Recap: Prophets foretold Him - GBC Bulletin Column #36

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, we took the gospel account of Matthew as our base, and explored the prophetic word concerning Christ’s incarnation, adoration, preservation, and identification, all of which are vital to our salvation. Here is a recap of what we learned.

Matthew 1:22-23 quotes Isaiah 7:14, and tells us that ‘the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel.’ First, we see Jesus’s miraculous conception: ‘the virgin shall conceive’ - not something that happens unless God sovereignly overrides what humans - based on experience and education - consider the norm. Second, there is his human connection: he was a son, nourished in and born from the womb of a woman to join the world of men. Third, Christ’s divine mission is quite obvious in the title given him by the prophet – Immanuel, which means, as Matthew informs us, ‘God with us.’ This is who Jesus is and what Jesus did, so that he might, as the name ‘Jesus’ implies, save his people from their sin.

Matthew 2:5-6 echoes Micah 5:2, and points to the Davidic town of Bethlehem as the Messiah’s birthplace. While the wise men’s inquiry and Herod’s interest seem to centre on the place (‘Where is he who has been born…’), the focus is actually on the person (‘…the king of the Jews’). Micah’s prophecy speaks of ‘a ruler’ and the identity of this ruler is further demonstrated in the wise men’s gifts: gold as was given to kings, frankincense as was offered to God, and myrrh, befitting the Saviour who would die and be buried for the salvation of lost sinners.  All who see him as he is – King, God, and Saviour – must lay their very beings as well as their belongings at his feet in joyful worship.

Matthew 2:15 and 18 relate to the preservation of Christ. God used Joseph, a man of righteous character, to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt thus escaping the murder of many infants by Herod a king of unrighteous anger. In so doing , Hosea 11:1 is fulfilled: When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” After the exodus, Israel turned to idolatry, but Jesus is the true and better Israel who comes out of Egyptian exile to do the Father’s will and turn idolaters back to him. Even as Jesus survived, many more were slaughtered, and the women of the region were again inconsolable, as in Jeremiah 31:15, but Jesus is the consolation of Israel, born into a world of immense suffering to bring eternal salvation.

No single prophet said that Jesus would be called a Nazarene…several prophets did (Matt. 2:23). A theme in many Messianic prophecies that seems to contradict more triumphant selections is of the Anointed One’s rejection, suffering, and death (have a look at Psalm 22:6-8, and Isaiah 49:7; 53:3 for example). Nazareth (pop.: approx. 480; loc.: backwoods of Galilee) was expected to produce men of meagre means, not the Messiah. But the Anointed One became an unlikely man from an unpromising place so that he could faithfully represent doomed men and women from the fallen, depraved pit of the universe and bring those who are far from God close to him, by grace through faith.

This was printed in the worship bulletin of Grace Baptist Church (Wood Green) on 29 December 2013