From now up until Christmas, I think we’ll look at some of the prophecies made about Jesus in the Old Testament, and how those prophecies were fulfilled in the New Testament. You’ll definitely be blessed as you look up these prophecies yourself. You may have a different translation. I’m using the NLT (New Living Translation)…
God Reveals His plan: Let’s start in the beginning, after the fall of man (Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit). God was revealing His plan to defeat Satan and offer salvation to the world through His Son, Jesus Christ.
“And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15
Satan is our enemy. He’s so sly and slick. He will do anything to make us follow his evil, deadly path. He will fight dirty! “You will strike his heel,” refers to Satan’s repeated attempts to defeat Christ while he was here on earth. “He will strike your head,” foreshadows Satan’s defeat when Christ rose from the dead. A strike on the heel isn’t deadly, but a blow to the head is. This is the message of the gospel…Christ defeated Satan and death at the cross.
Messiah is to be a Prophet like Moses: “Moses continued, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him.” Deuteronomy 18: 15
If we read a few lines down, God tells Moses, “I will raise up a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell the people everything I command him. I will personally deal with anyone who will not listen to the messages the prophet proclaims on my behalf.” Deuteronomy 18: 18-19
In the Book of Acts, Peter repeats that… “Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among your own people. Listen carefully to everything he tells you. Then Moses said, ‘Anyone who will not listen to that Prophet will be completely cut off from God’s people.” Acts 3: 22,23 Then Peter says…”Starting with Samuel, every prophet spoke about what is happening today. You are the children of those prophets, and you are included in the covenant God promised to your ancestors. For God said to Abraham, ‘through your descendants, all the families on earth will be blessed.’ When God raised up his servant, Jesus, he sent him first to you people of Israel, to bless you by turning each of you back from your sinful ways.” Acts 3; 24-26
All the prophets pointed to the future Messiah. God had promised Abraham that He would bless the world through Abraham’s descendants, the Jewish race, from which the Messiah would come. God intended the Jewish nation to be a separate and holy nation that would teach the world about God, introduce the Messiah, and then carry on His work in the world. After the days of Solomon, the nation gave up its mission to tell the world about God. Here too, in apostolic times, as well as in the time Jesus spent on Earth, the Jews rejected their Messiah. (NLT Commentary)