4. At Christ’s first advent, what evidence could have helped people identify Him as Messiah?

One of the first identifiers is that the Messiah would be Jewish (Genesis 49:10), coming from the house of David (Ezekiel 37:24), born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), and would be both human and divine (Isaiah 9:6). He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), buried in a rich man’s grave (Isaiah 53:9) and resurrected from the dead (Psalm 16:10).JTL10 2.11

His mission would be to preach the Good News of the gospel to the poor, heal the brokenhearted and engage in acts of compassion for the oppressed (Isaiah 61:1, 2). Tragically, the Messiah would suffer rejection (Isaiah 53:2-4) and be betrayed by a friend for thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12). The innocent Messiah and God of love would suffer immensely on behalf of those He came to save (Isaiah 53:4-6) and would at last be brought “as a lamb to the slaughter” to take the sins of humanity upon Himself (Isaiah 53:7, 11).JTL10 3.1