8 Prophecies of Jesus’ Birth
There’s More to Christmas…
By Dennis Kreiss
There’s more, much more to Christmas
Than candlelight and cheer;
It’s the spirit of the Christ Child
That brightens all the year;
It’s prophecy fulfilled,
It’s hope reborn again,
For Jesus came to fulfill God’s word,
And bring goodwill to men!
When we think of the wonders of Christmas, I have no doubt, that every so often, those of us who are believers, take the time to ponder the amazing event we call the Incarnation: God became a man. Amazing; to think that our little blue and green planet was visited by the Creator of the Universe!
But Jesus didn’t just happen to stop in for a visit. It was no accident or coincidence that He came when he did. His was a planned incursion. Long before David, or Abraham or Adam and Eve existed, God had this invasion mapped out and carefully scheduled down to the last detail. He had all the pieces and players in place, ready for his Grand entrance!
In fact, Jesus birth was so carefully scripted that it was mapped out in fulfillment of prophecy, in order to create a shock and awe response. Once you see it, you can’t help but be amazed. Only God could have done it.
Let me explain: Did you know that there are over 8,000 different prophecies in the Bible. And that Jesus had to fulfill 333 specific prophecies during his lifetime? 33 were fulfilled the day he was crucified. And at least eight were fulfilled in his birth. These were specific prophecies that were recorded some 400 to 2000 years before Jesus was born.
According to the law of probabilities, there is no possible way that so many predictions would come true for one single individual. Only God could defy the odds and predict and act like this.
Imagine that you had the ability to predict the future and you predicted to an expectant mother eight things about her unborn baby; its sex, place of birth, birth doctor, occupation, best friend, greatest achievement, manner of death and place of death. The chances of all eight of your predictions being fulfilled is one chance in a billion billion. (1 in 10 to the 17th power). Just to be clear… we are talking about an impossible task.
The chances of all 8 predictions being fulfilled are as follows. If you were to buy a quintillion girl scout cookies, (that’s the odds we are talking about here) and you were to spre
ad them across the state of Texas, they would cover every inch of the state, and form a layer of Girl scout cookies, two feet deep. Now drop in just one Oreo cookie from a jet plane flying over the state, blindfold yourself and wade in to the state of Texas to find that cookie. The chances of you finding the Oreo on first try is the same odds of fulfilling just 8 prophecies like Jesus did… except that he fulfilled 333 of them!
Oh and did I mention that most of these prophecies were made by people, most of whom lived over a thousand years before Jesus was born, and had no way of knowing how things would work out and no way of loading the dice?
Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy. He is the anticipated savior of the world. I hope you are as awed as I am this Christmas as we review these 8 prophecies. Here are 8 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled.
The Messiah would be a human, a descendent of Eve
Prophecy #1: one of Eve’s “seed” would crush the serpents head.
Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
This prophecy was made 4000 years before Christ was born. The one salient point I want to make about this prophecy is that the coming Savior would be a male: Thus narrowing down the field of possibilities to about 50% of all humanity.
The Messiah would be a descendent of Abraham
Prophecy #2: The Savior would be one of Abraham’s seed, and all the world would be blessed because of his birth. This prediction was made about 2000 years before Jesus was born.
“Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ. Galatians 3:16
There are two items of note about this prediction. First: Abraham’s descendents comprise no more than about 25% of world population (Arabs and Jews). So, do you see how God is moving from the very general, to the specific. Second. The Savior would have to bless the world in order to fulfill this prophecy. And how has his blessing come upon the whole world? In more ways than one, but chiefly in offering eternal life to any and all who will receive Him.
Jesus is the fulfillment of this promise.
Jesus would be in the line of Jacob
Prophecy #3 The Messiah would come from the Line of Jacob.
Numbers 24:17: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.”
“Then God said, ‘Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him'” (Genesis 17:19).
This prophecy was made 1800 years before Jesus. Jacob was the founder of the nation of Israel. So Messiah would be Jewish. The Jewish population of world is about 2/10 of a %. Do you see how the funnel is narrowing down!
The Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah
Prophecy #4: The Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah. Made 1500 years before fulfilled.
In Genesis 49:10, Jacob is blessing his 12 sons. This blessing was also a prophecy. Jacob told his son Judah that his descendants would be rulers and that one of his descendants will be an ultimate ruler. At best, Judah comprised 1/12th of nation of Israel. The pool of possible Messiah’s is getting smaller! Jesus fulfilled that prophecy.
The Messiah would be a descendant of King David
Prophecy #5: Jesus would be born of the line of King David. And this promise was made 1000 years before Jesus was born.
626-586 BC Jeremiah 23:5-6 “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. This is the name by which he will be called: the Lord our righteous savior.”
“When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Samuel 7:12–13).
712 BC Isaiah 11:1-2 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him– the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD–
The New Testament books of Matthew and Luke trace back Jesus’ genealogy to King David. I can’t begin to tell you how specific and pointed this detail is. We have gone from Billions, to Millions to hundreds of thousands.
Birthplace Bethlehem
Prophecy #6: Jesus would be born in the city of Bethlehem.
Micah 5:2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”
Matthew 2:1-6 – “Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We have seen His star as it arose, and we have come to worship Him.’ Herod was deeply disturbed by their question, as was all of Jerusalem. He called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law. ‘Where did the prophets say the Messiah would be born?’ he asked them. ‘In Bethlehem,’ they said, ‘for this is what the prophet wrote: ‘O Bethlehem of Judah, you are not just a lowly village in Judah, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for my people Israel.’”
“The prophecy is effective in a simple way: It eliminates all other cities and towns throughout the world as a place in which the Messiah could be born. It narrows the possibilities to one tiny village just south of Jerusalem.”
750 years before the decree was made by Caesar Augustus, that all the world should return to their ancestral homes, Jesus birth place was predicted. If you were waiting for the messiah, all you had to do was place your headquarters in that little town and wait for an infant to be born in the lineage of David who would be Christ the Lord. Now we’ve gone from a telescope to a microscope.
Virgin Birth
Prophecy #7: Jesus was to be born of a virgin.
Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
This wild claim was made by the prophet 700 years before Jesus was born. If you were setting up headquarters in Bethlehem, There is only one claim that you needed to examine: Was this baby conceived of a virgin! In all of history this is the narrowest of all possible claims. No normal human being was ever going to fulfill this prediction. But there was nothing normal about the birth of the baby Jesus! He was conceived by the Holy Spirit! This narrows the possibilities down to only one person in history. He’s the only one that can claim to fulfill all these predictions.
Matthew 1:20-23 – “As he considered this, he fell asleep, and an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. ‘Joseph, son of David,’ the angel said, ‘do not be afraid to go ahead with your marriage to Mary. For the child within her has been conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.’ All of this happened to fulfill the Lord’s message through His prophet: ‘Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and He will be called Immanuel (meaning, God is with us).’”
But wait! There’s more!
He would come out of Egypt
Prophecy #8: Soon after his birth, this child would have to leave his country and travel over 400 miles to the land of the pyramids, be raised there as a young lad, and then migrate back to the Holy land. This one is just a bonus prophecy. It it’s an add on. If you weren’t convinced by the first impossible 7, here’s another.
Matthew records that Joseph and Mary took Jesus to Egypt to protect Him from Herod’s rampage. That was prophesied in Hosea 11. We find Herod launching an attack against the Hebrew children. That was prophesied in Jeremiah 31:11.
“So Joseph got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son'” (Matthew 2:14–15).
Christmas is a time of wonder! The wonder of the prophetic birth!
Isaiah 46:9-10 9 Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’
If God is God, then we ought to become humbly obedient to Him. It will all turn out His way. Fulfilled prophecies of the Bible are proof beyond dispute of the Living God who knows all things from the beginning to the end. Every prophecy of the Bible that should have been fulfilled to this date has been fulfilled. It has never once been wrong.
And those are just 8 of the 333 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled in his life. The mere chance that one person could fulfill even half of these 8 is humanly impossible. It couldn’t happen by chance. It could only happen if there was a God who is in control. And that’s why I believe.
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