The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed by Brenda Rivera of Orlando, Florida from the tape, GC 1301-S, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 21."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. ©1982. All Rights Reserved.

Question

I recently received your series of 12 tapes on the Second Coming, and the question that I have is, you state in the tapes that there are 333 various prophecies on the coming of the Messiah. One hundred and nine verses predict the first coming and 224 prophecies refer to the Second Coming. My question is that when you refer to each of these particular verses in the Bible you indicate that the reason that all the predictions weren’t fulfilled by Christ coming was that He’s coming a second time. I can understand why it would have been difficult for the Jew not to accept Christ because He didn’t fulfill all the prophecies, could you clarify that for me?

Answer

Well what you’re saying is, you’re saying maybe it’s excusable for the Jews to reject Christ because He only fulfilled part of the prophecy. Is that what you’re asking? Can we excuse them for not believing since He only fulfilled part of the prophecy? I think not, because there is no reason to assume that He was to fulfill all of those prophecies even if He only came once at the same time. In other words if He only came initially and fulfilled 109 prophecies it isn’t to say that the 224 wouldn’t have been fulfilled later during His first coming. Do you understanding what I’m saying? I mean that’s no excuse at all, in fact the fact is they weren’t even acute enough in the knowledge of the Bible to figure out that He fulfilled the first 109 let alone the other ones. They never use that as an excuse, Jesus said if you just look through the scriptures you’d know who I was. “Search the scriptures” He said in John 7, “for they are they which speak of me.” It wasn’t so much the fact that His appearing was unconvincing, it was that there hearts were hardened. That was the issue, there was plenty of proof, myriads of proof. And another thing, the 224 prophecies that remained to be predicted of Him, are not necessarily 224 different events. They might be only 4 different things repeated 224 times.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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