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Jesus’s Estimate of the Old Testament 109
blindness, then no mere external miracle, observed by the physical eyes,
will remove the blindness (John 5:38; 10:25).
“If You Believed Moses”
The second occasion where Jesus called attention to the peculiar nature
of the Old Testament as a kind of litmus test for a person’s openness to
other truth is John 5:39–47. Jesus said to the Jewish leaders,
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have
eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse
to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from
people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.
I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. . . . If
you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But
if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?
This again shows that blindness to the Old Testament witness to Jesus
is the same blindness that keeps a person from recognizing Jesus when
he comes. This means that Jesus believed there was a kind of selfauthenticating
beauty and truth in the Old Testament that proved to be
the litmus test of whether you were spiritually prepared to see the glory
of Christ when he reveals himself in history and in the gospel. This is
one of the highest estimates that can be given to the Old Testament—the
estimate of Jesus.
Jesus Saw His Life, Death, and Resurrection
as a Fulfillment of Scripture
We have already seen that Jesus fully expected everything written in the
Old Testament, including its smallest affirmations, to be fulfilled:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I
have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to
you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will
pass from the Law until all is accomplished. (Matt. 5:17–18)
What we have not seen yet is the pervasive way Jesus not only predicts
such fulfillment of Scripture but also points out repeatedly during his
life when and how it was happening. Here are a few examples.