In the Gospels, Jesus claimed that the Old Testament Scriptures contained prophecies about Him. In St. John's Gospel, it is recorded that He told the Jews:
Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me. (St. John 5:39)
In St. Luke's Gospel, it is recorded that He explained Old Testament prophecies about Himself to His disciples.
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. (St. Luke 24:25-27)
For someone to claim that there are prophecies about himself in the Old Testament that would mean one of two things. Either this person is a lunatic or there really is something special about him. Well, Jesus really did claim that there were prophecies in the Old Testament about Him. He even claimed to be greater than King Solomon who was a very wise man.
The Queen of the South shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the Earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. (St. Matt. 12:42)
If we take a look at the Old Testament closely, we can find several prophecies of Christ in them. I, personally, find it fascinating to look at the Old Testament prophecies of the Christ (or Messiah) and see their fulfillment in the Gospels. Doing this has done much to increase my faith and convince me that the Bible truly is the inspired Word of God.
When I first started doing this many years ago, I found some discrepancies in the quotations from the Old Testament found in the New Testament and the Old Testament translated from the Hebrew. For example, in Hebrews it says:
Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me: in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me,) to do Thy will, O God. (Heb. 10:5-7)
This is a quotation from Psalm 39 in the Septuagint. The numbering of the Psalms in the Septuagint is different from the Hebrew. So, this particular psalm corresponds with Psalm 40 in the Hebrew Masoretic text. In Psalm 40, it says:
Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire; Mine ears hast Thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast Thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart. (Psalm 40:6-8)
Nowhere in the corresponding Hebrew version of this passage does it say, "a body hast Thou prepared Me." As one can see, there is a discrepancy between the Hebrew and the passage that St. Paul quoted in his Epistle to the Hebrews. In Sir Lancelot Brenton's translation of the Septuagint, it says:
Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not; but a body hast Thou prepared Me: whole-burnt offering and sacrifice for sin Thou didst not require. Then I said, Behold, I come: in the volume of the book it is written concerning Me, I desired to do Thy will, O My God, and Thy Law in the midst of Mine heart. (Psalm 39:6-8, LXX)
That sounds a whole lot like what I read in St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews.
I had a conversation with someone when I was a catechumen in the Orthodox Church. The person I talked to had had some seminary training. He told me that the prophecies of Christ are much clearer in the Septuagint than the ones in the Hebrew Masoretic text. I have found in my own personal study of the Scriptures that what he was telling me is correct. I have also had a conversation with a Greek priest about this subject. He told me that the Jews altered the Hebrew and it is untrustworthy. When I first heard that, I did not believe him, but I have found out from my own personal study of the Church Fathers and the Scriptures that what he was telling me is true. The Hebrew Masoretic text is untrustworthy. The man who had been seminary-trained had also told me that the Jews edited the Hebrew for the purpose of refuting Christians and the Hebrew Masoretic text is the product of the Jews' editing.
Well, in the passage in the 39th Psalm, there is a prophecy of Christ there. St. Paul apparently believed that that is what that was because he quotes it in his epistle as being one. He quoted the Septuagint, too, although he was "a Hebrew of the Hebrews." (Phil. 3:5) When it says, "a body hast Thou prepared Me," it is talking about the body of Christ being a sacrifice for sins.
Earlier in this Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul quoted from Psalm 44.
But unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows. (Heb. 1:8,9)
Here, the apostle quotes from this text and, in effect, establishes the deity of the Son of God. This passage from the Psalms is saying that God anointed God. St. Paul believed that there was only one God. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, he says:
But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him. (I Cor. 8:6)
In his Epistle to the Galatians, he says:
Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. (Gal. 3:20)
So, St. Paul believed that there is only one God. In his Epistle to the Romans, he called Jesus Christ God there, too.
Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. (Rom. 9:5)
In his Epistle to Titus, he says:
Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. (Titus 2:13)
St. Paul believed that Jesus Christ is God.
So then, when we consider these verses of Scripture, we can conclude that these Psalms were teaching that God would have a body that would be a sacrifice for sins.
I have already discoursed on the subject of the Holy Trinity in an earlier blog. I do not wish to discourse much on that subject here. I would just have to remind any of my readers that Christians believe that God is three distinct Persons, but one God. The Father is not the Son, nor is He the Holy Spirit. The Son is neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. Each Person of the Trinity, however, is God in His entirety and there is only one true God. This is a mystery. Do not try to analyze it and figure it out.
If God has a human body then He must have become incarnate. There are several Old Testament prophecies about the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
There are other prophecies in the Old Testament that indicated that God would have a body. One of those is in the Septuagint version of Hosea. There, it says:
For even if they should rear their children, yet shall they be utterly bereaved: wherefore also there is woe to them, though My flesh is of them. (Hosea 9:12, LXX)
There is a discrepancy here also in the Masoretic Hebrew text. It says:
Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them, that there shall not be a man left: yea, woe also to them when I depart from them! (Hosea 9:12)
If one were to write "my flesh is of them" in Hebrew, add a consonant to one of the words, and change the vowels, then it would be possible to have the text say, "when I depart from them." (See footnote number 5, vol. 7, p. 79, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series.)
Originally, the Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament were written with only consonants, but later in the 7th century A.D., the Masoretes invented a system of dots and dashes that they placed over, under, and near the consonants to indicate vowel sounds.* I believe that the Masoretes, in order to be able to refute Christians who claimed that Jesus is the promised Messiah, added an additional consonant to a Hebrew word in Hosea 9:12 and put a different set of vowels with that word. The Septuagint is a third century B.C. Greek translation of much older Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament books. The Septuagint translators were Palestinian Jews and they provided the traditional interpretation of the text in their translation.
So, in Hosea 9:12 God claims to have flesh that He got from the Hebrew race. We must remember that God transcends time and sees all of time all at once. For Him, all of time is present time. So, although from a human perspective the incarnation and birth of Christ had not even occurred when Hosea was writing his prophecies, to God this event had already happened. So, God could say through the Holy Prophet Hosea, "My flesh is of them" instead of "My flesh will be of them."
Since it was prophesied in the Old Testament that God would have a body, it is only logical that God would take flesh from a virgin. If He took flesh from an already conceived male child, then He and the male child would be sharing the same body. There would be two persons who have the same body — a human person, namely, the male child, and God the Word. In order to avoid this scenario, God the Word became incarnate in the fallopian tube of a virgin woman.
The virgin woman did not become pregnant by having sexual intercourse with a man.
In future blogs, I will talk more about Old Testament prophecies of the incarnation and birth of Christ. I will also talk about other prophecies pertaining to His life, ministry, death, and resurrection.
Steve
* About the seventh century A.D. a vocalic system was introduced by the Masoretes, a group of people interested in preserving and vocalising the traditional Hebrew text and derived their name from the Hebrew word for "tradition". The system consisted of vowel points or signs which were written in and around the consonants so as not to interfere with their traditional sacredness. (p. 21, Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew, by R.K. Harrison)
Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, D.D. & James Donaldson, LL.D., volumes 1-10, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D., volumes 1-14, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D. & Henry Wace, D.D., volumes 1-14, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts
Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew, by R.K. Harrison, published by Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., Kent, UK
Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me. (St. John 5:39)
In St. Luke's Gospel, it is recorded that He explained Old Testament prophecies about Himself to His disciples.
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. (St. Luke 24:25-27)
For someone to claim that there are prophecies about himself in the Old Testament that would mean one of two things. Either this person is a lunatic or there really is something special about him. Well, Jesus really did claim that there were prophecies in the Old Testament about Him. He even claimed to be greater than King Solomon who was a very wise man.
The Queen of the South shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the Earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. (St. Matt. 12:42)
If we take a look at the Old Testament closely, we can find several prophecies of Christ in them. I, personally, find it fascinating to look at the Old Testament prophecies of the Christ (or Messiah) and see their fulfillment in the Gospels. Doing this has done much to increase my faith and convince me that the Bible truly is the inspired Word of God.
When I first started doing this many years ago, I found some discrepancies in the quotations from the Old Testament found in the New Testament and the Old Testament translated from the Hebrew. For example, in Hebrews it says:
Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me: in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me,) to do Thy will, O God. (Heb. 10:5-7)
This is a quotation from Psalm 39 in the Septuagint. The numbering of the Psalms in the Septuagint is different from the Hebrew. So, this particular psalm corresponds with Psalm 40 in the Hebrew Masoretic text. In Psalm 40, it says:
Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire; Mine ears hast Thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast Thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart. (Psalm 40:6-8)
Nowhere in the corresponding Hebrew version of this passage does it say, "a body hast Thou prepared Me." As one can see, there is a discrepancy between the Hebrew and the passage that St. Paul quoted in his Epistle to the Hebrews. In Sir Lancelot Brenton's translation of the Septuagint, it says:
Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not; but a body hast Thou prepared Me: whole-burnt offering and sacrifice for sin Thou didst not require. Then I said, Behold, I come: in the volume of the book it is written concerning Me, I desired to do Thy will, O My God, and Thy Law in the midst of Mine heart. (Psalm 39:6-8, LXX)
That sounds a whole lot like what I read in St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews.
I had a conversation with someone when I was a catechumen in the Orthodox Church. The person I talked to had had some seminary training. He told me that the prophecies of Christ are much clearer in the Septuagint than the ones in the Hebrew Masoretic text. I have found in my own personal study of the Scriptures that what he was telling me is correct. I have also had a conversation with a Greek priest about this subject. He told me that the Jews altered the Hebrew and it is untrustworthy. When I first heard that, I did not believe him, but I have found out from my own personal study of the Church Fathers and the Scriptures that what he was telling me is true. The Hebrew Masoretic text is untrustworthy. The man who had been seminary-trained had also told me that the Jews edited the Hebrew for the purpose of refuting Christians and the Hebrew Masoretic text is the product of the Jews' editing.
Well, in the passage in the 39th Psalm, there is a prophecy of Christ there. St. Paul apparently believed that that is what that was because he quotes it in his epistle as being one. He quoted the Septuagint, too, although he was "a Hebrew of the Hebrews." (Phil. 3:5) When it says, "a body hast Thou prepared Me," it is talking about the body of Christ being a sacrifice for sins.
Earlier in this Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul quoted from Psalm 44.
But unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows. (Heb. 1:8,9)
Here, the apostle quotes from this text and, in effect, establishes the deity of the Son of God. This passage from the Psalms is saying that God anointed God. St. Paul believed that there was only one God. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, he says:
But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him. (I Cor. 8:6)
In his Epistle to the Galatians, he says:
Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. (Gal. 3:20)
So, St. Paul believed that there is only one God. In his Epistle to the Romans, he called Jesus Christ God there, too.
Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. (Rom. 9:5)
In his Epistle to Titus, he says:
Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. (Titus 2:13)
St. Paul believed that Jesus Christ is God.
So then, when we consider these verses of Scripture, we can conclude that these Psalms were teaching that God would have a body that would be a sacrifice for sins.
I have already discoursed on the subject of the Holy Trinity in an earlier blog. I do not wish to discourse much on that subject here. I would just have to remind any of my readers that Christians believe that God is three distinct Persons, but one God. The Father is not the Son, nor is He the Holy Spirit. The Son is neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. Each Person of the Trinity, however, is God in His entirety and there is only one true God. This is a mystery. Do not try to analyze it and figure it out.
If God has a human body then He must have become incarnate. There are several Old Testament prophecies about the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
There are other prophecies in the Old Testament that indicated that God would have a body. One of those is in the Septuagint version of Hosea. There, it says:
For even if they should rear their children, yet shall they be utterly bereaved: wherefore also there is woe to them, though My flesh is of them. (Hosea 9:12, LXX)
There is a discrepancy here also in the Masoretic Hebrew text. It says:
Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them, that there shall not be a man left: yea, woe also to them when I depart from them! (Hosea 9:12)
If one were to write "my flesh is of them" in Hebrew, add a consonant to one of the words, and change the vowels, then it would be possible to have the text say, "when I depart from them." (See footnote number 5, vol. 7, p. 79, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series.)
Add a consonant to the Hebrew word for "my flesh" and change the vowels. Then, it will be possible to have the Hebrew word for "at my departure." The Jewish Masoretes edited the Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament so that they would be able to refute Christians who claimed that Jesus is the promised Messiah.
So, in Hosea 9:12 God claims to have flesh that He got from the Hebrew race. We must remember that God transcends time and sees all of time all at once. For Him, all of time is present time. So, although from a human perspective the incarnation and birth of Christ had not even occurred when Hosea was writing his prophecies, to God this event had already happened. So, God could say through the Holy Prophet Hosea, "My flesh is of them" instead of "My flesh will be of them."
Since it was prophesied in the Old Testament that God would have a body, it is only logical that God would take flesh from a virgin. If He took flesh from an already conceived male child, then He and the male child would be sharing the same body. There would be two persons who have the same body — a human person, namely, the male child, and God the Word. In order to avoid this scenario, God the Word became incarnate in the fallopian tube of a virgin woman.
The virgin woman did not become pregnant by having sexual intercourse with a man.
In future blogs, I will talk more about Old Testament prophecies of the incarnation and birth of Christ. I will also talk about other prophecies pertaining to His life, ministry, death, and resurrection.
Steve
* About the seventh century A.D. a vocalic system was introduced by the Masoretes, a group of people interested in preserving and vocalising the traditional Hebrew text and derived their name from the Hebrew word for "tradition". The system consisted of vowel points or signs which were written in and around the consonants so as not to interfere with their traditional sacredness. (p. 21, Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew, by R.K. Harrison)
Bibliography
Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, D.D. & James Donaldson, LL.D., volumes 1-10, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D., volumes 1-14, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D. & Henry Wace, D.D., volumes 1-14, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts
Teach Yourself Biblical Hebrew, by R.K. Harrison, published by Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., Kent, UK
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