The Promises of Old Testament Prophecy (The Greeting: Part 3)

"Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures..." - Romans 1:1-2



Okay, so today we're going to look at the accounts of the Old Testament prophets, which point towards all that Paul is about to teach us. Most of us are probably familiar with the stories we've heard from the Old Testament, about David and Goliath, Abraham, Joseph... but I don't think as many of us are familiar with the prophets. You know... the one's who are always so hard to read... mostly because they keep mentioning people and places that we have no idea about!



However, these prophets were used of God to point the children of Israel towards the hope of Salvation. It was the prophets, whom the Pharisees and Sadducees would study, that gave the God-inspired insight into the coming of the Savior. Unfortunately, the Pharisees and Sadducees and all of the religious leaders, were looking for a conquering hero. They were reading only half of the message, apparently... because Isaiah says it like this:



"Behold, My servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. Just as many were astonished at you, My people, so His appearance was marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men. Thus He will sprinkle many nations, kings will shut their mouths on account of Him; For what had not been told them they will see, and what they had not heard they will understand.

"Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him." -Isaiah 52:13-53:6



When you read this as a continuous thought, you begin with the victory of Christ. However, it doesn't take long before this prophesied King, becomes much less kingly in appearance... "despised and forsaken of men"? The Jews were looking for a military leader! This man, Jesus, preached the Kingdom of Heaven, not one of this earth... He taught about compassion and forgiveness of sin, not the keeping of religious practices. "To obey is better than sacrifice," (1 Sam. 15:22) was a concept they had heard before, but not one that they practiced. You see, they obeyed, outwardly, and yet their hearts were of unchanged stone. Jesus came to soften hearts and heal the broken, the Jews were looking for someone to break the chains of Rome!



The Jews believed God's word, that the Christ would come, but didn't understand what God's plan for salvation looked like. So, when Paul and the other apostles, most of them unlearned men with the exception of Paul, were able to look back on the prophetical texts of the Old Testament and make the connection with Christ, we can see that this is not an accomplishment of men but of the Holy Spirit revealing the truth to them.



So, after that little rabbit-trail of information... The prophets were the God-inspired messengers of what was to come. There are well over a hundred prophecies that pointed to the coming of the Savior... and only Jesus Christ could fulfill all of them. The probability of any one person fulfilling even a few of them is such a high number... Here's a link with a little bit of information on the odds of messianic prophecies being fulfilled. http://www.raptureready.com/featured/funk/statistics-probability.html (about the middle of the article).

So, we see that Paul's pointing out of the promises of God being fulfilled in the gospel message is actually an incredible note of authority for every other claim that is to be made about Christ, in Romans, rather than a small aside. It is the fulcrum on which every other truth swings, and to which every other truth is attached. For without the fulfillment of the OT prophecies, the Gospel would swing wildly and have no basis of stability and truth, or would contradict the rest of the Word of God. However, Paul also quotes the OT in reference to Christ's authority and authenticity, quite regularly, throughout not only Romans but his others letters as well.

Not only this, but the entire consummation of Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament, points to Christ. Without the gospel, the Scripture is incomplete. The Old Testament cannot stand alone as complete, nor does the New Testament nullify the Old, but rather they fulfill each and every promise of each other.

So, God's promises, given by the prophets, were fulfilled in Christ Jesus. Now... we should be prepared to dive into the rest of this letter with the understanding that Paul is not coming up with this stuff on his own. God promised the Savior, through His prophets, and brought about the fulfillment of that salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ.

I think we've explored this passage well enough... I apologize if some of you are more confused, now, than you were before we began. I feel a bit scattered-of-thought this morning....
If necessary, I will reiterate today's blog in a more clear and concise (not to mention condensed) way, at a later date.

For now... Grace and Peace!

Questions or Comments? E-mail me at afflquestions@yahoo.com .