PROPHECY: USING THE OLD TESTAMENT TO EXPLAIN THE NEW. Isaiah 53.

You see prophecy in fiction all the time. Here is how it works: authors let you in on a secret, and later that secret plays an important part in the story.

Consider an example from Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. While he is in prison, we learn Jean Valjean is stronger than four men. Later when an overloaded cart collapses on a man, no one can do anything to help. Valjean, who has re-invented himself as the wealthy businessman and mayor using the name Monsieur Madeleine, jumps in and lifts the cart, rescuing the man. (One writer says young men like the character of Valjean because he is a super-hero: he has a secret identity and super-human strength, but his secret identity is compromised when he uses his strength to rescue someone.)

Biblical prophecy is different. It is an ACTUAL prophecy. We don’t just discover a hero’s secret characteristic and wait for it to play a part in the story. Instead, Biblical prophets foretell a detailed future event—and that event happens. This is something else entirely.

Imagine reading the following passage as a Jewish person today. How can you not think Isaiah was speaking of Jesus—700 years before the cross?

“I gave my back to those who beat Me, and My cheeks to those who tore out My beard. I did not hide my face from scorn and spitting…. I have set My face like flint…[Isaiah 50:6-7]. His appearance was so disfigured that He will not look like a man and His form did not resemble a human being. [Isaiah 52:13-14]. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering … He was like one from whom men turn away. Yet He Himself bore our sicknesses and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment for our peace was on Him and by His stripes we are healed…. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth…. They made His grave with the wicked, yet He was with a rich man in His death. [Isaiah 53:3-5, 7,9].”

God, thank you for the amazing way You use the Old Testament to explain the New.

ΑΩ