Friday 17 January 2014

The Fulfilment of Old Testament Prophecy Set the Stage of History onto Which Christ Was To Come

Isaiah prophesied about the regathering of Jews to Israel, the rebuilding of the Temple and walls of Jerusalem, and about the Christ.

In case it seems odd that the parts about Christ were fulfilled some four- or five-hundred years after the other parts were fulfilled (the figures I use in this Post are broadly approximate), notice that other parts weren't all fulfilled together either. There was probably about some one hundred years or so between the regathering into Israel and the beginning of the rebuilding of the Temple under Zerubbabel, and the rebuilding of the Walls of Jerusalem under Nehemiah.

Isaiah saw all these themes in advance - but the fulfilling of them spanned approximately a five-hundred year period - beginning some two-hundred years after Isaiah prophesied and culminating some seven-hundred or more years later, or maybe even nearly eight-hundred years later.

Old Testament Biblical history ends with the fulfilling of the first parts of the prophecy (the regathering and rebuilding); then New Testament history picks the story up again, once that stage had been set for some hundreds of years.  Christ came onto the stage of Jewish history while Israel's circumstances were just as Isaiah and other prophets had prophetically described they would be when Christ would come.

Israel's circumstances were to change drastically and for the worse again a short time after Christ came, which drastic events also fulfilled prophecy, particularly Daniel's prophecies. So there was only a window of time within which Christ had to come, in order to fulfil prophecy. And He did in that time - His Name is Jesus of Nazareth, our wonderful Lord and Saviour.


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