I love this question.

It's crucial. If Jesus never fulfilled the prophecies for Messiah, then His claims are bunk and no one should follow Him.

But if Jesus truly fulfilled the dozens of Messianic prophecies — specific prophecies made hundreds of years before He was born — then we have evidence of divine work.

So let's get down to it: how do we know if Jesus fulfilled these prophecies?

Let me give you three answers.

First: Without fulfilled prophecy, no one would have followed Jesus in the first place.

Fulfilled prophecies are Messiah's calling card. The Old Testament gives Israel dozens of prophecies to measure any Messianic claimant by, so that every false claimant couldn't hide. We would never read about a failed Messiah who couldn't fulfill the basic prophecies. No Jew would have followed Him without them.

Imagine the scene:

Jesus enters a village and claims to be Messiah. A crowd gathers, because every good Jew is yearning for Messiah to appear. Someone from the crowd recites Isaiah 29:18–19, listing one sign of Messiah's coming: "At that time the deaf will be able to hear words read from a scroll, and the eyes of the blind will be able to see through deep darkness. The downtrodden will again rejoice in the LORD; the poor among humankind will take delight in the Holy One of Israel."

So they say: Jesus, you claim to be Messiah. Can you heal a deaf person? Can you restore blind eyes?

Jesus fidgets and mumbles and tries to shift the topic. The crowd soon realizes nothing will happen and goes back to their daily business.

And that would be the end of the story. If you can't do what Messiah must do, then you're not Messiah.

Fulfilled prophecy was Messiah's calling card. And Jesus fulfilled every prophecy that Messiah needed to fulfill — in His first coming.

Jesus' enemies could find no grounds to dismiss Him as Messiah. Even in their eyes, He fulfilled the prophecies. Their best attempts to discredit Jesus could do not deny Jesus' effectiveness, but only attribute it to a different source, claiming that Jesus cast out demons by the power of other demons (Matthew 12:24, Luke 11:15).

That's our first sign that Jesus truly fulfilled these prophecies: the only reason we're talking about Jesus is because He did. If He never had, no one would have followed Him, and there would be nothing to discuss.

Second: The prophecies recorded in the Gospels are public. That means they are easily verifiable or falsifiable.

If the Gospel writers were slipping in fake prophetic fulfillment after the fact, you'd expect them to make the details quiet. Liars try to make their lies as undetectable as possible.

But the prophecies Jesus fulfilled are public and grand. They're not what you'd invent if you were trying to hide something fake.

Consider Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, fulfilling the prophecy from Micah 5:2: "And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are in no way least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you will come a Ruler who will shepherd My people Israel."

If the Gospel writers were inventing a fake birth in Bethlehem, you'd expect them to make it quiet. Perhaps Mary and Joseph stopped in town just long enough to give birth, then immediately got back on the road. They could claim that no locals remember the event because it was so quick that most people missed it.

But the Gospels record the opposite.

The Gospels record a series of unforgettable events. The wise men alone would make for a story passed down by the locals through generations. But the truly unforgettable horror came from Herod, who sent soldiers to slaughter every male child two years old and under. Everyone remembered that atrocity. Who forgets the murder of their child?

On top of that, the Gospels record Bethlehem as Joseph's hometown. It's where his family lived, stretching back through generations. This is a small village. If Joseph's family had never lived there, and no child named Jesus had been born to his family, every local would have known.

Further, Bethlehem is a mere five miles from Jerusalem, the center of Israel's political and religious life. Every good and faithful Jew traveled to Jerusalem for the yearly feasts. In other words: everyone could check if these stories were true.

If you were inventing this prophetic fulfillment after the fact, you wouldn't do it this way! You only record such unforgettable, verifiable details for one reason: they really happened this way.

Basically: If Jesus had not fulfilled this prophecy, it would be the easiest thing to disprove. But no one could. No one even tried to claim it was a fake. There's not the first hint historically that anyone denied these events.

Jesus fulfilled these prophecies publicly, even as an infant. Anyone could verify them.

Third: Many of these fulfillments contain details that no one would want to invent after the fact.

Consider the prophecy for Messiah being born of a virgin. It comes from Isaiah 7:14, which reads: "Therefore God Himself will give you a sign: the young woman [almah] will become pregnant, bear a son, and name him Immanuel [God with us.]"

The word almah always refers to a young woman of unsullied reputation. Thus the translators of the Septuagint used the Greek word for "virgin" — because any unmarried almah would be a virgin.

But there is a bit of wiggle room: it could refer to a young woman freshly married.

Thus, if the Gospel writers tried to slip this prophecy in after the fact, you'd expect them to describe Mary conceiving Jesus on her wedding night. It would have fit the definition of almah, and it would have avoided scorn or shame.

Instead, the Gospels record this prophetic fulfillment as a source of unending shame for Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. No one believed Mary's story that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Even Joseph rejected her story until he experienced an angelic visit of his own.

The public never forgot Mary's shame. Even as an adult, Jesus' enemies threw the shame in His face, accusing Jesus of being the child of fornication (John 8:41).

If Jesus' followers were inventing these prophetic fulfillments after the fact, for goodness' sake, why would you invent the most shameful fulfillment possible? If you wanted people to revere Jesus and follow Him, why would you invent a story putting Jesus and His mother to unending shame in the public's eye?

There's only one reason the Gospels would record details like this: they really happened this way.

So how do we know the New Testament writers didn't simply write that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies in the New Testament after reading them in the Old?

Because if Jesus hadn't fulfilled them, no one would follow Him, and we wouldn't be talking about Him.

Because Jesus fulfilled them publicly, making them easy to verify.

Because many of the fulfillments contain details no one would want to include, unless they indeed were true.

For more on Jesus' fulfillment of Messianic prophecies, read this: