This is the first, study/discussion for the Omega Foundation. The bible says Jesus is the chief cornerstone and the foundation himself. It also says that he is the Omega, so what more of a better place to start by showing clear evidence that the man so many Christians talk about Jesus Christ, actually did exist.

First before we get into the biblical and historical evidence, I want to assert that Historians, although are not agreed on the role and identity of Jesus, are all distinctly agreed that a man called Jesus did walk the streets of Israel in the early part of the first century. The evidence of this can be seen in the following video, where Richard Dawkins, one of the foremost promoters of evolution and denouncers of the bible clearly, but reluctantly states that Jesus is a real historical figure and that yes he did exist.

Now that is cleared up. Lets look at what Bible prophecy says about Jesus. These prophecies, not only show us who Jesus was, but also validate the reliability of the bible. The bible is the foundation and basis of a believers faith. It is the one book in the world which gives the clearest and most accurate view of God and his plan for our lives. It is important that there is evidence that this book is true, because it is expected to be the guide for life, and God in his infinite wisdom and Love has provided sufficient evidence that Jesus is the way the truth and the life and that the bible, which reveals Jesus, is the only book that can be used for the people on this planet as an ultimate guide and source of truth.

Evidence for the Bible

I will now share some of my favourite FACTs which validate the truth of the bible.

1. The Bible is a library – Many people mistakenly believe that the bible is one book. They believe that this book, was made by man, and particularly manipulated in order to serve the purposes of the government and kings in controlling the masses. This IS NOT true. The truth is, that the bible is NOT one book, but many. Look at these FACTS about the bible:

1. The bible is a library of 66 different books.
2. The books were written:
   1. on 3 different continents,
   2. over a period of 1600years,
   3. by over 40 different men from varying backgrounds at different levels of society.
   4. By men who had never met

Now your probably thinking what is so great about all of these things, well what is amazing is that the bible contains hundreds of teachings, and all 66 of the books agree. They all say the same thing. I don’t mean to put other religions down, but most claim that their books have been received by the spirit of God and angels. It is always the case that these books a given to a single man who gives it to the rest of humanity. There is nothing weird about this, however, there is a problem when these books contradict what the bible says. So in essence we basically have the word of one man and his book against, the 66 books in the bible. Which ones are you going to trust? Anyway, I will be looking at this more in a future post, Identifying Faulty Foundations

Now, there is scientific and archaeological evidence which validates the truth of the bible, but my personal favourite is the prophecies. This is what we will be focusing on today. We will specifically be looking at the prophecies of Christ, in this we will see two things. One that the bible is a supernaturally inspired book which says the same message from the beginning to the end. And secondly, that Jesus Christ is the most important man to ever walk on this planet.

Before we get into this let me just drill down into the importance of this a little bit more. I guess you are sitting reading this at a desk in front of your computer, or sitting on a bed, couch, or seat somewhere reading this on your tablet, laptop or smartphone. Now check this… what if I said, I can tell you what is going to happen to you in five minutes and 47 seconds time, what would you think? If someone told me that, I would think they were talking rubbish, because how could they tell that? and if they did tell me, I would make sure I did something totally different. Now, what if I told you your computer would blow up in 5mins and 32 seconds, and then no matter what you did to try and avoid that event taking place, exactly at that specific time your computer blew up just as I said. What would you think? I know I would be amazed. Now the foretelling of the future is very important in validating that the bible is true. The bible says that only God can tell the future, so if what the bible said in the past has been fulfilled exactly as it said it, we can know that this is something we can put our trust in.

 Isa 46:9  Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Isa 46:10  Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

The bible says that because God knows all things. It tells us that he can tell us the events in the future from years and years before they take place. He uses this as evidence that he is God, and that the tool he uses to communicate to us these messages, THE BIBLE, can, be relied on.

 Joh 13:19  Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.

Now when we look at these up coming prophecies, please don’t just air over them, focus your mind and absorb what was said hundreds of years prior and was fulfilled exactly to the dot. These things are astounding, they PROVE that there is a God, they PROVE that he knows all things and they PROVE that the Bible is the TRUE book to guide humanity and they PROVE that JESUS, it the only way TRUTH and life.

Today I will look at a few prophecies, but there are many more in the link below.

Taken from http://christianity.about.com/od/biblefactsandlists/a/Prophecies-Jesus.htm

The Prophecies

1. Born in Bethlehem

Prophecy [750-700BC] =>>> Micah 5:2  But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

Fulfilment =>>> Matthew 2:1  Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

 Significance – this prophecy clearly shows that the messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. It also identifies that the Messiah was not just a man, but one who was there in the beginning, the everlasting one, God. Many people claim Jesus was just a man, the bible teaches that Jesus was God, as God is the only being who has always been there. [Hab 1:12; Jer 10:10; 1Tim 1:17; Psa 90:2]

2. Born from a Virgin and called Immanuel

Prophecy [742BC] =>>> Isa 7:14  Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Fulfilment =>>> Luk 1:26-35   And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled… And the angel said unto her, Fear not, …. thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS…  Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? ….And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

 Significance – two things, one Jesus was a man, and two Jesus was God. Jesus did not have a normal father, he did not have an earthly father. God was his father, directly. However, he was not only God, he was also a man, he got this aspect through his mother, Mary. He had the same flesh as us, to show us that even when tempted to sin, we can as humans by faith in his heavenly father live a life which is obedient to the claims of God [Heb 2:16-18]. The significance that Jesus was God, the eternal one is clear in his title in the prophecy. Here he is called Immanuel. In the Hebrew, this name literally means, “with us is God”.

3. He would be born as a child and called The eternal God

Prophecy [771BC]=>>> Isa 9:6  For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Fulfilment =>>> Luke 2:11  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

 Significance – this text says that a child who is called the Mighty God and The everlasting Father will be born unto us the human race. This is very important, because it again seriously teaches that the from early in history, people new that God would come to this earth in the form of a man. Some people today teach that Jesus was not God himself, promoting that saying a man is the almighty God is totally wrong, this group of people teach that Jesus was nothing more than a prophet. This text in Isa 9:6 strongly contradicts this teaching, showing that it was widely accepted that God would be born into humanity. A problem which I use to have with this text was, why does it say that the everlasting father would be born unto us. But wasn’t Jesus born unto us and not the father. Well, Although Jesus calls the part of the God head who stayed in heaven the father, Jesus also in a sense is the father aswell, he is the one who created all things [Eph 3:9; Heb 1:2; Col 1:16]

Conclusion

I think I will close this post now, I don’t want it to get too long, but if you look at the source above, there is 44 prophecies mentioned of Jesus, in fact the bible there is probably even more than that. In a previous post (importance of a solid foundation) I found how important these prophecies are. I think this will be my first mission, I think I will stay here until I feel like I have a solid grasp of what the old testament prophets said about Jesus and how he actually matched up to their words. So, in future posts I will be investigating more of the prophecies.

What we have learnt from this post is that, Jesus is not just a person said to have existed by Bible believing Christians alone, he is believed to have existed by all sound  secular scholars and historians. We looked at how the bible is different from all other religious texts because it contains a vast amount of different books from different people which all agree. Furthermore there is sound evidence of the validity of the bible through the prophecies which were exactly fulfilled in the bible. These prophecies mentioned in this post identify that Jesus was not just a man, but also the eternal God and creator of the universe.