Last Friday night, some chose to let off steam by going out. Some
stayed home and watched the season premier of Blue Bloods. Not I.
Wenham demonstrates Jesus’ attitude toward Old Testament
historical narratives as being straight forward records of fact. For a list of
Jesus’ citations of Old Testament historical passages, see here. To those who
argue that the Lord’s use of these passages does not imply he regarded them as
unimpeachable history, Wenham states that Jesus’ use of them seems decisively
to negate such a conclusion. Some may doubt the historicity of the account of
the bronze serpent. They may consider it to be merely a picture of salvation.
Wenham responds to this argument:
“As a mere picture of salvation, the value of the reference
to the wilderness serpent (Jn. iii.14) would be unimpaired even if its
historical basis were destroyed, but nevertheless something is lost if the
close historical parallelism is undermined. Concrete saving acts of God were
wrought upon the perishing in the wilderness church through the uplifting of
the brazen serpent, and concrete saving acts of God will be wrought upon the
perishing in the New Testament age through the uplifted Son of Man. The type
was a picture, but not a mere picture. It was a real participation in God’s
salvation through faith, and to evaporate the type into a mere legend is
certainly to weaken it. There is nothing to suggest that our Lord had any such
thought.”
For Jesus to have taught from such a false premise would
have been dishonest, Wenham writes.
Wenham examines how Jesus applied the Old Testament to
controversial matters, ethics, during his temptation in the wilderness, and
after the resurrection. In his confrontations with the Pharisees and Sadducees,
Jesus never condemned their appeal to the Old Testament; he condemned their
approach to scripture and the erroneous conclusions their approaches produced.
In Mt. 23:23, Jesus condemns the Pharisees not for applying the Law too
rigorously, but for ignoring the weightier matters of the Law. In Mt. 5:17-20,
Jesus taught his disciples not to think he came to abolish the Law and the
Prophets. He came to fulfill them. He said, “…one jot or one tittle will by no
means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.” Whoever breaks the least of
these commands and teaches others to do so will be least in God’s kingdom. Those
who teach and practice them will be great in God’s kingdom. Entry into God’s
kingdom requires righteousness greater than both the scribes and the Pharisees.
The obedience to the Law Jesus demands is first and foremost obedience in the
spirit, but also in the letter. Willful spiritual obtuseness and the
replacement of scripture with religious tradition are the twin evils that
render God’s Word of no effect (Mt. 15:1-9, Mk.7:1-13). The religious leaders
of Jesus’ day, had they really believed Moses, would have believed Jesus (Jn.
5:46-47). “Faith, love, and a right attitude of will are the keys to an
understanding of Moses and of Christ,” Wenham writes. This is true in terms of
ethics. When the young ruler asked Jesus what was required to enter eternal
life, Jesus’ answered by quoting portions of the Ten Commandments and the
injunction from Leviticus to love one’s neighbor as one loves himself. To
expand on Wenham at this point, by leaving out the first four commandments,
Jesus was trying to make the ruler realize his obedience had been external,
that his heart was not in love with his creator. Because of his unwillingness
to love God by obedience from the heart, he walked away from Jesus still in his
sins. Jesus’ use of Old Testament writings during his wilderness temptation clearly
demonstrates his belief that these writings were indeed authoritative. After
his resurrection, Luke writes that Jesus taught his disciples from the Law, the
Prophets, and the Psalms, showing them that these were all fulfilled in him
(Lk. 24:25-27). As the first Christians and those they witnessed to were
primarily Jews, their primary task as they saw it was to prove that Jesus was
indeed the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.
According to Wenham, there is no evidence in the Gospels
that Jesus believed that the writers of the Old Testament were inspired, but
the writings themselves were not. In fact, the evidence is that Jesus believed
the exact opposite. The Old Testament makes no attempt to hide, or make
excuses, for the sins of its greatest figures, including those who wrote
portions of the Old Testament. The sins of Moses and David are recorded for all
generations to read. Yet Jesus regarded their writings as authoritative because
he regarded the triune God as their author. He prefaced Old Testament
quotations with statements such as “Moses said…” (Mk. 7:10), “…well did Isaiah
prophecy…” (Mk. 7:6, cf. Mt. 13:14). He referred to the abomination of
desolation , “…spoken of by Daniel the prophet…” However, the authority of such
passages as the Ten Commandments doesn’t originate from the fact that Moses
spoke them. These passages have had the impact they have had because they are
commandments from God.
J.W. Wenham later wrote a book dealing more extensively with
these issues; it was entitled Christ and the Bible. Hopefully I may be able to
review it on here one day. If I do, it will be in the distant future, as other
projects call for my attention.
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