I. Introduction

1. The Testimony of Christ to the Scriptures

“Abraham rejoiced to see My day.” “Moses wrote of Me.” “David called [Me] Lord” (John 8:56, v. 46; Matt. 22:45). We have in these words of our Saviour abundant authority for seeking Him in the Old Testament, and also a confirmation of the truth of the Scriptures themselves. To those of us who believe in Christ as truly God, as well as truly Man, His word on these matters is authoritative. He would not have said, “Abraham rejoiced to see My day,” if Abraham had been a mythological character; He would not have said, “Moses wrote of Me,” if the Books of Moses had been written hundreds of years later; nor would He have quoted from the 110th Psalm to prove that David called Him Lord, if that Psalm had not been written till the time of the Maccabees.

With regard to our Lord’s reference to the Books of Moses, the testimony is peculiarly emphatic. It was no mere passing reference to them. The whole force of the argument again and again lies in the fact that He regarded Moses, not as a mere title by which certain books were known, but as personally the actor in the history which they record and the author of the legislation which they contain. “Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law?” (John 7:19). “Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me; for he wrote of Me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?” (John 5:46, 47). He condemned the traditions with which the Pharisees overlaid the laws and teaching of Moses as “making the word of God of none effect” (Mark 7:13). To the leper He said, “Go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded” (Matt. 8:4). That command of Moses is found in the very heart of the priestly code which some would have us believe was framed centuries after the days of Moses.¹

From a careful study of the Gospels we cannot fail to see that the Old Testament Scriptures were continually upon Christ’s lips because always hidden in His heart. In the temptation in the wilderness He defeated the devil, not with any manifestation of His Divine glory, not by a power which we cannot wield, not even by His own words but He fell back upon written words which had strengthened the saints of many ages, thus showing us how we also may meet and foil our great adversary. It is specially helpful to note that it is out of Deuteronomy that our Lord selects, “as pebbles from the clear brook,” His three conclusive answers to the tempter (Deut. 8:3, 6:13, 14, 16). For we have been told that this Book of Deuteronomy is a pious forgery of the time of Josiah, purporting to be written by Moses to give it greater weight in bringing about the much-needed reforms. Would our Lord—who is Himself the Truth—have thus countenanced a book full of untruths, and have used it in the critical moment of His conflict with the devil? And would not “the father of lies” have known perfectly well if the book had been a forgery?

When Christ commenced His public ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth with the words of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor,” He said, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:17-21). In the Sermon on the Mount our Lord said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matt. 5:17-19).

In these days we have many books about the Bible, but very little searching of the Scriptures themselves. A careful study of what Jesus Himself says about the Old Testament Scriptures, asking for the light of the Holy Spirit upon the pages, would well repay the Bible student. Very few realise how abundant are our Lord’s quotations from the Old Testament. He refers to twenty Old Testament characters. He quotes from nineteen different books. He refers to the creation of man, to the institution of marriage, to the history of Noah, of Abraham, of Lot, and to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah as described in Genesis; to the appearing of God to Moses in the bush, to the manna, to the ten commandments, to the tribute money as mentioned in Exodus. He refers to the ceremonial law for the purification of lepers, and to the great moral law, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” both contained in Leviticus. To the brazen serpent, and the law regarding vows, in Numbers. We have already dwelt upon His threefold quotation from Deuteronomy. He refers to David’s flight to the high priest at Nob, to the glory of Solomon and the visit of the Queen of Sheba, to Elijah’s sojourn with the widow of Sarepta, to the healing of Naaman, and to the killing of Zechariah—from various historical books. And as regards the Psalms and the Prophetical writings, if possible the Divine authority of our Lord is yet more deeply stamped on them than on the rest of the Old Testament.² “Have ye not read?” or “It is written,” is the ground of Christ’s constant appeal; “The Scripture cannot be broken,” “The Scriptures testify of Me,” “The Scripture must be fulfilled,” His constant assertion. Questioned concerning the resurrection, Jesus answered, “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures. Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Our Lord here attributes the scepticism of the Sadducees partly to their not understanding the Scriptures, He proves from the Bible the fact of the resurrection, and He asserts that the very words uttered by God are contained therein (Matt. 22:29-32).³

As He drew near to the Cross, our Saviour’s testimony to the Scriptures has a still more sacred import. “Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished” (Luke 18:31). “For I say unto you, that this which is written must be fulfilled in Me,—And He was reckoned with transgressors: for that which concerneth Me hath fulfilment” (Luke 22:37, R.V.). On the night of His betrayal, in the shade of Olivet, three times our Saviour points to the fulfilment of these Scriptures in Himself (see Matt. 26:31, 53, 54; Mark 14:48, 49). Three of His seven utterances upon the Cross were in the words of Scripture, and He died with one of them on His lips.

But perhaps the strongest testimony of all which Christ bore to the Old Testament was after His resurrection. On the very day that He rose He said to the two disciples going to Emmaus, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:25-27). Not only did He sanction the Scriptures, but also that method of interpretation which finds throughout the Old Testament a witness to the Messiah of the New. Thus on the very first day of our Lord’s return He resumed His former method of instruction even more emphatically than before, proving His claims not so much by His own personal victory over death as by the testimony of the Scriptures. After this Jesus appeared to the eleven and said: “These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning Me. Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them: Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day” (Luke 24:44-46). Even those who would seek to place limits upon Christ’s wisdom and knowledge during His life on earth would surely not extend this to the period of His risen life. And it is during this period that He sets His seal upon the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, the threefold division of the complete Old Testament Scriptures according to the Jews, the very same Scriptures that are in our possession today.

But, lest even this should not be enough to confirm our faith, we are given in the Book of Revelation a glimpse of our glorified Saviour, still “this same Jesus,” still quoting from the Scriptures, and still applying them to Himself. He says: “Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Rev. 1:17, 18). And again: “He that hath the key of David, He that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth” (Rev. 3:7). Here He quotes from the two parts of the one Book of Isaiah, from chapter 44:6, which says: “Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: I am the first, and I am the last; and beside Me there is no God… . Fear ye not,” and from chapter 22:22: “And the key of the house of David will I lay upon His shoulder; so He shall open, and none shall shut; and He shall shut, and none shall open.”

Truly the key—not only of life and death, but the key to the Scriptures—is laid upon His shoulder, and He still unlocks the meaning of the book to those who are humble enough for Him to unlock the understanding of their hearts.

2. The Testimony of the Scriptures to Christ

Looking forward into the future from the earliest ages, God’s servants saw One who was to come, and as the time approached this vision grew so clear that it would be almost possible for us to describe Christ’s life on earth from the Old Testament Scriptures, of which He Himself said, “They testify of Me.”

There was one central figure in Israel’s hope. The work of the world’s redemption was to be accomplished by one Man, the promised Messiah. It is He who was to bruise the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15); He was to be descended from Abraham (Gen. 22:18), and from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10).

Isaiah looked forward and saw first a great Light shining upon the people that walked in darkness (Isa. 9:2). And as he gazed he saw that a child was to be born, a Son was to be given (ver. 6), and with growing amazement there dawned upon him these names, as describing the nature of the child. “Wonderful.” Wonderful, indeed, in His birth, for the advent of no other child had ever been heralded by the hosts of heaven. His birth of a virgin (Isa. 7:14), and the appearance of the star (Num. 24:17), were alike wonderful. Increasingly wonderful was He in His manhood, and most wonderful of all in His perfect sinlessness. “Counsellor.” “Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). “The Mighty God, the Everlasting Father.” There dawned upon Isaiah the consciousness that this promised One was none other than God manifest in the flesh, “Immanuel, God with us” (Isa. 7:14). As Jesus Himself said, “I and my Father are One” (John 10:30). The next name, “The Prince of Peace,” specially belongs to Jesus, for “He is our Peace.” His birth brought Peace on earth, and leaving it He bequeathed Peace to His disciples, “having made Peace through the blood of His Cross.” Then the prophet sees the child that was to be born seated on the throne of His father David, and he sees the glorious spread of His kingdom. Though born of a royal house, it was to be in the time of its humiliation. “There shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit” (Isa. 11:1, R.V.). We have in this a glimpse of His lowliness and poverty.

And now the prophets, one by one, fill in the picture, each adding a fresh, vivid touch. The prophet Micah sees the little town where Jesus was to be born, and tells us it is Bethlehem (Micah 5:2; Matt. 2:6); Isaiah sees the adoration of the Magi (Isa. 60:3; Matt. 2:11); Jeremiah pictures the death of the innocents (Jer. 31:15; Matt. 2:17, 18); and Hosea foreshadows the flight into Egypt (Hos. 11:1; Matt. 2:15); Isaiah portrays His meekness and gentleness (chap. 42:2; Matt. 11:29), and the wisdom and knowledge which Jesus manifested all through His life from the time of His talking with the doctors in the Temple. Again, when He cleansed the Temple, the words of the Psalmist came at once to the memory of the disciples, “The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up” (Ps. 49:9; John 2:17). Isaiah pictured Him preaching good tidings to the meek, binding up the broken-hearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives, and giving the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness (Isa. 66:1-3; Luke 4:16-21). Mourning was turned into joy when Jesus came into the presence of death. The poor woman whom Satan had bound, lo, these eighteen years, was loosed at His word. His gospel was indeed the message of good tidings. Isaiah pictured even that sweetest scene of all, the Good Shepherd blessing the little children, for “He shall gather the lambs in His arms, and carry them in His bosom” (chap. 40:11; Mark 10:16). Then Zechariah sings, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion,” for he sees her lowly King entering Jerusalem, riding on an ass’s colt; another Psalm adds the Hosannahs of the children. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength because of Thine enemies, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger” (Zech. 9:9; Ps. 8:2; Matt. 21:4). The prophets foresaw something of the character and extent of the Saviour’s work. The light that was to shine forth from Zion was to be for all the world, Jew and Gentile alike were to be blessed. The Spirit of God was to be poured out upon all flesh (Joel 2:28). “All the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (Isa. 52:10). The picture of a victorious, triumphant Messiah was a familiar one to the Jews of our Saviour’s time. So engrossed were they with this side of the picture that they did not recognise Him when He came, and John the Baptist said, “There standeth One among you whom ye know not.” “Had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” But they ought to have known it, for the prophets who foretold His glory had spoken in no less certain tones of His lowliness, His rejection, and His sufferings. “Behold,” says Isaiah, “my Servant shall deal prudently, He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high” (chap. 52:13)—when suddenly, what does he see in the next verse? “As many were astonied at Thee, His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men.” And how shall we picture the astonishment of the prophet as the vision of the fifty-third chapter dawns upon him with all the majesty of the suffering Messiah? From the root of Jesse was to spring up a tender plant who was to be rejected by Israel. “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). As the prophet’s steadfast gaze is fixed upon the future, he sees this Holy One led “as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep dumb before her shearers, so He openeth not His mouth (ver. 7; see Matt, 27:12, 14). He sees Him dying a death by violence, for “He was cut off out of the land of the living” (ver. 8). Daniel takes up the same thought and tells us, “Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself” (Dan. 9:26). And now once more a chorus of the prophets unite their voices to tell us the manner of His death. The Psalmist sees that He is to be betrayed by one of His own disciples,—“Yea, Mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat My bread, hath lifted up his heel against Me” (Ps. 41:9). Zechariah tells us of the thirty pieces of silver that were weighed for His price, and adds that the money was cast to the potter (Zech. 11:12, 13, Jer. 19, Matt, 27:3-10). He also sees the sheep scattered when the Shepherd was smitten (chap. 13:7; Matt. 26:31, 56). Isaiah sees Him taken from one tribunal to another (chap. 53:8; John 18:24, 28). The Psalmist foretells the false witnesses called in to bear witness against Him (Ps. 27:12; Matt. 26:59, 60). Isaiah sees Him scourged and spit upon (chap. 1:6; Matt. 26:67, and 27:26-30). The Psalmist sees the actual manner of His death, that it was by crucifixion, “They pierced My hands and My feet” (Ps. 22:16). His being reckoned with criminals and making intercession for His murderers were alike foretold (Isa. 53:12; Mark 15:27; Luke 23:34). So clear did the vision of the Psalmist become that he sees Him mocked by the passers-by (Ps. 22:6-8; Matt. 27:39-44). He sees the soldiers parting His garments among them, and casting lots for His vesture (Ps. 22:18; John 19:23, 24), and giving Him vinegar to drink in His thirst (Ps. 69:21; John 19:28, 29). With quickened ear he hears His cry in the hour of His anguish, “ My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Ps. 22:1; Matt. 27:46), and His dying words, “Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit” (Ps. 31:5; Luke 23:46). And, taught by the Holy Ghost, the Psalmist writes the words, “Reproach hath broken My heart” (Ps. 69:20). John tells us that though the soldiers brake the legs of the two thieves to hasten their death, “when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was dead already, they brake not His legs: but one of the soldiers pierced His side, and forthwith came there out blood and water… . For these things were done, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, A bone of Him shall not be broken. And again, They shall look on Him whom they pierced” (John 19:32-37; Exod. 12:46; Ps. 34:20; Zech. 12:10). Isaiah tells us that “though they had made His grave with the wicked”—that is, intended to bury Him in the place where they buried malefactors—yet it was ordered otherwise, and He was actually buried “with the rich in His death.” “For there came a rich man of Arimathsea named Joseph … and begged the body of Jesus … and laid it in his own new tomb” (Isa. 53:9; Matt. 27:57-60).

But the vision of the prophets stretched beyond the Cross and the tomb, and embraced the resurrection and ascension and final triumph of the Saviour. David sings: “Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt show Me the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:10, 11), And Isaiah, after he has prophesied the humiliation and death of the Messiah, closes the same prophecy with these remarkable words: “When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied” (Isa. 53:10, 11).

From the remotest past the saints looked forward to events which still lie before us in the future. “Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all” (Jude 14). The patriarch Job said: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth … whom I shall see for myself” (Job 19:25, 26). Zechariah had a vision of the Mount of Olives with the Lord standing there, King over all the earth, and all the saints with Him (Zech. 14:4-9).

And as the prophecies of the past have been fulfilled, so certainly shall also the prophecies of the future. “Now we see not yet all things put under Him, but we see Jesus, crowned with glory and honour” (Heb. 2:8, 9). And He says, “Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

¹ See Old Testament Criticism and the Rights of the Unlearned. J. Kennedy. M.A., D.D.

² See The Continuity of Scripture. Wm. Page Wood, Vice-Chancellor.

³ The Saviour’s Bible. Newman Hall, LL.B., D.D.