“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.”
Two thoughts came to my mind as I was reading John 5 this morning:
(1) The Jews in Jesus’ audience thought that life came through the Scriptures. Repeatedly throughout John, Jesus calls Himself the life and uses imagery involving water and light, both necessary to give life. The Jews in His audience focused so much on the Scripture and finding life there they missed the true Life-Giver.
This causes me to think: Where do I go to find life? Studying? Knowledge? Acceptance? Why am I filling myself with false reflections of life when the true One who gives life is offering it to me freely?
(2) The Jews in Jesus’ audience valued knowledge of the Scriptures more than to whom the Scriptures were pointing. Here when Jesus says “Scriptures” He is referring to the Torah, which are the books in the Old Testament that Moses wrote. Jesus says later in the passage, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me” (John 5:46). They know the Scriptures. They have studied them. But not to learn about God, but to gain knowledge about God. There is only a slight difference in those two statements but it is significant. They have spent all this time gaining knowledge about the Scriptures but have missed the point entirely: that God was raising up a deliverer for His people to bring about His redemptive plan.
Again, this causes me to ask myself why do I study? Is it to gain knowledge about God or to learn about His character, His will and to have Him increase my view of Him? Do I see knowledge as an end or as a means to an end of knowing God fully?
This is something I’ve thought about all summer. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that he prays that they would “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that [they] may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). There is a connection between being “filled with the fullness of God” and “knowing the love of Christ”. I think it is important that Paul points out that the love of Christ “surpasses knowledge.” Christ’s love is more filling, more meaningful, more powerful than mere knowledge of Christ’s love.
Don’t get me wrong. We need to study. We need to read. We need to engage our minds with God’s Word. But the key is motivation. What is my motivation? I don’t want to get so wrapped up in gaining knowledge of God that I miss the whole point: knowing my Heavenly Father intimately, letting Him use me to bring glory to His name and be part of His redemptive plan.
Life is found only in Jesus. I pray we stop going to second things first and instead run our first Love and find true life there.
