"WHY SHOULD I BELIEVE WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT JESUS?" (John 5:39-40)
Sermon by Dr. Bob Rogers, pastor
First Baptist Church, Rincon, Georgia
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INTRODUCTION: In 1997 Michael Drosnin’s book, The Bible Code (Simon & Schuster, 1997), shocked the religious world with the claim that the Bible was full of secret codes, and even used those codes to predict the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister of Israel.
Using a computer to examine the first five books of the Old Testament, an Israeli mathematician claims that every fifth letter in a sentence forms a word, and when the words are put together, they make predictions of the future. One of those predictions was the assassination of Rabin. Other predictions include World War III beginning in 1996 (is there a war going on we don’t know about?), nuclear Armageddon in 2000 or 2006, and an earthquake in L.A. in 2010 (who will be left after Armageddon to know?).
Strangely, for all of its supposed predictions, The Bible Code makes no mention of the greatest event in world history: the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The very calendar referred to in the code is dated from Jesus, but the predictions make no mention of Jesus. (Information taken from reviews of The Bible Code at amazon.com.)
Jesus himself said, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”
I. WHY SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES?
Jesus said that they diligently studied the scriptures, and the Jews of his day did exactly that. Ancient Jewish scribes would have loved a computer Bible program, because they lived for details. They actually counted how many words and were in each book of the Bible, and found out what was the middle word in each book. Then they would check their copies by counting the words and letters to make sure the copy had the right word in the middle.
But that is not a reason to study the Bible. The Bible is not written for us to find secret codes or certain letters or words. So why study the Bible?
Even if you were an atheist, you have reason to study the Bible, because it is the best-preserved ancient document in world history. No other document comes close. Let me give you some examples:
The Roman historian Tacitus wrote about A.D. 116. We have one copy of his first six books, dating from A.D. 850.
The Jewish historian Josephus wrote during the first century, about the time of Christ. We have nine Greek manuscripts of his history of the Jewish war, and they were written in the tenth century and later.
Other than the Bible, the ancient document with the most copies in existence is Homer’s classic Greek epic, The Iliad, was first written about 800 B.C. There are 650 Greek manuscripts of this work, but oldest copies of The Iliad date from the second century A.D., which is one thousand years after the writing!
How does the Old Testament stack up to these ancient documents? The Hebrew scribes were extremely careful in making copies of the Old Testament, as I already mentioned. But the oldest copies we had of the Hebrew Old Testament dated from the tenth century A.D. We did have an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint to compare with the Hebrew copies, and they were basically the same. Then an amazing discovery was made in 1947. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found, copies of the Old Testament dating from around the time of Jesus. I have a replica of a Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah in a jar like the original, that my parents bought at a museum in Jerusalem. These scrolls were a thousand years older than the oldest copies we had at the time. Scholars eagerly studied them to see what errors they might reveal in the Bible, and they found there was almost no difference at all– a few word differences, spelling differences, and that was all!
How does the New Testament stack up to these other ancient documents? We have 5,664 ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. There are entire sections of the New Testament preserved in papyrus that date from A.D. 200, just a little over 100 years after their writing, and there has been one small copy of the Gospel of John discovered that was dated to shortly after A.D. 100! (Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 1998, pp. 77-82)
What’s more, archaeologists have made dozens of discoveries verifying the New Testament. Just a few of them include the discovery of Peter’s house in Capernaum mentioned in Matthew, Herod’s winter palace in Jericho as mentioned in Matthew, the pools of Siloam and Bethesda in Jerusalem mentioned in John, the theater in Ephesus mentioned in Acts, and the bones of Caiaphas, the high priest mentioned in the gospels as putting Jesus on trial.
There simply is no ancient document in world literature that enjoys as much evidence for its authenticity as the New Testament. For that reason alone, any intelligent person ought to want to take a look at it.
But there is a greater reason to search the scriptures: the scriptures reveal how to have eternal life, and they reveal it through Jesus Christ.
Edwin Rushworth was a skeptic all of his life, but he decided to read the Bible for an hour a day and see what it said. After his first reading he said, “Wife, if this book is right, we are all wrong!” After the second week of reading, he said, “Wife, if this book is right, we are lost!” He kept on reading and then excitedly said, “Wife! If this book is right, we can be saved!” (Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7,700 Illustrations, Rockville, Maryland: Assurance Publishers, 1979, p. 1233)
Jesus said that we should search the Scriptures because they testify of eternal life in Jesus.
II. HOW DO THE SCRIPTURES TESTIFY OF JESUS?
The Jewish rabbis always said the same thing that Jesus said here about studying the Bible– that the Scriptures possess eternal life. Rabbi Hillel, considered one of the most important rabbis at the time of Christ, said, “The more study of the Law the more life . . . if he has gained for himself words of the Law he has gained for himself life in the world to come.” (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1971, p. 330)
But Jesus went farther than this, by saying that if they studied the Scriptures, they would find that the Scriptures testified to him. Jesus was not talking about the New Testament, because it had not been written. He was talking about what we call the Old Testament. So how do the Scriptures testify to Jesus?
Genesis 3:15 says the Messiah would be born of the seed of a woman and crush the head of Satan. Jesus was born of Mary and defeated Satan on the cross.
Isaiah 9:7 said the Messiah would be the heir to the throne of David. Jesus was a biological descendant of David through Mary and his foster father Joseph was also a descendant of David.
Micah 5:2 said the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
Isaiah 7:14 said the Messiah would be born of a virgin. Luke 1:26 says Jesus was born of a virgin.
Isaiah 53:3 says he would be rejected by his own people. John 1:11 says he came to his own and his own did not receive him, and Luke 23:18 says that the crowd cried for the governor to release Barabbas and crucify Jesus.
Zechariah 9:9 says the savior would come on a donkey. Mark 11 says that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.
Isaiah 53:7 says he would be silent before his accusers. Mark 15:4 says Jesus was silent before the Roman governor.
Isaiah 53:5 says he was pierced for our sins. Romans 5:8 says Christ died for our sins.
Isaiah 53:12 says he would be crucified with criminals. Mark 15:27 says Jesus was crucified beside two criminals.
Isaiah 53:9 says his grave would be with a rich man. Matthew 27 records that Jesus was buried in the tomb of a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea.
Isaiah 53:11 says he will see the light of life. All of the gospels say that Jesus was raised from the dead.
Zechariah 12:10 says he would be pierced through his hands and feet. John 20:27 says Jesus, after his resurrection, told Thomas to look at his pierced hands and feet, and to believe!
Understand that these prophets wrote hundreds of years before Christ, yet statement after statement that they made are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. What are the mathematical odds of that happening by accident? Very slim, indeed! No wonder Jesus said, “you search the scriptures, and they testify about me.”
III. WHY TRUST IN JESUS?
Despite this weight of evidence, many people still refuse to believe in Jesus. Jesus told them, “you refuse to come to me to have life.”
Why would you refuse to come to Jesus? You have every reason to believe him. What the Bible says about him is true. You can trust the Bible. What Jesus said about himself is true. You can trust Jesus.
You can’t say that of many people. King George II said in 1773 that the American colonies had little stomach for revolution. An English astronomy professor in the 19th century said it would be impossible to travel by air at high speeds, because passengers would suffocate. In 1939 the New York Times said that American’s wouldn’t take the time to watch TV, because they had to keep their eyes glued to the screen. (The World’s Worst Predictions, cited on the web site, www.bible.org.)
Dr. Bruce Metzger is professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. He has written 50 books on the New Testament. He is probably the most brilliant scholar and greatest expert on the New Testament in the world. When a reporter asked him if his scholarship had diluted his faith, he said, “On the contrary, it has built it. I’ve asked questions all my life, I’ve dug into the text, I’ve studied this throughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has been well placed. Very well placed.”
People have been wrong before, and they will be wrong again. But you can search the scriptures, and you can trust them, because they point to Jesus Christ. Why not trust him with your life?
Sermon preached at First Baptist Church of Rincon, GA
May 21, 2000 A.M.
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