Amazing Prophecies from the Bible

A Monthly Feature to Build Our Faith

Several of the most amazing prophecies in the Bible are centered on the crucifixion of our Lord. Since the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord is the central theme of redemption, it shouldn’t surprise us that we see this pattern. Our amazing prophecy this month comes from Zechariah 12:10 which states:

And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.

This passage from Zechariah was written about 500 years before the birth of Jesus. The Book of Zechariah looks to the future restoration of Israel after the pain and anguish of the Babylonian Captivity. The Lord is speaking in the first person as the “I” of the verse. The Lord will pour out a “spirit of grace and supplication” on the people and they will look on the Lord as one they “pierced.” However, just a few words later the focus of the verse seems to change abruptly to a “him.” The people started out looking on the Lord as one they “pierced,” but now it appears that they also begin to “mourn” for someone else. The change in subject seems to move from the Lord to someone else, a “him,” a “firstborn son.”

If I haven’t lost anyone, please notice how the text moves from the Lord to a firstborn son, a human being. What we have witnessed in this verse is the fact that the Lord is also a human being. This amazing verse connects the Lord of Glory to the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. We are privileged to have the great story of our Savior, the God-Man, Who is “pierced” for our sins AND wept over by the people of Israel. The ONLY way the Lord could be “pierced” and “wept over” was if He had also taken on a human nature as well!

Now some might say that this interpretation is simply conjecture. However, the Bible is very clear about this interpretation in the New Testament, some 500 years later. The Gospel of John refers to this exact verse during the Crucifixion of our Lord on the Cross. In John 19:37 the Apostle John refers to the crucifixion as a fulfillment of this Old Testament verse when it states:

“ ...and, as another scripture says, ‘They will look on the one they have pierced.’”

The New Testament is telling us 500 years later that Jesus is the “one they have pierced.” The Apostle John connects our Lord’s crucifixion to Zechariah 12:10. Jesus is the Lord of Zechariah, who has now suffered for His people on the Cross as a human being. All of this ties together beautifully when you also consider the women and others at the crucifixion scene who were weeping, just as the prophecy in Zechariah stated would happen (see Luke 23:28).

Now as we continue to look at this amazing fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy, we have some other amazing details to consider. Zechariah’s prophecy tells us that the people would look upon the Lord as the one they “pierced.” The one thing that Zechariah doesn’t tell us is that the “piercing” SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED! It is rare that someone would be “pierced” AFTER their death. Any form of “piercing” would normally be connected to someone alive to bring about death. However, in the Crucifixion narrative in John’s Gospel, the soldiers came to Jesus body and found out that he was already dead. The amazing thing was that despite this reality, one of the soldiers “pierced” Jesus’ side anyway according to John 19:33-34:

But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.

The strange detail surround the soldier’s piercing of Jesus’ side, after our Lord’s death, was necessary to fulfill what had been written over 500 years earlier in Zechariah. When someone was on the cross, they normally died for many reasons, but never from piercing. Sometimes the executioners would break the condemned person’s legs to hasten death by restricting their breathing. However, piercing the side of someone ALREADY dead just didn’t happen. What the soldier did was a miracle of prophetic fulfillment and something that should build faith in all of us.

As you look at every detail of this prophecy it is simply amazing. What is even more amazing is that the context of Zechariah’s prophecy is the Second Coming of the Lord, not his first. This prophecy is beyond imagination because Zechariah has every detail of our Lord’s first and second coming in one verse. Saints…the Lord has taken away my breath this month! How about you?