In the Scroll of the Book

“Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me; “To do your desire O God was my determination and your law in the midst of my heart’” (Psalm 40:7-8).

“Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come; In the scroll of the book it is written of Me To do Thy wish, O God’” (Hebrews 10:7).

The psalmist speaks prophetically of the Messiah and His mission; the writer to the Hebrews explains that the New Covenant is founded not on sacrifices and offerings of the blood of animals, but upon the once for all sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ; that sacrifice was the sacrifice of His own desires in favour of the wishes of the Father.

“In the scroll of the Book it is written of Me”, the Word says; even the Jewish Talmud declares that “all the prophets have only prophesied concerning the days of the Messiah” (Sanhedrin 34, col.2). So let us look at the scroll of the Book and see what is written of Him.

Firstly though, it is important to note that the History of God’s people is a prophetic history; that is, it is a history written not after the event, but before that history actually commenced; a life before its birth, if you like. The prophetic Word had to come first so as to give Divine authority for the events contained in that history to take place.

Seen in that light, the Christ of history is merely the fruit of the tree of prophecy. All of creation is bound by God’s Word and, to that extent, it is both the word of life and the word of death, depending upon how one responds to it.

The prophetic history is contained in this “scroll of the Book” which consists of two separate volumes; the first points forward to the Cross upon which the Lord of Glory was to be crucified; the second points back to that Cross and its consequences. Not only do the two volumes make one complete Book, they stand in relation to each other so that the truth of the one is attested to by the testimony of the other. Without the first, the second would be without foundation and unintelligible; without the second, the first would have no completion and fulfillment.

The cornerstone of what was written in the scroll of the Book concerning Jesus Christ was laid in the Garden;

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall guard against your head, and you shall guard against his heel” (Genesis 3:15).

This foundational prophecy extends to the time of Christ’s advent and beyond; He is “the seed of the woman” referred to here. In the ordinary course of events, a woman doesn’t have seed; the man carries the seed and the woman the egg. But there is a supernatural event here, for Jesus Christ is “the seed of the woman”. In the gospel of Luke (1:35), we read that “the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and the power of the Most High overshadowed her” and thus, she conceived the child Jesus. Except for Adam, who was made by God, Jesus is the only human person ever born who was not born of the seed of a man.

Over 1600 years later, in 2348 B.C., or 1656 years after Adam, another event occurred which points to a fulfillment in the days of Jesus Christ; the great flood. “God looked upon the earth and saw that the wickedness of men was great and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was continually evil” (Genesis 6:5). God decided to destroy mankind and told Noah, of whom He said, “you alone have I seen to be righteous before Me” (Genesis 7:1). God’s wrath at man’s sin was such that God “blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the earth, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, and they were blotted out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark” (Genesis 7:23).
The Great Flood of Noah’s day was a prophetic type of God’s judgement on sin; the drowning of Egypt in the Red Sea was a fulfillment of that type; the baptism of believers is another fulfillment of that type. Jesus, although He was without sin, submitted to baptism by John the Baptist so as “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15), that is, God’s righteous judgement on sin.
Jesus referred to the days of Noah when speaking of His coming again, saying; “And as were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of man” (Matthew 24:37). Life will be going on ordinarily and no-one will be aware of anything unusual until the flood of lawlessness comes and carries all away in it, except those in the Ark, which itself is a type of Christ, the Ark of our Salvation. Only those in Christ will be saved; of two men in the fields, one will be taken in the flood of lawlessness, and one will be left, the one who, like Noah, is in the Ark, which is Christ; of two women grinding at the mill, one will be taken in the flood of lawlessness, and one left in the Ark (Matthew 24:40-41).

It was more than 400 years after the flood, in 1921 B.C., that God called Abraham and, the “seed of the woman” became more clearly defined; it was through Abraham that “all the tribes of the earth were to be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). Paul tells the Galatians that the promises were made to Abraham and his seed; not seeds, as of many, but to one, “which is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). Moreover, the epistle to the Hebrews points out that, in His incarnation, Christ did not assume the glorious, awesome, angelic appearance of fire and light, as at Sinai, but took upon Himself human nature, in the “seed of Abraham” (Hebrews 2:16). Thus, “the seed of the woman” became particularized as the “seed of Abraham”, but this channel of blessing to the human race was to become even more narrow and specific.

After Abraham, the seed of promise was successively defined as the “seed of Isaac” (Genesis 21:12) and the “seed of Jacob” (Exodus 33:1). God reaffirmed that His promise was to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their seed (Deuteronomy 1:8). Then, out of the twelve tribes descended from Jacob, only one, Judah, was to be the tribe in whom all the nations were to be blessed. On his deathbed, Jacob prophesied of Judah that the sceptre would not depart from Judah until He to Whom it belonged should come and “to Him will be the gathering of the nations” (Genesis 49:10). The seedline of the “seed of the woman” then, is from Abraham, through Isaac and Jacob, to Judah, the tribe from which the Messiah must come.In 1055 B.C., David became King of Israel, after Saul was killed in battle. To David, God spoke through the prophet Nathan, telling him that God would establish a kingdom that would last forever and that one of David’s seed would rule over it (1 Chronicles 17:10-12 and 2 Samuel 7:12-14). In this prophecy the seedline was contracted even further; the Messiah was to come not just from the tribe of Judah, but from one particular branch of that tribe, the family of David.

The genealogies that were maintained in the temple, and destroyed in 70 A.D., show that Joseph, the titular father of Jesus, was descended from David through his son Solomon (Matthew 1:6) and Mary, the mother of Jesus, was descended from David through his son Nathan (Luke 3:31). The promised Deliverer then, was to be a Son of David, and the original promise to Abraham that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed, was to be fulfilled in Him.

This was first declared by David, the “sweet singer of Israel”, who was himself a  beautiful type of the coming Lord of Glory. It was David, upon his deathbed, who spoke of a certain covenant that God had made with Him, “ordered in all things, and sure” (2 Samuel 23:5), that “one of his seed should endure forever” (Psalm 89:36) and that “all kings shall fall down before Him and all nations serve Him” (Psalm 72:11).
The divine nature and character of this coming Son of David was foretold in the prophetic scriptures, particularly the Psalms, where He is described as “fairer than the children of men, Whom God has blessed forever” (Psalm 45:2); and “Thy throne O God, is forever and ever; the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a sceptre of righteousness; You love righteousness, and hate lawlessness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows” (Psalm 45:6-7).
And in the great prophetic psalm foretelling of the coming Messiah, His divine ministry is clearly stated; “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedec” (Psalm 110:4).
That this coming one is of divine origin is made clear in the opening verse of the psalm where He is described as “sitting at the right hand of Jehovah” (Psalm 110:1). Clearly, the One of Whom the prophetic scriptures speak is not one of a long line of kings descended from David, but one unique individual.

Three hundred years later, in 758 B.C., King Uzziah died and Isaiah began his prophetic ministry, proclaiming; “in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious” (Isaiah 11:10), and he goes on to describe Him in such a manner that there can be no mistake as to the One to Whom he is referring. Thus, in the ninth chapter of his prophecy, in which he announces the birth of the Messiah, he says; “And the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and upon His kingdom, to rule it and to establish it in righteousness and in judgment from henceforth and forever” (Isaiah 9:6-7).
So from this we can identify not just the family from which He is to come, but the throne on which He is to reign, which is David’s throne in Jerusalem, the extent of His government which, having “no end”, will be worldwide, the duration of His reign, which is forever, its twofold nature –righteousness and judgement – and the divine titles, all of which make it impossible to apply to anyone else but Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Even the nature of His birth was foretold; Isaiah prophesied that a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and in the gospel we read that the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee to a virgin called Mary with the words, You shall conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son and shall call His name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Most High and the Lord God will give unto Him the throne of His father David”.

Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, further refines the identity of the coming One, saying; “And you, Bethlehem Ephratah……out of you shall One come forth to Me that is to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from old, even from the days of eternity…………and He shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of Jehovah His God………..for now will He be great unto the ends of the earth” (Micah 5:2-4).
Here, again, we have One who is to be born in a particular place, yet who was from eternity, and whose rule was to extend not only over Israel, but to the ends of the earth. Clearly, Micah and Isaiah were prophesying of the same individual.

Nearly one hundred and thirty years later, in 629 B.C., Jeremiah began his prophetic ministry. In his prophecies, he too proclaimed that the King who is to come and reign and prosper and execute justice and judgment in the earth will be a “Branch of David”, and that His name, describing His character, will be “Jehovah our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:5-6).

The prophets Hosea (3:5) and Ezekiel (34:23) made the same prophetic announcements and, later still, Zechariah added his prophetic confirmation to the body of scripture that affirms that all looked for salvation in one particular family and that identified the promised Redeemer by divine attributes. The scriptures clearly set out the “seed-line of the woman” as coming through Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, from the family of David, to be born in the flesh of a virgin in Bethlehem, whose character and nature is divine, who, in His fleshly life will be a man of sorrows, destined for a violent death, despised and rejected.

Then, in the first verse of the gospel of Matthew, we are told that it is “The book of the origins of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1).
Here then, is the fulfillment of all that has gone before in the scriptures; here is the prophesied “seed of the woman” in the flesh at last. All of the writings in the scriptures to date have pointed forward to this moment and all of the writings in the scriptures in the New Testament begin from this starting point, the birth of Jesus Christ the Messiah.

From beginning to end, the Holy Scriptures are replete with references, first prophetic and then historic, of this One who existed before the foundation of the world, in Whom everyone and every thing came into being, Who is the Son of God and the author of our salvation. He is referred to by many names and types:-

In Genesis, He is called “Shiloh” (49:10).
In Exodus He is called the “I am” (3:14).
In Numbers He is called “Star and Sceptre” (24:17).
In Deuteronomy He is called “The Rock” (32:4) and “The Prophet (18:15).
In 1 Samuel He is called “Lord of Hosts” (1:11).
In Job He is called “Redeemer” (19:25).
In Psalms He is called “A priest forever after the order of Melchisedec” (110:4)
In Isaiah He is called “Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (9:6).
In Daniel He is the fourth man in the fiery furnace (3:25).
In Micah He is called “one whose going forth is from old, from everlasting” (5:2).
In Zechariah He is called “My Servant, the Branch” (3:8).
In Malachi He is called “the messenger of the covenant” (3:1).
In Matthew He is presented as “the King of the Jews (2:2).
In Mark, He is “a servant” (10:45).
In Luke He is called “Son of Man” (11:30
In John He is called the “Son of God” (1:18).
In Romans He is called “the end of the Law for righteousness” (10:4).
In 1 Corinthians He is called “wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1:30).
In 2 Corinthians He is called our “husband” (11:2).
In Galatians He is called “the Son of the free woman” (4:30).
In Ephesians He is called “our Peace” (2:14).
In Philippians He is called “the One to whom every knee shall bow” (2:10).
In Colossians He is called “the Image of the invisible God, the first born of creation” (1:15).
In 1 Thessalonians He is called “the One who will descend from heaven with a shout” to raise those who died in Him (4:16).
In 2 Thessalonians He is called “the restrainer” (2:7).
In 1 Timothy He is called “the mystery of Godliness” (3:16).
In 2 Timothy He is called “the faithful One” (2:13).
In Titus He is called “the blessed hope” (2:13).
In Philemon He is called “the Lord Jesus Christ” (25).
In Hebrews He is called “the Great Shepherd of the Sheep” (13:20) and “the Great High Priest” (4:14).
In James He is called “the Lord of Glory” (2:1) and “the Lawgiver” (4:12).
In 1 Peter He is called “the Lamb without blemish or spot” (1:19) and “a Stone of stumbling and a Rock of offence” (2:8).
In 2 Peter He is called “our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (1:11).
In 1 John He is called the “Word of Life” (1:1).
In Jude He is called “the One who is able to guard you from stumbling and present you blameless before the presence of His glory” (24).
In Revelation, He is called “the Alpha and the Omega, the One who is, who was and who is coming” (1:8).

The Old and New Testaments are knitted together in the character and nature of Jesus. The expression, “Behold!” is used in four unique Messianic prophecies, each presenting Jesus in differing aspects of His earthly character.

One example of the unique connection of this word with the coming Messiah is found in the prophecy given to Isaiah 42:1; “Behold! My Servant!” God said. This prophetic description of the Lord is echoed in the gospel given to Mark, in which Jesus is depicted as The Servant.

Another example also comes from the prophecies of Isaiah where God says “Behold! Your God!” (Isaiah 40:9). This extraordinary assertion is drawn out in the gospel of John, in which Jesus is unequivocally presented as the Son of God.

In another prophecy where “Behold!” is used to introduce a Messianic prophecy, Zechariah spoke the words given to him by God; “Behold! Your King” (Zechariah 9:9) and this glorious characterisation of Jesus is reflected in the gospel given by God to Matthew.

An extraordinary use of the expression to present the coming Messiah in a unique aspect of His character is found is in the prophecies of Zechariah, in which God said; “Behold the Man!” (Zechariah 6:12). This passage contains one of the plainest and most precious Messianic prophecies and God brings it out in the gospel of Luke, wherein Jesus is revealed as the Son of Man. This expression, “Behold the man!” is found in the scriptures in two other places; in Genesis 3:22, God spoke these words when covering Adam and Eve with animal skins, signifying the shedding of blood without which there can be no remission of sin (Hebrews 9:22), before driving them out of the garden. Thus, it is associated with man’s alienation from God and, at the same time, is pointing to the sacrificial shedding of Blood as the only way for man to find his way back to God. Then, at the end of Jesus’ earthly life,  Pilate used the very same expression when he brought forth Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb of God, after His judgement and condemnation, wearing the garments of our redemption, a crown of thorns and a purple robe; “Behold! The Man” (John 19:6), Pilate said.

The Bible is all about Jesus Christ and it defies rational explanation that, firstly, the Jews and secondly, the world, cannot believe what is plainly set forth in the scriptures, and have faith in Him. The tragedy is that “they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20), who turn their backs upon Him and ignore His directives for life in this world.