A Christmas Message About the Advent(s) of Jesus Christ

Written by: Jonathan Smith

Date of Writing: December 24, 2025

A Christmas Reflection

As I reflect on the First Advent of Jesus Christ this Christmas and sing beautiful carols about the prophecies surrounding His supernatural birth and ministry on earth, I am encouraged and blessed by how accurately these prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus Christ. However, for the first time during Christmas, I began to deeply ponder on the undeniable implications that the fulfillment of these First Advent prophecies have on our understanding of the prophecies surrounding Jesus Christ’s Second Advent. This connection seems to be sorely missed in much of Christendom today, and my hope in sharing this short message is to strengthen the believer’s faith in the authority, inerrancy, and infallibility of God’s Word, the unhindered credibility of the writing prophets, and the veracity of Jesus’s claim as Messiah of Israel, based on the literal fulfillment of Jesus’s First Advent prophecies, with the ultimate goal of bringing awareness or reinforcing the believer’s hope in the literal fulfillment of all the prophecies surrounding Jesus’s Second Advent.

The Cost of Interpreting Prophecies Allegorically

When reading Old Testament prophecies related to the future spiritual restoration of Israel and the Kingdom reign of Jesus in Jerusalem, it is clear that a literal interpretation of these prophecies is the only tenable approach. When one veers into an allegorical interpretation of these passages, one does so at an extremely high cost. The cost becomes the inevitable undermining of the confident study of the Scriptures with a knowledge that our gracious God provided His written Word to bring more clarity to man, not less.

The Literal Fulfillment of Prophecies Surrounding Jesus's First Advent

I would like to exemplify this point by bringing prophecies surrounding Jesus’s First Advent and earthly ministry in view. When a Christian comes across Zechariah 9:9 and reads that the King, Jesus, would come to the “daughters of Zion and Jerusalem”, and He would do so “humble, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey”, the Christian’s faith is emboldened by the pinpoint accuracy of this prophecy. Of course, the precision of this prophecy becomes apparent when the Christian, with the advantage of hindsight, reads its literal fulfillment in Matthew 21:1-11. We see in Matthew’s passage that Jesus enters the literal city, Jerusalem, to the literal daughters of Zion, the Israelites, riding on a literal donkey, and the Christian reading this gains a newfound confidence in the authority, inerrancy, and infallibility of God’s written Word.

If the exactness in which the prophecies of Jesus’s First Advent were fulfilled provides a heightened confidence in the authority, inerrancy, and infallibility of the God-breathed Scriptures, this then begs the question: what would happen to the Christian’s faith if Jesus, as recorded by the Gospel writers, actually allegorized Zechariah’s prophecy in chapter 9 to mean something symbolic? Would Christians have more clarity in their faith if Jesus never rode into Jerusalem on a literal donkey, but instead, gave an allegorical interpretation of Zechariah’s prophecy, saying something to the effect of the donkey symbolically meaning Jesus’s humility? 

What about other prophecies predicting the events surrounding His First Advent? For example, what if the prophecy about the virgin birth of Jesus in Isaiah 7:14 didn’t literally happen, but instead, was allegorically interpreted by Jesus to simply mean the goodness and purity of his mother, Mary? What if the prophecy about Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, found in Micah 5:2, was symbolically interpreted to just mean His birth in a place of humility and modesty and not literally Bethlehem? What if the prophecy of Jesus’s Davidic lineage, found in 2 Samuel 7:12-16, was not literally fulfilled, but was symbolically interpreted to mean Jesus’s royal stature? If Jesus never literally fulfilled these and the countless other prophecies surrounding His First Advent, and He gave an allegorical interpretation of these prophecies in contrast, would this not cause a severe reduction in the confidence of the Christian’s faith?

The Writing Prophets' Credibility at Stake

Furthermore, because of the literal fulfillment of these First Advent prophecies, Zechariah and other writing prophets have an added track record that vindicates their authority as true prophets of God. God gives us His strict and unwavering standard of verifying the authenticity of a prophet in Deuteronomy 18:20-22, “But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. You may say in your heart, ‘How will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’ When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.” God gives us a crystal-clear standard of measuring the authenticity of a prophet, and the standard is that a prophet must be one-hundred percent accurate one-hundred percent of the time, or he is not a true prophet from God.

This standard is undermined if God gives validity to an allegorical approach of interpreting countless Old Testament prophecies. If a prophet gave a prophecy that did not come to pass, and God allowed this prophet to excuse it by giving it an allegorical interpretation (as we see many modern-day false “prophets” do), we would no longer have a method of testing the authenticity of any self-proclaimed prophets. Opening the door to an allegorical interpretation of these prophecies poses a serious diminishment of the credibility of the writing prophets, the Bible, and God Himself.

The Veracity of Jesus's Claim to Messiahship at Stake

Lastly, if Jesus never literally fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies related to His First Advent, this would irreparably harm His case as Messiah of Israel. As He presents himself as Messiah and King of Israel, His  claim is further buttressed by the fact that many prophecies surrounding Israel’s Messiah were fulfilled in Jesus literally. This logically implies that the allegorical interpretation of these prophecies would conversely give Israel’s leaders an excuse to reject Jesus as their Messiah. As it currently stands, the very fact that He literally fulfilled these prophecies is a fundamental argument bolstering the claim that Israel’s leaders had no excuse in rejecting Jesus as their Messiah.

Logical Implications for Interpreting the Prophecies Surrounding the Second Advent of Jesus

If we cumulate the points laid out here - the emboldening of the Christian faith, the authenticity of the Old Testament prophets, and the veracity of Jesus’s presentation as the Messiah - we see, with sharpened clarity, that interpreting the prophecies of Jesus’s First Advent literally is of the utmost importance for the Christian. However, there is no reason to apply a statute of limitations for these points on the First Advent only. These points are seamlessly pertinent to all prophecies, including those about Jesus’s Second Advent.

When we read Zechariah’s prophecies about the Second Advent of Jesus in chapter 14, five chapters after the aforementioned prophecy stated in Zechariah 9, we see Jesus and Jerusalem in view again with more prophetic details. We also see added references about the surrounding nations outside of Jerusalem. We read that Jesus will “gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle” (2), and “the lord will go forth and fight against those nations” (3). We read with more geographical specificity that Jesus’s “feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south” (4).

We further read that “in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem” (8), Jesus “will be king over all the earth” (9), “all the land will be changed into a plain” (10a), and “Jerusalem will rise and remain on its site from Benjamin’s Gate as far as the place of the First Gate to the corner gate” (10b). There will be peace in Jerusalem as we read the “people will live in it, and there will no longer be a curse, for Jerusalem will dwell in security” (11). It is important to note here, as a reflection point, that if Jerusalem had a curse placed upon it until this point, and Jerusalem is allegorized to mean “the Church” as some Covenant Theologians reason, this would logically imply that the Church has had a curse until this point. This directly contradicts many verses speaking of Jesus’s love for the Church and His protection of the Church from the Gates of Hades (Matt. 16:18).

We continue to read about the surrounding nations that “the people who have gone to war against Jerusalem” will have “their flesh rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongue will rot in their mouth” (12), and “any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths” (16).

There are ten prophecies listed here alone, and this list is not exhaustive. If, within Zechariah 14, there are over ten prophecies about Jesus’s Second Advent filled with detailed predictions about Jerusalem, its inhabitants, the Mount of Olives, the perpetrators against Jerusalem, and Jesus’s Millennial Kingdom reign, to the point that they are more numerous and detailed than Zechariah’s prophecies of Jesus’s First Advent, there is no valid reason to deduce that God intended for these prophecies to be fulfilled in any way other than with pinpoint, literal, and one-hundred percent accuracy, in the same manner the First Advent prophecies were fulfilled.

Conclusion

In conclusion, as we honor the birth and First Advent of our Savior, Jesus Christ, let us take a firm hold of the authority, inerrancy, and infallibility of God’s Word, the credibility of the writing prophets, and the veracity of Jesus’s presentation as Messiah to Israel, based on the literal fulfillment of Jesus’s First Advent prophecies. With these truths in mind, we can look with unimpeded hope that the prophecies surrounding Jesus’s Second Advent will be fulfilled just as literally. 

Blessings in Yeshua,

Jonathan Smith