as the Messiah, unless you are trying to be mischievous. The Scriptures are Jesus’ book — there are the Scriptures because of Jesus and there is Jesus because of the Scriptures. They both derive their authority from each other — the Hebrew Scriptures can be trusted to the degree it accurately portrays salvation through faith in Christ. They are so intertwined that you would fail if you attempted to pitch one against the other!
© Josh Banks Ministries. 2020.
