Jesus Fulfills Scripture?

There is one point that all Christians agree on: there are many references to a coming Messiah in the Old Testament. First century Jews believed that their scriptures were far more than a history of God’s involvement with Israel. In addition, these sacred writings were a blueprint of God’s plans for the future. Jewish scriptures point to a Messiah. The question is whether Jesus fulfills these expectations. Matthew makes several claims that he does.

I was taught as a child that because Jesus fulfills Old Testament references to a Messiah, this fact proves the historicity of the New Testament. This is a remarkable claim which makes it an important question to consider. This blog will analyze three Old Testament references to the Messiah that Matthew uses to create his virgin birth story.

The most famous of these passages is the sign of Immanuel in Isaiah 7: 10-17. Many Christians believe that this passage points to the virgin birth of Jesus as depicted in Matthew 1: 18-25. There are three problems with this claim.

The first has to do with the translation of the word virgin. My Bible, The Jerusalem Bible, translates the word as maiden in the Isaiah story, suggesting a young woman who may or may not have been a virgin. This is the correct translation of the Hebrew word in the original text.

There are some English Bibles, however, where the word is translated as virgin. The Septuagint is the ancient Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures. The relevant Greek word used in Isaiah 7: 14 can be translated into English as virgin or young woman, which creates the confusion. As I indicate above, if you go back to the original Hebrew text, the correct translation is maiden or young woman.

Second, there is no hint in the Isaiah story that God was somehow involved in the conception of this child. Immanuel had a human father.

Finally, a reading of the larger context of the Isaiah passage suggests that the child Immanuel will become a king who will rule from Jerusalem in justice and peace. Did God intend for Jesus to become a king who rules an earthly kingdom? That is not the way most Christians think of salvation, which indicates that the Jesus Christ of Christian faith does not in any way fulfill this scripture.

The second example of Jesus fulfilling scripture in the virgin birth story comes in Matthew 2: 13-16. God tells Joseph in a dream to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt. Matthew claims that this fulfills Hosea 11:1, “I called my son out of Egypt.” What is the author of Matthew thinking here? One son is going to Egypt to escape, and the other is coming from Egypt to escape. I don’t get it!

The last example comes in Matthew 2: 16-18. When Herod kills all the children, Matthew claims that this action fulfills Jeremiah 31: 15-16. A careful reading of the Jeremiah passage indicates a problem. The children that Rachel laments have not been killed, but rather are lost. God tells her to dry her tears because they will be returned.

I have spent hours testing the thesis that Jesus fulfills Jewish scripture. I present further examples of the problems with this claim in my book on Evangelical Christianity. I have never found a credible Old Testament reference to the Messiah that points to the Jesus Christ of Christian faith.

The three examples presented above illustrate the problems with this claim quite well. Some purported references are silly like the Hosea passage of a son coming out of Egypt. Many others reference a Messiah as a political figure, an ideal king who rules from Jerusalem in justice and peace. Then there are the ones like the Jeremiah passage where the situation of the gospel does not match the situation described in the Old Testament.

It was a wonderful irony that a week after completing this blog I was visited by a group of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I enjoy such visits because I usually learn something about religion from them. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that God controls history, that the Bible foretells the future, that statements by the prophets point to Jesus Christ. They have no problems accepting Matthew’s claim that Jesus fulfills scripture.

Here is what I have learned from several visits with their representatives over the years. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not acquire their views from reading the Bible, but rather they assume them to be true from the outset. As a result, they do not read the Bible with an open mind, but instead they search for evidence that appears to support their original assumptions. In conducting this search, they do not look beyond the surface. If a gospel writer claims that an act of Jesus fulfills scripture, they accept it at face value. They ignore factors such as problems with translating the text (virgin/maiden), the larger historical context of a passage, or passages that offer a different perspective from what they are looking for.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are not unique in their approach to the Bible. Many Christians come to the Bible with deeply held assumptions, and look only for confirmation of those assumptions. They treat Jesus as a celebrity, someone they know little about and can therefore make into a person they want and need. In this process, they invent a religion that satisfies deep seated desires for individual salvation and personal confirmation.

From my perspective, such an approach misses the central dynamic of the divine/human relationship. I have only found God in loving my neighbor, in reaching out to others by ethical living. The idea is to reduce the control of ego over consciousness, which opens greater space for divine love to enter. It’s hard work!