1734. What Christ Taught Concerning the Major Prophets
What Christ Taught Concerning the Major Prophets
"He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me" (Mar_7:6).
The radicals delight in discounting Isaiah's authorship. They speak of their two Isaiahs. They parade their "J" and their "P" and their "E." They can almost split a verse in twain and claim for it two distinctive writers. They dwell upon "redactors" and "copyists."
Our Lord, however, never questioned Isaiah or any of the Prophets. He believed that they were all inspired of God.
Let us quote five statements of Christ concerning the Prophets.
Our first passage concerns Isaiah: "Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites" (Mar_7:6). Christ quoted from Isaiah with open faith in his message. He went into the synagogue at Nazareth, and when the roll of the Prophet Isaiah was given unto Him, He read its words, and then He said: "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears" (Luk_4:21).
Our second passage refers to many of the Prophets. On various occasions Christ spoke of distinctive prophecies thus; "That the Scripture should be fulfilled" (see Mat_1:22; Mat_2:15,Mat_2:23; Mat_8:17; Mat_12:17; Mat_13:35; Mat_21:4; Mat_27:35; Joh_12:38; Joh_15:25; Joh_17:12; Joh_19:24,Joh_19:28, Joh_19:36; etc.).
There is no doubt but that the Lord Jesus believed and taught the inerrancy of the Old Testament Prophets. He believed that the things spoken by the Prophets would of necessity, be fulfilled. He never relegated them to the scrap pile as the mere imaginations of eccentric and excited men. He never spake of their prophecies as "the poetic fancies of the writers."
Our third passage refers to the Psalm. "Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your Law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the Word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken!" (Joh_10:34-35).
The words above are quoted from Psa_82:6. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke of this passage as "the Word of God;" then, He added, "And the Scripture cannot be broken."
It is nothing for the radicals, with Jehoiakim's scorn, to penknife the Bible. They slash it mercilessly; they slur it shamefully. The Lord Jesus, however, reverentially declares, "the Scriptures cannot be broken."
Our Lord said of David's words; "How then doth David in spirit call Him Lord?" (Mat_22:43).
David was the sweet Psalmist of Israel, but David did not pen his praises from his fertile brain; neither did David copy his sonnets from ancient lore–he wrote as he was moved along by the Spirit of God; he wrote under Divine inspiration.
Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR