Believing one to believe another

We don’t really need the Old Testament, do we? (I actually enjoy the Old Testament a great deal and continue to benefit from it, but that is irrelevant to this topic.)

There are those who try to say seriously that we really don’t need it. After all, Jesus is the most important, and with reference to Him the resurrection is the most important. It’s difficult to disagree with those points of importance, and yet the Bible itself and Jesus himself should be allowed to comment.

Jesus had a great deal to say in John 5. Now, I don’t know if there were interruptions or not, but the text looks as if He spoke without interruptions. It could just be that John omitted them.

Jesus had appeared at a festival in Jerusalem. That itself could create a stir, but what really caused a stir was that He healed a man who had been ill 38 years! Wow! You would think that everyone would be rejoicing. But no!

He had done it on the wrong day of the week, the Sabbath. I don’t know about you, but I have been bedside in the hospital when the patient’s life was in doubt. I personally did not care on which day of the weak signs of life strengthened. But it was a way for Jesus’ enemies to attack Him: He had healed the man on the one day of the week in which no work should be done!

The subjects He addressed include the following: The Son does the same work the Father does, the Son has the authority to judge, Jesus does the will of God, there is testimony for the person of Jesus, and those attacking Him thought it was important to search the Scriptures, but they would not receive Jesus.

After touching on those subjects, Jesus ended His remarks by saying, “For if ye were believing Moses, ye would have been believing me, for he wrote concerning me;

but if his writings ye believe not, how shall ye believe my sayings?” (John 5:46-47) (I chose to use Young’s Literal Translation here because, among many good ones, his is one of the best in representing the verb tenses.)

Before we address the tenses, let me comment briefly on Moses. He was the first leader of the nation of Israel, a great man in many ways. But he also wrote the first five books of the Bible and at least one of the Psalms.

His writings include the origin of the universe and history of humanity, with special focus on the Israelite people with their divinely ordained laws and worship system. His contribution is immense in size and importance.

The first two “believing” words are imperfect tense, and suggest a continuing activity in the past. Jesus is charging them with not believing Moses throughout the past and related to that not believing Jesus in the past. Had they believed Moses in the past, they would already have been believing Jesus.

In the last half of our quotation, the word “believe” appears twice. The first time it is present tense.

Here Jesus is accusing them of not believing Moses’ writings now in an ongoing way. The last occurrence of “believe” is future tense. If they are not now believing Moses’ writings, then how can they ever in the future believe Jesus’ words?

Regardless what you or I might think of it or how we might arrange the logic, Jesus presents a strong case in linking together accepting Moses’ writings as true and accepting Jesus’ words as true.

He appears to be saying that believing Moses is a precursor to believing in Jesus.

There is an amazing unity in the Bible if one lets it speak for itself. Some view it as a reference work only and grab a quotation here or there that seems personally advantageous. But it has its own story, God’s story, and it does fit together.

What Jesus said may seem surprising, especially if we have never pondered it, but it really is not extraordinary.

We would expect something like that of a book with different human authors who were all guided by the same Holy Spirit.

These words of Jesus could provide an interesting bit of knowledge, but it really goes beyond that to a challenge for you and me.

ARLIE RAUCH has retired from 41 years as a pastor, is looking forward to some time off, and can be reached at arlieandruth@cox.net.

The Risen Messiah Jesus was walking with two of His disappointed followers toward the village of Emmaus on the Resurrection Day. This is the counsel He gave them:

"Then he said unto them,

O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?

And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:25-27 AV).

The overall theme of the Bible is the Coming of the Messiah and His Kingdom of Righteousness and Peace. The purpose of the Bible is to present The God's Plan of Salvation.

The person who thinks one can do without the pre-Cross Holy Writings, the Old Covenant of Law, has no basis for the ones that guided His institution of the New Covenant of Grace which began at the Pentecost following His Resurrection.

Anyone who dismisses the Tanakh is a fool and slow of heart to believe the Messiah. It is impossible to grow spiritually without studying how God dealt with mankind before the coming of the Gospel, to which the incarnation of Jesus as Messiah and His sufferings on the Cross is the only answer.

There is nothing complicated about this but unfortunately the author is much misguided.

The Old Testament prepares the world for Jesus Christ. Nearly every prophecy refers to the coming of The Savior.

When Moses spoke to God in the Burning Bush He was speaking to The Great Jehovah, or Christ.

When the law of Sacrifice was put into writing by Moses it was to remind us of the coming sacrifice of The Savior that could save us all.

When Moses tells the story of Abraham taking Issac up the mountain to sacrifice him to God, he was only being shown how great a sacrifice He was willing to make to save us, the world.

Then there is the Book of Isaiah one of the most beautiful writings of all mankind which tells of The Christ to come and of the 2nd coming of The Christ.

It would be terrible to not know the Old Testament which brings us to Christ. It would be stupidity to have the words of God and ignore them because there are newer words. They all go together. If a prophet brought us a new writing from God would we just ignore it because we already have some words of God. No of course not, we would all race to see what it has to say.

Whomever decided to put The Old Testament and The New Testament into one book did us a most wonderful favor.

Jesus and the apostles (not to mention Stephen) quoted the OT quite a bit. It is the historical context and prophesies leading to Jesus. It is critical to understanding and gives a full context to the gospel message.

IMO.

But if I could only have one, it would be the new testament. It’s kinda like this choice: Do you want the car, or do you want the plans for the car?

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