Sunday, May 20, 2007

The Crucifixion in Prophecy


One of the clearest prophecies of the crucifixion of Messiah is found in Psalm 22:16

"For dogs have surrounded Me;
The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.
They pierced My hands and My feet."
(NKJV)

Written centuries before the coming of Christ, this prophecy is not only amazing because of the time-span between the writing and the fulfillment; the unlikelihood of a Jewish person to be killed by crucifixion was, at the time the prophecy was written, very unlikely to say the least. That method of execution would not be invented until centuries later.

Also, Jewish people would usually apply capital punishment by stoning in cases of blasphemy (which was the charge brought against Jesus by the Sanhedrin); what are the odds they would kill him any other way?

In the Book of Zechariah there are more scriptures that speak of the piercing of his hands:

"If someone asks him, 'What are these wounds on your body?' he will answer, 'The wounds I was given at the house of my friends.'"
(
Zachariah 13:6)

And then again:

"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son." (Zechariah 12:10)

The context makes it clear that Messiah is in view.

The Bible, in spite of its critics, proves time and again that it is the Word of God. The exactness of its prophecies are one more evidence that it was really God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16).

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