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Continuing our analysis of the penultimate chapter of Luke’s Gospel, this week, please read verses 33-38. If possible, use a different translation each day, asking God to open your eyes to fresh revelation from His Word.
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Luke 23:26 (New International Version – NIV)
‘When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left.
The Old Testament is full of prophetic messages that indicate so many aspects of the coming of the Messiah. The New Testament writers quote these passages and bring them to our attention. Many people, including Jewish Rabbis, in an attempt to completely discredit the New Testament, believe that none of the references in the Scripture refer to the Messiah at all. It is quite staggering to think that some people would rather weaken their own faith rather than accept the possibility of being wrong.
There are many biblical scholars who teach that Jesus’ family and followers deliberately planned out His life and death in accordance with the Scriptures just to ‘prove’ that He was the Anointed One of God. For example, they believe that Mary and Joseph had no real reason to go to Bethlehem but only went there just because the prophecy said that the Messiah would be born there.
The book of Psalms and Isaiah contain many, many prophecies and one of the most well-known is Isaiah Chapter 53. It is a chapter that refers to what is commonly known as ‘The Suffering Servant’. Even if Jesus’ parents went to extraordinary lengths to ‘fix’ the details of His birth and life, and even if His followers fabricated every miracle just to meet the demands of the prophecies, it pushes the realms of credibility to think that Jesus would voluntarily subject Himself to punishment and beatings in order to fulfil a prophecy that if He were not the Messiah, was not even about Him.
There are some prophecies of course that could not be staged in such ways. The fulfilment of one of those is contained in our verse today. Isaiah 53:12 contains the phrase ‘He was numbered with the transgressors’. The word translated as ‘numbered’ in the original language means ‘to count, reckon, number, assign, tell, appoint, prepare’. In short, Isaiah is saying that the Messiah will die alongside criminals and will be counted as and treated as one of them. Sceptics will attempt to tell us that Jesus was not the Christ and every aspect of His life was one big fabrication and lie. They cannot refute the fact that if Jesus were not the Messiah, he would have had no control over how He would die, nor did He have control over the place of His death. Lastly, He wouldn’t be able to control who He died with!
As Jesus hung there on the cross surrounded by criminals, the words of Isaiah were completely fulfilled. This is just one example of fulfilled prophecy. We can have complete confidence that Jesus was and is who He says He is. He is our Saviour, our Lord, our Healer, our Redeemer and our Coming King.
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