Moses Wrote of Me - Part Four
SCRIPTUREJohn 5:30-47
“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. There is ianother who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But lthe testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For othe works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, this form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But iif you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”
LESSON
Well, the Bible is a window. The purpose of the Bible is that you may look through it and see Jesus Christ. Some people stop with the Bible. I will yield to no man in my belief in the Bible, in its divine origin, in the fact that it is divine, verbally inspired revelation. But I say that the Bible is not a thing to be analyzed, criticized, outlined and examined, just for it's own sake. That would be just like sitting in a room and writing a book about a window, without seeing the ocean with its waves curling up the beach or the way the lights and clouds play upon the water. The Bible is not an end in itself any more than a window is an end in itself. The window allows us to see the beauty which lies beyond. The Bible is the way to life in Jesus Christ.
This chapter ends with one of the most astounding statements ever made about the Old Testament. In verses 45-47, Jesus Christ says to these theologians, "If you believe not Moses' writings-Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy how shall you believe my word-Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?" Here Jesus Himself is affirming that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch.
There was a time when people said, "Moses could not have written the Pentateuch because writing did not exist in his day." They claimed it hadn't been invented yet. Then, in the very place where Moses lived, in the Sinai peninsula, archeologists have discovered evidences of the existence of writing a thousand years before Moses' time. These discoveries merely confirmed Jesus' words. "Moses wrote of me." (See v. 46). Since He tied the whole Bible together, you take the whole Bible and the whole Christ, or no Bible and no Christ. You can't pick and choose. If you take a verbally inspired complete revelation of God's spoken word, you have the "words of eternal life." But if you try to have something less, you don't have anything at all.
STUDY QUESTIONS
STUDY QUESTIONS
- If the Bible is the clear revelation of Christ to the world, yet merely a window, how do we avoid worshiping our Bibles?
- Can we take the Bible too seriously? How? Explain your answer.
