Christian Philosophy: Everyone Has a Philosophy. It's The Lens Through Which They View The World and Make Decisions. (8 page)

Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

Psalm 102:25-27

I don’t base my faith in God on the ability of scholars to reconcile the Word of God to current scientific theories, and I don’t believe we should, because the Bible is more trustworthy than the fashionable ideas of any time period. God is unchanging, and His Word has proven true over and over again. However, the scientific accuracy contained in the Bible—which was written well ahead of any contemporary discovery—is another indication of its supernatural origins.

Even more than any external evidence, I think that Scripture itself is the greatest proof that the Word of God is accurate and inspired. Back when I first started walking with God, before I had proven the Word true in my life, the one thing that really convinced me of the inspiration of the Bible was the amount of prophecy in Scripture that has been fulfilled and the accuracy of those prophecies. Mere human predictions are usually so vague that they can be fulfilled in a hundred different ways. A horoscope in the newspaper or a fortune cookie from a restaurant can do that. The prophecies of the Bible are on a whole different level. The Bible is in a category all by itself.

The Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah were written four hundred years or more before New Testament times, and Jesus fulfilled them down to every last detail. The total number of prophecies Jesus fulfilled is in the hundreds, but I’ll just mention a few of them here.
²²

It was prophesied in Scripture that the Messiah would not see corruption (meaning that His body wouldn’t decay—Psalm 16:9-10), which was fulfilled when Jesus rose from the dead (Acts 2:27, 31; 13:35). Scripture says that Christ would feel forsaken (Psalm 22:1), and when Jesus was on the cross He called out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34). It says that the Messiah would be mocked and ridiculed (Psalm 22:7-8), and that came to pass exactly (Luke 23:35).

It says they would pierce His hands and His feet (Psalm 22:16). You can’t get any more specific than that—and at the time this prophecy was written, the Roman’s hadn’t even invented the punishment of crucifixion yet! Yet Scripture describes Jesus’ crucifixion perfectly (Mark 15:25; Luke 23:33; John 19:37; 20:25).

Scripture prophesied that people would divide Jesus’ garments and cast lots for them (Psalm 22:18). The soldiers at the cross did precisely that (Luke 23:34; John 19:23-24). They divided His clothes among themselves, and when they got to His robe, they discovered it was an expensive robe woven as one piece without a single seam. Rather than tear it apart, they cast lots for it.

Scripture prophesied that not one of Jesus’ bones would be broken (Psalm 34:20). The Romans often broke the leg bones of those being crucified to hasten death, but when they came to Jesus they saw He was already dead, so they didn’t break His bones (John 19:36).

Scripture prophesied that Jesus would be hated without cause (Psalm 35:19), and be betrayed by a close friend (Psalm 41:9). The Word says that He would be despised and rejected by men (Isaiah 53:3); people passing by would wag their heads at Him (Psalm 109:25); He would be given vinegar mixed with gall to drink (Psalm 69:21); He would die but rise from the dead, and He would ascend to the right hand of God. All of those prophecies were fulfilled (Matthew 27:34, 39; Luke 22:47-48; John 1:10-11;15:24-25).

It says the Messiah would bear our sicknesses and carry our diseases (Isaiah 53:4-5). Jesus’ life demonstrated God’s desire to heal us, and many scriptures confirm that Jesus purchased health for us in His atonement (Matthew 8:16-17; 1 Peter 2:24). The Word prophesied that Christ would cause the deaf to hear, the blind to see, the dumb to talk, and the lame to leap (Isaiah 35:4-6). The entire New Testament is a record of “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). And He’s still doing it. The Holy Spirit is continuing Jesus’ earthly ministry by giving sight to the blind, health to the sick, and liberty to captives (Luke 4:17-18).

Scripture says Jesus was wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:5). It prophesied He would stay silent before His accusers (Isaiah 53:7), which is completely contrary to human nature. An innocent person facing a severely painful and cruel death would try to make some kind of a defense to get out of it, but Jesus didn’t say a word (Matthew 27:12, 14; Mark 14:61; 15:5; 1 Peter 2:23).

Scripture prophesied that the Messiah would be killed with sinners and buried with the rich (Isaiah 53:9, 12). Jesus was crucified between two thieves (Mark 15:27-28) and buried in a rich man’s tomb (Matthew 27:57-60). Like the virgin birth, being born in Bethlehem, or the manner of His death, these are prophecies that no man can control through his own effort.

One mathematician famously calculated the probability of just eight of these Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled accidentally as one in one hundred quadrillion, or 10
¹⁷
—a number beyond comprehension.
²³
In other words, the odds that the following things could have happened by chance is 1 in 100 quadrillion: A man who was born in Bethlehem would have a prophet go before him and prepare his way, that he would be a ruler who entered Jerusalem on a donkey, be betrayed by a friend and that betrayal would result in wounding his hands; that he would be betrayed for exactly 30 pieces of silver, and those 30 pieces of silver would later be thrown on the Temple floor and used to buy a potter’s field; when on trial for his life—though innocent—he would make no defense, and he would be one of the few men in all of history who was killed by crucifixion. The odds of all of that happening to any man are 1 in 10
¹⁷
.

To give you a sense of how large a number one hundred quadrillion is, consider this: if you had 100 quadrillion dollars, and you spent 1 million dollars every
second
of every day, it would take you 3,168 years to spend all of that money.

Or, if you stacked $1 dollar bills on top of each other, 100 quadrillion dollars would make 73 separate stacks of bills stretching the 93 million miles from earth to the sun (pretending that the heat of the sun didn’t incinerate the paper bills). Let’s say that somewhere in those 73 stacks is a single dollar bill marked with a black “X”. Imagine a ladder that leans up against those stacks of bills and stretches all the way to the sun. Now, get on that ladder and start climbing. Stop anywhere you want along the
93 million miles
and pull a single bill from any one of the 73 stacks. The chances that you will pick the one dollar bill with a black “X” on it are the same chances that any man could have accidentally fulfilled eight of the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled as the Messiah.

One hundred quadrillion is an
absurdly
large number. When you consider that Jesus fulfilled hundreds of prophecies—not a mere eight—you begin to understand what a testimony to the inspiration of Scripture Jesus’ life truly was (in addition to certain proof that He is the Messiah).

Other prophecies in the Bible predicted events unrelated to the Messiah that were also fulfilled historically. For instance, about two hundred years before Cyrus, king of Persia, was born, the prophet Isaiah said that God would raise up a Gentile king named Cyrus who would facilitate the rebuilding of the Temple (Isaiah 44:28)—and that is exactly what happened (2 Chronicles 36:22).