Why is Jesus God? He Was Pre-Announced
Why Do We Believe Jesus is God?
Recently a highly intelligent and thoughtful young woman reached out to me, asking to talk. She explained that even though she had gone to Catholic Schools of 12 years, she believed there is a God, but was unsure as to who he was. I shared with her four concrete reasons why we know Jesus is God. I will share the first one with you today and the rest over the next few days. It was helpful to her, maybe you can use it in your conversations with someone who has a similar struggle.
In your average Comparative Religions course at your run-of-the-mill college, Jesus Christ will be presented in a lineup of major religious founders. He’ll be there with the likes of Zoroaster, Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, and maybe Martin Luther. And the similarities between all these people will be emphasized. They were all persons of strong character, who presented a world-view and preached a moral system. Many suffered for their beliefs, and all of them urged people everywhere to unite in serving a Higher Cause.
The problem is, emphasizing similarities is sometimes more misleading than emphasizing dissimilarities. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, milk and urine are similar in that both come from a cow, but you wouldn’t really want to make too much of that similarity when the differences are so much more striking and important. So too with Christ. It’s an enormous mistake to emphasize the similarities between Himself and other religious founders when the differences between Him and them are so much more extreme. What is so special about Jesus? Why do we believe Jesus is God? There are four reasons. We will meditate on the first reason today.
Jesus Was Pre-Announced for Centuries
If someone is planning on coming to your house for supper, you’d probably be grateful if they didn’t just drop in unannounced. That is doubly true for someone important: My wife hates it when I invite the Archbishop without giving her some advance notice. If God were coming to earth, wouldn’t be nice to have a little heads up – some advance notice. Jesus Christ is the only person in human history to be preannounced
· People were waiting for Jesus
· People had been hearing about the Christ for centuries
Quite a few details were known about Him before he came like:
How he would be born:
· Isaiah 7:14, tells us He would be born of a virgin; (Isaiah 9:6-7) and though born a child, would be Mighty-God
We knew where he would be born: Micah 5:2 tells us He would be born in Bethlehem
We knew when he will be born:
· Two visions in the Book of Daniel chapters 2 and 7
· One of a statue made of 4 different metals (Daniel 2) Gold, silver, bronze and iron
· One of 4 Beasts (Daniel 7)
· In each one Daniel foretells the progression of empires: Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome
· In the time of Rome one like a son of man will come and he will be given dominion… that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him and his kingdom will never be destroyed.
· Jesus is the son of man who came and established the Catholic Church, the Kingdom of God on earth at the time of the Romans. Now the Roman empire is no more while the Catholic Church fills the entire world.
28-30 AD
We knew 500 years before Jesus precisely when His public Ministry would begin:
· Daniel 9:2-27, tells us He would be appear publicly from 28-30 AD – precisely the time of the ministry of Jesus
That he would work specific miracles
Isaiah 35:5-6 He would heal the blind, lame and deaf
Psalm 55:12-14 He would be betrayed by a friend
Wisdom 2:12-20 He is the just man killed by his enemies
Isaiah 53:2-7 He is the Lamb of God who takes away sin of the world by his suffering and death
Psalm 22:16 they will cast lots for his clothes
Zech 12:10; 13:1 He will be pierced in the heart
On that day a fountain will be opened to cleanse us from sin
Ps 16:10, 30:3 He would rise from the dead
By His Sufferings Shall My Servant Justify Many
Isaiah 53, written 500-700 years+ before Jesus describes in an uncanny way how the Messiah would suffer and die to save many from their sins:
Isaiah 53:3 He will be a thing despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering…; he was despised and we took no account of him. And yet ours were the sufferings he bore, ours the sorrows he carried…Yet he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins. On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through his wounds we are healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each taking his own way, and Yahweh burdened him with the sins of all of us. Harshly dealt with, he bore it humbly, he never opened his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter-house, like a sheep that is dumb before its shearers never opening its mouth… They gave him a grave with the wicked, a tomb with the rich, though he had done no wrong and there had been no perjury in his mouth. Yahweh has been pleased to crush him with suffering…By his sufferings shall my servant justify many, taking their faults on himself.
You are a Witness
The first reason we know Jesus is God is that he is the only person ever to be announced for centuries in advance down to every detail of his life. When the two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus were in confusion and despair about the identity of Jesus, he approached them and brought them out of their confusion by showing how he had been predicted and prophesied. And they believed:
Luke 24:44 Then Jesus told them, 'This is what I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms has to be fulfilled'. He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, 'So you see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.