Advent: Old Testament Hints of the Coming of Jesus

BLOG
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Jeff Lampl

Advent
Old Testament Hints of the Coming of Jesus

The Gospel of Luke was written by the only non-Jewish writer in the New Testament.  He was a physician who joined Paul on Paul’s second missionary journey, the journey that took the Gospel to Europe, perhaps for the very first time (notice the “we” in Acts 16:10.  Luke wrote Acts).  

It didn’t take Luke long to discover that Paul kept getting himself in trouble and even incarcerated for spreading the news that Jesus was Lord and Caesar wasn’t.   

 

I join others in being convinced that during one of Paul’s imprisonments, probably in Caesarea, Luke had some “free time” so it’s hard to imagine that he would not have sought out Mary to get her account of how Jesus was born.  After all he started his Gospel by telling us that he researched everything very carefully, and of course it is well established that he wrote the early chapters of his Gospel from the perspective of Mary, Jesus’ mother.

So we have Luke writing that Mary was a virgin when she conceived (Luke 1:27-34).   My assumption is that Mary told him that.  

Matthew tells us the same thing.  He’s the Gospel writer who looked at the events of Jesus’ life and then looked back at Old Testament prophecies and I’m guessing that he found the fulfillment of these prophecies of the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ simply amazing. 
He must have had a really good time writing his Gospel.  

One prophecy that he tells us about is Isaiah 7:14 (Matthew 1:23).   Isaiah had actually written about a child being born in mid eighth century BC during Isaiah’s lifetime whose birth and maturation would coincide with a time of peace.   Yet Matthew was able to look back and see that there was a double meaning in this prophecy.  Perhaps (or not) Isaiah had perhaps in the back of his mind the thought that the day would come when God would send his Messiah to rescue his people once and for all.  In any case, as it turns out, it is no coincidence that this Messiah would be referred to as “Immanuel”, God with us.  

Advent tells us that God isn’t finished with his rescue project.    Advent (the coming of God to earth) has yet to be completed.  But it will be.  Jesus came to earth to make the announcement that God himself has come, and will one day come and stay permanently. There will come a day when God fills the earth as the “waters fills the sea”.   It is in that hope and expectation that Christians live today.

Comment       

For more:   follow on Twitter @jefflampl