‘You Think’

‘You Think’

Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

John 5:39

Christ could be very direct.  We find Him so when He was engaged in controversy.  Throughout the Gospel of John particularly, Christ was often so direct that His antagonist became enraged.  While He was not pugnacious or belligerent, His opponents often became so.  In the text before us, Christ makes a simple, direct and very telling statement.  He challenges the religionists by saying, ‘Search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life….’  The scribes and Pharisees were students of the Old Testament.  Their rabbis dissected every portion of it and based all of their lives upon it.  They guarded it and built hedges around it.  All of their lives were dedicated to the study of the Word of God, and in following it they were utterly convinced that they would achieve eternal life.  They were wrong.  The Scriptures are inspired, inerrant and infallible.  They are the work of God, which He has magnified above all His Name.  ‘Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.’  Eternal life does not come by faith in the Scriptures.  Eternal life comes by faith in Christ.  There is a world of difference.  A person may spend his entire life studying the Scripture and yet miss Christ.  The Scribes and Pharisees did just that.  Christ called them out on this critical error.  The Scriptures are not an end in themselves.  They are a means to an end.  The end is Christ.  It is Christ Who gives to His Sheep eternal life.

Our Holy and Wise Savior,
we rejoice that You have clearly pointed us to the Scriptures
in order that we might find You there.
We pray that we would be even more enraptured with You
than merely with the things that You have given us,
however wonderful they are.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning