Moses Wrote of Me - Part Three

 

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LESSON

The idea of Jesus Christ as judge finds its way frequently into the pages of Scripture. (See Acts 10:42; 17:31; Rom. 2:16; 2 Cor. 5:10; 2 Tim. 4:1.) The Apostle's Creed states "From thence (heaven) He shall come to judge the quick and the dead ..." Jesus reminded His listeners that God had seen fit to judge through the Person of His Son. (See v. 22.)

 

Verse 24 is a text of great assurance. Coupled with Romans 8:1, this verse guarantees, on the authority of our Lord's double "verily," that the fact of faith is the proof of life.

 

The judgment which has been committed by God to His Son, is escaped by the believer in Christ. (See Rom. 8:1.) Jesus Christ, by His death on the cross, bore our judgment in Himself, as our substitute. For this reason, we who have put our trust in Him are spared the necessity of facing the judgment for our sin.

 

When Jesus said, "He that heareth my word ..:' (v. 24) it was the equivalent of saying "he who hears My Father's word," And when He said, "And believeth on him that sent me" it was the same as if He said "he who believes in Me." Never forget that, because He was God the Son, He could say, "I and My Father are one." (See John 10:30.) So close is the relationship-so immediately identified are the divine Persons of deity-that what one says and does the other says and does also.

 

Jesus continued by hitting at the fake religiosity of the Pharisees. He said, "You have neither heard God's voice at any time, nor seen His shape. You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He has sent. (See vv. 37-38.) Now they knew all about the Old Testament. They had the whole thing learned verbatim, liberatum, punctuatum. They had studied every word, every letter, every jot and tittle. They had God's word, but they did not have it "abiding" in them. And the proof was that they did not commit themselves to Jesus Christ.

 

The phrase, "search the Scriptures," in the King James Version, is a wrong translation for verse 39. Very frequently you see it put up as a nice little motto over the fireplace or in the kitchen. Now, if you want a verse for Bible study, you can find many of them. But this verse is badly translated because the Greek verb is the same for both the indicative and the imperative. This is not a command, "Search the Scriptures," but a statement, "You search the Scriptures."

 

Now remember that Jesus is talking to the Pharisees-the graduates of the Jerusalem Theological Seminary, the Law of Moses Training School, and the Palestine Missionary Institute. They read the Bible just to establish their position, to build up their prestige, and to be able to look down their noses at the common populace who believed in Jesus, but knew little about the Law. These fellows always had their noses in the Bible, but they never got any further than the paper and ink.

 

Let me illustrate what happens when you look at the Bible this way. Suppose somebody were staying in an Atlantic City hotel and his room had a window overlooking a beautiful view of the Atlantic Ocean. Wouldn't you think something was wrong if they came to you and said, "Now I want to tell you all about the window in my room. This window has eight glass panes on one side and eight on the other side. It's a casement window which measures so many inches by so many inches. I want to take scratchings of the glass to give you a chemical analysis of my window." Someone who said that would be missing the whole point of having a window. The window is there so you can see the ocean; not so you can study the window.

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STUDY QUESTIONS