CHAPTER TWO

Evidences in Scripture

The Testimony of Christ

Introductory

The most important of Scripture evidences is the testimony of our Lord as given in the Gospels. We will examine somewhat in chronological order His use of the Old Testament. His first recorded reference to it is in His conflict with Satan in the wilderness. He meets the attack of His adversary by a thrice repeated “It is written,” each time quoting from the book of Deuteronomy (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10). The narrative makes clear that both Christ and the tempter regarded the declarations of Scripture as providing an irrefutable reply to any challenge or suggestion. There is no question on the part of either of an appeal from that authority. The devil showed his realization of its irresistible force by adopting it as his own weapon. Our Lord’s “It is written” carries with it, then, His witness to the divinely authoritative character of the words of Scripture. Of this more later.

Part I—His Application of the Old Testament to Himself

We follow Him into the synagogue at Nazareth. The roll of the prophet Isaiah is handed to Him. He finds the passage beginning, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me” (Is. 61:1). Having read the passage, He closes the roll, gives it to the attendant, sits down and begins His discourse to the congregation with the words, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” This is the first illustration of an important feature which characterizes His use of the Old Testament throughout the course of His ministry, namely, that He represents Himself as fulfilling in His own Person the scheme of the former Covenant. Let us trace His teaching in this respect from this first instance in the Nazareth synagogue to the forty days’ period after His resurrection and observe what bearing it has on the subject of Inspiration.

In His public discourses He applies the prophecy of Malachi 3:1 to John the Baptist as being the messenger who was to prepare His way (Matt. 11:10; cp. Matt. 11:14 and 17:12, and Mal. 4:5). Again, He makes Jonah’s experiences a prefiguration of His burial and resurrection (Matt. 12:40; cp. 16:4). His method of teaching the people is that He claims to be a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (Matt. 13:14 and Is. 6:9, 10). He tells the Jews who oppose Him that whereas they search the Scriptures, thinking that therein they have eternal life, the Scriptures really bear witness to Himself and that eternal life is only to be obtained by coming to Him for it (John 5:39); that Moses wrote of Him, and if they really believed Moses they would believe Him; and, further, that failure to grasp the truth of the Mosaic teachings must involve failure to believe the words of the One of whom he wrote (John 5:46, 47). The two are inseparable. The old embodies the new, the new unfolds the old. Again, as the Living Bread from Heaven, He is the reality of which the manna given by God to their fathers under the leadership of Moses was a figure (John 6:32, 33, and 49, 51). Isaiah’s prophecy, “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord” (Is. 54:13), finds its center, Christ declares, in Himself: “Everyone,” He says, “that hath heard from the Father, and hath learned, cometh unto Me” (John 6:45). Again, “Abraham,” He says, “rejoiced to see My day; he saw it, and was glad” (8:56).

Further, against their charge of blasphemy in His having made Himself God, He appeals to Psalm 82:6, as follows: “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods. If He called them gods, unto whom