01.5 Revelation – Jesus: Prophet and Fulfiller of Prophecy

Jesus: Prophet and Fulfiller of Prophecy*
*(see bonus video at the end of this post)

God had no issue with pulling out the stops to deliver the prophetic messages he had for His people, especially when those messages were a call to repentance.  He placed prophets in camel hair eating locusts and honey.  He had them walk around naked.  He had them speak an act so boldly in opposition to human authority that they were thrown in with lions or dumped in blazing furnaces.  The message, not the messenger, was the critical thing and these servants did what was required of them by God for the message to be heard (and hopefully heeded).

With the eccentricities of the old testament prophets in mind, it can be tempting to dismiss prophecy as strange, odd, radical and even crazy.  We may be tempted to have these thoughts as we read about multi-headed, multi-horned creatures and flying mutant animals, massive death and destruction and plagues and the dead rising.

However, we need to keep one key fact in mind.  Jesus Christ not only fulfilled prophecy, but He acknowledged Himself as a prophet.  Jesus made no hesitance to explain that He was sent by God to deliver God’s message to His people.  He did this not only through words, but also through His life, death and resurrection.

Think, too, about how strange some of the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled seemed before His coming.  A virgin will be with child?  God with us?  He will lead Israel to greatness and rejected by Israel?  He will be the ultimate conqueror and pierced and killed, despised and rejected?

But, with the word of the bible and the power of the Holy Spirit, we can clearly see how these prophecies were and will be fulfilled.  We can see that the prophecy of God’s plan for salvation through Jesus, first arriving on a colt and then, at His return, arriving on a cloud are not contradictory, but simply point to two different times.  We can also see that all of this is not random, disconnected information, but all prophecy is ultimately about the one key thing that has always been God’s plan for mankind – to be fully reunited with Him in glory for all eternity, free of sin and suffering and death, for His glory as God.

My Answers:

11. Jesus – predicted His coming through prophecy from God

12.
a.
That the plan (the original plan) was for Christ to come, die, rise again, to prepare a place and time and to come again to bring those in His flock home

b.

That it is the climax of the story of God, the conclusion of the redemption but the beginning of the only true “happily ever after.”

Bonus

This video is an interesting presentation showing how Jesus’ fulfillment of prophecy is evidence on which to build faith.