How Rome's Soldiers Served Christ

Though the soldiers of the Roman empire occupied Israel, put Jesus to death, and imprisoned and executed some of Christianity's foremost leaders and many of its followers, those soldiers were unwitting pawns of Christ. Their establishment of their empire brought about the fourth great kingdom predicted by Daniel. Their spitting on Christ, scourging him, crucifying him, and casting lots for his clothing fulfilled what Psalm 22 and Isaiah 50 anticipated. Their crucifixion of Jesus fulfilled Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy, and so did their destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. "Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, 'Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!' He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them." (Psalm 2:1-4)