Can Good Deeds Get You to God?
August 27, 2026
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Jesus fulfilled 47 prophecies in the book of Isaiah alone — and Isaiah is one book out of thirty-nine.
Matthew, who set out to prove the case to a Jewish readership, quotes the Old Testament 61 times, more than any other writer in Scripture. Watch how often the word "fulfilled" shows up in his Gospel, and you'll see what he was doing.
Here's the part that should stop you, though. Those prophecies were written 700 years before Bethlehem, by more than forty authors, spread across roughly 1,500 years, in 66 books that had no way of coordinating with each other.
And every one of them was pointing at the same Man.
Isaiah 7:14 — a virgin will bear a Son
"Behold, a virgin will be with Child and bear a Son, and she will call His name Immanuel."
Now put yourself in a rabbi's sandals for a second. What on earth were centuries of Hebrew students supposed to do with that? Such a thing had never once occurred in the history of man. And not just any Child, mind you, but an Infant who was Himself very God of very God.
Remember, the Jews were emphatically monotheistic. The name Immanuel means the baby would be Elohim — the designation reserved for Israel's God!
Isaiah 9:6 — the names given to a Child
"A Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us... And His Name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace."
Can you imagine how confusing that was? Monotheistic Jews being told to call a little Child "Mighty God" and "Eternal Father."
Ten thousand times in history a baby has become a king. But only once in history has a King become a baby. That's obvious to us now. It was anything but obvious then.
Isaiah 53:5 — pierced hands and a striped back
When we read "He was pierced through for our transgressions... by His stripes, we are healed," we picture it instantly. Hands nailed to a crossbeam. Scourge marks striped across His back.
The Jews in Isaiah's day pictured nothing of the sort. They couldn't have. The earliest record of crucifixion dates to 519 BC, when King Darius I of Persia crucified 30,000 of his political enemies — nearly two centuries after Isaiah wrote it down.
Isaiah described a method of execution that had not been invented yet.
Isaiah 53:7 — the Lamb who would not open His mouth
"Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth."
Want to test this one yourself? Grab a Bible with the words of Christ printed in red and turn to Matthew.
Chapter 25 is entirely red. One hundred percent of it is Jesus talking.
Then watch what happens in chapter 26. The red starts fading right off the page.
By chapter 27, there are fewer than a dozen red words left.
The closer He steps toward Calvary, the quieter He gets — exactly as Isaiah said He would, 700 years earlier. That's one prophecy out of the 47 in Isaiah.
Because you and I have an advantage they never had. We get to read the Old Testament looking backward through the lens of the cross. Millions of people stood on the other side of it, squinting forward into a fog.
And we shouldn't minimize how thick that fog was.
Take Isaiah 52:14 and 53:3 — "His appearance was marred more than any man," and He was "like one from whom men hide their faces." We read that and immediately envision the aftereffects of a cat of nine tails, and crowds turning their heads away in disgust.
Do you know what pockets of Hebrew scholars concluded from those very same words? That the Messiah would be a leper.
Honestly, go back and reread it. It's a plausible deduction if the cross hasn't happened yet.
Which is exactly why God sent a tax-collecting traitor turned disciple named Matthew.
For centuries, archeologists were left guessing at ancient hieroglyphics. Then someone uncovered a dark stone that rendered the same text in Greek, Egyptian script, and those undecipherable hieroglyphs. Set them side by side, and a world they'd only known in a fog came into focus.
Lay Matthew next to Isaiah and one dispels the darkness in the other. What Isaiah leaves in hazy grey, Matthew casts in brisk color. Clarity gets thrown on top of confusion.
Look at how deliberately he built the case:
Matthew chose five on purpose, and I promise you his Hebrew readers noticed.
His overarching theme comes down to one equation: Jesus = Torah, and Torah = Jesus.
I've never forgotten a lesson I learned in the backyard of our house in Pensacola.
My son Miller — all thirty inches of him — insisted my missing gardening hand shovel was lying in the middle of a path in the woods. So I took him at his word and paced back and forth across the whole area, hunting for the entrance. Nothing.
"There!" he hollered, flinging his arm out from the back deck.
I stepped to my right.
"Not there. There!" That little kid lisp revving up with agitation. I'll admit I shielded my grin with my shoulder, not wanting to exasperate what he clearly considered a dire situation.
So I obliged and took a few steps left. "There!" And on we went.
Finally that little tyke came bee-bopping down the patio stairs like a grumpy old-timer to point out what his daddy could not see. He squatted down with the front of his head practically touching the ground and stuck his finger within inches of a two-and-a-half-foot opening in the brush.
And he was right. The entrance had been sitting there the whole time. All thirty inches of it. I just kept walking past it.
Paul McCartney once said "The Long and Winding Road" was a sad song because it's about the unattainable — the door you never quite reach, the road you never get to the end of.
That's what the ancient saints and sages were living with. Fifteen hundred years of puzzle pieces and no picture on the box.
Then Matthew squatted down, put his finger on the opening, and said, "There."
More than we tend to think, and here's why.
The Renaissance sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti spent 27 years crafting the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery. Ten enormous panels, seventeen feet tall, depicting the Old Testament heroes of the faith. Michelangelo took one look and called them the Gates of Paradise, and the name stuck.
Ghiberti's genius was relief. He cast some figures in high relief so they stood out close at hand, while background figures were done in low relief to approximate distance.
That's Matthew exactly. He elevates Jesus high above every biblical figure who came before Him — without ever blotting the others out. The New Covenant protrudes from the Old. It was never separate from it.
If the Old Testament conceals the New and the New Testament reveals the Old, then the two are inseparably linked forever.
My mother used an antique secretary desk for years. One day she was paying bills when the sunlight hit at just the right angle, and there it was, plain as day, carved in cursive: "George Shamblin WUZ here."
Years earlier she would have been furious. But by then the years had faded into fond memories, and so had the carving.
She set down her pen and her checkbook and walked to the kitchen. She didn't come back with wood polish. She came back with a sharp knife — and she re-carved every single letter, one at a time, to protect the memory of her youngest child.
That's what Matthew did with the Old Testament. He wouldn't let it fade with the years. He re-carved every letter for us, one by one, in the hue of the new covenant, so the original brilliance would keep on shining.
Jesus said it Himself in Matthew 13:16-17: "But blessed are your eyes, because they see... many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it."
So when you count them up — 47 in Isaiah, 61 quotations in Matthew, and a thread running through 66 books and 1,500 years — don't just tally the number. Let it enlarge Him.
There's a scene in Prince Caspian where Lucy meets Aslan after a long absence:
"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger."
"That is because you are older, little one."
"Not because you are?"
"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."
That's what studying fulfilled prophecy does. Christ isn't getting bigger — He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He only appears bigger, because we're finally seeing a little more of Him as He truly is.
And that door you thought you'd never reach? It's been standing wide open the whole time.
How many prophecies did Jesus fulfill in the book of Isaiah?
47. That includes Isaiah 7:14 (the virgin birth), Isaiah 9:6 (Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace), Isaiah 53:5 (pierced and scourged), and Isaiah 53:7 (silent before His accusers).
Which Gospel focuses most on Old Testament prophecy?
Matthew. He quotes the Old Testament 61 times — more than any other writer in Scripture — and structured his Gospel into five teaching blocks to mirror the five books of Moses.
Why didn't the Jewish people recognize Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy?
They were reading forward into a fog while we read backward through the cross. Crucifixion hadn't even been invented when Isaiah described it, and some scholars studying Isaiah 53 reasonably concluded the Messiah would be a leper.
