Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life:

and they are they which testify of me." (John 5:39) .

Now in our eighth year of publication, we are faced with the reality that many still maintain a "Dispensational" viewpoint. This is very sad. Fortunately, many have come to a knowledge of the truth, but our hearts are grieved for those who have not.

Occasionally we are criticized for making an issue of such teachings as Dispensationalism. While some of the critics have been very sincere in their evaluations and beliefs, we must hold firm to our belief that Jesus meant what he said when he made the statement, "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." (John 5:39)

Strange wording isn’t it? "...for in them ye think ye have eternal life:..."

What was Jesus conveying to this group of Jews? If we look back a few verses to the beginning of John 5, we see where Jesus healed a man who was lying by the pool called, "Bethesda." This man had been afflicted with his disabilities for 38 years. Generally speaking, healing is a good thing, but the Jews were not happy because Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Did Jesus have a lapse in memory? Had he forgotten that it was the Sabbath? Not hardly.

Jesus always knew exactly what He was doing. So keep that in mind as part of the background for this strange statement, "...for in them ye think ye have eternal life..."

Jesus had set the stage for the Jews to come face to face with the most important fact of Scripture: Jesus Himself.

Although the Jews had struggled with the acceptance of Jesus as Messiah, his Messiahship was not what caused them to fully reject Him and accuse Him of blasphemy. The Jews had been expecting a messiah. They wanted one, but their idea of that messiah was an earthly concept. They were looking for a man, purely human and not at all divine. At times they asked Him, "...If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." (John 10:24) There is nothing emotional seen in their request, but when Jesus shifted the focus away from Himself as a human messiah and began to indicate his divinity, the Jews took up stones to stone him.

It seems they could, with some difficulty perhaps, accept Him as an earthly messiah, but they could not deal with the concept of Jesus being God. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, their law demanded that anyone who claimed to be God was guilty of blasphemy and was to be put to death. It sounds like a self-defeating law. When the real Messiah appeared, their only recourse was to kill Him. When they viewed Jesus as someone who may be trying to show himself to be the True Messiah, they choked, but continued to breathe. But when the possibility was presented to them that Jesus was, in fact, God, they could no longer bear to hear him.

Later, in the temple, Jesus was confronted by the Jews because he had healed on the Sabbath day. In fact they,"... sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day." (John 5:16)

The reality that Jesus has committed an act that stirred the Jews to a point of execution did not seem to bother Him. Jesus was not yet finished with what He wanted to show them, as we see in the next two verse: "But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God." (John 5:17-18)

Now begins one of the most profound passages in the entire Bible. Jesus proceeded to play with their minds. He tells them nothing but Truth, but in their Pharisaical attitude it was Truth they were unable to grasp.

Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth: and he will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. (John 5:19-20)

From there he hammers home many proofs of His Deity and presents two fundamental characteristics that belong to God only. Jesus confronts them with the knowledge that:

Why is that power to Judge given to the Son? If you missed it, go back and read verse 23 again. (Or keep reading and it will be explained to you.)

Jesus is given the power to Judge so that all men will honor Him with the same honor given to the Father. Not a divided honor. Not a different honor, but "...even as they honour the Father." When you stand before a judge, you are at his mercy. Your future is in his hands. If there is anything you don’t want to do, it is to anger the judge. If there was anything they did not want, it was for Jesus to be their Judge.

If there is any One we must fear, it is the One who has the power to judge us and to cast us into Hell.

Jesus made it very plain that HE is the Key. We are either with Him or against Him. In order for us to be presented on judgment day to God in a favorable light, we must know Jesus as the One True God.

In all of this, Jesus is establishing the fact that He is the central figure. That if anything matters, He matters. If we have any hope, it is only in Him.

What was He saying? Anyone who hears the word of the Son, and because of the Son, believes on the Father, anyone who is able to see God in Jesus. If a person truly is able to examine the Son, and see the Almighty God in the Son, that person will have enough revelation that he cannot help but to take up his cross and follow Him.

One of the greatest revelations we can receive is the Oneness of God. There are many people who accept the Oneness of God without having the full revelation. They are to be pitied. Because when one clearly understands that Jesus is God in flesh, that person will be changed, and will never be the same again. Could it be that many backsliders never got the full revelation of the Oneness of God?

It may be hard to grasp the reality that the voice of Jesus, the voice that spoke so tenderly to Mary in the garden, that wept outside the tomb of Lazarus, that voice that came from the cross and said, "Woman, behold thy son!" that it will be that same voice that will exercise power over death and the grave to call the dead back to life.

The one who gives Life is God. Jesus says, "I am the Life-giver." He wanted to be sure they understood that He has the power to raise the dead, and that He has the power to Judge all men at the final judgment. That He has the power of God. Because He is God.

In verses 34-38, Jesus states His witness comes from the Father, not from men as was the case with John the Baptist. Therefore, Jesus declared "...But I have greater witness than that of John:..." (John 5:36) "And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me...." (John 5:37)

That brings us back to John 5:39: Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

There is divine truth in that verse. Search the scriptures. That’s a command. Look diligently and see if you have eternal life in the scriptures. If that is where you find eternal life, then you have missed the boat. The Scriptures are there to testify of Jesus Christ and to lead us to Him. We find salvation in Jesus, not in the words of the Book. That is the message Jesus was trying to get across to the Pharisees.

We love the Bible, but our salvation in not in the printed words. The purpose of Scripture is to lead us to Jesus Christ. In Him we find salvation. In Him we have eternal life. The Pharisees were counting on finding their salvation in the letter of the Law. Jesus had other plans.

In the next four verses, Jesus explains their problem with verse 44: How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?

There were only concerned with the honor and glory they could receive from one another and not from God. We live in a world where people thrive on praise from their peers. The world has it’s Oscars and Emmys, while the church has its Dove awards, etc. Men love the praise of other men. Skeptical? Look at the next church conference you attend and behold the accolades given from preacher to preacher.

But naturally the Jews would say: "These are very extraordinary and apparently extravagant claims to make. It is not easily credible that this voice which now so quietly speaks to us is one day going to wake the dead. It is not easy to believe that one whom we can carry before our courts is also going to judge all men at the last day."

To these thoughts Jesus replied (paraphrased), "I do not expect you to take My word for these things, but there are three guarantees of My truth to which I now point you:"

"A man whose prophetic gift you accepted and prided yourselves in. You rejoiced that God had sent you such a powerful and enlightening messenger." Jesus explained that John’s whole function was to testify of Him. This lamp was lit solely for the purpose of allowing the Jews to see that which they now say they cannot see.

But this is not the best witness of the deity of Christ, although those who could not see for themselves might have been saved if only they would believe John’s testimony.

Jesus said that he had a greater witness than that of John. John said that Jesus should come as the Father’s agent. Well, if you cannot believe John’s words, can’t you at least believe the things you see? This impotent man was healed. Isn’t this a little hint of the Divine power that is in your midst?

Jesus could ask, "And are not all the works I do the Father’s works, done by His power and for His purposes? Is not my entire life its own best evidence?"

The Father Himself has borne witness of Jesus. The Father has not appeared to the Jews. They have not heard His voice nor seen His shape, but only His word. Many people have a lot of "Knowledge" of Him. They search the Scriptures, and rightly so, for they are they which testify of Christ. They are the Father’s words, which if the Jews had listened to, they would have known Jesus and would have known that the Father has sent Him.

Had the Jews not nibbled only at the husk of the Scriptures, counting its letters and wearing it on their foreheads, but had they understood His purpose on earth, had they, through all that Scripture told them of Him, learned His nature, and learned to love Him, they would at once have recognized Jesus as their Messiah.

They didn’t have His word abiding in them; they have not let it abide in their minds and taken root; they have not chewed, digested and assimilated the very essence of it, for had they done so they would have learned to know God and would have seen Him in Christ. But, "whom He sent, Him ye believed not."

The very Scriptures which had been given to guide them to Christ they used as a veil to blind themselves to His presence. Jesus points out where they made their mistake. (Again paraphrasing), "You search the Scriptures, because you suppose that in them, a mere book, you have eternal life; The truth being that life is in Me. The Scriptures do not give life, they lead to the Life-giver.

"The Scriptures, by your superstitiously reverent and shallow use of them, actually prevent you from finding the life they were meant to point you to. You think you have life in them, and therefore will not come to Me."

A book, lifted out of its subordinate place, can be entirely perverted from its use, and actually hinder the purpose it was given to promote.

To worship the Bible as if it were Christ is to mistake a door-post for a house of shelter. It is possible to have a great zeal for the Bible and yet to completely miss its purpose. To misunderstand its intent is both useless and dangerous.

To set printed Word on a level with Jesus Christ Himself is to do a grave injustice to the Bible, to the Lord, and even to ourselves and others. Many who seem to exalt the Scriptures actually degrade them; and those who give them a subordinate place to Christ truly exalt them.

God speaks in Scripture, as this passage illustrates, but He speaks for a definite purpose. That purpose is to reveal Himself as God, the Savior, the Christ.

When we understand that the full purpose of all Scripture is to reveal Jesus Christ, then we have renewed hope of overcoming the difficulties of understanding other aspects of the Bible.

The unbelief of the Jews is traced by Jesus to a moral root. They seemed very zealous for God’s law, but beneath this superficial and flamboyant system of worship, there is found a deep-seated alienation from God which left them unfit for knowing Him.

"I receive not honour from men." (Verse 41)

Jesus pointed out that their problem was that they didn’t have the love of God in them, and were not able to appreciate Divine glory or recognize it when they saw it. How could they believe when their hearts craved only the glory they could give to one another?

How can one believe when one’s ambitions rise no higher than to be praised by other people as the upholders of religion?

They taught themselves to measure men by their own false and prideful standard. They have so blinded themselves that they cannot believe in one who really does show forth the glory of God.

Had someone come in his own name, seeking a glory the Jews could give him, adapting himself to their diminished conceptions, him they would have received. But this one who came seeking not his own glory, they could not receive.

But Jesus, being God in the flesh, had the glory of God, and while doing the Father’s work, never sought His own glory. Therefore, these Pharisees could not believe in Jesus. Their idea of glory was earthly, and they were unfitted to see and appreciate such glory as He showed in his many deeds of kindness. And the things Jesus said penetrated deeply into their permanent roots of unbelief.

Jesus made a great demand on their faith. He asked them to believe that the two most Divine of all prerogatives, Life-Giving and Judging, belonged to Him.

But He also gave them evidence. He only asked them to believe what they had already seen exemplified. He did not blame them for not seeing His Divinity. But He offered evidence to the extent that "they may be saved;" that they may be persuaded to partake of the "Life" He so greatly desired to give them.

He lamented that they did not believe that He was authorized to speak words of life to men, although He gave them proof of His power to give life.

To us He also speaks— for plainly such powers as He possesses are not such as can be casually given and withdrawn, rendered accessible to one age but not to another, exhibited on earth once but never more to be exercised.

They are not powers that could be given to more than one messenger of God. To suppose more than one source of spiritual life or more than one seat of judgment is against all reason.

There is only one God. My prayer is that we may all have the full revelation of the Oneness of God. Not a trinity of persons. But One Lord, One Faith, and One Baptism. And that we might understand there are but two covenants and not multiple dispensations.

When Jesus willingly sacrificed His life on Calvary, the second covenant went into force and the first was forever made null and void.

Dispensationalism teaches the doctrine of the Trinity. The Apostolic New Covenant message destroys the false doctrine of Dispensationalism. [][][][]