Did Jesus arrange for His prophecies to come true?

Lee Strobel addresses whether Jesus and his disciples could have arranged for the fulfillment of prophesies. For example, Zechariah 9:9 states that the Messiah would ride a donkey.  Couldn’t Jesus have easily arranged that?  Listen and read on to see why this claim does not stand up to scrutiny.

Although Jesus could have certainly arranged to ride a donkey into Jerusalem, there are many prophesies that he couldn’t have arranged, such as:

• His ancestry, (Genesis 49:10)
• His place of birth, (Micah 5:2)
• His bones would remain unbroken on the cross, unlike the two others who were crucified with him, (Psalm 34:20)
• For soldiers to gamble for his clothing, (Psalm 22:16)
• Be betrayed by a friend for a certain amount of money, (Psalm 41:9, Zechariah 11:13)
• When he would enter into human history, (Daniel 9:25-26)
• His resurrection from the dead, (Psalm 16:10)
• His performing miracles, (Isaiah 35:5-6)

Strobel also addresses whether the disciples fabricated the fulfillment of the prophesies and rewrote history to make the prophesies fit. For example, Micah 5:2 states that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem. Maybe the disciples made up the Roman Census to plausibly place Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem. However, the accounts were written while eyewitnesses were still living. If the accounts were untrue, the eyewitnesses would have disputed the accounts and stopped the Christian movement in its tracks. In addition, the writers died as martyrs for their beliefs. Why would they make up a story and die for it?

Finally, Strobel discloses that the Talmud made derogatory remarks about Jesus, such his being a sorcerer, but did not object to the claim that he fulfilled Messianic prophesies. Therefore, the evidence points to Jesus actually fulfilling the prophecies and validating his claim to be the Son of God.

PROPHESIES FULFILLED by Jesus

Jesus fulfilled many prophesies. In this slide presentation author Robin Schumacher discusses several of the 300 prophesies fulfilled in Jesus’ lifetime.

Here is a partial list of the prophesies fulfilled by Jesus in the slide presentation:

• The timing of Jesus’ birth and death (Daniel 9:25-26)
• Perform miracles (Isaiah 35:5-6)
• Be betrayed, (Psalm 41:9)
• Would die, (Psalm 22:16, Zechariah 11:13)
• Would be resurrected from the dead, (Psalm 16:10)
• Come from line of Abraham, Judah, and David, (Genesis 12:2, Genesis 40:10, 2 Samuel 7:12-16)
• Preceded by a messenger (Malachi 3:1)
• Come mounted on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9)
• Remain silent/suffer at the hands of men (Isaiah 52)
• No bones broken (Psalm 34:20)
• Buried with the rich (Isaiah 53:9)
• Ascend to Heaven (Psalm 68:18)

As Schumacher reveals in his slideshow, the odds of just eight prophecies being accidently fulfilled in the life of one man is 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. That is strong proof that Jesus was no ordinary man, but the Son of God.