Tag Archives: Old Testament foretelling of Jesus

Sunday Devotional: Faith, Evidence and Logic

Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events
that have been fulfilled among us,
just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning
and ministers of the word have handed them down to us,
I too have decided,
after investigating everything accurately anew,
to write it down in an orderly sequence for you,
most excellent Theophilus, 
so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings
you have received.

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit,
and news of him spread throughout the whole region.
He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.

He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,
and went according to his custom 
into the synagogue on the sabbath day.
He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
            The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
                        because he has anointed me 
                        to bring glad tidings to the poor.
            He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
                        and recovery of sight to the blind,
                        to let the oppressed go free,
                        and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.
Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them,
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

It is often said that belief in God and Christianity is a matter of faith, which the dictionary defines as “belief that is not based on proof”. By “proof” is meant not the proof of mathematics, but the “proof” of empirical evidence. And so, it is said that, with the grace from God, the believer takes a “leap of faith” across a cavern of lack of empirical evidence, to believe and trust in something intangible that’s incapable of being proved.

Though the existence of God and the assertion that God became man in the person of Jesus Christ cannot be 100-percent proven with empirical evidence –bearing in mind that there are no absolute, 100%-true knowledge in the empirical domain because we have not seen everything in the Universe — that does not mean an absence of evidence. There is also the matter of logic — the employment of reasoning, inference and sound judgment to ascertain truth or falsity.

Today’s Gospel reading from Luke 1 and 4 includes both empirical evidence and logic:

(1) The empirical evidence consists of three pieces:

  • Percipient witnesses: In law, there’s an important concept critical to the determination of truth. The concept is “percipient witness,” defined by Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary as “A witness who testifies about things she or he actually perceived. For example, an eyewitness.” The passage from Luke 1:2 makes reference to just that — “those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning” — referring to the apostles and disciples who were eyewitnesses of the person, teachings, behaviors and events of Jesus of Nazareth, including the many miracles He made.
  • Jesus taught in the synagogues: The passage from Luke 4:15 states “He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.” One has to ask how a 30-year-old, unschooled carpenter managed to have a rabbi’s expert knowledge in scriptures as to not just teach in synagogues, but taught so well that he was “praised by all”.
  • Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies: Did you know that the Old Testament had foretold the incarnation, persecution and death-by-crucifixion of Jesus? In Luke 4, Jesus Himself referred to the prophesies when he read “a scroll of the prophet Isaiah,” describing what the coming Messiah would do, including the healing (“recovery of sight”) of the blind. (For other prophetic passages in the Old Testament which were fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth, see my post “Sunday Devotional: Book of Wisdom foretold the killing of Jesus“.)

(2) Logic:

The account in Luke 4 continues that after reading the passage from the prophet Isaiah, Jesus said to “all in the synagogue” who were looking “intently at him”:

“Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

C. S. Lewis, in a series of BBC radio talks later published as the book Mere Christianity (pp. 54-56), perfectly describes the choices available to us when confronted with Jesus’ startling assertion. Lewis said:

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said…would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to…. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”

In stark terms, those are our choices. Jesus of Nazareth — whose life, words and deeds, including many miracles, were testified to by countless percipient eyewitnesses — was either (1) insane; (2) a pathological liar or evil; or (3) who he said he was — God.

With the available empirical evidence and employing our intellect and logical faculties, we should ask ourselves:

  • Did Jesus of Nazareth act in a deranged or psychotic manner?
  • Did Jesus of Nazareth tell untruths, much less habitually lie?
  • Was Jesus of Nazareth evil? Did he hurt, harm, or act with malice toward another? On the contrary, he was kind and forgiving, healed the sick and the blind, and even resurrected the dead!

So, the next time someone sneers at your belief in Jesus being the Son of God, calling your belief a blind and irrational “leap of faith,” you can with confidence declare that your faith has the support of both (empirical) proof and logic. The atheist, however, is woefully deficient in both — a subject for a future discussion.

May the peace and love of Jesus Christ, our Lord, be with you,

~E

Sunday Devotional: Book of Wisdom foretold the killing of Jesus

Wisdom 2:12, 17-20

The wicked say:
Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;
he sets himself against our doings,
reproaches us for transgressions of the law
and charges us with violations of our training.
Let us see whether his words be true;
let us find out what will happen to him.
For if the just one be the son of God, God will defend him
and deliver him from the hand of his foes.
With revilement and torture let us put the just one to the test
that we may have proof of his gentleness
and try his patience.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death;
for according to his own words, God will take care of him.

Mark 9:30-32

Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee,
but he did not wish anyone to know about it.
He was teaching his disciples and telling them,
The Son of Man is to be handed over to men
and they will kill him,
and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”
But they did not understand the saying,
and they were afraid to question him.

God is outside space and time.

And thus the incarnation, persecution, mocking, and death-by-crucifixion of Jesus, the Son of God, had been amply foretold in the Old Testament. The concordance of the above passages from the New (Mark 9) and Old Testaments (Wisdom 2) is but one example.

Here are some more:

Isaiah 7:14

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Numbers 24:17

there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.

Micah 5:2

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

Jeremiah 23:5

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

Zechariah 9:9

behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

Zechariah 11:12

So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.

Psalm 22:1, 16, 18

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

they pierced my hands and my feet.

They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

And yet, despite the concordances of Old and New Testaments, so many then and now obdurately refuse to believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God.

When Jesus came to the Israelites, and despite all His miracles — walking on water; calming a stormy sea; multiplying a few fishes and loaves to feed thousands; healing the blind, lame and the sick; resurrecting Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus from the dead; casting demons from the possessed — most of them not only rejected Him, they had Him executed.

How perverse is that!

So today, when you hear His voice, be not “hard of face and obstinate of heart” (Ezekiel 2:4).

Listen.

And open your heart, mind and soul to Him.

What do you have to lose?

May the peace and love of Jesus Christ our Lord be with you,

~E

Sunday Devotional: Whom even wind and sea obey

Job 38: 1, 8-11

The Lord addressed Job out of the storm and said:
Who shut within doors the sea,
when it burst forth from the womb;
when I made the clouds its garment
and thick darkness its swaddling bands?
When I set limits for it
and fastened the bar of its door,
and said: Thus far shall you come but no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stilled!

Mark 4:35-41

On that day, as evening drew on, Jesus said to his disciples:
“Let us cross to the other side.”
Leaving the crowd, they took Jesus with them in the boat just as he was.
And other boats were with him.
A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat,
so that it was already filling up.
Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.
They woke him and said to him,
“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
He woke up,
rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!”
The wind ceased and there was great calm.
Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified?
Do you not yet have faith?”
They were filled with great awe and said to one another,
Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?

The above passages from Job 38 and Mark 4 show a concordance between the Old Testament and the New Testament, wherein Job 38 foretold the account in Mark 4 of the Second Person of the Triune Godhead having the power to calm the wind and the sea.

There are other places in the Old Testament where the coming of the Second Person was foretold:

Isaiah 7:14

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Numbers 24:17

there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.

Micah 5:2

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

Jeremiah 23:5

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

Zechariah 9:9

behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

Zechariah 11:12

So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.

Psalm 22:1, 16, 18

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

they pierced my hands and my feet.

They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

Those passages in the Old Testament all pointed to Jesus of Nazareth as being the promised Messiah (Savior).

And yet, the Jewish elites of the day — the Pharisees and the Sanhedrins, the elite of elites — persisted not only in doubting Jesus, but publicly challenged, excoriated and persecuted the Son of God to the point of death. But we, the little people who are His followers, moan and groan whenever our enemies give us a hard time!

So the next time someone betrays, mistreats or abuses us, just remember that God Himself had endured far, far worse.

Luke 9:23

Then he said to them all:
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves
and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

And may the peace and love of Jesus Christ our Lord be with you,

~E