The Man Who Cursed on Calvary
Part 6
When I had finished reading, I said to the young man,
"Now of whom was Isaiah speaking?"
Eagerly he exclaimed, "Let me read it for myself, sir!"
I handed him the Bible, and watched him carefully as he read.
Several times I noticed him furtively wipe away a tear.
He was quiet for a few moments after his lips ceased to move.
Then, handing the Book back to me again, he said,
"Well, I must confess it looks like Jesus!"
"Ah, there is no difficulty in recognizing that portrait, is there?
Now let me give you a nut for skeptics to crack!
That description of the life and death, and intimation of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ was written about seven hundred years before our Saviour was born in Bethlehem.
How do you account for that?"
"Can you prove that statement?
How do you know it was written so long ago?"
"Well, of course I am simply accepting the record that Isaiah lived in the eighth century before Christ.
But if you reject the testimony of Scripture, I cannot prove it.
But there is something else in connection with it that anyone who cares to investigate may prove for himself.
That Scripture was translated from the Hebrew into Greek, and deposited in the library of Ptolemy Philadelphus in Alexandria, Egypt, about 230 years before the birth of Christ.
It must have existed in the Hebrew for some years before it was translated into Greek, and it was as great a miracle to produce it in Greek over two centuries before the birth of the Lord Jesus as to write it in Hebrew seven centuries before.
How did Isaiah know of these things except by divine inspiration?"
He looked fixedly at me for a moment or two, and then without a word he rose to his feet and hurried from the hall.
I wondered why, and learned afterward that he had not wanted me to see that he was overcome with emotion, and could not restrain his tears.
