The Amazing
Prophetic Claims of the Lord Jesus Christ
By Henry
M. Morris, Ph.D.
https://www.icr.org/ChristProphecies
There are so many strong and clear evidences of the
perfect and unique truth of Christianity that those who remain skeptical were
said by the great Apostle Peter to be "willingly ignorant" (II Peter 3:5), and by the Apostle Paul to be "without
excuse" (Romans
1:20). The great king David concluded
that only "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" (Psalm 53:1), and wise king Solomon asserted
that, "The fear of the Lord" is the very "beginning of
knowledge" and "wisdom" (Proverbs 1:7;
Innumerable evidences of creation can be found in the
study of science and of God's providence in the study of history, but
undoubtedly the greatest evidences of all are in the person and work of the
Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The miracle of His virgin birth, His sinless life,
His mighty works, His incomparable teachings, His volitional death as the
necessary and sufficient sacrifice to redeem us from sin and death, and then
His glorious bodily resurrection from the grave and ascension back to heaven
are true facts of history which can only be explained by the revealed truth
that He was God incarnate, the eternal Word made flesh, the Creator who became
our Savior and has promised soon to return as our King of kings and Lord of lords.
He was indeed the virgin-born babe whom we sing about at Christmas time, but He
is infinitely more than that.
And then there are His amazing claims about the future
effects His ministry would have on the world! The evidences do not end with His
return to heaven, but continue to pour forth year after year in the ongoing
fulfillment of His remarkable prophetic claims.
His Indestructible Words
For example, consider the humanly incredible words of the Lord Jesus in the
following prophecy.
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words
shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).
The same claim was also recorded by two other gospel
writers (Mark
But how could any mere man (if that's all He was) ever
make such an outlandish prophecy? He must have been either mad or a king-sized
deceiver! As far as human credentials were concerned, He seemingly had none.
His supposed father was an ordinary carpenter, he had no formal education and
had never held any kind of office; He had written no books or any other
writings, so far as we know. He lived in the despised
But His words have, indeed, endured for well over
nineteen centuries, and they are now known and taught all over the world. This
is nothing less than an amazingly fulfilled prophecy. The earth is still here,
of course, but looking more fragile every day, and
there is no doubt remaining that the words of Christ will last at least as long
as the earth remains.
The Lord Jesus also asserted that the collection of
words we know today as the Old Testament would last forever in the following
remarkable claim.
"For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth
pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass
from the law, till all be fulfilled" (Matthew 5:18).
This also was a tremendous prophecy, and so far this
also is still being fulfilled. The ancient Hebrew Scriptures were meticulously
copied by hand by trained scribes, generation after generation, until finally
the invention of the printing press made accurate reproductions easy and
plentiful.
The prediction of permanence for the Scriptures had
been often made in the Old Testament itself. For example,
"The words of the Lord are pure words: . . . Thou
shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt
preserve them from this generation for ever" (Psalm 12:6,7).
"The grass withereth,
the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall
stand for ever" (Isaiah 40:8).
"For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in
heaven" (Psalm
119:89).
"Thy word is true from the beginning: and every
one of thy righteous judgments endureth for
ever" (Psalm
119:160).
Christ, in His wonderful wisdom, accepted and
reinforced this eternal character of the Old Testament, but then He had the
audacity, it would seem, to give His own words the same everlasting authority.
"Never pass away, indeed!"
Could any prophecy have ever seemed so foolish and
impossible to come true? Just a few days after He made it, He was executed as a
blasphemer. His Jewish countrymen rejected His words; the Greeks and Romans
ridiculed them and killed His disciples who tried to preach them. Then, five
centuries later, Mohammed and the Muslims distorted them and wedged some of
them into their own militaristic religion, conquering with the sword much of
the known world. One major group of professing Christians forbade all but their
indoctrinated clergy even to possess or read His words, and eventually the
pseudo- intellectualism of the evolutionary humanists attempted to destroy them
altogether by explaining them away.
Yet despite all the bloody persecutions, Bible
burnings, and evolutionary dissimulations through the ages, the words of the
Lord Jesus in particular and the Judeo-Christian Scriptures in general have
been more widely known and distributed around the world than any other book in
history. "My words shall not pass away," He said, and this amazing
prophecy has been and is still being wonderfully fulfilled. That fact is in
itself proof of His omniscient deity.
His Magnetic Death
Another remarkable prophecy had to do with Christ's imminent crucifixion and
death. Several times, He had told His disciples that He would soon be crucified
and then be raised back to life on the third day. But then He added another
strange note to the prediction.
"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men unto me" (John
As to what He meant by being "lifted up from the
earth," the narrator, John, explains.
"This He said, signifying what death He should
die" (John
He had already told them that He would be crucified
(e.g. Matthew
Jesus had used the same word three years earlier in
talking with the Pharisee Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish council and highly
respected teacher in
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John
It is obvious that the Lord is here suggesting some
kind of parallel meaning (or typological meaning) of His imminent crucifixion
to the strange record of the brazen serpent impaled on a pole back in Moses'
day.
"Fiery serpents" had slain many Israelites
in the wilderness because of their sinful complaining against God and Moses.
When they repented, any one who had been bitten could be healed by simply looking
upon the impaled serpent (Numbers 21:4_9), thus showing saving faith in God's
word. The spiritual picture is one of sin being judged by slaying the serpent,
as it were, transferring the death penalty from the repentant and believing
sinner to the one that would otherwise have been the instrument of death. Thus
"seeing" in faith, the slain substitute would provide healing and
restoration.
Similarly, those who would look in faith on Christ
lifted up to die on the cross would receive forgiveness and salvation unto
eternal life.
But just how would the sight (in the mind's eye, of
course) of Christ dying on the cross "draw all men" unto Him. Death
by crucifixion was a hideous death, about as repugnant a sight as could ever be
imagined. It was normally the type of death pronounced on wicked criminals? such as the two men crucified at the same time as Christ.
Yet this strange prophecy has also been remarkably
fulfilled. The old, old story of Jesus on the cross has become, not an ugly
tale of a dying criminal, but a love story? a story of God so loving the world
that He gave His only begotten Son, and a story of Christ so commending His
love toward us that, while we were yet guilty sinners, He died for us (see John
3:16; Romans 5:8).
And it has indeed drawn men and women and children in
every nation to Him, just as He prophesied it would.
The cross has become a symbol of love and caring, not
merely of sin and death. It adorns church steeples and ladies neck chains and
humanitarian organizations everywhere. It still does speak of sorrow, even
marking many gravesites, but also of hope, for the testimony of the empty cross
is also one of ultimate victory over death. Although Christ was lifted up to
die on the cross, it is empty now, and so is the tomb where they buried Him,
for He is alive for evermore at the right hand of our Father in heaven.
He has truly been "lifted up," not just on
the cross to die, but then also lifted up in His Spirit from Hades, where He
had descended for a time to proclaim His victory to the spirits in prison (I Peter 3:19), then lifted up in His resurrected and now glorified
body from its three-day rest in the tomb, and then finally lifted up to the
heaven of heavens beyond the starry sky.
It is significant that the Greek word for "lifted
up" (hupsoo) can also mean "exalted"
and is often so translated. For example, listen to "Peter and the other
apostles" proclaim fearlessly to the priests from whom they had been
hiding only a few day before:
"The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye
slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a
Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to
Lifted up was He to die, but now in heaven exalted
high! (Philippians
2:8,9). And all
who are drawn to Him in faith and who then look up on Him as their Prince and
Savior shall never perish but have everlasting life.
His Guiding Light
There are still other amazing prophetic claims made by
the Lord Jesus which would be absolutely incredible for anyone to make but God
Himself.
"Then spake Jesus again
unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth
me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John
It is the sun, of course, that provides the physical
light for our world, as well as all the complex of radiant energies that
sustain life in the world. Not only light to see by and heat to move by, but
also (through photosynthesis) food to live by and (through energizing the
hydrologic cycle) water to survive by. In fact, all energy utilized on the
earth except its radioactive minerals and its own internal heat comes
ultimately from the sun.
And here the Lord Jesus even compares Himself to the
sun, claiming that He will be the world's spiritual light just as the sun is
its physical light. Surely such a claim could only be made by an insufferable
egomaniac or by a man completely out of His mind, His skeptical listeners must
have thought.
That is, if the claim were not true! But it has proved
true for almost 2000 years. Jesus Christ has been the spiritual light of the
world. More great art and literature have been inspired by Him, and more
beautiful music written about Him, then by or about any other man in history.
More hospitals, more schools and colleges, more charitable organizations, more
missionary outreaches to the poor in many nations have been established by His
followers in His name than any other. People observe Christmas and Easter all
over the world because of Him? even those who do not
believe in Him. And most nations fix their calendars around His birth.
Furthermore, there are millions upon millions of
people who gladly testify that He is indeed the light of their personal worlds.
Those who follow Him have not walked in darkness but have had the light of
life. They have individually experienced the reality of that wonderful promise
in II Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature: old things are passed away; behold, all
things are become new." They have believed His indestructible words, been
drawn magnetically to His cross, repented of the sins which helped place Him
there, and rejoiced in His bodily resurrection which assures them of
justification before their holy Creator God, and their lives have been changed.
Ever since they trusted Him, He has indeed been to them the light of life and
they no longer walk in darkness.
Along with His guiding light, He has been to them the
bread of life and the water of life, fulfilling two other amazing prophetic
promises.
"I am the living bread which came down from
heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live
for ever" (John
"Whosoever drinketh of
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall
give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting
life" (John
No ordinary man, be he ever
so talented and powerful could ever make such promises and then make them come
true in human lives, but the Lord Jesus Christ is no ordinary man. He was true
man, of course, in every way a man as God intended man to be, but He was also
God the Creator, the eternal "Word . . . made flesh" (John 1:1,14), and He can and does fulfill all His amazing claims.
The Master Fisherman
"Follow me," He said, "and I will make you fishers of men"
(Matthew
"And He said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature"
(Mark
Not only did He make what seemed an impossible demand,
but then followed it up with a correspondingly incredible prophecy.
"But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy
Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in
These fearful, uneducated, provincial Jews were thus
expected to take the gospel of their internationally unknown and locally hated
leader to "every creature" and "unto the uttermost part of the
earth."
Impossible! Ridiculous! It could never happen. Surely
in just a few months, their whole movement was bound to collapse and soon be
forgotten.
Yet, today, all over the world His gospel is indeed
being preached? not only by thousands of trained and
dedicated missionaries, but also by radio, television, movies, videos, books,
and now even by the Internet. The twelve whom He first called have multiplied
greatly; today some of every nation and almost every tribe and tongue now call
Jesus Christ their Savior and Lord. This impossible prophecy has, like the
others, been wonderfully fulfilled.
The
Now all these Christian believers called out of every nation and every walk of
life obviously come with many different interests and backgrounds, as well as
languages and customs. But they all have one vital motivating purpose in
common. They have all believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Redeemer and
Savior.
As such, they all belong to "the general assembly
and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven" (Hebrews
And, as this growing assembly is seeking to preach the
gospel to every creature, even to the uttermost part of the earth, they are
perpetually encountering all kinds of opposition, orchestrated and energized by
Satan, who would destroy them all if he could.
But he cannot! The Lord Jesus has made yet another
amazing prophetic promise:
"And Jesus answered and said unto (Peter), . . . upon this rock I will build my church; and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew
The "rock" which the gates of hell cannot
withstand is nothing less than the great confession that had been verbalized by
Peter but which has been shared by all true disciples
of Christ in all the centuries since. "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God" (Matthew
The true deity of Christ and the Father/Son
relationship that He shares with God the Father have been opposed bitterly
right from the beginning, along with the fact and the meaning of His death and
resurrection. The Jewish and Roman persecutors have failed to stop it and so
have the Moslem hordes, the Communist and Nazi butchers, and even the
rationalism of the pseudo-intellectuals.
But who could have imagined that those unimpressive
first eleven disciples could possibly be the vanguard of a great army that
would eventually penetrate the very gates of hell itself? They would deliver
one by one multitudes of souls who were almost
entering hell's darkness out into the beautiful light of God's redeemed world.
The true church of the true Christ has indeed been victorious time after time
in its battle with Satan over the souls of men, and Christ's unlikely prophecy
has indeed been fulfilled again and again and again.
There are many other fulfilled prophecies that first
came from the Lord Jesus (e.g., the destruction of
Dear reader, if you have not already found Him to be
the light of your own life, you would surely do eternally well to receive the
Lord Jesus Christ by faith as your Savior from sin and hell, trusting Him with
the destiny of your soul. He has proved beyond doubt that He can and will keep
His word!