I have this feeling that fulfilled prophesies are one of the more powerful yet under-utilized tools of evangelism. Having just a single prediction of the future come true is almost impossible! (I’m not talking about Nostradamus, whose predictions were obscure enough that they can be interpreted to predict any occurrence.) But what about when a whole series of amazingly precise predictions come true? And the power of prediction increases the further before the actual events the predictions are made!

One of the most astonishing examples I’ve run across is Psalm 22, a psalm of David written 1,000 years before Jesus was born. I imagine Jesus knew this psalm well. After all, he seems to have quoted the opening line while he hung on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1)

So that part of the psalm is likely not what we would call prophetic. However, there’s plenty that follows which certainly is.

Consider verse 7 - “All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads:"

Then check out Mark 15:29- “Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads…” The passersby surely had no idea what was written in Psalm 22, and this didn’t stop them from behaving towards the crucified Jesus exactly as was written in the psalm!! It seems possible to me that Mark could have had Psalm 22 in mind as he wrote his gospel, yet this doesn’t change the fact of the way the crowd acted towards our crucified Lord, fulfilling this prophesy.

Next we read in verse 8 - "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him."

And Matthew quotes the religious leaders mocking Jesus on the cross, “He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, I am the Son of God.” Again, no doubt Matthew knew Psalm 22. But would he dare deliberately misquote these powerful and influential observers? It seems certain that they at least said something very similar, as predicted by David 1,000 years before!

It only gets better from there!! Verse 14 says, “I am poured out like water”. Compare this to John 19:34, “…one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water." The formerly life-preserving liquids of Jesus' body poured out when he was pierced by the spear, and this wasn't even what the soldier was instructed to do! (He seems to have actually been ordered to break the legs of all three crucified men.) So how incredibly unlikely that this particular prophetic line would be fulfilled, and yet it was!!

Verses 14-16 go on to say, “and all my bones are out of joint...you lay me in the dust of death…they have pierced my hands and my feet.” These phrases paint a very clear picture of a man nailed on a cross! Crucifixion was a particularly gruesome innovation of the Romans, and therefore completely unknown and undreamt of at the time of the writing of Psalm 22 in David’s day!!!

And famously, verse 18 says, “They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.” Unbelievably, that is exactly what the Roman soldiers did at Jesus’ feet while he hung on the cross! According to Mark 15:24, “Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.” Mind you, these soldiers certainly knew nothing of what was written in Psalm 22, so it would be laughable to assert that this played out simply because someone wanted to make a prophesy come true! lol

It would be amazing if just one specific detail of Jesus’ crucifixion was given in Psalm 22, written so long before it happened. It would be exponentially more fantastic if just two or three more specifics appeared predictively in this psalm. But, almost absurdly, there are no less than eleven specific details of Jesus’ crucifixion given in Psalm 22!!!! This is completely beyond rational comprehension!! (The odds against this are surely in the zillions!) Unless of course, Psalm 22 was inspired by God, and Jesus’ crucifixion was merely the outworking of a divine plan hatched before the beginning of time!! In which case what choice do we have but to surrender our lives completely to an all powerful God and his all encompassing plan?

If we were to plop the amazing prophesies of Psalm 22 into an unbeliever’s lap, explaining the date of its writing relative to the events of ~33 A.D., what do you think the response would be?


[UPDATE 6/6/08]
I presented the subject matter of this blog to a co-worker a few days ago. She offered the objection, "so how do we know the early Christians didn't alter Psalm 22 after Jesus' death to include these references, so as to look like fulfilled prophecies?"

In response, I pointed out that there appears to be proof that Psalm 22 was not altered, as suggested. The Psalms, being in the Old Testament, would be part of the Torah, still considered scripture today by unbelieving Jews. Today's Torah is essentially the same as the Old Testament currently in use by Christians. The question is, why would unbelieving Jews ever have consented to use scriptures that were altered to point to Christ as the Messiah? Answer is the scriptures weren't changed in any way. As scripture says, the Jews are simply blinded to biblical proofs (such as Psalm 22 - here from the Torah) that Jesus was their Messiah.