The passion of Jesus Christ stands alone as the most important event creation has ever known. The Bible tells us that long before the world began, God had planned that the crucifixion of Jesus would be the method and payment for sin – the only payment that would reconcile sinners to a holy and loving God.
1 Peter 1:19-20 says “He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose Him for this purpose long before the world began, but now in these final days, He was sent to the earth for all to see. And He did this for you.”
Down through history, God provided us a roadmap. He foretold various signs and conditions through His prophets. These prophets spoke of things that mankind should watch for so that the Messiah would be recognized and believed. These signs or prophecies were given to us in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the part of the Bible written before Jesus was born. Its writings were completed in 450 B.C. The Old Testament, written hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, contains over 300 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled through His life, death and resurrection.
Mathematically speaking, the odds of anyone fulfilling this amount of prophecy are staggering.
Mathematicians put it this way: 1 person fulfilling 8 prophecies: 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 1 person fulfilling 48 prophecies: 1 chance in 10 to the 157th power 1 person fulfilling 300+ prophecies: Only Jesus!
It is the magnificent detail of these prophecies that mark the Bible as the inspired Word of God. Only God could foreknow and accomplish all that was written about the Christ. This historical accuracy and reliability sets the Bible apart from any other book or record.
The New Testament was written after the death of Jesus Christ. Archeologists have found thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament. Some of these pieces of manuscript are dated less than 100 years after the original letters were written. In terms of historical reliability, the Bible is superior to any other ancient writings.
This is the miraculous and reliable record of the Word of God. God gave us these prophecies to build our faith and point the way to His Son.
As 1 John 1:1-3 states: “The One who existed from the beginning is the One we have heard and seen. We saw Him with our own eyes and touched Him with our own hands. He is Jesus Christ, the Word of Life. This One who is life from God was shown to us, and we have seen Him. And now we testify and announce to you that He is the One who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then He was shown to us. We are telling you about what we ourselves have actually seen and heard, so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.”
'I told you things that had not yet happened.' Isaiah 46:10
How can we be sure the Bible is divinely inspired and therefore worthy of our trust? By prophecy fulfilled! No other religion has specific, repeated, and unfailing fulfilment of predictions made many years in advance of events over which the predictor had no control. Finite human beings know the future only if it's told to them by an infinite being. And God provided this evidence for us so we would know the Scriptures have a divine author: 'For I am God...Declaring the end from the beginning, and...things that are not yet done' (Isaiah 46:9-10).
The Bible's sixty-six books, written between 1400 BC and AD 90, contain approximately 3,856 verses concerned with prophecy. And here is the best part! Over 25 per cent of the entire Bible contains specific predictive prophecies that have already been fulfilled - literally. Sir Isaac Newton said, 'I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever.'
Then why do some people still not believe the Bible? Because they haven't opened their hearts to God! Paul writes: 'God's Spirit is the only one who knows what is in God's mind. But God has given us his Spirit. This is why...we can recognise the blessings God has given us. Every word we speak was taught to us by God's Spirit, not by human wisdom. And this same Spirit helps us teach spiritual things to spiritual people. This is why only someone who has God's Spirit can understand spiritual blessings' (1 Corinthians 2:11-14).
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