Answers on the Validity of the Bible (Part 2)

In this week’s episode of Christ in Prophecy, we responded to some of the most frequently asked questions that Lamb & Lion Ministries receives concerning the integrity of the Bible.

Can we point to prophecy as absolute evidence that the Bible is indeed the Word of God?

Tim Moore: A book I’m sure many Christians are familiar with written by Lee Strobel is The Case for Christ. As a journalist, Strobel initially sought to disprove the deity of Christ and, therefore, undermine the claims of Scripture. Instead, what he discovered as he began to investigate the Bible’s claims is that all of the evidence pointed to the validity of the case for Christ. All of the Bible’s Messianic prophecies came true in the life of Jesus Christ. These 109 distinct prophecies include the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in a little town called Bethlehem, specifically the Bethlehem that was closer to Jerusalem. The Messiah would be born of a virgin, of a young woman who had not been married or ever known a man. All of these prophecies and scores of others were lived out in the life of Jesus Christ. It’s absolutely inconceivable that any person could fulfill 109 prophecies made hundreds of years before they were born and it just be happenstance. Strobel began as a skeptic but became a fervent believer based on fulfilled prophecy in the life of Christ.

Nathan Jones: To think that in one man some 300 general prophecies and 109 distinct prophecies were fulfilled should be impossible, but then we’re talking about the Son of God. Mathematician Peter Stoner actually calculated the probability of all these prophecies being fulfilled in the life of one man. He started not with all 109, but took just 8. He calculated the chances of 8 prophecies being fulfilled in the life of one man would be 1 in 10 to the 17th power. That’s a one followed by 17 zeros! And, that’s just 8 of the 109 messianic prophecies. Amazing!

The Bible stands apart as the only book in existence that contains actual fulfilled prophecies. We’ve just been talking about the prophecies related to the Messiah. There are thousands of other prophecies in the Bible concerning the return of Jesus Christ, Jerusalem, the Millennial Kingdom, and so on. In our own day and age, the prophetic signs of the times are all being fulfilled right before our eyes. Again, no other religious book out there contains fulfilled prophecy, only the Bible.

For a computer animated illustration of Dr. Stoner’s calculations, check out the video below!

In the third part of our series arguing that the Bible is indeed the inspired Word of God, we’ll examine if the Bible has been corrupted because of all its copies over the centuries.