Tonight, 3/14 at 7:30pm EST we hold the seventh lecture of a 10-week series on the Biblical basis for the theology we call the Providential Preservation of Scripture. Lecture 7 considers the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 24:35 and John 10:35. Of Matthew 24:35 James Morrison, in his commentary on Matthew observes,
“What an immeasurable height here must have been within the self-consciousness of our Lord, when he thus contrasted the imperishableness of his own words with the perishableness of the heaven and earth! It is to his prediction in the preceding verse that he specially refers. Its fulfillment might be absolutely depended on. It would not fail. It was not liable to any casualty or transformation. And what was true of the words of this prediction, is equally true of all our Savior’s words,–of the sum total of his teachings. ‘The grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth away,’ the sun and moon and stars shall pass away, ‘but the word of the Lord endureth forever.'” (1 Pet. I, 25.)[1]
John 10:35 deals with the plenary inspiration and preservation of Scripture utilized by Jesus as an defense of His equality with the Father. After Jesus says in John 10:30, “I and my Father are one,” in verse 31 the Jews take up stones to stone him. Jesus asks in verse 32 for which of his good works do they stone him, a timely question on the heels of the healing of the man born blind in chapter 9. The Jews reply in verse 33 that it is not for his good works they stone him but for blasphemy in that Jesus calls himself God. It is in Jesus’ reply to the false accusation of blasphemy that we read Jesus’ defense of his oneness with the Father in verses 34 and 35. Of primary significance in the context of this passage is Jesus’ use of a Psalm of Asaph, chapter 82, verse 6, which reads, “I have said, Ye are gods” referring to the princes of Israel. Secondarily, drawn from Jesus’ use of Psalm 82:6 we see the plenary authority of Scripture. It is upon one word “gods” that Jesus defends his deity, and synecdochally the absolute authority of one word, or the part, stands for the absolute authority of the whole of Scripture. Thirdly, and in keeping with the theme of this series, we will note that the entirety of this argument is established and accepted by Jesus and the Jews based on what was written in “your law,” in verse 34, or the copy of the law that the Jews had in hand during the earthly ministry of Jesus.
Don’t miss this important study of the ramification and significance of the preserved word in Matthew 24:35 and John 10:35 tonight, 3/14, 7:30 EST.
[1] James Morrison, Matthew’s Memoirs of Jesus Christ: or a Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew (Hamilton, Adams and Co., 1873), 531. http://0-search.ebscohost.com.newlibrary.wts.edu/login.aspxdirect=true&db=h7h&AN=36332946&site=ehost-live.
Standard Sacred Text.com 