Children across the generations used to play a familiar game: Truth or Dare. In this pre-adolescent rite of passage, the group challenged one another to answer a potentially embarrassing question with the truth. The only alternative to telling the truth was to face the wrath of your peers by fulfilling a dare of their devious creation. The game worked for one reason: The players understood the meaning of the word “truth” and the consequences of not telling it.
The last few generations lost interest in that age-old game. Philosophical systems like post-modernism questioned the meaning of truth and eventually its reality. They infamously argued, “There is no such thing as universal truth.” Ignoring the fact that this statement is a truth claim, the idea took hold and became increasingly popular as it allows individuals to determine the truth for themselves, even if it fails all the classical tests for truth.
Eventually skeptics applied these same ideas to the Bible and the truths it proclaims. The net result of this intellectual assault on the Bible has been twofold: the twisting of Scripture to bend it to the will of sinful men, and paralyzing doubt about its claims.
~ A Third Option
For the beleaguered believer, these are not the only options when it comes to Scripture. The third option follows the example of two millennia of Christian practice: accept the Bible for what it says. It claims to be true (2 Tim. 3:16) and Jesus Himself claimed to be the truth (John 14:6). Rather than abandoning confidence in the Word of God, Christians can, and should, trust God’s Word to be as true today as it was the day it was written.
While critics will cry such a position is based on circular reasoning, that is not the case. We can trust the Bible’s claims to be true by checking the Bible’s claims against one another. In other words, we can bring the Bible into the future by looking into its past. Ancient prophecies and the truths they foretold prove to be true simply because they came true.
Many different prophecies can be found throughout the Bible. Not all of them are about the End Times. Not all of them remain unfulfilled. Many proved to be true, often during the lifetime of those who pronounced them. Others came to pass centuries later. Some proved faithful in both ways, in the near term and the long term. Many of the messianic prophecies showed themselves to be true following this pattern.
When Adam and Eve rebelled against God’s sovereignty and sought to supplant His headship, God cursed them and their progeny. Yet, He also offered hope in promising a Son would one day set things right (Gen. 3:15). After the death of Abel, Eve looked for a fulfillment in the birth of her son Seth. She trusted God to keep His word in the near term and the long term. So, too, did Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. All were given covenantal promises about a son to come. All saw that fulfilled in their lifetime. All spent their lifetime looking for its ultimate fulfillment in the coming Messiah.
~ Easter and Christmas Are Fulfillment
The New Testament authors picked up on this redemptive storyline in the Gospels. Two of them, Matthew and Luke, go to great lengths to bolster the reader’s faith by pointing out that Jesus of Nazareth not only claimed to be the Anointed One but proved to be by fulfilling Old Testament prophecies. Matthew uses his genealogy to connect Jesus and His claims to David (2 Sam. 7:12) and Abraham (Gen. 12:3). Luke takes the reader farther back to the first prophetic utterance in the Bible: Jesus is the Son promised to Adam and Eve (Luke 3:38). More than that, Luke uses this prophetic fulfillment to prove the deity of Christ.
The Bible contains hundreds of prophecies about the Messiah, over 600 in fact. Their fulfillment proves not only that Jesus is the Messiah but that the Bible is trustworthy.
Many of these prophecies are celebrated every year on the Christian calendar. Every Christmas, we send cards to loved ones and friends that remind them of Jesus’ birthplace, Bethlehem. These cards often quote the prophetic statement rather than its later fulfillment (Mic. 5:2). King Herod’s “wise men” knew this verse, too (Matt. 2:5–6). His evil highness knew this would connect the promised newborn King to the promises He came to fulfill (Isa. 11:1). Satan knew He would reign forever and that He would arrive in Jerusalem riding on a donkey (Zech. 9:9).
At Easter, we read the passion accounts in the Gospels. We agonize with Jesus as He cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). However, we need to remember this, too, is the fulfillment of another Old Testament prophecy. While Jesus quotes Psalm 22:1, the entire psalm is prophetic. It describes the soldiers gambling for Jesus’ clothing (v. 18). It foretells the crucifixion, a means of death not yet in use, 1,000 years ahead of time (v. 16).
~ The Resurrection, Too
Even the resurrection verifies the veracity of Scripture. Yes, Jesus told the disciples over and over again about His impending death and return three days later (Mark 8:31 and Luke 9:22). The Old Testament does also (consider Psalm 16:10, Acts 2:24 and 13:33–35).
These examples and multitudes like them about the Messiah assure us the Bible is true. Space does not permit us to look at other prophecies about Israel’s destruction at the hands of the Assyrians or Babylonians, or their deliverance with Cyrus’ edict. We don’t have time to review the prophets’ use of the rest of the Old Testament to justify their faith in God’s promised future. Suffice it to say, the Bible makes many fantastic truth claims about life and the life to come, and it validates our confidence in them by pointing out the myriad times when God kept His Word perfectly.
~ Truth or (Eternal) Consequences
Just as the kids of my youth played Truth or Dare, the adults of that generation had their own version. They watched it on television in the form of “Truth or Consequences.” If contestants failed to give the right, truthful response to a question, they suffered the silly and
embarrassing consequences. If they answered correctly, they received a positive affirmation in the form of good consequences such as a reunion with a loved one. Bob Barker, one-time host, famously ended each episode: “Hoping all your consequences are happy ones.”
While childish games and long-lost television shows don’t proclaim eternal truths, they remind us of one. There are consequences for everything we believe, whether true or false. As Satan rightly understood in his temptations of Adam and Jesus, our eternal fate is connected to God’s eternal Word and whether or not we believe it to be true.
— Peter Beck is professor of Christian Studies at Charleston Southern University.