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What, therefore, is viewed as Scripture by Christ our Lord, is Scripture to His
servants. If in the estimation of Christ our Master Scripture cannot be broken, then it
shall remain impregnable to His disciples. If we must trust to Him alone for justification
and peace, for present grace and future glory, we must equally trust Him to tell us what
our attitude must be toward the Scriptures. In His presence we bow, and with unfeigned
meekness say: "Speak Lord, for Thy servant heareth."
We now come to the first great fact to be faced. Setting aside for the moment any
conception we may have of the deity of Christ, we learn from His own statements that the
words He spoke and the doctrine He gave were not His own personally, but the Father's.
Consequently if we reject His testimony concerning the truth of the Old Testament, we
are either indirectly charging Him with blasphemy, or we must believe that the Father
endorsed erroneous teaching and mere human tradition. The fact is set out for us with
overwhelming clearness in the Gospel of John:--
"The Jews marveled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?"
(John 7: 15).
The word "knoweth" is oida, and differs from ginosko in that it means to know
intuitively, and without effort. "Letters" (Greek gramma) is used of the five books of
Moses (John 5: 47), and of all Scripture (II Tim. 3: 15). How did the Lord attain to so
profound a knowledge of the Scriptures without ever becoming a disciple of one of the
great Rabbis of His day? Let Him answer: "My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent
Me" (John 7: 16). This doctrine includes the very point before us, for in the self-same
context the Lord Who declared His doctrine to be given by the Father, asserted that
Moses gave the law, and the law of circumcision (John 7: 15-23). Let us hear further:--
"I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father hath taught Me, I speak these things"
(John 8: 28).
"He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that judgeth him: the
word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken
for Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should
say and what I should speak" (John 13: 48, 49).
Can words be set in a more solemn context? In view of the judgment of the last day,
the Lord avers that the words He speaks are the Father's commandment: "He gave Me a
commandment, what I should say", and we have no alternative but to believe that He
obeyed that commandment implicitly:--
"Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I
speak unto you I speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me" (John 14: 10).
Here the claim of the Lord passes our understanding. Here, unlike the prophets of old,
is One not only sent from the Father, but One in perfect union with the Father, so that it
can be said: "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." In connection with that mystic
union the Lord declares He speaks the Word of God: "The word which ye hear is not
Mine, but the Father's which sent Me" (John 14: 24).