The Controversies of Christmas; Prophecy

Scripture Reading

Herod hears of the wise men seeking the King of the Jews

Matthew 2:³When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. ⁴And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. ⁵So they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: ⁶‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are not the least among the rulers of Judah; For out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel.’ ”

Joseph warned to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt

13"Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, 'Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.' So Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt. He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 'Out of Egypt I called My Son.'"

Herod lashes out against all the children around Bethlehem

¹⁶Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. ¹⁷Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying: ¹⁸“A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comforted, Because they are no more.”

Joseph commanded to return to Israel

¹⁹Now when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, ²⁰saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the young Child’s life are dead.” ²¹Then he arose, took the young Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel.

²²But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned by God in a dream, he turned aside into the region of Galilee. ²³And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”

Let us pray

The Controversies of Christmas

From the first Christmas until now, Christmas has had its devotees, and its detractors. Who would have thought that a baby being born, and the celebration of that birth, could be so controversial?

Through history it has been controversial.

Wikipedia

“In the 17th century, the Puritans had laws forbidding the celebration of Christmas, because the pageantry of it came straight out of the Catholic Church and Anglican Church and their erroneous doctrines. In the era of Revolutionary France, Christian Christmas religious services were banned and the three kings cake was forcibly renamed the "equality cake" under anticlerical government policies.^[3]^[4]^[5]

Later, in the 20th century, Christmas celebrations were prohibited under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union.^[6]^[7]^[8] In Nazi Germany, organized religion as a whole was attacked as an enemy of the state and Christmas celebrations were corrupted so as to serve the Party's racist ideology.^[9]

Modern-day controversy occurs mainly in China,^[10]^[11] the United States^[12]^[13] and to a much lesser extent the United Kingdom.^[14] Some have objected in recent years to company’s mandating that employees say “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.””

But, as much as we may long for the good ol’ days, if there is such a thing, when even the black and white TV sitcom characters celebrated Jesus’ birth, there are deeper Christmas controversies that we should be concerned about. As much as we wish that everyone still understood and honored Christmas, it is much more important today that we be able to retell and defend the Christmas gospel story.

1 Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to (demand that everyone say, “Merry Christmas?”) give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

So, starting today, and for the next few Sundays, we are going to look at the controversies of Christmas, and the answers to those controversies.

The controversy of Christmas Prophecy, the controversy of Jesus’ genealogy, The controversy of virginity, The controversy of the star, the controversy of the date of Christmas

Today we begin with the controversy of Christmas prophecy.

Let us pray.

There are many prophecies in the Old Testament foretelling the coming of the Messiah to Israel, and the world. And part of them give us specifics about His birth.

He will be born.

“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6-7)

He will be virgin-conceived.

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)

He will be born in Bethlehem

“But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are not the least among the rulers of Judah; For out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel.” (Matthew 2:6; cf. Micah 5:2; John 7:42)

He will be called out of Egypt

“Out of Egypt I called My Son.” (Matthew 2:15; cf. Hosea 11:1")

There will be great sorrow along with the joy

“A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comforted,
Because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:18; cf. Jeremiah 31:15)

He will reside in Nazareth.

“that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’” (Matthew 2:23).

But, through the years, many have denied that Jesus’ birth fulfilled prophecy.

Evilbible.com; “According to Jesus’ admissions, as well as the Bible’s prophecies, Jesus of Nazareth could not have been the Messiah. This of course, would invalidate Christianity as we know it. The compilation presented here shall be split in three sections. The first shall be the biblical prophecies that were made in order to identify the messiah, which Jesus does not fulfill. The second shall be the prophecies that Christians use to say that Jesus was the Messiah, yet they clearly fail. The third set shall be the prophecies and statements Jesus made yet they are false and have never came true.

Matthew 1:23 says that Jesus (the messiah) would be called Immanuel, which means “God with us.” Yet no one, not even his parents, call him Immanuel at any point in the bible.

Hold on, Jesus is the Christ, Immanuel, God with us. I just called Him Immanuel, as have churches around the world, for 2000 year. “O Come, o come Immanuel” “Immanuel” The prophecy says that He would be called Immanuel, not that Mary and Joseph would give Him that name.

And they really jump on the prophecies that we are going to consider today. Bethlehem, Egypt, Ramah, Nazareth.

“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” Hosea 11:1. Matthew (Matthew 2:15) claims that the flight of Jesus’ family to Egypt is a fulfillment of this verse. But Hosea 11:1 is not a prophecy at all. It is a reference to the Hebrew exodus from Egypt and has nothing to do with Jesus. Matthew tries to hide this fact by quoting only the last part of the verse (“Out of Egypt I have called my son”).

Matthew (Matthew 2:17-18) quotes Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:15), claiming that it was a prophecy of King Herod’s alleged slaughter of the children in and around Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus. But this passage refers to the Babylonian captivity, as is clear by reading the next two verses (Jeremiah 31:16-17), and, thus, has nothing to do with Herod’s massacre.

Others have asked the same questions.

I. The Prophecy controversy

I think it is helpful for you to know that there are 4 types of prophecies illustrated by these for towns; Bethlehem, Egypt, Ramah, and Nazareth. Let’s look at them. First,

A. Literal prophecy: Bethlehem

The wise men had just come to Jerusalem saying “Where is He who is born King of the Jews?”

This is an illustration of a literal prophecy.

What do I mean by literal prophecy? It is prophecy that is undeniable, even to the unbelieving. The unbelieving will always look for ways to discredit or deny prophecy. So, when we point to fulfilled prophecy as evidence of who Jesus is, we have to be careful which prophecies we cite.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

It was prophesied that the Messiah would be from the line of Abraham (Genesis 12:3), Isaac (Genesis 26:4), Jacob (Genesis 28:14), Judah (Genesis 49:8–12), Jesse (Isaiah 11:1), and David (Isaiah 9:7).

Jesus’ lineage demonstrated that He did come out of each of those lines.

Another example is in Zechariah 9:9

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.

Jesus literally fulfilled this Messianic prophecy in Matthew 21:5 by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.

This is a literal prophecy in two ways; It literally talks about the coming Messiah. It says, “Tell the daughter of Zion, Your King is coming, and He is sitting on a donkey.” The prophecy is about the unmistakably about the Messiah, and it was unmistakably fulfilled. Jesus literally rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

Now let’s look at the prophecy of Jesus being born in Bethlehem. One Old Testament prophecy tells where the Messiah would come from. Bethlehem “But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are not the least among the rulers of Judah; For out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel.” Whose goings forth are from of old,
From ^[^a^]everlasting.” (Matthew 2:6; cf. Micah 5:2; John 7:42)

There is no denying that this is a messianic prophecy. It is clear. And there is no denying it’s fulfillment. Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

And probably one of the most amazing parts of that fulfillment is to what length God went to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’ birth. They were both from Nazareth, some 80 miles away. They had no earthly reason to go to Bethlehem. There is no recorded relative that they wanted to visit. And Mary traveling while pregnant would not be a wise course of action.

But along comes a government edict, for

2 And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. ²This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. ³So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.

So, they went, because they had to. And thus, God insured that Christ would “come out of Bethlehem.”

Even the priests and scribes of Jesus day knew that Bethlehem was to be the town out of which came the Messiah. They quoted the passage in Micah to Herod when he inquired where the Christ would be born.

There are those who try to discount the significance of this prophecy, but most agree that Jesus literally fulfilled this foretelling from the book of Micah.

B. Typical prophecy; Egypt

"Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, 'Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.' So Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt. He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 'Out of Egypt I called My Son.'" (Mat 2:13-15)

There’s a second kind of prophecy in the Bible, and in the Christmas story. That is typical prophecy. In the Old Testament, there are foreshadowing’s of Christ. There are people, places, and events that are pictures of Christ, or what He would do and say. These are “types” of Christ. Now some of them are explicit, others are implicit, or implied. Explicit means that we are explicitly told that they are types of Christ. Let me give you an example.

110 The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies your footstool.” ⁴The Lord has sworn And will not relent, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.”

Jesus is explicitly compared with Melchizedek in the Old Testament (Genesis 14:18-20) because both held the position of Priest and King for eternity. (Hebrews 5-7; Genesis 14/ Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 5:6)

Melchizedek’s name means “King of Righteousness.” He ruled over “Salem” which means “peace.” Later Jerusalem. He was the King of Peace. As a Priest, he was superior to the Aaronic priesthood of the Jews in the sense that even Abraham, (great-grandfather of Levi – Aaron and the priests of Israel all came from the tribe of Levi), paid tithes to Melchizedek. The Letter to the Hebrews makes the argument that even Aaron paid tithes to Melchizedek through Abraham.

That is an explicit type. In both the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, Melchizedek is a type of Christ. But there are also implicit types. These are types that are not explicitly stated as types of Christ in the Old Testament. You can see how they are like Christ, but no one in the Old or New Testament explicitly makes the comparison. Joseph is one of those.

Joseph
The early fathers of the Christian church saw Joseph, the favoured son of Jacob (Genesis 37 – 50) as a type of the Messiah. A comparison between Joseph and Jesus:

1. Both were loved by their father (Genesis 37:3).
2. Both were sent to their brethren (Genesis 37:13 and John 1:11-12).
3. Both were rejected by their brethren (Genesis 37).
4. Both were falsely accused (Genesis 39).
5. Both were put into prison (Genesis 39-40).
6. Both were exalted after their suffering (Genesis 49:22-26).
7. Both offered forgiveness (Genesis 50:15-21).
8. Both were saviors to their people (Acts 7:9-16).

So, here’s where the prophecy controversy comes in. Matthew says that Jesus birth fulfilled prophecy. We know that He was born in Bethlehem, and that fulfilled the literal prophecy in Micah 5:2. But then Matthew points out that Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus fled to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod, who wanted to kill the Christ child. Then, after Herod died, they returned to Israel from Egypt. And Matthew says that this fulfilled prophecy. Hosea 11:1 “And out of Egypt I called My son.”

The only problem with that is that the full verse in Hosea says, ““When Israel was a child, I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son.”

It doesn’t say that the Coming Messiah will be called out of Egypt, it says that Israel was (past tense) called out of Egypt.

The prophet Hosea is referring to when Moses was sent to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.

In the original context, the Lord was speaking about Israel as a nation, because He went on to say, "But the more I called Israel, the further they went from Me. They sacrificed to Baals and they burned incense to images." (Hos 11:2, NIV78). In the original context, the Lord was speaking about how He called Israel out of slavery in Egypt, but how later on, the more He called to them the more they went away from Him into idolatry.

How can Matthew say that this verse is prophetic of Christ? Because Israel is an explicit “type” of Christ.

Israel is the firstborn son

Exodus 4:22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Israel is My son, My firstborn.

Jeremiah 31:9 ⁹They shall come with weeping, And with supplications I will lead them.
I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, In a straight way in which they shall not stumble; For I am a Father to Israel, And Ephraim is My firstborn. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Firstborn Son

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Hebrews 12:23 ²³to the ^[^a^]general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,

Psalm 89:4 ⁴‘Your seed I will establish forever, And build up your throne to all generations.’ ” Selah

¹⁷For You are the glory of their strength, And in Your favor our ^[^c^]horn is exalted. ¹⁸For our shield belongs to the Lord, And our king to the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁹Then You spoke in a vision to Your ^[^d^]holy one, And said: “I have given help to one who is mighty; I have exalted one chosen from the people. ²⁰I have found My servant David;
With My holy oil I have anointed him,

²⁴“But My faithfulness and My mercy shall be with him, And in My name his horn shall be exalted. ²⁵Also I will set his hand over the sea, And his right hand over the rivers.
²⁶He shall cry to Me, ‘You are my Father, My God, and the rock of my salvation.’
²⁷Also I will make him My firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth. ²⁸My mercy I will keep for him forever, And My covenant shall stand firm with him. ²⁹His seed also I will make to endure forever, And his throne as the days of heaven.

Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Israel is the son of God, Jesus is the Son of God.

So, Matthew takes this explicit type of Christ, that Israel was called out of Egypt, and applies it to Jesus.

Israel is called out of Egypt, as is the Christ. And the typology doesn’t stop there. Israel is tempted for 40 years in the wilderness, Jesus is tempted for 40 days in the wilderness. Israel was to be a light to the nations, Jesus was the light of the world. Israel suffered, Christ suffered.

So, this is an explicit typological prophecy, reiterated in both the Old and New Testaments.

C. Dual fulfillment prophecy

There is not only literal and typical prophecy in Scripture, there are many Dual fulfillment prophecies. What that means is that some prophecies of the Old Testament are fulfilled in two time periods; the immediate history, when the prophecy is given, and they also have a second fulfillment in Christ.

Let me give you an example.

1 Chronicles 17:³But it happened that night that the word of God came to Nathan, saying, ⁴“Go and tell My servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: “You shall not build Me a house to dwell in.

⁷Now therefore, thus shall you say to My servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “I took you from the sheepfold, from following the sheep, to be ^[^a^]ruler over My people Israel. ⁸And I have been with you wherever you have gone, and have cut off all your enemies from before you, and have ^[^b^]made you a name like the name of the great men who are on the earth. ⁹Moreover I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more; nor shall the sons of wickedness oppress them anymore, as previously,

^10 …. Furthermore I tell you that the Lord will build you a ^[^c^]house. ¹¹And it shall be, when your days are fulfilled, when you must ^[^d^]go to be with your fathers, that I will set up your seed after you, who will be of your sons; and I will establish his kingdom. ¹²He shall build Me a house, and I will establish his throne forever.

This prophecy was fulfilled in history. David’s son Solomon became king after David, and he did build the temple that David wanted to build. But God makes some further statements.

¹³I will be his Father, and he shall be My son; and I will not take My mercy away from him, as I took it from him who was before you. ¹⁴And I will establish him in My house and in My kingdom forever; and his throne shall be established forever.” ’ ”

Hold it. Solomon reigned, and several generations after, sons of David reigned. But the Davidic kingdom ended. Some 600 years before Jesus was born the last king sat on the throne of the southern kingdom before the exile into Babylon. And even if you count the Hasmonean dynasty, that ended before Christ was born. And Jesus Himself never sat on the Throne of Israel.

This is a dual fulfillment prophecy. It was fulfilled in Solomon, and it will be completely fulfilled in the future millennial reign of Christ. He is the Son of David who will sit on the throne of David forever.

What Christmas story prophecy has a dual fulfillment?

So here, in the Christmas story we have Herod trying to destroy the Christ Child, and in so doing he slaughters all the boys in Bethlehem and the region around, from 2 years old and under. And this is said to be prophesied by Jeremiah. “Lamentation, great weeping, and mourning.” But let’s go back to that prophecy in Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 31:15 ¹⁵Thus says the Lord: “A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comforted for her children, Because they are no more.”

“Jeremiah was referring to that terrible time when the Assyrians swooped down on the house of Israel, like a wolf on the sheep-fold, and carried away their precious offspring into captivity. A great cry and bitter mourning came from Ramah, which was a little town, five miles north of Jerusalem.

Rachel was the mother of Joseph and grandmother to his two sons, Ephraim and Manassas. She was matriarch of the entire nation of Israel and Rachel weeping for her children, is a picture of distraught Hebrew women in Ramah, as they watched their beloved children being captured and carried off into captivity and slavery.”

Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/jeremiah-31-15

How can Matthew say that this slaughter of the innocents was a fulfillment of the prophecy in Jeremiah 31? Because it is a dual fulfillment prophecy.

Even as Rachel symbolically wept with the mothers of Israel as their children were sold into slavery when Assyria invaded, so she wept with the mothers who lost their boys, 2 years old and under, when Herod was trying to destroy the Christ Child, the future King of the Jews.

And there are many dual fulfillment prophecies in the Old Testament. And by the way, this idea of a dual fulfillment is not unique to Christian interpreters of the Old Testament. Jewish Rabbis saw the same thing.

D. Unknown prophecy: Nazareth

This last prophecy comes out of the town where Joseph and Mary decided to raise Jesus. He would be raised in Nazareth.

You might think, well wouldn’t this town be an obvious choice? Scripture tells us that both Mary and Joseph were from Nazareth.

But the implication is that as they entered Israel, there was a question about where to live.

²¹Then he arose, took the young Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel.

²²But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned by God in a dream, he turned aside into the region of Galilee.

Maybe they were hesitant to return to Nazareth. Maybe they thought that the Messiah should be raised with constant access to the temple, and its teachers. Maybe they didn’t want to return to their hometown because Mary’s reputation was sullied. Maybe they were concerned about the Child’s safety. They had just escaped Herod who wanted to destroy the Child. Maybe they thought it would be best to go somewhere where they weren’t known, to blend into a bigger city, like Jerusalem. Bigger cities do allow anonymity, but there can be danger there as well. They quickly found out who the new ruler of Judea was.

Herod’s son, Archelaus, took part of his father Herod’s reign. And long story short, Archelaus was also a threat.

“King Herod dies in about 4 BC and Archelaus plans a sumptuous funeral. He arranges that his father should be carried to his tomb on a golden bier that embroidered and covered in precious stones. Herod is draped in purple cloth and adorned with a golden crown and a scepter. A huge procession is arranged around him with guards and soldiers from various parts of the land, all in full war attire. 500 servants bearing spices follow. They travel in pomp from Jericho to the Herodium, which was near Jerusalem. (2)

Archelaus is recorded as mourning for his father for a full seven days, (3) but there were accusations presented later that while he mourned by day, he was celebrating with his friends by night, which does not paint him in a good light. (4)”

Archelaus wants his father’s entire kingdom. He doesn’t want to share it with his brothers. So, he tries to appease the people before he makes his appeal to Rome.

“After the seven days, Archelaus goes up to the temple. A high platform was raised for him to ascend, and he sat upon a throne while the people gathered around to give him praise. He speaks kindly to them and tells them that he is not yet naming himself as king, because he hadn't been confirmed by Caesar. They persist in demanding that he lower taxes and that he release men that his father had imprisoned. Archelaus, though denying to be a king, nevertheless grants them all they ask, desiring to have their goodwill to help him preserve his chance to rule. (5)

The people, however, are not satisfied with what they have gained. They gather in noisy lamentation of those who had been killed by King Herod for tearing down a golden eagle that had been set up in the temple. They want justice.

They then press further, asking for a new, better high priest. They demand that Archelaus punish those that had been honored by the late King Herod. Archelaus is not pleased with their importunity and tells them that those who died had been punished correctly under the law and that all their petitions needed to wait, because first, he had to go to Caesar.

The people are not appeased, so Archelaus sends his general to deal with the angry mob. The people will not listen to the general, and become violent to the point where the general's life is in danger. Archelaus sends more men to try to calm the crowd, but the people will have none of it, refusing to let any of them speak. (6)

The situation is made worse because it is Passover, and men are coming from all over to share in the festival. They gather in the temple, stirring each other up until Archelaus is worried about what they'll do next. He decides to send a regiment of soldiers to the temple to suppress the violence, but it only makes things worse. The ring leaders incite the crowds to attack the soldiers, stoning many of the soldiers and driving the rest away.

Archelaus feels there is nothing else he can do but send in the whole army. Three thousand of the rioters die, and the rest flee into the mountains. Not exactly a good start, especially when he was not officially king yet. (7)”

Of course, upon returning to Israel, Joseph and Mary would hear of all that was happening in the capital city. And between the unpredictable nature of Archelaus, and that of the mobs, they decide on returning to Nazareth as their best plan.

But Matthew tells us that this is a fulfillment of prophecy. For, “He shall be called a Nazarene.” There’s just one problem with that statement. There is nowhere in the Scripture that anyone proclaimed a prophecy with those words. It doesn’t exist. The town of Nazareth isn’t even mentioned in the Old Testament.

But here’s where faith comes in. We don’t expect the world to believe the Bible, but we do expect it among the people of God. And if Scripture says that there was a prophecy that stated that the Christ would be called a “Nazarene” we believe it.

Several solutions have been proposed.

“Three major options exist for interpreting this verse. First, it may be that Matthew is associating the word Nazarene with the Hebrew word netser (“branch or sprout”). The “Branch” was a common term for the Messiah, such as in Isaiah 11:1: “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” Hebrew was written with only consonants, and netser would have appeared as NZR—the same main consonants as Nazareth. In fact, in Aramaic, the common language of Jesus’ day, the word for “Nazareth” and the Hebrew word for “branch” sounded very much alike. Matthew’s point could be that Jesus was “sprouting up” from an obscure village in Galilee; Jesus was the Branch predicted by the prophets, and the name of the town He grew up in happens to sound just like the prophets’ word for “branch.””

“A second option is that Matthew is citing a prophecy not found in the Old Testament but in another source. If so, Matthew referred to a prophecy known to his original audience yet unknown to us today. However, this is unlikely and an argument from silence.”

“A third option is that Matthew uses the word Nazarene in reference to a person who is “despised and rejected.” In the first century, Nazareth was a small town about 55 miles north of Jerusalem, and it had a negative reputation among the Jews. Galilee was generally looked down upon by Judeans, and Nazareth of Galilee was especially despised (see John 1:46). If this was Matthew’s emphasis, the prophecies Matthew had in mind could include these two passages concerning the Messiah:

“But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads” (Psalm 22:6–7). It’s true that Nazarenes were “scorned by everyone,” and so one could see this messianic prophecy as an allusion to Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth.

I lean toward it being a prophecy that is not written down. I am not going to do an extensive study here, but let me give you an illustration. Paul said this as he left Ephesus,

Acts 20:34-36 ^a^]Yes, you yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities, and for those who were with me. ³⁵I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

³⁶And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all.

Now, you tell me, from which of the gospels does Paul get this quote? It’s not in there. It’s an oral quote, never written down, until Paul uttered it to the Elders of Ephesus, and Luke recorded it.

Just like “He shall be called a Nazarene” was an oral prophecy, never written down until Matthew uttered it in reference to Jesus going to live in Nazareth.

The world may deny all prophecy. We approach it by faith. Some of it we can “prove.” Others we cannot.