The Prophecies of Jesus’ Birth

The Christmas lights are going up around town. In the stores they have been up since late September. Christmas is an important event, but not because of retail shopping or even to thrill little children. Christmas is about Christ. It is about the Son of God (co-Creator of the universe) becoming a little, poor, vulnerable child.

Jesus wasn’t born for the fun of it. This is serious stuff. His birth is probably the most vulnerable moment in the plan of God to preserve His Law and still save as much of sinful humanity as possible. This event directly affects what happens to you after your death, and it should affect how you approach life.

The birth of Jesus is semi-clandestine. Enough detail has to be given so that people of all generations can know this is a big deal, this is the plan; and shadowy enough that Satan can’t squash it literally in the cradle. That is a narrow line.

What information is given way in advance? The first one seems too obvious. The one to crush Satan is going to be the offspring of a woman.

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
    and you shall bruise his heel.”

Genesis 3:15 (ESV)

Before you say “well, duh”. Keep in mind that this is God speaking to Satan and the one to “crush” him could have been a cherubim, like he is, or an angel of some sort. This establishes that it will be a human. A ridiculous claim at the time.

God narrows it down to a Jewish human here:

¹⁸ seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?

Genesis 18:18 (ESV)

That’s a smaller, but still vaguely defined group. Prophecies follow that narrow it down to the offspring of Isaac not Ishmael, Jacob not Esau, the clan of Judah not the other 11 tribes of Israel.

Then we get this:

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
    who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
    one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth is from of old,
    from ancient days.

Micah 5:2 (ESV)

Now we have it down to a very small town a few miles south of Jerusalem. But we don’t have a time or do we?

²⁵ Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. And for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time.

Daniel 9:25 (ESV)

This prophecy has more symbolic numbers to it, but realize that it has to. Even interpreting it the most simple way, which is to equate weeks with years, it plops you down at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Once Jesus starts His public ministry, He is not vulnerable to a random killing to squash God’s plan. As an infant and a child He is. Satan using King Herod I to do just that but misses.

Thus says the Lord:
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
    lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
    she refuses to be comforted for her children,
    because they are no more.”

Jeremiah 31:15 (ESV)

Herod has all the male infants under 2 years old killed in Bethlehem, which this prophecy foretells. Mary and Joseph are warned in a dream to flee to Egypt before this happens. This is prophesied too.

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
    and out of Egypt I called my son.

Hosea 11:1 (ESV)

So this adversary of Satan is a Jewish boy of the clan of Judah, born in Bethlehem, nearly killed by a massacre, who returns from Egypt, and is born a few decades before 27-30 BCE. Very specific but not enough for Satan to get ahead of Him. I would guess that nothing much is prophesied or said about Jesus’ youth because Satan didn’t know where He was by design.

One more detail:

¹⁴ Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Isaiah 7:14 (ESV)

You don’t get a virgin birth every day. If fact, without a miracle of God it never happens. The virginity of Mary is hard to prove and therefore not an identifying fact. The purpose is what matters. To accomplish God’s plan, Jesus has to be sinless. He has to keep God’s Law perfectly. That means He cannot inherit the sinful nature that the rest of us have. Therefore the unusual birth.

If the Messiah was just going to be a teacher, warrior, or political leader, then sinlessness and virgin birth would not be a requirement. To fulfill God’s Law for us and to suffer the required penalty for sin that we earned needed sinlessness. That is Jesus’ purpose.

That fact that such specific details are foretold speaks volumes about the critical nature of who Jesus is. This wasn’t a narrative created by a want-to-be Messiah. You can’t set up these circumstances. If you wished to lie about who you are, why would you carry the lie to the cross?

The plan of God is creative. God didn’t have to change His Law that requires death for any sin. He created a way that a human fulfilled the Law, that a human bore the burden of being forsaken by God, that a human crushed Satan by removing the leverage he had over us in God’s Law. The human was God incarnate. It had to be.

Now, in my yard, you will see Christmas lights but no characters other than an understated Mary, Joseph, and Jesus in a manger. Christmas is their story.