I learned something fascinating this week. The Bible actually foretold the date when the Jewish Messiah, Jesus, would arrive in Jerusalem. The verses can be found in the Book of Daniel 9:24-27.

Biblical scholars used Daniel’s “70-week Prophecy” and the 360-day Jewish calendar to determine that Jesus would arrive 483 years after the rebuilding of Jerusalem which began in 445 BC. The calculation is 49 years (seven weeks) + 434 years (62 weeks) = 483 years, resulting in Jesus arriving the year 32 or 33 AD. Daniel prophesied that at that time, Jesus would make His triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Daniel’s prophecy then says that the Messiah will be executed for others. (The last seven weeks of the prophecy has not yet come to pass and includes the seven years of the Tribulation period.)

What makes this prophecy so amazing is that the book of Daniel as was written between 604 B.C. and 532 B.C, over 500 years before the birth of Jesus. The Bible’s Old Testament contains many other prophecies about the coming Messiah. Jesus fulfilled them all. Some Bible scholars suggest there are more than 300 prophetic Scriptures about Jesus, including His birthplace, that a massacre of children would occur when He was born, that He would be called a Nazarene, His lineage, that He would enter Jerusalem on a donkey, and the method of His execution. In his book Science Speaks, Peter Stoner states that the probability of one man fulfilling just eight prophecies was 1 in 10¹⁷, or the equivalent of 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000.

As you look to the Cross this Good Friday and to Resurrection Sunday, I invite you to investigate the Bible, its accuracy, and know that Jesus is the true Messiah. Happy Easter, everyone. Christ has risen… He has risen, indeed!

²⁵ “Know therefore and understand,
That from the going forth of the command
To restore and build Jerusalem
Until Messiah the Prince,
There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks;
The street shall be built again, and the wall,
Even in troublesome times.

²⁶ “And after the sixty-two weeks
Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself;
And the people of the prince who is to come
Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The end of it shall be with a flood,
And till the end of the war desolations are determined.

²⁷ Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week;
But in the middle of the week
He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.
And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate,
Even until the consummation, which is determined,
Is poured out on the desolate.” (Daniel (9:24-27)