THE (SAME) OLD STORY

THE (SAME) OLD STORY
The First Week of Advent: The Announcement III

As mentioned before, the expectation of Messiah goes way back, some say all the way back to Genesis 3:15, the so-called “protoevangelium”. (If you can fit that on a Scrabble board, I am pretty sure you would win.) This is considered the first prophecy of Jesus Christ. The seed of the woman, Jesus and the seed of the serpent, presumably Satan and the powers, will bruise His heel at the cross and later at the resurrection He will crush the serpent’s head; at the Second Advent the crushing will be complete, as Paul says, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

Yet without question, the most significant statements about the coming Messiah are found what many Christians have come to consider an advance copy of the Gospels, the book of Isaiah.

"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14 (NASB)

Before all of Dr. Bayer’s students have a longhorn; I readily concede that yes, this does refer to king Ahaz (Is 8:1-10). The study of the Hebrew alma is a great Excursis of “semantic fields” for Hebrew and LXX nerds. In the 60’s, scholars nearly went to fisticuffs about the translation of this word: should if be young woman or virgin? The RSV was doomed to the pejorative “liberal” for all time because of their choice to render the Hebrew literally, however, we know that the Gospel writers had nary a worry claiming that this text points to Jesus (Mt 1:23), so neither do I, and neither does Dr. Bayer or any other orthodox Christian. So, you may translate it “young woman” if you will, since we know that the birth in Isaiah’s time was not immaculate, but we know that when it applies to Christ, there is no problem.

Here is the fantastic thing! His virginal conception was foretold, but so was His place of birth, the details of His life, the mode of His execution, and details right down His burial and that He would raise up again on the third day! Talk about detail.

A mathematician conjured up an example to help us grasp the immensity of this:

The chances of any one person in history fulfilling only EIGHT of the approximately 300 prophecies concerning the life of Jesus could be illustrated by covering the State of Texas with Silver Dollars, 2 ft. deep. Mark one Silver Dollar and place it in the pile. Take a second person and blindfold them and give them one chance to pick the correct Silver Dollar. There you have it.

And to quote Dr. Bing Bayer, “He told us to look for Him in there [the Old Testament]”:

"These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you--that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled."
Luke 24:44 (NRSV)

You see, when you come right down to it, the entire Bible is really The Jesus Book. W.A. Criswell (who was born in Eldorado, OK if you can believe it) spoke of a "scarlet thread of redemption that runs from Genesis to the Revelation". This is so true. All of human history hinges upon the ministry of Jesus, so much so that his life split time in two (BD/AD: Before Christ & Anno Domini "The Year of Our Lord. It all points to Him.