Messianic Prophecy: its Characteristics
Principal Cairns. Acts 13:27-32 For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not… Christ is the only Person whose life was written beforehand; as, e.g., in the time, place, and manner of His birth; in the kind of life He was to lead, the kind of teaching He was to give, the kind of death He was to die. The strength of prophecy lies in its chain of references to Christ, from the first mention of the "seed of the woman" to the virgin-born Immanuel; from the sufferer whose heel is bruised in terms of the earliest promise, to the "Man of Sorrows" in Isaiah 53; from the peace-giving lawgiver of a yet uncrowned tribe to the heir of David, who enters the long established seat of rule as a king. Even the predictions that bear on the Church of God and its universal progress are but the sequel to those which foretell the personal Christ, and they then reflect the light of His exaltation; nor can the judgments of the Jewish nation be dissociated, as the depth of their fall is but the measure of the grace and truth that were in Christ, and for rejecting which they were to be cast away. (Principal Cairns.) Parallel Verses KJV: For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him. WEB: For those who dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they didn't know him, nor the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him.