Jesus the Son of God - 4

John the Baptist insisted that he was not "the prophet" Moses wrote about in Deuteronomy 18:18-19. Jews later speculated whether Jesus might be that prophet (John 7:40). Jesus was indeed the one Moses had prophesied about. About no other human being is it written in the Bible that God would punish those who refuse to obey him. The temple police, who were instructed to arrest him, did not do so because they had never heard anyone speak like him (John 7:46).

Jesus was like Moses in that he was "from their brothers". Like Moses, who was disrespected by his brother and sister (Numbers 12:1-2), Jesus was "not accepted by his own" (John 1:11). Moses was the humblest man on all the earth (Numbers 12:3). About 1500 years later Jesus claimed that designation for himself (Matthew 11:29). Jesus refused to do the signs the Pharisees demanded from him to prove that he was a prophet. But he did all the types of signs which authenticated prophets like Moses, Elijah and Elisha.

One of the most notable prophesies of Jesus, which was fulfilled in the lifetime of his hearers, was the destruction of the second temple (Matthew 24:2). The first temple, which was built by Solomon, was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar about 587 BC. The construction of the second temple started 515 BC. It was expanded by Herod. It had been worked on for about 46 years by the time Jesus first evicted the merchants (John 2:20). But it was not completed until 64 AD, six years before it was razed to the ground by the Romans. To this day the Jews annually observe Tisha B’Av, a day of mourning, to remember the day when the temple was destroyed.

John the Baptist was regarded by the Jews to be a prophet (Matthew 14:5) and Jesus said he was more than a prophet (Matthew 11:9). But John did not think himself worthy of untying Jesus' shoes, a task normally reserved for slaves (Luke 3:16). And Jesus referred to John's testimony as true (John 5:33-35). Jesus claimed that a prophet is not without honour, except in his home town (Mark 6:4). This has proven to be true about him over the last 2 millennia. Jesus is honoured by believers all over the world, but only a tiny minority of Jews believe in him.

Plenty of Jesus' prophesies are still to be fulfilled. Many Bible scholars take the parable of the fig tree to mean that Jews would return to the land of their ancestors (Matthew 24:32-35). But the most outrageous of his prophesies, the one for which he was condemned to death, is that he would come again in the clouds (Matthew 24:30).