“We Have a Law”
During the time devoted to the Lord’s supper during our worship service each week, I have made it a practice to read something that keeps my mind focused on the unjust trials and the crucifixion of Jesus. Sometimes the material that I read is from a book of devotional thoughts I have downloaded on my iPad. Those thoughts are focused on those events. Most of the time, though, I am reading about those events from one of the gospel accounts.
Recently, as I was reading from the Gospel of John, some words caught my attention. I had read them many times before, but they made more of an impact this time than they had previously.
The material I was reading was from the nineteenth chapter of John. You may remember that Pilate informed the Jewish leaders about the fact that he could find “no fault/guilt” in Jesus and told the Jewish leaders to crucify Jesus (v. 6).
It was at this point that…
The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law,
he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.” (John 19:7)
As I read those words recently, I thought of an application that I’d never thought of before. If my understanding of any scripture (or law) and/or any interpretation of the same keeps me from seeing Jesus, that understanding needs to be reexamined and either corrected or rejected.
It is interesting that, in another discussion with Jewish leaders, Jesus said…
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. (John 5:39-40)
It seems to be fashionable today for people to concentrate on the person/personality of Jesus and have little regard for the text of Scripture. The rebuttal to that approach, at least in my view, is not to exalt the written word over the One who is identified as “the Word” (John 1:1). Instead, we would be better advised to remember that Peter told Jesus, “…You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
It might also be helpful to remember that this same apostle, John, was inspired to write these words later in his account of the gospel:
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples , which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31)
We need to make sure we do not divorce the text of the Bible from Jesus. To err in either direction is a serious mistake.
AUTHOR: Jim Faughn