In his book “A Peculiar Glory,” John Piper discusses the glory of God as it is seen in fulfilled prophecy. It is amazing how the Old Testament prophecies find their fulfillment in the New Testament Scriptures, in particular in the life of Jesus Christ. There are hundreds of detailed prophecies in the Old Testament that foreshadow the coming of the Messiah. These prophecies confirm the clear declarations that Jesus Christ made concerning Himself in the gospel narratives. John Piper says:

“One of the reasons for this widespread and detailed reference to the Old Testament in the New Testament is to magnify the glory that God is God, and that God is ruling the history that climaxed in Jesus.

‘I am God, and there is no other;

   I am God, and there is none like me,

declaring the end from the beginning

   and from ancient times things not yet done,

saying, “My counsel shall stand,

   and I will accomplish all my purpose.”’ (Isa. 46:9 – 10)

God’s deity – his Godness – is shown in declaring his purpose before it happens and then seeing to it that it happens by ‘accomplishing all my purpose.’ God does not just predict. He plans and accomplishes. The sheer fact of fulfilled prophecy is not owing to God’s gift of clairvoyance but to God’s sovereignty over the world. ‘The counsel of the LORD stand forever, the plans of his heart to all generations’ (Ps. 33:11). His predictions are certain, not mainly because he foresees without error, but because he executes without fail. This is no small aspect of his glory in fulfilling Scripture” (p.233).

God’s purposes always stand. His plans he will execute without fail. I can rest confidently knowing that God’s plan to save his Bride, the Church, will be fully accomplished. This will happen not because God “foresaw it,” but rather because he determined it to be so.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has bless us in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:3 – 6).