Prophesied in Every Age

From the beginning of creation and throughout the Old Testament, for about 4,000 years, God foretold that He would send the Messiah into the world. There is Messianic prophecy in every age in the Bible. For example:

Messianic Prophecy in the Beginning Age

God spoke mysteriously, yet indicatively of the Messiah when he told Satan: “I will put enmity [ill feelings] 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” (Ge 3:15). “He”, the Messiah, and Satan would have ill feelings between each other, as would their followers.

Messianic Prophecy in the Patriarchal Age

Still somewhat mysterious, and yet indicative again, God promised that the Messiah would be an offspring of Abraham. For example, God said to Abraham, “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice” (Ge 22:18). Not only the Jewish nation, but all nations would be blessed by the seed, a descendant of Abraham: the Messiah (READ Gal 3:16).

Messianic Prophecy in the Mosaic Age

This age contained a lot of details about the Messiah. In it, we are told who, what, when, where, why, and how He would be sent into the world. For eg.

1. Who Is the Messiah?

(a) He would be Moses-like; miracle worker, prophet, covenant-bearer (De 18:15).
(b) He would be Immanuel, which means God with us (Is 7:14).
(c) He would be God’s Son whom kings of the earth should worship (Ps 2:7-12).
(d) He would be a son given to us (Is 7:14, 9:6).

2. What Is His Purpose?

(a) He would be the answer to the Jews’ request for someone to speak 
    the words of God to them (De 18:15-19).
(b) He would be an everlasting ruler over God’s people (Is 9:7).
(c) He would not be held by death, but resurrected (Ps 16:10).
(d) He would be rejected by the Jews, suffer terribly, & become 
    mankind’s sin-bearer (Is 53).
(e) He would be betrayed by one of His close friends (Ps 41:9).
(f) He would be cut off (Da 9:26).

3. When Would He Enter the World?

(a) He would arrive sometime after the Jews’ Babylonian exile, 
    after Jerusalem would be rebuilt (Da 9:20-25).

4. Where Would He Enter the World?

(a) He would go forth from Bethlehem (Mic 5:2).
(b) He would shine as a great light by Galilee (Is 9:1,2).
(c) He would have to be called out of Egypt (Hos 11:1).
(d) He would come to Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey (Zec 9:9).

5. How Would He Enter the World?

(a) He would be born of a virgin (Is 7:14).

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