The psalmist wrote: ‘My God, why have You forsaken Me…I am…a reproach of men, and despised…All those who see Me ridicule Me…saying, “He trusted in the LORD…let Him deliver Him”…I am poured out like water…My bones are out of joint…My tongue clings to My jaws…They pierced My hands and…feet…and for My clothing they cast lots’ (Psalm 22:1-18 NKJV).
Think about it: David could be describing Jesus’ crucifixion in detail. Yet when he wrote these words crucifixion hadn’t been introduced as a form of execution. It was initiated centuries later by the Phoenicians, and long after that before it was adopted by the Roman Empire. Dr Charles Augustus Briggs says: ‘You can take this psalm…lay it side-by-side with New Testament accounts of the crucifixion…and see how they dovetail perfectly. It’s astonishing that someone could describe something so intimately and intricately a thousand years before it happened.’ Calvary wasn’t the result of happenstance. Long before Jesus came on the scene, God had a plan to reconcile us to Himself through Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:18 NIV).
Historian Paul L. Maier says: ‘In Isaiah chapter 53 we have almost a running commentary on what happened on Good Friday…It would be mathematically impossible for anyone else to fulfil all these parameters of prophecy in the Old Testament better than Jesus.’ Bottom line: ‘It’s what God had in mind all along…that he give himself as an offering for sin.’ That means long before there was an Easter, God was thinking about you!
Judges 9-10, John 6:22-44
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