In a courtroom, the star witness can make or break a case. When Jesus claimed to be equal with God, He didn't expect people to just take His word for it. He called on witnesses – and the greatest witness might surprise you.
John 5:39 "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about me."
Picture this scene: Religious leaders who have spent their entire lives studying Scripture, memorizing it, chanting "holy, holy, holy" before they even open the sacred text. They search the Scriptures like "wild dogs, hungry lions stalking prey," looking for eternal life.
And yet Jesus says to them, "You've missed Him. He's standing right in front of you."
These scribes and Pharisees had such reverence for the Word of God – almost superstitious reverence – and yet when the Holy Son of God, the theme and point and purpose of all Scripture, was standing before them, they missed it completely.
Jesus says, "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about me, and you are unwilling to come to me so that you may have life."
Let me ask you a question: What's the purpose of the Bible? To point to the person of Jesus Christ. Every story, every prophecy, every law, every promise – it all points to Him.
But here's what's sobering: You can know the Bible backwards and forwards and never know Jesus. These Pharisees were summa cum laude from Jerusalem Seminary, but they were not worshippers of God. Jesus looked into their hearts and said, "I know you – you do not have the love of God in yourselves. You know everything about Me, but you've missed everything that matters. You don't love Me."
They missed the reality that the Bible is not an end in itself, but the means to the end – and that end is knowing, not just knowing but loving God.
Warren Wiersbe once said, "It's one thing to have the word in our hands and heads, but quite another thing to have it in our hearts."
You can go to Bible conferences and Bible churches and get caught up in everything other than what matters – and that's Jesus Christ, a real person who offers real life and whom you can really know.
At the conclusion of Moses's life, he charged the Levites to place the law beside the Ark of the Covenant, saying it would remain "as a witness against you." What did Moses mean? The law witnesses against our inability to earn God's favor through our righteousness. The Ten Commandments weren't given as a mechanism to earn our way to God, but as a testifying witness that we continually fall short and therefore need to fall on the mercy of God.
The point of the law is not "Am I as good as my neighbor?" but "Am I as good as my God?" And so long as we judge ourselves by human comparisons, there's plenty of room for self-satisfaction – and self-satisfaction kills faith. Faith is born out of a sense of need.
1. When you read Scripture, are you primarily seeking to know about God or to know God Himself?
2. How can you tell if you're treating the Bible as an end in itself rather than as a means to knowing Jesus?
3. What would it look like for you to move from having God's Word in your head to having it in your heart?
Stay dialed in.
