The Passion of Christ in Prophecy

Passion – intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction; ardent affection; the sufferings of Christ between the night of the Last Supper and His death (Merriam-Webster.com).

Certain feelings and images come to mind when we envision “passion.” That simple word evokes a sense of overwhelming desire and fiery emotion. It conveys a drive that becomes single-minded and consuming, as well as a romantic intensity rightfully expressed between a husband and wife. Those are the definitions offered by Merriam-Webster. But to Christians, the word carries a much higher and sublime meaning.

As the famous dictionary recognizes, “passion” also refers to the intense sufferings of Christ—specifically those He endured the night after the Last Supper through to His death at Golgotha. The horrors of that span of hours are described in all the Gospels and have been documented in shocking and graphic detail in movies like The Passion of the Christ. Still, there is an indelible link between all the definitions listed above.

Certainly, Jesus Christ exhibited a single-minded determination to “do the will of His Father.” He came to Earth to testify to the Truth—and offer Himself as a perfect sacrificial Lamb for the sins of the world. Very God of very God, He is the Great I AM who became the manifestation of the Father’s love for the world. What makes His love so amazing is that it was demonstrated “while we were yet sinners” (Romans 5:8).

When Isaac Watts contemplated the wondrous Cross, he was overwhelmed by “love so amazing, so divine.” Christians know the power of such love, because those of us who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and are enveloped in His loving arms have experienced the Good News that the Gospel represents. He is ours and we are His—now and forever. Nothing can separate us from God’s unfailing love.

But God’s love was evident long before the Gospel writers recorded the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection. Amazingly, God revealed the greatest story ever told to His prophets—offering glimpses and foreshadows of the eternal love that would be demonstrated in Jesus’ suffering and death.

From the Foundation of the Earth

Many people think that Adam and Eve’s fall in the Garden messed up God’s original plan. They believe that if Eve had rebuked the serpent or Adam had declined his wife’s invitation and led her to repent, humanity would still be living in Edenic perfection. Such thinking surmises that God had to develop a Plan B to deal with human sin. That is not what the Bible reveals.

John records in Revelation 13:8 that there is a great dichotomy of humanity—separating those who will worship the Lord only grudgingly from those whose names are written “in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.” This same verse also conveys the realization that the names of the saved were written from the foundation of the world—or that Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, was slain from the foundation of the world. Although different translations render this passage differently, the semantics do not change the bottom line: God’s plan from the beginning was that Christ would be slain and that He would bestow everlasting life on all who believe in Him.

Peter makes the same point. Jesus, as a “lamb unblemished and spotless” whose precious blood was shed, was foreknown “before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1:19-20). Referring to Jesus, the Holy Spirit revealed to John that “the Word was with God and was God; He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1-2).

Jesus coming to Earth as an incarnate Man and laying down His life on a cross was not God’s Plan B; it was God’s eternal intention to demonstrate His unfathomable, unquenchable, unfailing love.

The First Hint

The account of Adam and Eve in the Garden offers several indications that foreshadow God’s plan for salvation and everlasting relationship with those who are His.

Genesis records that the LORD God walked in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day (3:8). Within the triune God, Jesus is the physical manifestation of Almighty God, so we can presume this was the pre-incarnate Christ. Following the pronouncement of the curse upon hearing Adam and Eve’s excuses for their sin, the LORD God made this declaration to the serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel “(3:15). Bible scholars have long understood that since women do not have “seed” in the same way that men do, this reference is to a specific offspring that would come from a woman without the involvement of a man. The grievous wound inflicted on that singular offspring would be devastating, but the wound He would inflict on the serpent of old would be final. Indeed, Jesus Christ fulfilled that prophecy when He was born of a virgin overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. As the Only Begotten and sinless Son of God the Father, He was wounded grievously at Calvary, yet in the fullness of time He will crush the head of Satan.

The horrible penalty for sin—and the life-ending cost for covering man’s wretched sinfulness—was demonstrated when God fashioned garments of skin for Adam and Eve. Foreshadowing the ultimate Sacrifice, God Himself shed the blood of innocent animals to provide a temporary cover for man’s shame.

In just the next chapter of Genesis, the burden of sin is clearly demonstrated. Acting on his pride, jealousy, and anger, Cain slew his own brother Abel. Confronted and cursed by the LORD, Cain rightfully understood, “My punishment is too great to bear!” (Genesis 4:13).

Indeed, the stain of sin and the curse unto death is too great for anyone to overcome. None can free themselves of this burden of sin. Even our ostensibly righteous deeds are little more than filthy disgusting rags in light of the holiness of God (Isaiah 64:6).

In the midst of a test to demonstrate his own obedience and faith, Abraham grasped a prophetic truth that captures the heart of the Gospel. He told his son Isaac, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the [sacrifice]” (Genesis 22:8). Down through the long centuries that followed, every sacrifice offered to the Lord for the temporary covering of sin pointed to the One who would take on the sin of the world and provide complete justification to all who believe in Him.

Even Joseph, rejected by his brothers and delivered to slavery and death, offers a powerful foreshadow of the coming Messiah. Revealing himself to his now-repentant brothers in Genesis 45, he said, “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant… and to keep you alive by a great deliverance” (Genesis 45:7). Once again, that is a nutshell description of Jesus’ incarnation and mission: God sent Him to preserve a remnant—offering life everlasting by a great deliverance.

Prophetic Previews of Passion

Passages pointing to the coming Messiah as One “acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3) are scattered throughout the Old Testament. Job declared his determination to trust the LORD God, even if He slayed him—probably not realizing that the Messiah would live and die that very proclamation (Job 13:15). King David poetically expressed the truth contained in Leviticus: that only one with clean hands and a pure heart can “ascend the hill of the Lord [and] stand in His holy place” (Psalm 24:3-4). Certainly, the king after God’s own heart fell far short of such a description, which is why he pointed to the One who he called “My Lord,” exalted by the LORD Himself (Psalm 110:1).

But the king who longed to dwell in the house of the Lord forever knew that he would have to be washed from iniquity, cleansed of sin, and delivered from bloodguiltiness (Psalm 23:6, 51:1-15). And even his broken and contrite heart, although not despised by God, would not accomplish that urgent need. Such a cleansing would require God’s own salvation; it would require a Savior. And David prophetically foretold the devastating forsaking of the coming Savior in Psalm 22, going so far as to prophesy Jesus’ death by crucifixion and the casting of lots for His clothing. Fulfilling this prophetic Psalm, Jesus recited it as He hung on the cross, finishing with Psalm 22:31 as He proclaimed, “It is finished,” and breathed His last.

Zechariah also foretold many details about the events surrounding Jesus’ Passion. He said the Messiah would enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey (9:9), and Jesus did just that on Palm Sunday. He said the Messiah would be betrayed by a friend and suffer wounds in His hands (13:6), that the price for His betrayal would be 30 pieces of silver (11:12), and that the betrayal money would be used to buy a potter’s field (11:13). Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled every one of those prophecies and the rest of the 108 distinct prophecies related to His birth, life, ministry, and death.

But the most significant chapter foretelling the suffering the Messiah would endure is Isaiah 53. Isaiah’s prophecy is so graphic and so unmistakably fulfilled by Jesus that Jewish rabbis discourage their followers from even reading the text. I’ve spoken with numerous Jews who are conversant about most of the Old Testament but subsequently confess that they’ve never read Isaiah 53. What is it about this passage that opponents of Christ want to deny?

What to call such a suffering Messiah? Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Isaiah calls Him “the Righteous One, My Servant” (53:11). In the eyes of God, this despised, rejected, pierced, and crushed Man of sorrows would be “high and lifted up and greatly exalted” (Isaiah 52:13).

Isaiah also foretold that the Messiah would:

• Grow up like a shoot from parched ground
• Have no stately form or attractive appearance
• Be despised and forsaken
• Be a man acquainted with grief and unesteemed by men
• Bear our griefs and sorrows Himself
• Be deemed stricken and smitten of God
• Be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities
• Offer healing and ultimate well-being because of His chastening and scourging
• Willingly bear the iniquity of the world according to the will of the LORD
• Stand silent in the face of accusations and oppression
• Serve as a guilt offering to bear the iniquity of many and justify them before God
• Pour Himself out unto death and be cut off from the land of the living
• Be assigned a grave with wicked men (with specific allusion to a rich man’s grave)

Our Suffering Servant entered the world as a baby born in a stable. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. He grew up in a backwater region of Israel and had no majestic appearance or stately form. He even washed the feet of His own disciples and was patient with their slow-witted understanding of all He revealed to them. He was despised and rejected by many of the people He came to save. And like a Good Shepherd, He lay down His life for His sheep (John 10:11).

Love So Amazing

How should we respond to such amazing love?

Lest you consider that question as an academic contemplation, let me rephrase it: Have you responded to His amazing love? When Isaac Watts grasped the incredible, wonderful, infinite dimensions of Jesus Christ’s amazing love, he was left with only one response: “Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.”