Biblical Logos Blog

Only God can make the claim of knowing the end from the beginning:

Isa 46:8-10   “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ 

Several times in the Book of Isaiah God makes reference to his supernatural power revealed in the Bible declaring things before they happen (Isa 46:9-10, 41:22-23, 48:3,5, 42:9). Only he can do this with 100% accuracy. For Jesus first coming alone there are over 300 discrete statements in the Old Testament that Jesus fulfilled. Counting only a handful of these statements about Jesus, the odds of a human getting them 100% correct becomes impossible.

When I first started reading the Bible (actually listening to it on CD’s as well), I was in my late 30’s. The first thing I was most curious about was how factually true the Bible was. So many people say things like “..it was written and rewritten by many men over hundreds of years…”. I just didn’t know how much I believed. After months of looking up every possible fact, archeological find, geographic reference etc… I became totally convinced this was a accurate historical work. Little did I know at the time that so many others had followed this path. People trying to determine the historicity of the Bible or even trying to prove it wrong, becoming believers themselves!

After being convinced the Bible was accurate, I ran into Bible commentaries discussing passages like Daniels 70 weeks prophecy which outline the exact day the Jewish people should expect their promised Messiah to come. Daniel writing in ~539 B.C. says to look for a decree from the King who would release the Jewish people from captivity to rebuild their destroyed city Jerusalem( 445 / 444 B.C.). He then says from that time there will be seventy sevens of years until their Messiah / The Prince will arrive (Daniel 9:24-27). This passage even mentioned he would die (Dan 9:26), before their Temple would be destroyed. So about 100 years after Daniel wrote these passages, King Artaxerxes makes the very decree Daniel wrote about. In 32/33 A.D. Jesus road into Jerusalem on a donkey (Matthew 21:4-5) also fulfilling several verses (Zach 9:9, Psalm 118:1-29) from the Old Testament. These facts leave no doubt about who the Messiah was historically. They also leave no doubt about God’s word being supernatural.

Seeing this and many of the other references to Jesus coming in the Old Testament blew me away. I saw that the Bible was supernatural, accurate and perfect. This is what originally led me to faith. But, it was only the beginning! The more I studied, the more other supernatural depictions became clear. Not only does God know the end from the beginning, he also used symbols, types, numbers and allegories consistently throughout scripture. Take for example the story of Abraham taking his only son Isaac up Mt. Moriah for what would become a substitutionary sacrifice. Abraham in about 1940 B.C. performed this recorded act, yet somehow, doesn’t it also depict God the Father, commanding his only son Jesus to be sacrificed on Mt. Moriah for our sins? Jesus fulfilling the the story which Isaac and Abraham acted out 2,000 years before.

I wanted so badly at the time to record all of these supernatural scriptural references. As you can guess, they were far too numerous to record. I even had a Word document trying to describe these, but it was too overwhelming. I wished at the time there was some way to share what I was finding, but sharing this with someone who never had studied the Bible, who maybe had doubts themselves about the Bible, became impossible. If someone had not been on the path God brought me on, how would they understand what I had found. It would seem like lunacy because it was supernatural.

If you are just getting to the point of understanding scripture and its supernatural authorship for yourself, let me leave you with one more reference you can add to your list. It is the story of Caleb from the Old Testament (Numbers 13-14). He and Joshua were the two spies who trusted the Lord when the Jewish people were coming to the Promised Land. Caleb was a Kenizzite (Numbers 32:12). That means that although he was a non-Jewish person / Gentile, he was a trusted leader in the Tribe of Judah (Numbers 34:19). As the Bible described the Exodus in Exodus 12:38, a mixed multitude of people left Egypt after Pharaoh had relented to let them go. This means some Gentiles as well as Jewish people fled with the Jewish people. It points to some Gentiles who saw the plagues of Egypt believed in the God of the Jewish people. Then God grafted them into the Jewish people at the time of the Exodus.

To complete the story, Caleb the grafted-in Gentile leader of Judah by faith was spared along with Joshua during the Wilderness Wanderings after the Exodus (Number 26:65). He entered the Promised Land with the Jewish people. He helped lead the conquest of the land. Finally, he inherits land as part of the promise of God (Joshua 14:12-14).

How is this supernatural? Didn’t God take us Gentiles who did not know him as God (Ephesians 2:12), who by faith believed in him (Ephesians 2:8-9) and grafted us in (Romans 11:11-24)? Are we also not promised an eternal inheritance (1 Peter 1:3-5, Romans 8:16-17, Galatians 3:29, Ephesians 1:13-14, Colossians 3:24)?

Is God is starting to burn in your heart? Is the truth of His Word starting to grab hold of you? Let this be just one of an infinite number of additional logs to put on the fire of your faith. Maranatha!