5 Indisputable Facts about Jesus That Will Build Your Faith

Hundreds of years before Jesus came, Prophets in the Bible wrote about his coming and his status of Messiah when he does. 

Isaiah 9:6-7 may be one of the more familiar Old Testament prophecies about Jesus (For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders…) But there are many more.

Two of my favorite prophecies come from the book of Daniel and are related in the Bible study, Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament.

The first is found in Daniel 7:13: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.”

The phrase “one like a son of man” argues that He will be “both a human king from David’s line and a pre-existent heavenly being” (from With the Clouds of Heaven).

Another is in Daniel 9:24-25, when a time frame is calculated to culminate in the coming of the Messiah. The “70 weeks” mentioned in these verses is often interpreted as weeks of years. When the seven weeks and 62 weeks of years in verse 25 are added together, they equal 490 years.

The countdown began when Cyrus issued a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Jesus was born exactly 490 years after that decree! This passage also makes it clear that only the Messiah is able to bring about an end of sin, the establishment of righteousness, and the anointing of the holy sanctuary.

The primary emphasis of the New Testament was not that Jesus was God (although He was) but that He was the long-awaited Messiah. The Greek word Christ is the Hebrew word Messiah. So then, Christ is not a part of Jesus’s name, but his title.

He is the Christ—the Messiah. Jesus spent three years soliciting from his disciples the confession, “You are the Christ” in Matthew 16:16; Mark 8:29; and Luke 9:20. (What Does It Mean to Say, “Jesus Is Messiah”? by Walter Russell, Apologetics Study Bible, Holman Bible Publishers, 2007.)

Jesus quoted from Isaiah 61:1-2 when He addressed the synagogue in Nazareth in Luke 4:16-30. In Luke 4:21, He specifically claimed to be the Messiah spoken about in Isaiah 61. We can trust Jesus to speak the truth if we believe He is God. Therefore, we can also believe that He is the Messiah.

When we realize how specific the Bible is about who the Messiah would be and what He would do—and how Jesus fits the profile exactly—it helps us remember that nothing is random with God. Everything has a time and reason—including the events we face each day.

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The Bible clearly states in Matthew 1:18 that Jesus was born of a virgin and that His father was God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Modern science tells us that we can determine who a baby’s father is with a blood test. This is because the baby’s blood is unique from the mother’s, and it carries definite markers from the father’s blood. Jesus was a human baby who had His Father’s blood.

Why is this important? Because only God’s blood could do what mankind needed. The Jewish sacrificial system was instituted by God—through instructions given to Moses—in order to provide a way to absolve people of their sins. But the forgiveness was always temporary. Every year, on the Day of Atonement, a new sacrifice had to be offered for the people’s sin, besides regular sacrifices for specific sins throughout the year.

Jesus bled God’s blood when he died on the cross. Because of this fact, His one offering was the final, perfect sacrifice for us.

We don’t need any more animal sacrifices—they were simply place-holders until Jesus came. It was only a few years after Jesus death that the entire Jewish sacrificial system ended with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.

From that time until the current nation of Israel was established, the Jews were scattered across the world—and they still have not re-instituted animal sacrifice. God allowed this to happen in part because He knew we no longer needed that system.

If space allowed, we could engage in a detailed study of how Jesus’s life and death parallels the official lamb offered at Passover. Recent research has even uncovered that his birthplace may have been in the stable reserved for the birthing of the annual sacrificial lambs just outside of Bethlehem.

Daniel’s prophecy of the Messiah putting an end to sin—and Jesus’s fulfillment of that prophecy—reminds us there is hope. We don’t have to suffer the ultimate consequence of our sin—death. Jesus did that for us. When we choose to accept His death as our substitute, we literally gain a new life. This is why we can shout Hallelujah! at Easter.

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One might be tempted to dispute the fact of Jesus’s resurrection if it were not corroborated by so many people. 1 Corinthians 15:4-7 tells us that He appeared first to Peter, and then the 12 apostles, and after that to more than 500 of his followers at once. Following this huge and amazing event, He appeared more privately to James, and later to all the apostles.

In Luke 24:13-34 we read the account of two of Jesus’s followers who saw and held a lengthy conversation with Him after His resurrection. Eventually, He also appeared to Saul at his conversion on the road to Damascus. While we can’t interview any of these people today, their written testimony remains.

Each of the gospel writers was an eyewitness, and John wrote a vivid description from his vision of the living Savior in Revelation 5:4-14. Being an eyewitness is considered the highest form of corroboration, even in modern court systems. All other evidence is secondary to first-hand accounts.

If a person swears to tell the truth, and then doesn’t, they are subject to severe punishment. The biblical writers told us they conveyed the truth about Jesus’s resurrection—and for thousands of years their testimony has stood.

These authors, along with Paul, confirm the fact of Jesus’s resurrection. Paul made many references to the resurrection of Jesus as a forgone conclusion that his readers accepted.

Besides the New Testament writings, prophecy from the Old Testament states that the Messiah would rise from the dead. Psalm 16:10 and Hosea 6:2 are two of the verses telling us that Jesus would not remain dead in the grave. The prophet Jonah is considered by scholars to have been a type of Christ. The pattern of Jonah’s experience shows us in specific detail the three days and three nights of death, followed by life afterward (Jonah 1:17).

The Jewish leaders responsible for Jesus’s death tried to launch a disinformation campaign designed to discredit reports of His resurrection. Matthew 28:11-15 tells us they concocted the story that His body was stolen by the disciples while the guards slept—and then bribed the guards to spread it—in order to protect them all from the governor’s wrath. But no fake story could match the power of the truth. Jesus rose from the dead.

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Outside of biblical references, we also have historical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus, perhaps most notably from Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian. He wrote in his paper “Flavius Josephus, Antiquities XVIII, Chapter III, Para. 3” that Jesus “appeared to them alive again.”

In case one were to doubt the reliability of Josephus, we should remember that “modern secularists treat Josephus almost like a secular bible when it comes to the history of first-century events” (Secularists’ Least Favorite Historical Proof of the Resurrection by Neshant Xavier, April 13, 2020 onepeterfive.com).

Because Jesus rose from the dead, He is unique among all other gods. Every other supposed deity, along with prophets, and other so-called “guides” such as Eastern mystics, has died and remained dead. If He had not risen, Jesus Christ would have been nothing more than another dead prophet. Not only did Jesus offer His blood as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, but He conquered death, the grave, and hell. This fact alone changes everything.

No matter what you face right now, no matter how dire your circumstances may feel, you have Jesus’s power over defeat if you believe that He died, was buried, and rose again. He changes you and transforms you from victim to victor by His own mighty victory.

These indisputable facts about Jesus encourage us to live fearless lives, characterized by love for those around us. When we struggle with difficult circumstances, reviewing these truths can help us persevere. We gain hope and a deep, abiding peace stemming from them that exceeds our understanding (Philippians 4:7).

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