This Day in History: 0000-12-21

December 21 – Isaiah 11:2 

And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of council and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 

PROPHECY 

The Spirit of the Lord would rest on the Messiah. 

FULFILLMENT 

John 1:32-34 – Then John testified, “I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and resting upon Him. I didn’t know He was the One, but when God sent me to baptize with water, He told me, ‘The One on whom you see the Spirit descend and rest is the One who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I saw this happen to Jesus, so I testify that He is the Chosen One of God.” 

Luke 4:1 – Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness. 

We’ve been spending the month of December so far looking at the prophecies about Messiah which were fulfilled in His birth. For the next few days we’re going to jump forward a bit and look, not just at those fulfilled at His birth, but through the whole of His ministry. We’re still reinforcing the fact that the baby Jesus, the One whose birth we celebrate on Christmas day was, without question, the promised Messiah. 

Isn’t it so like God to do the unexpected, like He did in this prophecy from Isaiah 11? The prophecy said that the Messiah would be the One on whom the Spirit of the Lord rested. But I think we all would have accepted a figurative fulfillment of that prophecy. But, just so there was no question, God sent His Spirit in physical form to visibly rest on His Son. Jesus was then filled with the Holy Spirit and acted in obedience to His leading.  

In other words, the Spirit both figuratively and literally rested on Jesus Christ. Because He WAS the Messiah. God left no room for doubt! As the Spirit of the Lord descended upon Jesus after His baptism God was proclaiming to the world, “THIS IS THE ONE YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR! This IS the One on whom my Spirit will rest! LOOK, see!” 

Dear sisters, I hope that you have no doubt left that Jesus Christ was in fact the One who had been promised. As we’ve been seeing, He was the total fulfillment of countless prophecies. His coming went above and beyond what had been expected, and He has promised to come again. Will we be ready? When He comes to fulfill the rest of the prophecies, will His children be found expectantly waiting, making the most of EVERY opportunity to share the hope we’ve found in Him with the world? May we make certain that we are!