What Jesus and the New Testament authors say about the Scriptures: John 5:39-40
We’ve now had a look at what Paul says in Romans 16:25–27 and on Luke’s reflections on the Emmaus road experience in Luke 24. Now it is time to have a look at what Jesus himself says. The first passage is John 5:39-40. In talking with the religious leaders of his day, whom he affirms as diligent students of the scriptures, Jesus says:
You diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
Jesus notes that when these religious leaders search the scriptures they do so with a primary motivation which is set toward their final acceptance by God (‘eternal life’). However, Jesus asserts that the scriptures that they search do not of themselves give life. Rather, it is the message that they contain about him that leads to life. He is their true purpose in being written and to fail to come to him is to corrupt and foil that purpose.
The point is that it is possible to study the scriptures and master them technically but not know their core message or to hold it at arm’s length. To master the scriptures is to know them in the light of the one two whom they testify.
Let’s now try and work out the relationship between what we said about Luke and what this passage says. First, we noted that the Old Testament scriptures contain things concerning Jesus. Second, we noted that this does not mean that Christ is the subject of every scriptural text or that every text must speak of him. Third, we have now seen that Jesus says that the scriptures as a whole testify of him. So, how do we put this together?
It seems to me that one way to do this is to say that we should approach the Old Testament scriptures with a Christological conviction or presupposition. This does not mean that every text testifies of Christ but that they are part and parcel of a united testimony to the person and work of Christ. To cut them loose from this testimony is to misread them. We will build on this some more as we continue to look at what else Jesus and his apostles say in the other passages we look at.