Letter to my Jewish Brothers and Sisters
I have read what we call the Old Testament a few times already and don’t understand how certain important information given in it escapes you. I understand that some of your ancestors were reticent to accept the Messiah because it did not fit the description of how you expected Him to come. But 2000 years have passed since then and surely you must be curious about certain bits of information written by several of your prophets. I imagine you read the Tanakh. When you do, what do you think when you read:
Isaiah 7:14................. ​He would be born of a virgin
2 Samuel 7: 12-16...... He would be of the house of David
Micah 5:2................... He would be born in Bethlehem
Isaiah 11:2​................. He would be anointed by the Holy Spirit
Isaiah 40:3-5​.............. He would be heralded by a messenger of the Lord (John the Baptist)
Isaiah 35:5-6.............. He would perform miracles
Isaiah 9:1................... He would minister in Galilea
Daniel 9:25​................ He would present Himself as King 173,880 days* from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem
Zechariah 9:9​............. He would enter Jerusalem triumphantly as a king in a donkey
Psalm 118:22​............. He would be rejected by His fellow Jews
Isaiah 53:4-7​.............. He would suffer and die a humiliating death for our sins
Zechariah 11:12-13... He would be sold for 30 pieces of silver
Isaiah 53:6-7.............. He would be in silence before his accusers
Isaiah 53:4-5.............. He would be beaten
Isaiah 50:6................. He would be spat upon
Psalm 22:16............... He would have His hands and feet pierced
Isaiah 53:12............... He would be crucified among thieves and would pray for His prosecutors
Psalm 22:18............... They would take His garments by casting lots
Zechariah 12:10......... He would have His side pierced
Psalm 69:21............... He would be given gall and vinegar to drink
Psalm 34:20............... He would die with no broken bones
Isaiah 53:9................. He would be buried in a rich man’s tomb
Psalm 110:1............... He would be seated at the right hand of God
* Read the Seventy Week Prophesy for an explanation of this.
Do you know the odds of one man fulfilling all these prophesies? Do you know how many stars are there in the universe? Try doubling that number. That is one in one with 46 zeros! And that by using a conservative calculation! The odd are one in one with 46 zeros. Simply impossible. Right?
But these are just a few examples of over 300 prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament. As you know, these were written hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus. For example, Moses is thought to have written the first five books of the Old Testament at about 1400 BC. King David, the author of several of the Psalms, and Samuel wrote their prophesies some 1000 BC. The books of Isaiah and Micah were written some 800 BC. Daniel wrote his prophesies some 500 years prior to the birth of Jesus.
The Old Testament obviously also talks about the coming of the Messiah as the triumphant Lord. This will happen in what we Christians call the “second coming”. Isaiah 61:1-2 says: “The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon Me; because Jehovah has anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He has sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the year of Jehovah’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn”. So, the Lord first comes to free us from our spiritual prison and later in judgment to separate the righteous from the un-righteous. One cannot be freed from our inherent spiritual prison by our “self-righteous” actions because we are inherently imperfect and sinful. In the old days, sins were forgiven by transferring the sins to an animal of our property and offering it in sacrifice through the priest in the Temple. It had to be done often because people kept sinning. Now we do not have to do that anymore. Christ has made a new covenant by sacrificing himself for all our sins, past and present. We acquire righteousness through Him. We just must invite Him in by thanking Him for dying for our sins, promising to move away from sin, and asking Him to dwell in our hearts as our Lord. As our Lord, we then begin acting like Him and all our actions are in His name. By transferring our credit to Him, we become righteous to the eyes of God. Easier said than done. That is why, when we invite Jesus to be our Christ, God sends us a helper, the Holy Spirit that gives us power to overcome our sinful nature.
God loves His people, His chosen people who recognized Him over the millennia as The One Who Is, Lord of Lords, God of Hosts, Yahweh, Jehovah… God instructed you in detail how He wanted you to build the Temple and how you were to make your sacrifices. But He then allowed the Temple to be destroyed, as Jesus predicted shortly before His own sacrifice, because the New Temple rose from the dead at the third day, just as Jesus said it would. That New Temple is Jesus Christ. If you do not accept Him you are not accepting His sacrifice and as a result your sins are not forgiven, and you may not enjoy God’s full grace and glory for eternity. The old Temple has no use and no other temple will ever have any use anymore. The New Temple is alive and ready to give you everlasting life!
Are you willing to risk not receiving God’s grace and enjoying His glory over an old dogma? Who says you need to scrap your traditions and join Christians to sing Alleluia anyway! Jesus was a Jew and kept your same traditions, so can you. Traditions are not important, what is important is to learn, believe, and imitate Jesus in your lives by accepting Him as your Lord. I hope you will do that. But do it soon, because you can meet your maker, or the Lord can come back anytime “like a thief in the night” and by then it would be too late to accept Him.
I pray to God that when you read the scriptures you become convicted by His spirit and that your eyes would be opened and see the evidence of what I am saying here and that you would have the courage to follow. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
…as Jesus was teaching the people in the Temple, He asked, “Why do the teachers of religious law claim that the Messiah is the son of David? For David himself, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said: “The Lord said to my Lord, sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies beneath your feet”. Since David himself called the Messiah “my Lord”, how can the Messiah be his son? (Mark 12:35-37)
Think of this, the Messiah you await must be from the line of David. But there is no longer a way to trace lineages anymore. Lineages were kept in the Temple. Once Jesus was rejected, tortured, killed, resurrected, and ascended, the Temple had no longer a purpose. Shortly after it was completely destroyed. Consider this other fact, Jesus is the only one that claims to be the Messiah.