We understand that there are many prophecies about Jesus throughout the scriptures, beginning from Genesis 3:15 through The Revelation of Jesus Christ but have you ever thought of the prophecies about Jesus in terms of Jesus having personal prophetic words? We don’t normally think of Jesus as having personal prophetic words in the same way we have them today. We do understand that Jesus had many prophecies about his life but we have not talked about these prophecies in the context of Jesus having personal prophetic words. The first time someone told me that Jesus had personal prophetic words I was a bit shocked. I knew immediately in my spirit that this must be true because the person who told me is Jesus.
I have been a believer in Christ for 20 plus now and have had the blessing of experiencing prophetic Christian cultures in various ministries since early 2001: Youth With A Mission, Bethel Church Redding and a local church I attended for 5 years in southern California. Although there has been reference to the prophecies about Jesus, these references are largely just that, a simple reference to the fact that there were prophecies about Jesus. Yet, even when preachers and pastors refer to prophecy, it is more often than not in reference to the “end times” prophecies.
In evaluating my personal experience in regards to the church teaching about prophecy, we are missing some of the most valuable truth of what the word of God has to share with us about the prophetic. Even though the church at large is fascinated with prophecy, I have not come to think of Jesus as having personal prophetic words, that is until recent years, and it has transformed the way I see prophecy. I believe I see it more accurately now. I have heard much about the prophecies about the Messiah but I have neither heard nor associated prophecies about the Messiah as his personal prophetic words, especially in the way in which prophetic cultures in church today relate to prophetic words.
It is clear that Jesus had personal prophetic words.
1. Jesus had personal prophetic words
Scholars estimate there are about 2,000 prophecies in the bible. J. Barton Payne’s Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy lists 1,239 prophecies in the Old Testament and 578 prophecies in the New Testament, for a total of 1,817. These encompass 8,352 verses. He also suggests that one-quarter of all bible verses contain prophetic content of some sort. Taken as a whole, that is, without counting letters, spaces and punctuation, that means that about ¼ of the bible is directly prophetic in nature. Further, since the bible is a collection of 66 writings over a 2500 year period, all prophetic content is in a cohesive context. Meaning, you cannot simply extract ¼ of the bible as prophetic in nature and say the other ¾ is “normal”. Since there is context, it means the bible is woven together prophetic in nature, like a woven blanket with many strands of prophetic yarn weaved throughout the entire blanket.
Many scholars have attempted to count, classify and organize the prophetic words spoken about Jesus. The general consensus is Jesus had between 200 – 400 prophetic words that were about him. J. Barton Payne, concluded Jesus had 191 prophecies, while another scholar concludes there are at least “456 passages in the Old Testament that Jewish Rabbis historically have interpreted as being about the Messiah”. Of course, the number of prophetic words one concludes all depends on how one counts. The point is that Jesus had a lot of prophetic words.
Fun fact: Prophecies about Jesus span over about a 4,000 year period of time!
2. Jesus’ prophetic words were written down on paper.
Jesus’ prophetic words were written down. We gloss over this fact because we are so blessed in our country to have as many bibles as we want. When we hold the bible in our hands, we are actually holding a collection of books that contain the prophetic words spoken first by the Holy Spirit to the prophets and people of God and then were written down very carefully as to capture the very words of God. The bible proclaims that we are called to a culture that adequately stewards the words of God. I believe Adam himself began this process and handed it down to all the generations he lived through.
3. Jesus honored the prophetic words spoken by others.
Jesus obviously had a personal relationship with his Father. He had a perfect relationship and he is actually the exact imprint of the Father’s very being. Jesus knew and heard the voice of his Father perfectly. However, the overwhelming majority of Jesus’ prophetic words came from the mouth of others. These “others” prophesied about Jesus hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of years before Jesus graced this planet (which he himself created by the way).
Jesus did not question whether or not the words that were written about him were godly prophetic words or not. In fact, we find quite the opposite! Jesus testified from his own mouth, in which God cannot lie (Titus 1:2), that “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24.44).
4. Jesus read and declared his prophetic word out loud.
Remember when Jesus quoted from Isaiah the prophet in a synagogue in Nazareth? Let’s recount it together:
“And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.”
– Luke 4:16-22
I’m willing to bet that Jesus came across this scripture a long time before he stood in that synagogue and read that scripture about himself out loud. The language of the text here actually says, ”… he unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written.” I can see Jesus having his quiet time like a good Messiah, and as he came across his prophetic word here in Isaiah, his heart jumped as he silently read it. Never mind the fact Jesus was present in heaven with the father and holy spirit when they inspired Isaiah to prophesy this prophetic word about Jesus.
In the section of Luke that we just read, we clearly see that Jesus read his prophetic word out loud. I believe this is a great practice for us to do with our prophetic words and I would encourage reading them out loud alone often. Prophetic words are actually great quiet time material. I often spend time with God and read my prophetic words both silently and out loud. I can’t tell you how many times I have been encouraged by the Spirit of God in this process, even though some of my most precious prophetic words are yet to be fulfilled more than a decade later. But as I alluded to earlier Jesus still holds the record for waiting for a prophetic word to be fulfilled! We really have nothing to complain about.