We have talked in the past of the necessity of a right foundation. Unless we have the right foundation nothing else will be right.
Jesus came in His first coming as the Messiah who would lay down His life for the sheep. He came to shed His blood and die in order to provide salvation for man. The devil does not want salvation for man. He wants to keep man in bondage to him.
There were thousands of Old Testament saints who were dependent upon Jesus’ coming to provide the only way possible for them to be forgiven and saved. Had Jesus Christ not come and laid down His life for man, Noah and David and Daniel and all other Old Testament saints would have no hope. In the same manner, those who would come after the time of Christ would also have no hope.
The good news is that the devil is not in charge. He is called “the god of this world”. He is small “g” god of this world. He does not have absolute power and authority.
Jesus challenged the evil plans of the people in our text. He challenged them to search the scriptures. Jesus challenged those Jews to stop and consider what they were doing. They were trusting the Scriptures as their hope of eternal life. Yet they were rejecting the One Who alone can provide eternal life. The Scriptures testify of Jesus Christ.
Genesis 1 introduces the Godhead to man in a cloaked manner. We know that because we have the rest of the Scriptures. When God created Adam, He gave him enough information to know this as well. In Genesis 3:15 God promised a Redeemer: “the seed of the woman” who would bruise the head of the serpent. God continued to reveal His truth throughout the Scriptures.
The problem with the Jews Jesus was confronting is that they rejected the truth and were fighting against the facts and yet they were trying to suggest they had eternal life from the same Scriptures they were fighting against.
Jesus warned that these Jews would not come to Him in order to have the eternal life they were hoping for. They were in an impossible place. If they maintained their current opposition to Jesus Christ, they could never have eternal life.
In verse 41 Jesus reminded the Jews that He was not dependent on the praise of men. He was complete without any approval from man. The Pharisees and their friends were dependent upon the praise of each other and of the people they were hoping to keep in bondage.
In verse 42 Jesus declared that He knew these men. No one will ever pull the wool over Jesus’ eyes. He cannot be deceived. However, we as people can be deceived. The Jews present as Jesus was speaking this were deceived and they did not even know it.
Jesus told them that they did not have the love of God in them. You cannot fight against the truth and have the love of God in you. This is important to grasp. There are thousands of people who profess to be Christians in our time, and yet they are fighting against the truth. That is contradictory to the truth.
In verse 43 Jesus reminded them that He came in His Father’s name. He reminded them of His deity. They rejected this fact, but it was still true. Those Jews did not receive Him. Jesus warned them that if another person would come in his own name, they would receive him. That is what we have been seeing. The Jews of that time were willing to accept men like Gamaliel and even of Saul, who was later converted and named Paul. The Jews welcomed these men who taught false teaching. Eventually they will accept the declarations of the antichrist.
The same holds true today. There are so many false teachers today and yet people are flocking to them and they reject those who tell the truth. The fact is that no man is going to be absolutely true all the time. The only One who is absolutely true is Jesus Christ.
However, if we take the Scripture as the truth, which we must, then we can and must examine what a man says in the light of God’s Word. There are men who desire to know the truth and desire to teach the truth. There are many men and women who do not know the truth but they want you to believe they are speaking the truth. The only way that people can believe the lies is when they do not know the Scriptures. The important “ingredient” needed is the Holy Spirit. He indwells every true child of God. He opens those who are saved to receive the truth and to be able to discern between truth and error.
In verse 44 we are reminded that those that love the honour of men cannot believe in Jesus Christ. They believe in a jesus, but not the Jesus of the Bible. We need to understand that the only honour we need is the honour that comes from God. Those who are truly born again will be content with that. What we need to understand is that God’s approval is all important and we cannot have God’s approval if we put the approval of man ahead of approval of God.
In the context of the passage, Jesus pointed out that He would not accuse them to His Father. He pointed out that Moses had declared all they needed to know to accept Him as the Saviour and Messiah. They were condemned by the writings they claimed to honour. In verse 46 Jesus points that out. These Jews had no reason to reject Jesus Christ. They had Moses’ writings and they claimed to respect Moses. They had them for years. They had the opportunity to study the writings of Moses. Yet they only studied the writings of Moses from their humanistic perspective.
In verse 47 Jesus draws this part to a close. If a person does not want to receive what the first five books of the Bible declare, they will not believe the rest of the Scriptures. They will not accept Jesus Christ as their Messiah and Saviour. There were many Jews in the days of Moses, who rejected him as their leader. Many Jews died in the wilderness because they fought against God’s chosen leader. Moses was not God. He was a man who also sinned, but he was chosen by God to lead the nation of Israel out of Egyptian bondage and into true liberty in Canaan. Moses could not take them all the way due to his sin. However, that did not negate his leadership nor his writing. His writing was given under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It was foolish to try to edit Moses’ writings to suit the humanistic ideas of man.
Jesus made it clear that to reject Moses’ writings is to reject Him. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. We cannot pick and choose which part we like and which part we do not like. Those who are saved accept all of the Bible as truth and they study all of the Bible and seek to submit to all of the Bible. They do this because they have been saved and changed through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Jews in our text were not changed. They were defiant and yet claiming to believe in God. Jesus revealed the hypocrisy in their hearts. He made it clear that true faith in Him is true faith in the Scriptures. The Scriptures testify of Him. We learn Who Jesus is when we take the Scriptures as the truth and trust in Him as Saviour and Lord.
Trusting in the Word of God opens the way to know the God of the Word better. This is a spiritual work that requires salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Pastor Bartel