Prophecies of the Christ
It is often said that the New Testament records the life and teachings of Christ and His church while the Old Testament points to that same Messiah. Throughout the Old Testament, writers spoke about the coming Messiah by predicting, long before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, what He would be like, the kind of things He would teach, and what His significance would be. Reflecting on some of those fulfilled prophecies helps us to "re-appreciate" the great importance of Jesus as well as the value of spending time studying both Old and New Testament scriptures.
In Isaiah 53:9, the prophet predicted that Jesus would be the true, perfect One. Jesus would be a man void of "violence" and the Messiah with "no deceit." As one reads about the life of Jesus in the early books of the New Testament, it becomes clear that Jesus was all that Isaiah had predicted. Peter reflected on this when he wrote that Jesus didn't threaten or fight those who harmed Him but instead, "committed Himself to Him who judges righteously" in an effort to be whole, complete, and perfect (I Peter 2:22-23).
When God spoke to Abram and told him to leave his country, God promised to bless Abram's lineage in amazing ways. He told Abram that, "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:1-3). Thousands of years later, the apostle Paul addressed this by pointing out that Christ was and is Abraham's "Seed" and that only through that Seed could redemption for the world be made possible (Galatians 3:16).
In Jeremiah 31:31-34, the prophet explains that the days are coming when a "new covenant" would be made the followers of God. As part of that new agreement, God promised to remember their sin "no more." Later in the New Testament, we can read the words of the inspired writer when he says there were faults with the first covenant and thus, the necessity of the second. That second agreement was brought about by the "Mediator" who, through His sacrifice on the cross, made the first covenant "obsolete" (Hebrews 8:6-13).
As with all things Biblical, reading scriptures and seeing how Biblical plans have unfolded is a rewarding experience. We are truly blessed that the words of the prophets of old were perfectly fulfilled. The greatest fulfillment is, of course, that Jesus would come and live perfectly on earth, die a horrible death for us, and live anew so as to reign for eternity in a home that can one day be our own.