John 5:45-47 45Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, Moses, on whom you have put your hope. 46For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for that one wrote about me. 47But if you do not believe the writings of that one, how will you believe my words?”
By this point in Jesus’ speech, the Jews were like feeling uncomfortable and even angry. No one likes their long-held and cherished beliefs and practices criticized. Jesus’ words should have brought conviction. There are responses to conviction: to accept, repent, and change, or to ignore and harden one’s heart. The Jews had to make a decision about what to do with Jesus.
When the day of judgment comes, Jesus will be the judge, but the evidence he will use for the Jews is Moses, referring to their effort to keep the law. Jesus did not come to condemn them but to save them (3:17). They would condemn themselves by their rejection of the only way to eternal life. They had become deceived somehow over the centuries into thinking that Moses, or the law, would save them. The law is good and has its purpose, but there is only one source of hope.
Verse 46 is another significant connection between the claims of the New Testament and the prophecies of the Old Testament. The Old Testament Scriptures were important to the Jews. After the destruction of the temple in 587 B.C., the exiled Jews turned more to their Scriptures than the temple sacrifices, though these were reinstated later. The Jewish diaspora could not easily, if ever, get to the rebuilt second temple, but they could at least read copies of their Scriptures. Jesus points out the problem of the Jews in the temple that day that they could not see how Moses and the law prepared for the Messiah. That was another level of theology that they could not understand, although those with faith could.
Jesus makes a clear connection between the Torah and himself. To believe in the Torah and all it represented was linked to believing what he taught. Christians must understand the whole Bible and see how the Old Testament is the crucial first chapter. Jews must see the New Testament as the second chapter in the same book.
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