The Testimony of Jesus by George W. Reaser

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 30, 1912

The Testimony of Jesus

By George W. Reaser

IV—The Mightiest Evidence

Prophecy Must Be Fulfilled

(Concluded from last week)

SEEING that prophetic utterances were written centuries in advance, giving the minutest details of Christ's varied experiences, no matter how great the mental and physical suffering that must be endured by Him in order to fulfil every detail of prophecy, He must not, at the crisis, withdraw from the anguish of soul and excruciating physical pain, for thus He would defeat the plan of Heaven in the giving of prophecy, and nullify His own testimony, His own witnessing to the ages, which is by "the spirit of prophecy." When He should stand face to face with the terrors of the crucifixion, He must become "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," He must pour "out His soul unto death." When He surrendered Himself to the death of the cross, He was witnessing to God's prophetic Word, to His own utterances through the prophets—for He Himself had spoken through the prophets that thus it must be.

He attached paramount importance to submitting to every humiliating and painful detail of His betrayal, His apprehension in the Garden of Gethsemane, His unjust trial and crucifixion, altho at the time He did not suggest a single one of those experiences, and therefore there was absolutely no collusion to fulfil prophecy.

His declaration of His submission and willingness to suffer the shame, agony, and death of the cross, is, to every honest Christian heart, overwhelming evidence of the supreme importance which He attached to the subject of prophecy, and to its accurate fulfilment in every detail. It is well worth while for some of the professed followers of Christ who to-day minimize the importance of prophecy, to meditate upon the value which Jesus Himself attached to this divine scheme for proving His Messiahship, and for corroborating the Word of God.

When He was apprehended by the murderous mob in the garden, He assured Peter, who had hastily drawn his sword and smitten the servant of the high priest, that there was no need that His twelve apostles should defend Him with swords of steel, for it was easily within His power to summon twelve legions of angels to rescue Him from the grasp of those who sought His death, and thus from the cruel experience of His trial and of Calvary. But His reply to His own heart and to those who sought His life was, "But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" And "all this was done, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled." Matt. 26: 53-56; Mark 14: 49. The reason why Jesus attached so much importance to the fulfilment of prophecy, was because this was the most effectual way to convey testimony to the ages that God's Word is true, and that every word of God must be fulfilled, and it was likewise the way designed of God that the plan of redemption should be accomplished. If one specification of the spirit of prophecy should fail, the value of the testimony of Jesus would be lost. We do not ignore the fact that the paramount motive in the mind of Jesus, as He stood face to face with Calvary, was the salvation of men. Yet, as He clearly expressed Himself, every detail of prophecy must be fulfilled, else the failure of the prophetic Word would leave humanity without a sufficient basis for faith in the Word of God and in Himself as the true Messiah.

The Answer to Unbelief

Some would seek to undermine our faith in Christ by telling us that clay tablets, dated ten thousand years ago, have been discovered in India, describing supposed supernatural persons called Joseph and Mary, and mentioning the crucifixion of one Jesus.

We are well aware that Satan's special occupation is to deceive, and he has many agents chained to his chariot, adroitly toiling for him. The special object of their assaults is Christ and His divinity. The prince of darkness sought to defeat the plan of salvation by undermining the faith of the Saviour in His own divinity, by saying, "If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down." The above "tablet" story was recently related to a Christian family in Mexico by an educated man from the United States.

How shall we disprove the clay tablet falsehood, and reassure our own hearts of the divinity of Christ and of the truthfulness of God's Word? One fatal weakness in all false religions and theories is that they can not bring a single line of fulfilled prophecy to bear in support of their genuineness. The Christian religion alone offers, in God's prophetic Word, unimpeachable evidence of its authenticity, of its divine origin, and of the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. Evidence thus fortified, Satan can not overthrow. Sad to say, there are men in all nations, educated, but not in the science of salvation, who seek to undermine faith in the Word of God. Those "messengers of the nations" defiantly challenge the divinity of Christ: "What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation? That the Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of His people shall trust in it."

Jesus, when making His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, was importuned to hush the voices of the children, lifted in glad anthems of praise. His answer was, that if these should hold their peace, the very stones in the street would take up the strain. Why must this be? Prophecy had spoken 500 years in advance; all heaven was pledged for its fulfilment. As descriptive of that very event, the prophecy had said, "Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem." Zech. 9: 9 with Luke 19: 40.

Jesus' Method of Proving His Messiahship

The reader will recall Christ's method of convincing His doubting disciples of His Messiahship, even after His resurrection. As He joined Himself to the two disciples as they journeyed to Emmaus, the discussion of the two had been with reference to the death and burial of Jesus, and altho the report had come to them that He was risen from the dead, yet they were still in doubt and uncertainty as to His being the true Messiah. Jesus' appeal was to the things that He Himself had dictated to the prophets, concerning His experience when He should take upon Himself human nature and suffer death upon a Roman cross. "Then He said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." Luke 24: 13-32.

The response of the two disciples to this array of prophetic evidence of His being their divine Lord was, "Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?" Surely the "testimony of Jesus"—Heaven-inspired prophecy—is not a dry and lifeless theme, if it be pursued understandingly. Would that our hearts might be all aglow with renewed faith in God and in His Word, as we tread softly, reverently, in our exploration of the great field of prophecy.

In the evening when Jesus met with His disciples in the upper chamber, again He had recourse to the prophecies, to convince them all that He was indeed the true Messiah. Luke 24: 33-44.

If Jesus Himself employed the prophecies to convince His own chosen disciples of His Messiahship, can any better or more forceful way be discovered to convince mankind that He was the Son of God? In fact, is it possible to show that He was the true Messiah, without deducing the proof from the prophecies, with their fulfilment?

Fulfilled Prophecy Stronger Evidence than the Testimony of One Risen from the Dead

Suppose that a widely known but deceased man should rise from the dead and profess to speak God's truth. He would make a strong impression upon the minds of humanity, would he not? But in the face of one rising from the dead, Christ gave His testimony that prophecy is a safer, surer, stronger evidence upon which to base faith than the statements of one risen from the dead. You will recall the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, recorded in Luke 16, in which the rich man is represented as having died. His piteous appeal was that some one be sent to give warning to his five brethren, "lest they also come into this place of torment." In that intensely dramatic scene, Christ put the answer to this appeal into the mouth of one of the characters called Father Abraham, and made him say, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, tho one rose from the dead." Therefore the prophecies are a better, safer guide than one risen from the dead.

Peter's Appeal to Fulfilled Prophecy

On the Day of Pentecost Peter, altho filled with the Holy Spirit, reached the climax of his mighty, Spirit-filled sermon, in his masterful effort to prove Jesus to be the true Messiah, by an appeal to prophecy. Acts 2: 22-32. How wise and deeply laid was the plan of salvation, when we recognize that Jesus, by the spirit of prophecy, began to foretell and give details of His coming into the world to be the Saviour of men, full four thousand years before He came, or immediately after sin had entered and man needed a Saviour! Gen. 3: 15.

The Climax of Paul's Sermon Before Agrippa

Paul's recourse, in witnessing before kings, was to the same overwhelming evidence; namely, the "spirit of prophecy." As he stood, a prisoner in bonds, before Agrippa, and doubtless saw evidences that God was using him to touch the heart of the monarch, who sat, an interested listener, upon his throne, the apostle reached the very climax of his appeal, in addressing the pointblank question to the ruler: "King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest." This question, as an arrow of conviction, driven into the king's heart by the Holy Spirit, forced from him the answer, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." Acts 26: 27, 28. Paul had based his argument, proving that Jesus was indeed the Christ, on fulfilled prophecy. It was the strongest argument he could possibly make before the king.

The question, "Believest thou the prophets?" will ever be one of the most important of all questions, till the end of time.

In the fulfilment of the many wonderful prophecies in connection with the advent of Christ into the world, His almost continuously miraculous life, His crucifixion and resurrection—the latter the mightiest monument of all fulfilled prophecy—all of these things being, as Paul stated before Agrippa, not "done in a corner," and moreover heralded to the world, the great apostle to the Gentiles preaching them himself for two years at the world seat of empire, the city of Rome,—by all of these means in fulfilling prophecy, the flood-gates—the witnessing power—of Heaven had been opened, God had witnessed to His existence and to His truth through "the testimony of Jesus," and mankind was left without excuse for unbelief.

A Distinct Triumph of the Cross

The events associated with the cross of Calvary not only fulfilled minutely numerous prophetic utterances, but also made the event of the cross the great central beacon light of fulfilled prophecy in all of the world's history, and likewise revealed the importance that Jesus attached to the accurate fulfilment of every detail of prophecy. It is said that nearly three hundred specifications of prophecy were fulfilled in the experiences of Christ while here among men. Some of these were definite time prophecies. Dan. 9: 24-27.

At the same time the writer does not ignore the fact that there are other overwhelming evidences of our Lord's divinity.

Jesus' Resurrection Not a Proof of His Being the True Messiah, Except as It Was Fulfilment of Prophecy

The fact of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, no matter how great its significance in the plan of salvation, did not in itself prove Him to be the Messiah; for other members of our race were resurrected from the dead, both before and after Him. Neither did the fact that Jesus raised the dead to life again, in itself, prove His Messiahship; for both Elijah and Elisha before, and Peter and Paul after His earth life, were instruments in performing the same miracle. In the fact of His vicarious death, burial, and resurrection, "according to the Scriptures" of the prophets, do we find undeniable proof of His Messiahship. See 1 Cor. 15: 3, 4; Ps. 2: 7 with Acts 13: 33, 34.

No Place for Doubt

Further discourse to convince the Christian of the importance of prophecy would be superfluous. The arising of the star to guide the magi was foretold; the time when He should be anointed Messiah; the place of His birth, as well as the miraculous manner of His conception. His name was selected more than seven centuries in advance. Nearly all the details of His betrayal, His trial, the forsaking of Him by His disciples, the graphic scenes of Calvary, His burial and triumphant resurrection, were foretold. David, speaking prophetically, had given us a glowing description of the triumphant ascension to glory of the One who had conquered sin, Satan, death, and the grave, when he sang: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. . . . The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory." Ps. 24: 7-10.

In harmony with the thought that Heaven-sent prophecy supplies the strongest possible evidence upon which to base intelligent faith, is the statement of a prominent author, that while the "miracles of Christ are a proof of His divinity, yet a stronger proof that He is the world's Redeemer is found in comparing the prophecies of the Old Testament with the history of the New."—"Desire of Ages."

Thus Heaven gave me so firm a foundation upon which to base my faith in Him as my all-sufficient Saviour, that the combined assaults of infidelity can not disturb my confidence nor destroy my hope. And thus it is that the "testimony of Jesus" has placed a weapon in the hands of Christians which, if rightly used, will cause skepticism to scamper away into the shadows, for shame.

The "testimony of Jesus," the "spirit of prophecy," not only proves Jesus to be the true Messiah, but it also proves all others who have claimed, or who may profess, to be messiahs, to be false christs.