John 5:39

DISCOURSE: 1630
CHRIST’S APPEAL TO THE SCRIPTURES

John 5:39. Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

WHEN our Lord professed himself to be the promised Messiah, and claimed an authority equal to that of Almighty God, it was necessary that he should bring abundant evidence of his Divine mission, and prove, by testimonies of the most unquestionable kind, his title to the honour he assumed. Nor was he backward to give all the proof which the occasion required. He appealed to the testimony of John the Baptist, whom the whole Jewish nation considered as a prophet, and whose testimony therefore ought to have great weight with them. He appealed also to his own miracles, which were so great and numerous as to be in themselves an indubitable evidence that God was with him. He further appealed to the testimony which his heavenly Father also had given to him at his baptism, both by an audible voice from heaven, and by the visible descent of the Holy Spirit upon him. Lastly, he appealed to the Holy Scriptures, which the Jews themselves received as the word of God, and which bore testimony to him; even such testimony as would be found to agree exactly with his person and character in every respect. As these had existed for centuries, and might be compared with all that he had either done or taught, their testimony must be unexceptionable, and must carry conviction to every mind.
From the words before us we shall be led to notice,

I. The transcendent excellency of the Holy Scriptures—

Two things are here spoken respecting them:

1. They reveal unto us eternal life—

[Reason never could suffice for discovering the immortality of the soul. Philosophy never enabled any man so to establish the certainty of a future state, as to render it an article of general belief, or to produce any considerable influence on the minds of those around him. Many have reasoned well upon the subject, and spoken what approximated to the truth: but they never could with certainty affirm a future state of rewards and punishments; much less could they tell us how to avoid the one, and obtain the other. But the Scriptures have drawn aside the veil and shewn us that this present world is introductory to another, in which men shall exist to all eternity. The Old Testament, it is true, speaks but darkly on this point: yet was it sufficiently clear to impress the Jewish nation at large with a persuasion that both the souls and bodies of men should live in a future state of existence. The Sadducees, who were the free-thinkers of the day, were exceptions to the general rule. The national creed in these respects accorded with what was more fully revealed under the Christian dispensation. “By the Gospel, life and immortality have been fully brought to light;” yea, and the way of salvation been clearly revealed: so that we who live under its benign influence, do not merely think, but know, that there is for those who believe in Christ, a salvation treasured up, a “salvation with eternal glory.” In this respect therefore a very child amongst us is better instructed than all the wisest philosophers of Greece and Rome.]

2. They testify of Christ Jesus our Lord—

[“The testimony of Christ,” we are told, “was the spirit of prophecy” from first to last. The testimony which the Scriptures have borne to Christ is clear; not like the ambiguous answers of heathen oracles, which were so formed, as to be, without any great difficulty, accommodated to any event; but clear and precise, and incapable of any other interpretation than that which, upon the very face of it, it professed. Take, for instance, the prophecy relating to the time and place of our Saviour’s birth; and it was as much understood before his advent as afterwards, even by those who had not the grace to welcome his arrival. It was also copious, so that no one thing which could by any means be desired to designate the Messiah’s advent, was omitted. His person, his work, his offices were all described and shadowed forth: the nature of his salvation was fully delineated, and the extent of his kingdom declared. Nothing was left for any reasonable man to desire either for the rectifying of his views, or the ascertaining that those views were correct. It was in the highest possible degree convincing. The prophecies concerning him were so minute that they could never have entered into the mind of an uninspired man, nor could by any possibility have been accomplished by any contrivance or conspiracy of men. Though a Jew, our Lord Jesus was to die, not a Jewish, but a Roman death, the death of the cross. Yet in his crucifixion he was not to suffer all that was usually associated with that punishment; for “not a bone of him was to be broken.” On the other hand, there were to be inflicted on him indignities, never associated with that punishment in other instances; he was to be scourged before his crucifixion, and to be pierced to the heart with a spear after it. The very taunts with which he was to be insulted on the cross were accurately and literally foretold; as was also the cruelty in offering him vinegar in the midst of all his torments. The division of one of his garments, and the casting of lots upon the other, were among the circumstances which no human being could have divined, and which no impostor would have ventured to predict. And who would ever have imagined, that one so ignominiously treated in his death, should yet “have his grave with the rich?” The very price which was to be paid for his blood, together with the subsequent application of it in the purchase of a potter’s field, and the untimely death of the person that betrayed him, these, and a great variety of other circumstances equally minute, prove beyond a doubt that Jesus was the person testified of, and that the testimony borne of him was divine.

Had the different witnesses been contemporaneous, it might have been supposed possible that these infinitely diversified circumstances should have been devised and executed by means of a well-concerted conspiracy. But the witnesses lived in ages and places far distant from each other, even many hundreds of years apart: yet did all the prophets so harmonize with each other in all their various predictions, that no room is left for doubt but that they were wholly unconnected with each other, and altogether under the direction and influence of the Spirit of God. Thus whether we consider the testimony itself, or the witnesses by whom it was delivered, we can have no doubt but that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.]
Such then being the excellency of the Scriptures, let us contemplate,

II.

Our duty in relation to them—

This is clear and manifest:

1. We must “search the Scriptures” for ourselves—

[Possessing such Divine records, we should apply ourselves diligently to the study of them. We should search them with simplicity of mind, desiring to learn from them the will and mind of God, and determining through grace to comply with them in every respect, receiving implicitly whatsoever they declare, and obeying without reserve whatsoever they command. We must not bring to them any of our own prejudices whereby to judge of them, or any thing of our own passions wherewith to limit them. We must bring to them the simplicity of a little child, submitting our own wisdom to the wisdom of our God, and our own will to the will of God. In fact, we must desire to know God’s will in order that we may do it. Like Samuel we must lend to every word of God a willing and obedient ear, saying, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.” We have a most instructive example in the conduct of the blind man whom Jesus healed. Jesus asked him, “Believest thou in the Son of God?” The man immediately replied, “Who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?” The whole bias of his soul was towards his God; and his desire of instruction was for the sole purpose of glorifying God by the strictest possible conformity to his holy will. And if we resemble him in these respects, we are assured, that we shall be enabled to “know of every doctrine whether it be of God [Note: John 7:17.].”

Of course, we must prosecute our search with all diligence, The very word, “Search,” imports, that we should sift every word, as miners sift the earth in the pursuit of precious jewels; and must exercise all our faculties about it, as dogs do in the pursuit of their prey [Note: Ἐρευνᾶτε.]. A slight and cursory perusal of the Scriptures will be of little use; nor will a formal habit of reading, as some do, the psalms and lessons for the day, answer the ends for which we are to read the Scriptures. There must be in us a habit of weighing every sentiment, and of imploring God to convey to our minds its true import. Diligence of itself will not avail for the full understanding of the Scriptures. We must have the eyes of our understanding opened by the Spirit of God; and his aid will only be given to us in answer to fervent prayer. We must, in fact, never approach the Scriptures without that petition of holy David, “Open thou mine eyes, O Lord, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” Hence these two, diligence and prayer, are united by Solomon as equally necessary for the attainment of divine knowledge: “If thou apply thine heart to understanding, yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding [Note: Proverbs 2:3.].”

But in particular we must search the Scriptures with a more especial view to derive from them the knowledge of Christ. As they all testify of him, so it should be our most anxious care to see and learn what they do testify. A mere critical knowledge of Scripture, though good, will bring with it no saving benefit. Nor will an historical knowledge of Scripture, no, nor even a speculative knowledge of its doctrines and its precepts, avail us any thing. It is the knowledge of Christ, and that alone, that will convey to our souls the blessings of salvation. “This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” In the great mystery of a crucified Saviour “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge:” and “in comprehending the height and depth and length and breadth of the love of Christ as revealed in that mystery, we shall be filled with all the fulness of God.” My dear brethren, even good people do not sufficiently bear this in mind. Men, in going into the fields, obtain, for the most part, that which they are in pursuit of. One obtains health, and another pleasure; but it is the botanist only that acquires the science of herbs. So in perusing the Holy Scriptures, whatever else men may obtain, none will obtain the knowledge of Christ in all the glory of his person, the extent of his love, and the fulness and excellency of his salvation, but those who go to them with this express view, and bend all the force of their minds towards the attainment of them. You will remember that the Cherubim upon the mercy-seat were in a bending posture looking down upon the ark, that peculiar symbol of the Lord Jesus Christ as mediating between God and us. This St. Peter explains to us, declaring respecting all the wonders of salvation revealed to us in the Scriptures, that “the angels are desiring to look into them [Note: 1 Peter 1:12.].” Be ye then, brethren, in this posture whenever ye take the sacred volume into your hands, and, like the Apostle Paul, seek to your dying hour to know more and more of Christ, “of the power of his resurrection, and of the fellowship of his sufferings:” for, in proportion as “ye behold the glory of Christ, ye shall be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord [Note: 2 Corinthians 3:18.].”]

2. Endeavour to diffuse the knowledge of them to the utmost of your power—

[The command to “search them” evidently implies the duty of promoting in others also the knowledge of them. In this respect the Christian world has done well in spreading the Holy Scriptures both at home and abroad, to an extent altogether unprecedented. And in the work of translating the Holy Scriptures, and of sending forth missionaries to diffuse the knowledge of them, this age has also excelled all that have ever gone before it [Note: If this be a subject for a Bible Society, or a Mission Society, the line of discussion must be suited to the occasion.] — — —

But who would ever have thought that a great part of the Christian world should set themselves against the circulation of the Scriptures, and should actually prohibit their people from reading them? Yet this is done by the Church of Rome in every quarter of the world. The Governors of that Church will not suffer the word of God to be read, except by their special permission, and with their corrupt glosses, which in ten thousand instances obscure and falsify its meaning. And what shall we say to this? I stand amazed at such conduct in a Church professing itself the Church of Christ. I know not whether is the greater, the impiety or the cruelty of such conduct. The Lord Jesus Christ says, “Search the Scriptures.” ‘No,’ says the Papist; ‘ye shall not search them: I will not even suffer them to be in your possession: and if they be given you, I will wrest them out of your hands.’ But if it he replied, “In them we have eternal life;” ‘I care not for that,’ says the Papist; ‘ye shall perish, rather than I will suffer you to read that book.’ ‘But Christ has said, “They testify of me;” and I want to know what they testify.’ ‘I care not for that,’ says the Papist; ‘I will not suffer you to know what they testify: you shall not hear their testimony any farther than I please to inform you of it, and then you shall know it only as corrupted and falsified by me.’ What such priests will answer at the bar of judgment, God alone knows: but I fear their doom will be very terrible, seeing that they will have to answer for the souls of thousands whom they have kept in the sorest bondage, and blinded to their eternal ruin. Judge then ye, brethren, whether ye should not endeavour to counteract this impious tyranny, and to diffuse the knowledge of salvation through the perishing millions of your fellow-subjects. I mean not that you should do this in a spirit of opposition, but in a spirit of love. And as the legislature at their request has made them partakers with you in all civil and political privileges, so do ye, unsought and unsolicited, labour to impart unto them the full enjoyment of your spiritual privileges, in the knowledge of Christ, and of his salvation [Note: Preached for the Society of Scripture Readers in Dublin, March 1830.]