A Stinging Rebuke
Hearing it is one thing. Receiving it is quite another thing. The Jews had investigated John the Baptist and frankly enjoyed his messages for a time. Then John crossed over the acceptable line to identify Jesus as the Lamb of God that would take away the sin of the world. That caused the Jews to doubt the testimony of John about Jesus.
However, when Jesus was questioned about his own life and ministry, he responded with a reminder that it was not human testimony about His ministry that was the most important. Jesus made it clear that popularity should never be a substitute for the true test. While the evidence that he made of Himself and the proof that John the Baptist gave were true, these witnesses would not be the most important. The first witness that Jesus accepted was the “work that the Father had given Him to do and which He was completing.” John 5: 36 The second witness was the very Scripture that the Jews diligently studied but blindly misunderstood. The esteemed authority they accepted was the authority of Moses. (At least, that is what they said.) The application of that core belief was what came in the rebuke of Verse 46. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?
Jesus provoked a question for these people to consider whether or not they were content to have knowledge of Scripture instead of believing the message of it. That same question is good for us today too. Do I recognize that what Moses wrote was to lead me to Christ? Could I get so involved in professing knowledge of Scripture that I miss the intention of it? What Moses wrote about Jesus is crucial for my learning about this Savior and Messiah. I do not want to miss the truth that the law was my tutor, my teacher and my schoolmaster to lead me to Christ. (Check Galatians 3: 23-25) In Christ I become Abraham’s seed and an heir of what God has promised.
Sure Jesus gave a stinging rebuke! I need to hear it too so that I constantly trust in Him whose testimony includes changed lives, Scriptural guidance, testimony of others and the magnificent work of God that only Jesus could accomplish. Thank you God that He finished the work you gave Him to do. I needed that rebuke!
