Christians believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, the anointed one promised by God throughout the Old Testament.  This belief is due to the numerous ways Jesus fulfilled prophecies about His coming, a testament to the reliability of God's word.  This belief is rooted in both the Old and New Testaments.  The Old Testament contains prophetic scriptures that Christian theologians interpret as pointing to Jesus.  The New Testament presents Jesus as the one who came to fulfill the law and the prophecies of the Old Testament.  This leaves modern readers with a choice of following Jesus as the promised Messiah or rejecting Him as a fraud. 

The first prophecy that Christians believe Jesus fulfilled is found in Genesis, which states, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel” (Genesis 3:15 NASB). David Croteau writes, “Genesis 3:15 is known as the Protoevangelium (“the first preaching of the gospel”); more than that, Genesis 3:15 is an explicit prophecy concerning Jesus Christ as “the seed of the woman.”[1] This first prophecy points to a person who would come in through the seed of Adam and then continue through Abraham.[2] When Jesus came, His death, burial, and resurrection brought victory.  The writer of Hebrews states, “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).  

A second prophecy is found in David's eternal kingship.  Matthew, chapter one, records Jesus' genealogy, starting with the statement, “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matthew 1:1). Many of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible see Jesus as the Messianic fulfillment of prophecy that would come through the line of David.[3] The Lord said to David, “When your days are complete, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Samuel 7:12-13). Christian scholars believe Jesus fulfills this prophecy because He is a descendant of King David.  

Each year, Christians gather to celebrate the virgin birth of Jesus. The passage most cited is, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). The New Testament writers record this prophecy as fulfilled in the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary.  The name Immanuel means “God with us” and affirms the divine nature of Jesus. John leaves no room for doubt about who Jesus was in his writing, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).

Great Christian scholars believe and teach that Jesus fulfilled over three hundred prophecies from the ancient Hebrew text. Therefore, this writing would need to list each of these for much longer.  The hope is for those skeptical of Jesus to look into the prophecies and make their judgment.  For Christians, the hope is that your faith and witness will be strengthened through proper research as you seek to live for King Jesus. 

[1]. David A. Croteau and Gary E. Yates, Urban Legends of the Old Testament: 40 Common Misconceptions (Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Academic, 2019), 25.

[2]. Michael Rydelnik and Edwin Blum, The Moody Handbook of Messianic Prophecy: Studies and Expositions of the Messiah in the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2019), 217.

[3]. Rabbi Kirt A. Schneider, Messianic Prophecy Revealed: Seeing Messiah in the Pages of the Hebrew Bible (Lake Mary, Florida: Charisma House, 2023), 33.

Bibliography

Croteau, David A., and Gary E. Yates. Urban Legends of the Old Testament: 40 Common Misconceptions. Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Academic, 2019.

Rabbi Kirt A. Schneider. Messianic Prophecy Revealed: Seeing Messiah in the Pages of the Hebrew Bible. Lake Mary, Florida: Charisma House, 2023.

Rydelnik, Michael, and Edwin Blum. The Moody Handbook of Messianic Prophecy: Studies and Expositions of the Messiah in the Old Testament. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2019.