Old Testament Prophecies and Christ’s Birth
There are over 100 prophecies in the Old Testament that were fulfilled by Christ’s First Coming. Six of them, in particular, relate to His birth, including the first prophecy of the entire Bible. After the fall in the Garden of Eden, God said to the serpent:
“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel,” Genesis 3:15.
This is a prophecy of both the birth and the death of Christ. Concerning His birth, it refers to Him as the seed of the woman. As it is a man who has “seed,” and not a woman, this indicates that Jesus would be born of a woman, but not in the usual way. The angel spoke to Joseph of its fulfillment in Matthew 1:20. This brings us to the next prophecy, that of the virgin birth:
“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” Isaiah 7:14.
This would find its fulfillment in Mary’s own admission when the Angel Gabriel announced Jesus’ coming in Luke 1:26-35. Isaiah’s passage also contains another prophecy, that of our Savior’s name, “Immanuel,” Hebrew for “God with us,” a prophecy fulfilled by Jesus according to Matthew 1:22-23.
The Savior’s birthplace at Bethlehem was prophesied by the Prophet Micah, and was fulfilled in Matthew 2:1.
“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,” Micah 5:2.
When the wise men came to visit Jesus in his infancy, King Herod would display his insecurity about his own position by attempting to kill this new “King of the Jews” by slaughtering all the young male children in the Bethlehem area. This slaughter of the innocents was prophesied by Jeremiah:
“Thus saith the Lord; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not,” Jeremiah 31:15.
To insure that no harm came to the Christ child, Joseph was instructed to take Him and His mother to Egypt, then to bring them back when the danger posed by Herod was over (Matthew 2:13-23). This flight into Egypt and return was prophesied by Hosea:
“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt,” Hosea 11:1.
From these verses alone, it is easy to accept that Jesus Christ, by His birth, was the prophesied Messiah of Israel and Savior of the World. But when we consider that there are still over 100 prophecies related to other aspects of His First Coming that were just as accurately fulfilled, the evidence is unmistakable and irrefutable. The Apostle John put it well when he wrote towards the end of His Gospel:
“But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name,” John 20:31.