By Pastor Dave Farmer
Summary
The English version of the Old Testament is made up of 36 books. Did Jesus view every book as Inspired? Which books did He authorize? What books did He believe where the Word of God? What greater authority is there who can be relied upon to tell us the truth about these books?
We are examining our Lord Jesus Christ’s view of the Bible. One clear and revealing statement He made about the Bible is found in His use of the word Scripture. 1 The word in Greek meant “a writing” and was in general use to denote a book, letter, or a legal document. However, Biblical writers adopted this word and gave it a special definition. It would represent the divine authorized and inspired books of the Old and New Testament. Scripture, as our Lord used the term, was technical and referred to the entire Old Testament Canon.
It is important to know that when our Lord began His ministry in 30 A.D, the Old Testament books had been collected and organized. The last Old Testament book to be penned was the Book of Malachi written about 450 B.C. This closed the Old Testament. The Hebrew Bible existed in a completed form, for about twice as long as we have been a nation when our Lord began His public ministry.
The Jewish rabbis divided the Old Testament into three divisions: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. If you looked at a Hebrew Bible today, you would find 29 books. If you count the Old Testament books in our Bible, the number would be 39 books. The difference is only the way the books are arranged. See a discussion of this in our April 11, 2010 issue "The Recipients of the Written Word."
A book classified as Scripture would be considered as coming from God. God gave His Word to men (revelation), and the Holy Spirit supervised the prophet as he wrote (inspiration). The point that I am making in this issue is precisely this: what books Jesus recognized as Scripture He also authorized as being the Word of God. If I accepted as the Word of God only what Jesus accepted as the true Word of God, my Old Testament scripture remains the same!
Jesus recognized the entire Old Testament
In the following passage our Lord recognizes each division of Scripture thus validating the entire Old Testament:
Now He said to them,
These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written (Old Testament Canon) about Me in the Law of Moses (First Division: The Torah) and the Prophets (Second Division: The Nabiim) and the Psalms (Third Division: The Kethuvim) must be fulfilled." (Luke 24:44)
There is another passage where He clearly shows His trust in the entire Old Testament:
[34] Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city,
[35] so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. (Matthew 23:34-35)
In this scathing denunciation of the religious leaders, He reveals the record of what they did to the prophets that God sent to them. Their record encompasses a period "from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah." The first murder is found in Genesis chapter four, the first book of the Old Testament (Genesis 4:8). The second murder is Zechariah, and his death is found in 2 Chronicles 24:20-24. In the Hebrew arrangement of the Old Testament, Chronicles is the last book of the Jewish Bible. Jesus was standing in the very place Zechariah was murdered, and He once again validates the entire Old Testament. Today He would say between Genesis and Malachi.
Jesus Recognized Individual Books
Another way He endorsed the Old Testament was by quoting from it. He used a variety of expressions when introducing a direct quote from the Old Testament: have you not read, it is written, the Scripture or Scriptures - both in the singular and plural. He authenticates our firmly held belief in the trustworthiness of the Bible. When you begin to list the references our Lord had committed to memory and made use of, every division in The Old Testament is represented: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.
He quoted from the Books of the Law:
Genesis
The book of Genesis is authoritatively quoted by Jesus in Matthew 19:4-5 (cf. Gen. 1:27; 2:24) as He says, "Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?" Here the assertion is made that God said what is written in Genesis.
Exodus
In reply to the rich young ruler, Jesus quotes some of the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20:12-17:
You know the commandments, 'Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.' “(Luke 18:20 cp Matthew 5:21)
In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapters 5-7, He quotes from the Ten Commandments which are found in Exodus 20 in 5:21, 27, 33.
Leviticus
This book was referred to by Jesus when He commanded the cleansed leper, "Go, show yourself to the priest, and present the offering that Moses commanded" (Matthew 8:4; cf. Lev. 14:2). Leviticus 20:9 is quoted by Him in Mark 7:10:
For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death'; (Mark 7:10)
Numbers
[5] The people spoke against God and Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food."
[6] The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
[7] So the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us." And Moses interceded for the people.
[8] Then the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live."
[9] And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. (Numbers 21:5-9)
In the Gospel of John, Jesus explained that the serpent on the standard was a picture of Him providing salvation.
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; (John 3:14)
The discipline for their revolt against Moses was the release of a plague of venomous snakes. The vipers slithered through the camp of Israel biting those involved in the uprising. Poetic justice is seen in that the people, who wanted Moses dead, died from the viper's poison. A clear picture of the price you pay when your life is controlled by sin and Satan. Disobedience to God will bring discipline from God. His discipline is administered with grace by providing a way of escape. So Moses made a bronze serpent and fastened it to a high pole. When the people who were bitten looked upon the serpent, they lived. Our Lord interpreted this event in the Book of Numbers as a picture of His death on the cross. He would be lifted up for the people's sins, and when someone looks on Him, they will live. As He said:
…so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. (John 3:15)
Many times our Lord authenticates a book of the Bible by mentioning people and events rather than through direct citation, as illustrated by Moses in the wilderness making a bronze standard of a serpent. By doing this, He verifies the books that record the event or the people.
Deuteronomy
This is one of the most often quoted Old Testament books. For example, the three quotations used by Jesus when He resisted Satan in Matthew 4:4, 7, 10: "Man shall not live on bread alone" (cf. Deut. 8:3); "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test" (cf. Deut. 6:16); "You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only" (cf. Deut. 6:13) all come from this Book. When Satan approached our Lord, He was at the end of a forty day fast, at His most vulnerable and weakest moment. Our Lord resisted Satan three times and by so doing set an example for all of us. When we commit the Scripture to memory, we are most like our Lord, and we are better prepared to meet temptation when it comes.
Another interesting passage of validation is found in Luke 10:26-28. In this passage, a Jewish theologian, someone expert in the interpretation of the Law of Moses, asked Him a question.
And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 10:25)
On this occasion, Jesus asked him "what does the Law of Moses say about that?" He answered Jesus by quoting from the Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. The Lord replied:
And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live." (Luke 10:28)
Our Lord, through direct quote and undesignated references, established the authenticity of the Old Testament. It is impossible in such a short article to show every reference. Hopefully, this summary will show how prolific and masterful our Lord is in His use of Scripture, and we should note, He did it from memory!
Summary 2
1. He recognized the entire Old Testament.
2. He recognized individual books by quoting from them. 3
3. He recognized people and events in the Old Testament:
Our Lord continuously trusted in the Old Testament as an absolute standard for faith and life.
ENDNOTES
1 Scripture is used 52 times in the New Testament in its singular and plural form and almost always refers to the Old Testament. One notable exception is the Apostle Peter’s use in 2 Peter 3:16 where He includes the Apostle Paul’s writings. Before the close of the first century, the Christian Church applied this term to the New Testament Books. Ignatius, who was a disciple of the Apostle John (30 – 107 AD), an Ante-Nicene church father writing to the Philippians about the unity of the Trinity quotes freely from the Old and New Testament. He gives equal weight and authority to both Old and New Testament books. This is an excerpt:
There is then one God and Father, and not two or three; One who is; and there is no other besides Him, the only true [God]. For “the Lord thy God,” saith [the Scripture], “is one Lord.”[Deuteronomy 6:4, Mark 12:29]. And again, “Hath not one God created us? Have we not all one Father? [Malichi 2:10]. And there is also one Son, God the Word. For “the only-begotten Son,” saith [the Scripture], “who is in the bosom of the Father.”[John 1:18] And again, “One Lord Jesus Christ.” [1 Corinthians 8:6] And in another place, “What is His name, or what His Son’s name, that we may know? ” [Proverbs 30:4] And there is also one Paraclete. [John 14:16] For “there is also,” saith [the Scripture], “one Spirit,” [Ephesians 4:4 since “we have been called in one hope of our calling.” And again, “We have drunk of one Spirit,” [1 Corinthians 12:11] with what follows. And it is manifest that all these gifts [possessed by believers] “worketh one and the self-same Spirit.” There are not then either three Fathers,20 or three Sons, or three Paracletes, but one Father, and one Son, and one Paraclete. Wherefore also the Lord, when He sent forth the apostles to make disciples of all nations, commanded them to “baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, [Matthew 28:19] not unto one [person] having three names, nor into three [persons] who became incarnate, but into three possessed of equal honour. [Roberts, A., Donaldson, J., & Coxe, A. C. (1997). The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol.I: Translations of the writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325. The apostolic fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. (116). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems.]
2 See General Biblical Introduction, H. S. Miller, Word-Bearer Press, Houghton, NY, 1950, for a more detailed study of these subjects.
3 When you include the quotations from the Old Testament of the other New Testament writers, there are at least 295 separate references occupying some 352 verses or 4.4%. More than 10% of the New Testament consists of citations and allusions to the Old Testament. Roger Nicole as classified this as 231 quotations, 19 paraphrases, and 45 additional items that have no direct formula (e.g., "It Is written"), for a total of 295 citations, about 4.4 percent of the New Testament (approximately one verse of every 22.5). Allusions range from 613 to 4,105, depending on the criteria used, cf. Carl F.H. Henry, ed., Revelation and The Bible, p.137.