11. What were some of the Old Testament prophecies that Jesus fulfilled?

 You said God promised to send someone to save us from sin, and that Jesus fulfilled that promise. What were some of those promises? Did Jesus really fulfill them?

 Writing over 1000 years before Jesus' birth, King David of Israel wrote prophetically that the Savior would be crucified.. In Psalm 22 of the Old Testament, David described in amazing detail what a crucifixion is like‑but the Romans didn't introduce crucifixion as a form of execution until some 800 years later. Over 500 years before Jesus' birth, Zechariah, an Old Testament prophet, quoted God as predicting that He Himself would become a man and that His own people would kill Him (Zechariah 12:10). The prophet Isaiah predicted that the Savior would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14)‑a miracle impossible for any man to manufacture for himself‑and Jesus was born of a virgin (Matthew 1:18‑25).

Over 700 years before Jesus' birth the prophet Micah predicted the Savior would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), and that is precisely where Jesus was born (Matthew 2: 1). About 600 years before Jesus was born, the prophet Jeremiah predicted that the birth of the Savior would lead to the killing of infants throughout the area in which the Savior was born (Jeremiah 31:15), and the Jewish king Herod had all male children two years old and under in Bethlehem and its area killed when Jesus was born (Matthew 2:16), though Jesus' parents, Joseph and Mary, took Him away to Egypt to escape the slaughter; even that trip was prophesied by Hosea over 700 years before the event (Hosea 11: 1).

King David predicted that the Savior would be betrayed by one of His friends (Psalm 41:9; 55:12‑14), and He was (Matthew 10:4; 26:49‑50; John 13:21). Zechariah predicted that the price of betrayal would be thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11: 12), and that was what Judas was paid for betraying Jesus (Matthew 26:15); he predicted the betrayer would throw the pieces of silver back into the temple in remorse (Zechariah 11: 13), and Judas did that (Matthew 27:5); he predicted the silver would be used to buy a potter's field, and it was (Zechariah 11:13; Matthew 27:7). David predicted false witnesses would testify against the Savior (Psalm 35:11), and they did (Matthew 26:59‑6 1). Isaiah predicted the Savior would be silent before His accusers (Isaiah 53:7). and He was (Matthew 27:12‑19). Isaiah predicted that the Savior would be wounded and bruised for the sins of men (Isaiah 53), and He was Matthew 27:26,67; 20:28), that He would be hit and spit upon (Isaiah 50:6), and He was (Matthew 26:67). David predicted He would be mocked (Psalm 22:7,8), and He was (Matthew 27:31) and that His hands and feet would be pierced (Psalm 22:16), and they were when He was crucified. Isaiah predicted He would be crucified along with criminals (Isaiah 53:12), and He was (Matthew 27:38; Mark 15:27,28). Isaiah even predicted that the Savior would, while being killed by His own people, plead for God to forgive them (Isaiah 53:12), and Jesus did that when, from the cross, He prayed, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34).

These and many other prophecies in the Old Testament were fulfilled by Jesus. The odds against this happening were enormous. Imagine for moment that there were only ten such prophecies about Jesus, and that the chances were 50/50 that He would fulfill any one of them (really the chances were much lower). The odds against His fulfilling  all ten would then have been one in 210, or one in 2,048. But there weren't only ten, there were some 300 predictions of the coming of the Savior, and Jesus fulfilled all of them. The odds? About one in 2,300!

The only national conclusion is to believe that those predictions of the Savior were given to Old Testament writers by God Himself, and Jesus fulfilled them because He is the promised Savior God sent for us.

So you see, Jesus really was who He said He was‑God in human form, And He really did die to pay for our sins. What we need to do, then, is to believe in Him and commit our lives to Him.

RETURN TO QUESTION PAGE

12. Isn't Christianity just a crutch? Who needs it?

Isn't Christianity just a crutch for weak people? I don't think I need that.

 Yes, Christianity is a crutch for weak people, but its being a crutch doesn't make it untrue. People who have broken legs need crutches, and no one is silly enough to call them foolish for using crutches. Well, people with broken hearts need a spiritual crutch, something to get them up and walking again. They're not silly for using the crutch, they're smart!

Fine. Some people need that crutch. But I don't.

 Then you're in a class by yourself. I don't think you really believe that. You agreed earlier that you sin, doing what you know you shouldn't and not doing what you know you should. Sure, sometimes you do what's right, and not what's wrong. But not all the time.

When God gave His moral law to the Israelites through Moses, He said that perfect obedience to every part of it was necessary to please Him. "Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them," God said (Deuteronomy 27:26). The Apostle Paul made the same point when he paraphrased those words: "Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them" (Galatians 3:10). God requires perfection‑and, my friend, no matter how good you are, even you don't believe you're perfect. So you do need this crutch just as much as anyone else does.

Don't my good works count for anything? Won't God accept me if I've lived a good life?

Only if your good works were without exception would they count anything for you. The Bible admits that whoever would live a sinless life would be accepted by God on that basis. If everything you did conformed absolutely to God's law, then you would be accepted on that basis.

But God doesn't just weigh the good against the bad and decide your case that way. God's standard Is perfection. If you fall short of perfection, you fail to satisfy God's requirements. “…..all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," wrote the Apostle Paul (Romans 3:23). It's not a question of how much or how terribly we have sinned; it's merely the fact that we have sinned at all that makes us fall short of God's standards.

But it's not fair for God to require perfection of us!

 As our Creator, He can require whatever He pleases, and we aren't in any position to complain about it. But the Bible assures us that God is just‑so perfectly just, in fact, that none can measure up to Him in justice. "The LORD is righteous.... He will do no injustice. Every morning He brings His justice to light; He does not fail" (Zephaniah 3:5).

God has, in fact, provided the way for us to stand perfectly before Him, to meet the requirements of perfection that He has set up. The way He has provided is for us to believe in Jesus.

That's not fair either. Why should I have to believe in Jesus in order to meet God's requirements?

 Why should you have to follow the instructions in assembling a machine to make it work? Why should you have to use the right codes to make a computer work? Are these things unfair? Of course not. You have to follow the instructions and use the right codes because the designer of the machine or the computer designed them to function only with those conditions.

God is your Designer. He has told you what you have to do to "work right," to meet His requirements. It's not unfair for Him to have told you so, so long as what He demands is possible. He gives you two options: you may either be perfect in yourself, or you may gain your perfection by believing  in Jesus. If you don't think the former is possible, you are free to choose the latter. There's nothing unjust about that.

The Bible assures you that you are a sinner who cannot meet God's standards of perfection. It assures you that you cannot earn your way to heaven, that good works have nothing to do with restoring a friendly relationship with God. Friendship with God isn't earned, it is given to us freely by God‑freely except that really Jesus paid for it by giving His life for us.

Look, I know I admitted earlier that I sin. But I’m not all that bad. Really evil people like Hitler I can understand God rejecting, but I’m just not that bad. My sins are small things, they're not serious.

 You may not take them seriously, but God does. You see, God doesn't consider how much damage an act causes to you or others, He considers what your sins say about your attitude toward Him. As your Creator, God deserves your absolute obedience. Your disobedience indicates that you don't honor Him as you ought, and that's something much more serious than simply telling a lie or cheating or stealing. That's why James, one of the Apostles, wrote, "....whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For He who said,' Do not commit adultery' also said, 'Do not commit murder"' (James 2: 10‑11).

But I don't disrespect God.

 To the extent that you sin, you do. But if you really mean what you say in claiming not to disrespect God, then you should believe and obey Him when He tells you that your only way to come to Him is to believe in Jesus.

Does God really say that?

 Earlier, you remember, we saw that Jesus claimed  to be God, and that He proved that claim by rising from the dead. Remember what He said?  “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me" (John 14:6). This is why the Apostle Peter told people, “there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

God offers salvation to everyone through Jesus. But He offers it in no other way. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes In Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:16‑18).

RETURN TO QUESTION PAGE