4. Jesus, the Mistaken Messiah?: The Prophetic Fuse
Coming events cast their shadows before.
—DORIS LESSING
A serious prophet upon predicting a flood should be the first man to climb a tree.
—STEPHEN CRANE
“I wish this stuff would have shown up in our local records.”
Kyle sifted through the dispatch logs we received from a neighboring police agency. Tammy and Steve lived in this jurisdiction before moving to our city to take a new job. We decided to search that city’s police records to see if they had any interaction with the couple. We found something important.
Tammy called the police on three occasions. Although the calls were logged, no reports were taken. Once the police arrived, Tammy changed her story and refused to give any details to the officers. In one call to police, Tammy said her husband threatened to kill her. In each case, however, Steve was gone by the time the police arrived, and Tammy wouldn’t cooperate with the responding officers.
But not all the calls for help came from Tammy.
In one incident, the caller identified herself as Tammy’s friend, Brianna Higerstrom. We searched our local files to try to identify Brianna, and given her unusual last name, we found her. We decided to pay her a visit.
She answered the door, and after we identified ourselves, she nearly closed the door in our faces. It took another forty-five minutes, standing on Brianna’s porch, to gain her trust and calm her fears. She told us that Steve had always intimidated her and that she never intended to tell anyone about her suspicions. Kyle and I were eventually able to convince her our investigation would solve the case and protect her in the future.
Brianna was aware of the increasing violence in Tammy’s relationship with Steve, although she was never present when it occurred. Tammy shared details of her roller-coaster marriage with Brianna daily, telling her about the intense highs and dark lows. For whatever reason, Tammy remained loyal to Steve, even after being mistreated. She even wanted to have kids with him.
Tammy had confided in Brianna that she was pregnant. Although she wasn’t showing yet, Tammy was four months pregnant at the time of her disappearance. No one knew yet, except for Brianna, but Tammy wanted to announce the pregnancy to Steve’s family the week she vanished. She asked Brianna to go with her to purchase maternity clothes, but before they could take the shopping spree, Tammy stopped answering her phone. When Brianna drove to Tammy’s house, Steve seemed angry that Brianna was asking questions. She kept her suspicions to herself from that moment on.
“Seems like everyone was afraid of Steve, doesn’t it?” Kyle asked on the way back to the station.
“I wish Tammy had been more afraid . . .” I replied. “But this information about the pregnancy makes sense of Steve’s conversation with Dennis, and it may begin to explain why Tammy vanished when she did.”
CLEAR AND CLOAKED EVIDENCE
“I’m not impressed.”
We had been attending church for several weeks, off and on, studying the evidence from history between the weekly sermons. This week there was a guest speaker. He spent nearly an hour preaching about the Old Testament prophecies related to the Messiah. He claimed these ancient predictions clearly described Jesus of Nazareth, but as I read along with each prophecy, I was . . . underwhelmed .
“Just listen before you question every little detail,” whispered Susie.
According to the speaker, the role of prophecy was important to the first Christians. The Old Testament laid the foundation, as the prophet Isaiah described:
Remember the former things long past,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, “My plan will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure.”
(Isaiah 46:9–10 NASB, emphasis mine)
The New Testament authors understood the role prophecy would play in identifying Jesus as the Jewish Messiah: “As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow” (1 Peter 1:10–11 NASB, emphasis mine).
According to the speaker at church that morning, the gospel authors cited Old Testament prophecy fifty-six times to demonstrate that Jesus was the Messiah. He also said there were many more Jewish prophecies (over three hundred ) that identified Jesus as the Jewish Savior. But as I tracked along, many of these prophecies seemed to be less powerful than the speaker claimed. He seemed to be confusing important forms of evidence.
Every crime scene provides two types of evidence. Sometimes a piece of evidence points specifically to a suspect with great clarity—fingerprints or DNA evidence, for example. If the suspect’s fingerprints or DNA is already in our databases, we can identify him (or her) before we make an arrest. “Clear” evidence points unambiguously to the person of interest from the onset.
Some evidence, however, is less clear. “Cloaked” evidence is often confusing—it may not point to the suspect at all. Imagine finding a button at the same crime scene, lying on the floor a few feet from the victim’s body. Does this belong to the suspect or to the victim? Did it arrive here as a result of the crime, or was it lying in the room before the crime occurred? The button may be useful evidence, or it may be a useless artifact. We won’t know for sure until we meet the suspect.
If one of the suspect’s shirts is missing a button that matches the one at the crime scene, this piece of evidence will become an important part of our case. While “clear” evidence points to the suspect from the onset (before he is contacted), “cloaked” evidence points to the suspect only in hindsight (after he is identified).
This “clear” and “cloaked” distinction is important, and the guest speaker didn’t seem to distinguish between the two. At times he cited a biblical passage as if it were a “clear” prophecy, plainly and unambiguously describing and predicting the coming Messiah from the onset , when, in fact, it really appeared to be a cloaked description that happened to match Jesus of Nazareth in hindsight .
Let me give you two examples the speaker provided from the prophet Isaiah.
“Isaiah predicted the Savior would lead every nation and usher in eternal peace.” He cited Isaiah 2:4 (ESV):
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.
This passage seems to be a relatively unambiguous and straightforward description of what God will do in the future. Perhaps that’s why it is considered a messianic prophecy even by Jewish believers today. It is a “clear” piece of evidence in our biblical “crime scene.”
“Isaiah also said that the Savior would be beaten on his back, have his beard pulled, and would be spat upon.” For this prophecy, the speaker cited Isaiah 50:6–7 (ESV):
I gave my back to those who strike,
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face
from disgrace and spitting.
But the Lord G OD helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like a flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
Jewish believers do not accept this passage as a messianic prophecy, and as I read along with the speaker, I could understand why Jews hesitate to include it. The passage, in a straightforward reading, appears to be a description Isaiah is offering about himself , not the future Messiah. Would someone reading this passage prior to the arrival of Jesus think Isaiah was referring to the coming Savior? This seems unlikely.
“Your detective skepticism is starting to show,” Susie said on the way home.
“I’m not saying it isn’t good evidence,” I replied. “I’m just saying that it’s a different kind of evidence.” The button at the crime scene I described earlier still has incredible value, but unlike a fingerprint, it begins to help us only once we have a suspect in view. In a similar way, the cloaked prophecies are limited in their ability to point us to the Messiah. They may, however, help us confirm his identity once we have him in view.
OBJECTION: IF THE PROPHECIES ARE SO GOOD, WHY DON’T MORE JEWS ACCEPT THEM?
Jewish believers typically take the following approach when evaluating messianic prophecies:
1. They limit the verses and prophecies they are willing to include in the investigation.
2. They exclude any verse that describes the Messiah —as a person—in any detail.
3. When interpreting the remaining verses, they reject any interpretation that points to a person rather than the nation of Israel or a group of people within the nation.
4. They ignore the “cloaked” verses (which point to a person of interest in hindsight).
But is this approach to the biblical evidence reasonable? Can you imagine doing something similar in a criminal case? Imagine, for example:
1. Limiting the evidence you’re willing to include in the investigation. What good investigator doesn’t want to expand the yellow tape as far as possible to make sure he or she gathers everything?
2. Disregarding any evidence that describes the suspect in any detail. What kind of detective would purposely reject the evidence that most clearly and specifically points to a suspect?
3. Rejecting any interpretation of the evidence that points to a suspect in favor of an interpretation that points to something other than a suspect. Why would a detective try to reinterpret evidence to avoid any inference to a suspect?
4. Ignoring all the “cloaked” evidence (which points to a suspect in hindsight). Why wouldn’t a good detective want to confirm his or her conclusions with the previously cloaked evidence at the scene?
If Jewish believers approached the evidence for Jesus as they might approach the evidence in a crime scene, they would be far more likely to accept him as the prophesied Messiah.
While I am always interested in cloaked evidence, clear evidence leads us more precisely, and more quickly, to a person of interest.
RELIABLE INFORMANTS
This confusion between clear and cloaked evidence wasn’t the only distinction the speaker failed to make. He also made no effort to distinguish between two kinds of informants.
All the prophets he mentioned were “informants” of a sort, and as a detective, I understood the value of a good informant. In my years working undercover, I developed several confidential informants who helped me identify robbery and burglary suspects. Many of them were even able to tell me about crimes that hadn’t yet occurred.
CAN YOU TRUST INFORMANTS?
Investigators must be careful to test their informants. One way to do this is to examine their motives. Jurors are instructed to examine an informant “with caution and close scrutiny.” They are told to “consider the extent to which (an informant’s statement) may have been influenced by the receipt of, or expectation of, any benefits.” What possible motives would ancient Jewish prophets have to lie about the coming Messiah?
The best informants are reliable informants. This isn’t simply a personal distinction; it’s a legal definition. A reliable informant is “a person who has a history or ‘track record’ of providing accurate information to officers. If qualified as ‘tested,’ he or she will be presumed reliable unless there is reason to believe otherwise.” If an informant has given information in the past and this information proved to be true, he or she is now considered reliable. Informants of this nature can be used to authenticate and establish search warrants and are generally more likely to be trusted in a court of law.
The Old Testament also had a criterion for a reliable “informant.” Moses defined a reliable prophet in the following manner: “When the prophet speaks in the name of the L ORD , and the thing does not happen or come true, that is the thing which the L ORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you are not to be afraid of him” (Deuteronomy 18:22 NASB).
If a prophet makes predictions that can be tested (they eventually come to pass), he is considered a true, reliable prophet of God. If he makes a mistake—even one mistake—he is not to be trusted. There are several examples of these kinds of tested, reliable informants in the Old Testament. Many Jewish prophets predicted more than simply the nature of the Messiah; many accurately predicted the events of history.
The prophet Nahum, for example, predicted the destruction of Nineveh and even predicted the way it would be destroyed. In approximately 614 BCE, Nahum predicted the condition of the Ninevites at the time of their demise:
They will be entangled among thorns
and drunk from their wine;
they will be consumed like dry stubble. (Nahum 1:10)
Nahum said the Ninevites would be drunk during their final hours, and the ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus later confirmed this.
The prophet Isaiah was also accurate when he predicted the destruction of Babylon. Between 701 and 681 BCE, Isaiah made a prediction that was not fulfilled until 539 BCE:
This is what the L ORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut. (Isaiah 45:1)
Isaiah said God would open the gates of Babylon for Cyrus and his attacking army. Despite Babylon’s remarkable defenses, which included moats, walls, and watchtowers, Cyrus was able to enter the city and conquer it. He did so by diverting the flow of the Euphrates River into a large lake basin before marching his army across the riverbed and into the city.
Isaiah also predicted Babylon would be turned into a swamp:
“I will turn her into a place for owls
and into swampland;
I will sweep her with the broom of destruction,”
declares the L ORD Almighty. (Isaiah 14:23)
When archaeologists excavated Babylon during the 1800s, they discovered that some parts of the city could not be uncovered because they were under a water table, just as Isaiah predicted, confirming his status as a reliable informant.
The prophet Ezekiel established his reliability by correctly predicting that Tyre would be attacked by many nations and that the stone, timber, and soil of Tyre would be thrown into the sea: “They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea” (Ezekiel 26:12).
Alexander the Great built a land bridge from the mainland to the island of Tyre when he attacked the city in 332 BCE. It is believed he took the rubble from Tyre’s ruins and threw it (stones, timber, and soil) into the sea to build the land bridge.
Another reliable informant, Jeremiah, predicted the destruction of Edom sometime between 626 and 586 BCE:
“The terror you inspire
and the pride of your heart have deceived you,
you who live in the clefts of the rocks,
who occupy the heights of the hill.
Though you build your nest as high as the eagle’s,
from there I will bring you down,”
declares the L ORD . (Jeremiah 49:16)
Edom’s capital city, Petra, was carved in the side of a mountain. Despite this, it was sacked, and the Nabataean Empire no longer exists. It suffered occupation from several ruling powers (including Romans, Muslims, and Christians), but it eventually fell into ruin.
Finally, the prophet Daniel also confirmed his reliability by accurately predicting the fall of Alexander the Great in Daniel 8:5–8, over two hundred years before his demise.
Daniel also predicted the rise of several kingdoms in Daniel chapters 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12:
CLEAR, RELIABLE, AND EXHAUSTIVE
These five prophets demonstrated themselves to be trustworthy and reliable. They made predictions, and history proved these predictions correct. This doesn’t mean the other Old Testament prophets shouldn’t be trusted. It just means that without predictions related to history, many of these prophets cannot be tested. I’ve used many untested informants with great success, but as you might expect, reliable informants are in a category of their own.
As I examined the claims of the speaker, I organized my investigation using several detective principles.
First, I gave clear evidence (prophecies) priority over cloaked. As I read the passages scholars have identified as messianic, I asked myself the question, “If I were reading this prior to the arrival of Jesus, would I clearly understand this as a description of the coming Messiah?” If I could answer yes, I placed it in the “clear” collection.
Second, I gave reliable informants (prophets) priority over the others, even though I collected every messianic prediction, placing them in a timeline along the “prophetic fuse.”
Third, I examined the prophetic information asking the six investigative questions I ask in every inquiry: what, where, why, how, when, and who? Once the first five questions had been resolved, as in all my investigations, I sought to accurately answer the most important question: Who is the person of interest? My hope in all this was to discover who fit the description of the Jewish Messiah and why this person of interest arrived when he did.
THE MOST ANCIENT PREDICTIONS
Old Testament messianic prophecy is anything but chronologically consistent. Not every generation possessed a prophet who spoke about the coming Messiah. Instead, prophecies of this nature are clustered and unevenly spaced along the fuse leading up to the first century.
The first descriptions of a Jewish person of interest occur, however, prior to any of this historical turmoil. In the years before 1400 BCE, Moses and Job described a coming Savior with the following characteristics (the clear prophecies are printed in bold):
Even conservatively limiting our list to the clear prophecies, some of our six investigative questions are starting to be answered. But these descriptions aren’t yet specific enough to identify the coming Messiah. If our person of interest had come at this point in history, even the Jewish people would not have recognized him, given the scant information Moses and Job provided.
THE CLOAKED PSALMISTS
The next set of prophecies doesn’t occur for nearly four hundred years, and they arrive through the quills of the psalmists David, Solomon, and Asaph (written between 1060 and 1015 BCE):
The poetic prose of the psalmists provided more cloaked than clear information, but a few new details (written in bold) can now be added to the growing messianic summary:
If the Messiah had arrived at this point in history, the description offered so far still would not have made his identity clear. Although the psalmists added a few new descriptions, our six investigative questions are not yet adequately answered, particularly in identifying where the Messiah would appear.
But that would change with the next set of prophetic declarations.
THE PROPHETS EMERGE
After a period of silence in which the nation of Israel was divided, the next burst of messianic information came in the two-hundred-year span between 931 and 700 BCE. Several prophets (Samuel, Joel, Hosea, Amos, and Micah) and one proverb writer (Agur son of Jakeh) made proclamations about the coming person of interest:
Once again, few new pieces of clear information are offered in this period of Jewish history. Aside from the question of where the Messiah would appear, not many other questions are answered with enough detail to accurately identify our person of interest.
As before, if the Jewish Messiah had arrived at this point in history, few people would have recognized him from clear messianic prophecy. Much more information was needed, and it was about to arrive from the pen of one incredibly insightful prophet.
ISAIAH ARRIVES
Isaiah prophesied under the reign of four kings of Judah (over the course of about sixty-four years). Maybe that’s why he is responsible for more messianic prophecy than any other Jewish prophet.
He also has a special encounter with God (recorded in Isaiah 6), which may explain why he seems to know more about the Messiah than almost anyone else. In any case, Isaiah provides an abundant list of clear predictions related to the Jewish person of interest.
Isaiah also provided a smaller number of cloaked descriptions:
Isaiah’s robust collection of clear predictions helps us to answer two more investigative questions. Prior to Isaiah, the ancients knew where the Messiah would arrive, but little else by which to identify the coming person of interest.
After Isaiah, the ancient Jews knew much more about what the Messiah would do and how he would do it. While their “clipboard” now contained answers to every question, the prophetic information was still vague and unspecific, especially when attempting to explain why the Messiah was coming and, more importantly, when he would arrive—two critical questions that wouldn’t be answered robustly for centuries to come.
TWO MORE RELIABLE “INFORMANTS”
Another group of prophets and Jewish writers appeared approximately six hundred years before the Common Era. Ezekiel and Jeremiah (who proved to be reliable based on their accurate predictions of history), along with the sons of Kora, Ethan the Ezrahite, and other unnamed psalmists, described the coming person of interest with clear and cloaked predictions:
While these writers provided several clear prophecies during this time, they offered little new information.
Even with these additional prophecies, ancient Jewish readers still would have been unable to answer the final three investigative questions related to the Messiah. Most importantly, at this point in history, they would have known extraordinarily little about when the Messiah would appear.
That would all change when another reliable prophet arrived on the scene.
THE VISIONS OF DANIEL
As a young man, the prophet Daniel was carried off to Babylon when King Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem. While there, Daniel interpreted the dreams of the king, predicting the history of nations we described earlier. Years later, in the first year of Belshazzar’s reign, Daniel had visions of the coming “son of man” (Daniel 7:13).
These visions provided clear data related to the Messiah, including a remarkable prediction about the timing of the Messiah’s arrival.
Daniel’s prediction (recorded in Daniel 9:25–26) provides us with a timeframe in which the Jewish person of interest would appear in history. This timeframe has clear beginning and ending points: “So you are to know and understand that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, until Messiah the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks ; it will be built again, with streets and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks , the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing , and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary ” (NASB, emphasis mine).
Three things are clear from this prediction: First, the Messiah will come sometime after a decree is issued to rebuild Jerusalem. Second, the Messiah will then be “cut off” and “have nothing.” Finally, all this will happen sometime before Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed.
Daniel also narrowed the timeframe by providing two references to “seven weeks and sixty-two weeks,” and “sixty-two weeks.” But what did Daniel mean by this refence to “weeks”? For the answer to that question and its impact on predicting the Messiah, I will defer to my investigative predecessor, Sir Robert Anderson.
Anderson was the assistant commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) from 1888 to 1901; he was also a theologian and author. He wrote many books related to Christianity, science, and prophecy, including The Coming Prince . His observations and calculations related to Daniel’s prophecies are enlightening, even if somewhat controversial.
First, to better understand the way Daniel uses the word weeks , he cites two Old Testament verses:
In accordance with the number of days that you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall suffer the punishment for your guilt a year , that is, forty years, and you will know My opposition. (Numbers 14:34 NASB, emphasis mine)
When you have completed these days, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the wrongdoing of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year . (Ezekiel 4:6 NASB, emphasis mine)
Old Testament prophets commonly counted years by a number of days . Forty days indicated forty years for Moses and Ezekiel. In a similar way, Daniel described sixty-nine weeks when he really meant sixty-nine “weeks’ worth” of days , and these days are actually years .
Using the passages written by Moses and Ezekiel as a guide, Anderson reconstructs Daniel’s prophecy:
WHO IS SIR ROBERT ANDERSON?
Sir Robert Anderson was born in Dublin, Ireland, on May 29, 1841. His father was a distinguished elder in the Presbyterian Church of Ireland. He was raised in a devout Christian home but had a crisis of doubt as a teenager. Once he decided Christianity was true, he became friends with some of the greatest Bible teachers of his day, including James Martin Gray, C. I. Scofield, A. C. Dixon, Horatius Bonar, and E. W. Bullinger. He was educated as a lawyer but eventually became a police detective. After a long, celebrated career, he died from the Spanish flu in 1918 at the age of seventy-seven.
From the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, until Messiah the Prince, there will be seven weeks [of years] and sixty-two weeks [of years]. (Daniel 9:25 NASB)
Daniel claimed there would be sixty-nine “weeks of years” between the issuing of a decree to rebuild Jerusalem and the appearance of the Messiah:
7 weeks + 62 weeks = 69 weeks
69 weeks × 7 days/years = 483 years
According to Anderson’s calculations, the Messiah would appear 483 years after the issuing of the decree. But during this time in antiquity, Jewish years were comprised of twelve thirty-day months (Jewish years had 360—not 365—days):
483 years × 360 days = 173,880 days
Anderson, therefore, argued that when Daniel wrote, “From the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks,” he actually meant, “From the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be 173,880 days.”
According to Anderson, we can now be more specific when trying to determine when the Messiah will appear: Daniel predicts the Messiah will emerge 173,880 days after the decree to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, and sometime prior to the next destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.
Let’s return now to our prophetic fuse timeline. In 586 BCE Daniel predicted a future decree to rebuild Jerusalem. But when did that decree take place? Anderson points to the Old Testament prophet Nehemiah, who described the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem issued “in the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes” (Nehemiah 2:1), which is March 5, 444 BCE, according to our Julian calendar. Daniel predicted this decree 142 years prior to its fulfillment.
Daniel made another important prediction. He prophesied that “the people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary” (Daniel 9:26). This did ultimately occur in 70 CE. Daniel correctly predicted the event 655 years before it occurred. This shouldn’t surprise us since his predictions related to the sequence of nations have already confirmed his reliability.
Even if we disagreed about the interpretation of “seven weeks and sixty-two weeks” as 173,880 days, we still have a clear prediction regarding the appearance of the Messiah: According to Anderson, Daniel predicted that the Messiah would appear sometime between 444 BCE and 70 CE.
But Sir Robert didn’t stop there. Instead, he argued for a much narrower window related to the appearance of the Messiah. He noted that Jesus, on numerous occasions, forbade and prevented his followers from revealing his identity as the Messiah. But on March 30, 33 CE, when he entered Jerusalem on a donkey, he rebuked the Pharisees’ protest and encouraged the whole multitude of his disciples as they shouted, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord” (Luke 19:38). Jesus even said, “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out” (Luke 19:40). This was the day on which Jesus publicly declared himself to be the Messiah.
Anderson compared the date of the decree (March 5, 444 BCE) with the date of Jesus’s declaration (March 30, 33 CE) and observed that the time span from 444 BCE to 33 CE is 476 years (remember 1 BCE to 1 CE is only one year). And if we multiply 476 years × 365.2421879 days per year (corrected for leap years), we get the result of 173,855 days. Close, but not precisely what Daniel predicted (although still remarkable). Now let’s add back the difference between March 5 and March 30 (twenty-five days). What is our total? You guessed it: 173,880 days, exactly as Daniel predicted.
Even without Anderson’s calculations, Daniel’s prophecy still helped answer the “when” question by providing a timeframe (after the decree and before the destruction) in which the Messiah would appear.
Daniel provided a range of dates (at the very least), and the last Jewish prophets provided a profile that would identify the Jewish person of interest, within Daniel’s timeframe.
THE FINAL DESCRIPTION
The prophets Zechariah, Ezra, and Malachi gave us the final bits of messianic data as the fuse continued to burn toward the Common Era. These last prophecies confirmed the timetable Daniel described:
Malachi’s prophecy is particularly important. In Malachi 3:1, he confirmed that the Messiah would appear before the temple was destroyed (so he could enter it “suddenly”) and would be preceded by a messenger, a prophet akin to Elijah, who would act as the marker to identify the person of interest.
Those expecting the Messiah now had specific information to help them identify the messianic person of interest in Daniel’s timeframe (even if Anderson was wrong about his precise calculation):
The information was now complete; they had an adequate description of the Messiah. They knew what he would do, where he would do it, why he was coming, how he would accomplish his task, and when it would occur. With Malachi’s final prophecies, the prophetic fuse burned to a close. Nothing more needed to be said; no additional description was necessary. There was enough information to answer the final and most important question: Who is the person of interest?
Jesus of Nazareth arrived in precisely the timeframe Daniel described. Was he the person of interest the prophets predicted? If so, the clear prophecies should have described him from the onset (before his arrival), and the cloaked prophecies should match Jesus in hindsight (after his arrival). The descriptions offered by the clear messianic prophecies answered the first five investigation questions and pointed to a unique who: a person of interest who sounded a lot like Jesus of Nazareth.
But we ought not ignore the cloaked prophecies. To do so would be the equivalent of ignoring the button at our crime scene. Even though these evidences may not have pointed to our person of interest from the onset, they corroborated this person of interest in hindsight. (To be conservative, I’ve listed Sir Robert Anderson’s specific calculation on the cloaked side, even though I could easily have placed it with the clear prophecies):
If, just for the sake of argument, we limited ourselves to only the clear prophecies from the reliable prophets (as we defined them earlier), we would still have a striking picture of a person of interest who resembles Jesus of Nazareth:
WHY DID HE APPEAR WHEN HE APPEARED?
The prophetic fuse burned for centuries, slowly adding to the description of the coming Messiah. His arrival was anticipated by the gradual revelations of the Jewish prophets who offered the details necessary to recognize the long-awaited person of interest. Had he come earlier, few would have identified him, given the information they had. But by the time the Jewish prophets had completed their description, the first five investigative questions had been answered sufficiently, leaving only the sixth.
WHO DO YOU SAY I AM?
Susie had been reading through the gospel of Matthew. One evening after the children were asleep, she asked me, “Who do you say Jesus is?”
She read Matthew 16: “When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’ ” (Matthew 16:13–16 ESV).
Peter may have been sure, but I wasn’t ready to answer Susie yet.
That pesky “who” question lingered in my mind given the prophecies I had been investigating. I was also thinking about what this case might sound like in a courtroom:
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, imagine assembling everyone who has ever lived on planet earth. Using the broadest, clear list of descriptions from only the reliable “informants” we’ve called as witnesses, let’s begin to eliminate the people who don’t fit the informants’ descriptions.
The prophetic informants said the coming person of interest would be born of a woman. That wouldn’t eliminate anyone :
But the prophets also said the person of interest would be a male. That would cut our candidate group in half (more or less):
The prophets said he would be a descendant of King David. Without our knowing precisely how many people that would eliminate, it’s probably safe to say that millions more would be removed from our list of viable “suspects”:
The coming person of interest was also described consistently as a miracle worker. How many humans fit that description?
According to the reliable “informants,” our person of interest also appears in a relatively tight timeframe, sometime between the decree to restore the Jewish temple and the next time it’s destroyed. Surely a huge group of people would be cut from candidacy by this limitation:
According to the reliable prophets, he was also scourged, pierced, executed without broken bones, and buried in a wealthy man’s tomb. While there may have been others who fit this description, there could not have been many:
And then, according to these same reliable “informants,” the Jewish person of interest would also conquer death by rising from the grave. Only one man fits this collective description and meets this final requirement:
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit that only Jesus of Nazareth fits the description given by the reliable “informants” who have testified in this case . . .
I was wrestling with the obvious: the cultural, spiritual, and prophetic fuses of history burned toward the explosive arrival of the Common Era. Everything in history was about to change.
“I’m waiting . . .” said Susie, interrupting my thoughts and breaking the long silence. She was clearly eager to learn more, but I knew there was still a lot to discover.
“It definitely seems compelling so far . . .” I said, searching for words.
I could tell she hoped for more. Like me, she wasn’t quite sure Jesus mattered , but with every step in my investigation, we inched closer to a decision.
“I’m still working on it,” I assured her. “I’ve almost finished assembling the fuse . . .” That was a true statement, and what I was about to discover would surprise both of us.