My Bible Study: Christmas Prophecy 16

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Christmas Prophecy 16

The Messiah's hands and feet would be pierced.

Prophecy -

Psalm 22:16

For dogs have surrounded Me;
The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.
They pierced My hands and My feet;

Zechariah 12:10

And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced.

Fulfillment -

Luke 23:33

And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him.

John 20:24-27
[After the resurrection.] Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”

So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”

And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

The death penalty under Jewish law was carried out by stoning. Jesus should have been stoned. But that would not have fulfilled these particular prophecies. The prophecy in the Book of Psalm was written by King David hundreds of years before Christ. It was translated into the Greek (Septuagint) almost 300 years before Christ. My point is that at the time of the writing, crucifixion did not exist and the Jews did not pierce anyone. They stoned criminals. They only hung the body on a pole after the death as an additional punishment for idolaters and blasphemers, to brand that person accursed of God (Deuteronomy 21:23).

The Persians invented crucifixion and the Romans practiced it. They would sometimes crucify hundreds in one day. Tradition says that Peter was crucified, but did not deem himself worthy to die as his Lord, so requested to be crucified upside down. Crucifixion involved piercing the hands and feet with large, dull spikes--these attached the body to a wooden cross or stake.

Crucifixion was the most shameful and degrading death penalty even to the non-Jewish world, but the Jews regarded a person crucified as being over and above, accursed of God. I have no doubt that crucifixion is the most painful, awful type of execution invented, before or since. In order to draw breath, the victim had to push up on his feet, causing excruciating pain.

Jesus was brutally murdered, and you and I are the ones that killed Him. But He willingly gave Himself, so that you and I could be saved. He took our place of punishment for the sin we committed. He was shamed and degraded so that you and I could be exalted into right-standing with God.