John 5:39

Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me.

Ye search the Scriptures ... is not a command for his hearers so to do, but a recognition of their familiarity with the Old Testament. The significance of this is seen in the preceding verse, where it was stated that these learned leaders did not have God's word in them at all, in spite of the fact that they were in a sense familiar with it. If they had known God's word, they would have recognized and received the true Word of God in Jesus Christ. God's holy revelation, however the Jewish rulers might have been familiar with the syllables of it, simply had no place at all in their hearts. For a full study of the witness of the Jewish Scriptures to the Lord Jesus Christ, see my Commentary on Romans, p. 106.

KNOWING THE SCRIPTURES AND YET NOT KNOWING THEM

The paradox of knowing the Scriptures and yet not knowing them still exists; and it is therefore imperative for all men to take heed to know the word of the Lord truly. Knowing the common traditions with reference to it is not enough. Simply knowing what is written without believing cannot avail. Familiarity with sacred words may exist in a foul and degenerate heart. Those people to whom Jesus spoke these teachings had perverted their knowledge of the word of God in such a manner as to remove all true knowledge of it. And how had they done so?

1. They had made the word of God of none effect by their traditions; and a perfect example of that was in the episode here under study, these men having substituted their own petty and ridiculous rules in the place of God's true sabbath law.

2. They had also changed the meaning of the words God had given them. God had promised a Messiah whose paradoxical qualities of glory and humiliation should have been sufficient to identify him when he came; but the hierarchy promptly projected two Messiahs, making one of them the lowly and suffering priest, and the other the mighty conqueror who would chase the Romans and restore the Solomonic empire.

3. They rejected out of hand many of the plainest prophecies, especially those projecting the call of the Gentiles to salvation (Romans 9:25-29). No exhaustive treatment of so vast a subject is in order here; but this is enough to show that true knowledge of God's word is a far different thing from familiarity with Scriptural texts.

There are one-third of one thousand (!) specific promises in the Old Testament pointing to the unerring identification of Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ of glory; but these searchers (!) disbelieved, perverted, and rejected the last one of them. In spite of that, the Old Testament still bears witness of Jesus Christ across centuries and millenniums of time; and those Old Testament Scriptures are far more than enough to convince any unbiased person who will take the trouble to know them, that Jesus Christ is indeed the Christ and Saviour of all the world.