There was a mystery, a secret, that was hidden throughout human history. But hints of it were given and predictions were made through God's prophets.
Although the Hebrew prophets wrote as they were inspired, they really didn't understand their own writings. They knew that God was unfolding a wonderful plan but they could not grasp its full significance. It was a spiritual truth hidden even from the angels.
The prophets wrote about a son to come, who would be born of a virgin, and who would be called "the mighty God," "the Prince of Peace," and "God with us." They gave the place where He would be born, Bethlehem, and the actual timing of His arrival. They wrote that He would be slaughtered as a sacrificial lamb as an offering for sin. There were scores of other prophecies and prophetic symbolisms of a coming and great Person and sacrifice.
The secret was unveiled. All the messianic prophecies were fulfilled in a Jew named Yeshua, or Jesus. When the prophet John first saw Him, he exclaimed, "Behold, the Lamb of God." Jesus did become a sacrificial lamb, died and was raised from the dead. After the resurrection, He appeared to many and later to Paul, a Jew and Hebrew scholar, dramatically changing his life. Paul and the other apostles carried the revealed secret to the world, affecting the course of empires and history. The secret is:
"For God so loved the world that
he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."