John 5 45 “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. 46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47 But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”
There has been a lot of talk about the historicity of the OT recently. We’ve got the historical camp, the epic camp, the mythical camp (which overlaps with the epic folks) and the “it’s all a bunch of hooey” folks.
So how did Jesus treat the OT? If we look at John 5 Jesus is giving a dissertation to the religious leaders who are ticked because He healed on the Sabbath. Jesus response is essentially that He is doing His fathers business and that if His father says heal on the Sabbath, then folks get healed on the Sabbath. But He goes further, actually pretty clearly equating Himself with YHWH. Obviously this is scandalous, but what is interesting is who Jesus appeals to as witnesses. (Remember Jewish law required 2 witnesses for testimony to be accepted in a court of law). Who does Jesus appeal to, Moses. We see this same thinking in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man.
Luke 16:27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
So it would appear that there is enough accurate information about Jesus for Him to suggest the following.
1. There is enough accurate information in the OT for people to repent and come to faith in Christ.
2. There is enough accurate information in the OT for Jesus to cite it as acceptable as a witness in a court of law.
It seems clear, that if folks aren’t going to believe the testimony of the OT, that they’ll have a hard time with accepting anything else.
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3 comments:
I believe the testimony of the OT, Craig. I LOVE the testimony of the OT. I am just striving to take it as it was written and not force modern cultural prejudices back upon it.
Agreeing with the OT is not the same as saying the OT was written in a modern historic style, any more than agreeing and loving Jesus' parables implies taking them as factual stories.
Dan,
Do you really think everything is about you?
I'm so happy that you have once again to show yourself to be the master of responding to something I did not actually say.
"1. There is enough accurate information in the OT for people to repent and come to faith in Christ.
2. There is enough accurate information in the OT for Jesus to cite it as acceptable as a witness in a court of law.
It seems clear, that if folks aren’t going to believe the testimony of the OT, that they’ll have a hard time with accepting anything else."
Or are you just agreeing with the above?
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