“I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matthew 5:18).
What chance is there when it comes to the laws of probability? If you reply, “Not much,” you’re right, because the laws of probability are carefully defined and calculated mathematically. There is not much, if any, of a real element of chance. For example, take a coin and flip it in the air. If the coin is perfectly balanced, it has a one-in-two—a 50/50—chance of it coming up heads, right? Now, what chance is there in it coming up heads twice in a row? The odds are one in four. Again, what chance is there of the coin you flip coming up heads three times in a row? If you answer, “One chance in eight,” you are right, and I suspect you have given this business of tossing coins some thought on previous occasions.
Now, with this in mind, let me ask another question—one you may have never considered. Have you ever applied the laws of chance or probability to the remarkable prophecies in the Bible? Say, in particular, those made prior to the coming of Jesus Christ? Have you ever considered the fact there were well more than 300 prophecies made regarding Jesus before He ever came? Now, what chance was there that these could have just happened? There were three prophecies, at least, over which Jesus Christ had absolutely no control. One, the place where He was born (Micah 5:2). Two, the timing of His birth (Daniel 9:25). And three, the manner in which He was born (Isaiah 7:14). The chance of these three being fulfilled, if it were as simple as tossing a coin in the air, would be one in 8, but the chances of these three prophecies just happening are astronomical.
For example, have you ever considered the element of chance in Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem, as Micah predicted 500 years before Jesus was born? The scenario of this event came many years before, when Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C. and his grandnephew, Augustus, became Caesar. When Augustus wanted to beautify the empire, he decided to tax the citizens, what else? And as Luke tells us, “It came to pass in those days, there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed” (Luke 2:1, KJV).
The timing of Jesus’ birth includes the pace at which the wind blew the ship carrying the centurion across the Mediterranean, the speed at which the order was posted in Palestine, even the pace at which the donkey moved, which brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. All of this, of course, had to be coordinated with the timing of her pregnancy. Had any of these events which I mentioned taken place only a few days before or after—say, for example, the winds which bore the ship had blown more sharply—in that case, Jesus would have been born in Nazareth, where Joseph lived, rather than Bethlehem, where David lived long before. You begin to see immediately that the chance of these three just happening is remarkable; yet I say, there were well more than 300 prophecies relating to the life of Christ. According to the laws of probability, they could never have come together. You see, when God detailed the circumstances relating to the coming of His Son, He was making the odds so great, it was absolutely impossible for them to have “just happened.”
In the Old Testament, God said that if a prophecy wasn’t fulfilled in every detail, the prophet who made that was a false prophet and forfeited his right to live. God viewed false predictions as a serious matter. When Jesus was here, He made it very plain that every detail of prophecies had to be fulfilled. The probability of these things “just happening” is an absolute impossibility.
Resource reading: 2 Peter 3:1-9.
