The birth of Jesus Christ was preordained by God before the world began. However, the salvation plan of God for human beings was revealed to Adam and his generation only after the fall of man. The Lord was the One who had promised to send the Saviour of the world in order to redeem sinners and to reconcile them with God. For this reason, from the time God had promised Adam the coming Saviour (Gen. 3:15), the Lord had shown progressive revelation to mankind through His holy people, the prophets. The Lord gave His Word to them so that they could preach to the people what the Lord had planned for mankind.
As the Lord had revealed Himself through His Word from generation to generation, the promise of the coming Saviour was not forgotten. On the contrary, He had revealed to His chosen people step by step things concerning the Saviour that they might believe in Him. Although the Old Testament Scriptures do not provide clear details of God’s plan of salvation as in the New Testament, they do provide several types that point to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In no way the Old Testament believers could miss the point of what they believed. If Abraham who was chosen by the Lord and through whom the nation of Israel existed, believed and rejoiced looking forward to the day of Jesus Christ, then the generations after him would have believed in the same way, for the Lord Himself had revealed His plan more clearly to them.
One aspect of the promised coming of the Saviour given in the Old Testament is the time of His birth, when He would take the form of a human being to save mankind. The time of the Messiah’s birth was given to Prophet Daniel while he was still in captivity, in Babylon. The Lord gave His word when Daniel “was having devotion on the recent writings of Jeremiah (Dan. 9:2) when he realises that God said that Judah must go into captivity for seventy years. Now, that time has almost expired, Daniel turns to God in prayer and fasting, “confessing [his] sin and the sin of [his] people Israel and making [his] request to the Lord [his] God for his holy will” (v.20).” When Daniel realised God’s plan for Judah, the Lord Himself instructed Daniel by giving him the right answer to what he had prayed and thought about (Dan. 9:23-24).
Nevertheless the climax of the prophecy given to Daniel in this time is in Dan. 9:25-27 which says, “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks, shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.” This passage tells us that there will be sixty-nine weeks of prophetic weeks before the Messiah will be cut off and the temple of God will be destroyed. This is to say that there will be a 483-year gap between the time of the decree for rebuilding the city and wall of Jerusalem in 444 B.C to the death of the Messiah. The common belief is that Jesus Christ began His ministry at the age of thirty in A.D 26 and he ended His ministry on His crucifixion in A.D 30.
Thus, the study of this subject shows that the Old Testament people must have known when the Messiah would be born. Although they might not be able to pinpoint the exact date of His birth, they were able to know the approximate time period of last few weeks of the 69 weeks. In reality, when the Messiah was born in Bethlehem there was not even one from the midst of Israel who knew the exact time of His birth. King Herod, the priest and scribes thought about the issue only after the Magi had come from the east to Jerusalem seeking to worship the newborn King.
Under the command of King Herod, the chief priests and scribes searched the Scriptures, and finally realised that the promised new King would be born in Bethlehem of Judea. Nevertheless the response of these people was rather cold. They had no interest in this new King. On the contrary, King Herod tried to kill the Messiah through the massacre of babies (Matt. 2:16).
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