John Ankerberg - Knowing the Truth About Jesus the Messiah (Defenders Series)

By Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr. John Weldon

Published by ATRI Publishing

Copyright 2011

(Originally Published 1996)

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Unless indicated otherwise, Scripture quotations are the authors personal translation of the Hebrew and Greek texts.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version, Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society.

Verses marked amp are taken from the Amplified Bible, Old Testament, Copyright 1965 and 1987 by The Zondervan Corporation, and from the Amplified New Testament, Copyright 1954, 1958, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Contents

[Jesus] said to them, How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ [Messiah] have to suffer these things and then enter His glory? And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself (Luke 24:25-27, NIV).

But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ [Messiah] should suffer, He has thus fulfilled (Acts 3:18, NASB).

[If we examine] those passages in the Old Testament to which the ancient synagogue referred to as Messianic.... [we find] upwards of 456... and their Messianic application is supported by more than 558 references to the most ancient rabbinic writings.... A careful perusal of their Scripture quotations show that the main postulates of the New Testament concerning the Messiah are fully supported by rabbinic statements (Alfred Edersheim, a teacher of languages and Warbutonian Lecturer at Lincolns Inn [Oxford], Grinfield Lecturer on the Septuagint, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah , Vol. 1, pp. 163-164).

Jesus of Nazareth changed the world. Never has there been a man like Him, and never will there be. He is the subject of more books, plays, poetry, films, and worship than any man in human history. To read His words carefullyalongside those of Muhammad, Buddha, the Hindu scriptures, or those of any other religious leadersis to be confounded by their power and uniqueness. Those who heard Him asked in astonishment, Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? (Matthew 13:54, NIV). And to look at what He did is to be convinced intuitively of the basic claims of Christian faith. As the famous writer Malcolm Muggeridge observed, The words of the Gospels... in the truest and most absolute sense... may be called Holy Words, and without blasphemy, attributed to God Himself.

Whatever good Christianity has done for the world has come because of Jesus. But who was this man? The purpose of this material is to show how the Hebrew Scriptures predicted centuries in advance the coming of a divine Messiah for all mankind, and that Jesus is the fulfillment of those prophecies.

Some have claimed that these statements were made after Jesus lived, not before. But the entire Hebrew Scriptures were completed by 400 B.C. And no matter what your view of the Hebrew Scriptures, one fact is unassailable: The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the entire Hebrew Scriptures, was completed by 247 B.C.

Therefore, even critics must acknowledge that every prophecy we will discuss in this book, and many more, were in existence well in advance of the time Jesus livedin fact, at least some 250 years before He was even born.

We will also show that the Messiah is spoken of in such specific detail in the Hebrew Scriptures that it is literally impossible to account for such predictions apart from the Bible being a divine revelation of God to humanity.

There are those today who reject this conclusion, but they refuse to consider the prophecies fairly and on their own merit. Only a preexisting bias against supernatural prophecy itself (such as those holding a rationalistic worldview) or a bias against these prophecies referring to the person of Jesus can deter someone from accepting the Scriptures as Messianic.

We have written this book to set forth a small portion of the evidence found in the Hebrew Scriptures that predicted the coming of the Messiah. We believe God gave this evidence so that those who are willing to allow the facts to speak for themselves will be able to discover the truth.

Is there evidence in history that God gave specific information hundreds of years in advance about a person He knew would live? What specific accounts are given and where can they be found? Did the people to whom the information came recognize that they had been given special information? Do these prophecies constitute solid evidence for us today? Is it possible for us to account for this information apart from the fact it must have come from God? And did the Jewish community before and after Christ believe these same Hebrew Scriptures pointed to a coming Messiah?

The prophecies in the Old Testament are like clues in a mystery story. In this book we will try to gather enough clues to identify the special person who is talked about in the Hebrew Scriptures. As we shall see, the clues will lead us to ask:

Who is the seed (offspring) of the woman who crushes the head of Satan?

Who is the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that will eventually bless all nations?

Who is the prophet like Moses of whom God says, You must listen to him?

Who is the one crucified?

Who is the child that is God and will have an everlasting kingdom?

Who was crushed and pierced for our transgressions? Upon whom did the Lord lay the iniquity of all mankind?

Who is the righteous Branch, the wise King, who will be called the Lord our righteousness?

Who is the Anointed One to be cut off after 483 years?

Who is the one who is eternal, who will be the ruler over Israel, who is born in Bethlehem Ephrathah?

Who is Jehovah, the one they have pierced, for whom Jerusalem and all the nation of Israel will weep and mourn?

No one can deny that the Bible itself claims to be the unique revelation of God: All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16,17, NASB). If you do not agree, the material discussed in this book should be of interest to you, because the Bibles claim to uniqueness and the prophecies of a future Messiah go together. If the prophecies are truly fulfilled, then the Bible has provided information about the future that could only have come from God.

We are aware that some people have applied different interpretations to these prophetic verses, but we are convinced that such interpretations result from misinterpretation or biased assumptions that will not allow the evidence to speak for itself.

Before we examine the prophecies themselves, however, we want to document the fact that God did promise to give information through His prophets concerning the future

God did promise to speak through His prophets. In fact He said this would be proof that He was God, indeed, the true God for all the earth. He even challenged one and all to make statements about the future that would be as accurate as His statements about the future: