Sermons
What Did Jesus Believe about the Bible?
What Did Jesus Believe About the Bible?
Introduction: We who are Christians believe that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible word of God. The men who wrote the Bible were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:20-21), the very words they wrote were the words the Holy Spirit taught (1 Cor. 2:13), and since the words are God’s words, they are infallible and authoritative. This is what we believe about the Bible. But not all people believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. They believe there are errors and contradictions in the Bible, and certainly not the authoritative word of God. Even some people who claim to be Christians do not believe in the inerrancy and authoritative nature of the Bible.
In deciding a question such as this, it is always appropriate to ask: “What did Jesus believe?” You may be surprised to learn that we know exactly what Jesus believed about the Bible. We know from His teachings what He believed.
In this lesson we want to talk about “What Did Jesus Believe About the Bible?”
We need to keep in mind that the Bible of Jesus’ day was what we now call the Old Testament. Jesus lived under the covenant that God made with Israel, and under the law of that covenant, which was the law of Moses. The New Testament Scriptures had not been written as yet. The New Covenant was dedicated by the death of Christ, and the New Testament Scriptures were then written by the apostles and prophets of the New Covenant. But what did Jesus believe about the Scriptures that He lived under? We know from His teachings what He believed about them. Our point today is that what Jesus believed about the Scriptures is what we should believe about the Scriptures. Since Jesus is our Lord, we should have the same belief and understanding of the Bible that He did.
I. Jesus Considered Its Stories Accurate.
A. The story of Adam and Eve;
The story of Noah and the flood;
The story of Lot and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed by fire;
The story of Jonah being swallowed by a great fish
1. Jesus considered all these stories to be historical accounts of what actually occurred.
2. Many today consider these stories to be just allegories rather than actual historical events, but
Jesus believed them to be history.
B. Jesus based His teaching concerning marriage on what happened in the garden of Eden recorded in
Genesis chapters one and two. Gen. 1:27 & 2:24 are quoted by Jesus in Matt. 19:3-6
1. Jesus gives His stamp of approval of the Genesis account of creation and the events recorded
there concerning Adam and Eve.
C. He said His coming would be as in the days of Noah. Luke 17:26-27
1. Jesus believed in the historicity of Noah and the flood.
D. He compared His coming to the day when Lot went out of Sodom and fire and brimstone rained
from heaven and destroyed them. Luke 17:28-32
1. Jesus corroborates this story and even refers to Lot’s wife turning back.
E. He said he would give a sign that He is from God - the sign of Jonah. Matt. 12:40-41
1. Jesus validates the story of Jonah, that he was in the belly of the great fish and that the people of
Nineveh repented at his preaching.
F. It is obvious that Jesus took literally these stories which are the most ridiculed and allegorized
stories in the Bible.
II. Jesus Considered Its Words Inspired of God.
A. Mark 7:9-13
1. Notice, in verse 10 Jesus quotes from two passages of Scripture written by Moses –
Exodus 20:12 “Honor you father and your mother…”
Exodus 21:17 “And he who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.”
2. Jesus calls what Moses had written “the word of God” in verse 13.
He calls them “the commandment of God” in verse 9.
3. Jesus understood that these scriptures written by Moses were inspired of God. These Scriptures
according to Jesus are the very words of God.
B. Matthew 22:43-44
1. Jesus quotes from Psalm 110:1.
2. He says that what David wrote in Psalm 110:1 was written “in the Spirit.”
3. Jesus understood that what David wrote was moved by the Holy Spirit. He believed this
passage to be inspired of God.
C. This is in keeping with what His apostles of the New Testament wrote.
1. 2 Tim. 3:15-16 The “Holy Scriptures” that Timothy had access to from the time he was a
child were the Old Testament Scriptures. Paul says that these Scriptures are inspired of God.
2. 2 Peter 1:20-21 Peter also affirmed that these scriptures are inspired of God.
D. There is no question that Jesus and His apostles believed that the Old Testament Scriptures were
the very words of God.
III. Jesus Considered Its Original Text Pure.
A. Many people today believe that the Bible has been corrupted and is filled with errors and
contradictions. Not Jesus.
B. Matthew 5:17-18
1. Jesus is talking about the Law of Moses that is recorded in the Old Testament Scriptures. These
Scriptures were originally written in the Hebrew language. The “jot” was the smallest letter
in the Hebrew alphabet, and the “tittle” was a small part of a Hebrew letter, corresponding to
our dot of an “i” or cross of a “t”.
2. Jesus had such respect for every word of the written Law that He said that not one jot or one
tittle would pass from it till all was fulfilled.
C. Matt. 22:31-32
1. He also considered the text sufficiently pure to permit Him to base an argument for the
resurrection on the tense of a verb.
2. In this passage Jesus quotes from Exodus 3:6 when God said to Moses at the burning bush “I
am the God of your father -- the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,”
At this time Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were dead. But God says, “I am” (present tense) their
God. And then Jesus said, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,” proving that
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were still living even after their physical death. They continued to
live in that their spirits continued to live. This consequently proves a resurrection.
3. Jesus’ argument here hinges on the present tense of the verb “I am.” He could make an
argument such as this because He believed the very words of the text to be pure and to
represent exactly what God wanted His people to know.
IV. Jesus Considered Its Canon Complete.
A. What do we mean by the “canon of scripture?” The word canon came to mean a list or an index.
When it is applied to the Bible it denotes the list of books which are recognized as Holy Spirit
inspired books. Jesus believed that the canon of the Old Testament scriptures was complete.
B. Jesus did not talk about lost books, nor did He accuse the Jews of omitting inspired books. They
had the same books that we have in our Old Testament Scriptures, though they arranged them
differently. In the Jewish Hebrew text, the first book was Genesis and the last book was
2 Chronicles. All the books we have were there, but they were arranged differently.
C. Luke 11:49-51 Abel is mentioned in Genesis (the first book of the Jewish Hebrew text, Gen.
4:8), and Zechariah is mentioned in 2 Chronicles (the last book of the Hebrew text 2 Chron.
24:20-22). Zechariah was not the last prophet to be killed (consider Jere. 26:20-24). But Jesus
seems to be pointing to the first and the last prophets killed in their Scriptures. Thus, Jesus is
giving His approval of the collection of books from A to Z, from Genesis to 2 Chronicles.
[1. There is some question about who the Zechariah is that Jesus is referring to in this passage.
Some people think He is referring to Zechariah the writing prophet who lived during the
return from captivity period (based on Matt. 23:35; note also Ezra 5:1; Zech. 1:1).
But there is no record of this Zechariah being murdered in the court of the house of the LORD.
It seems that Jesus is referring to prophets that His audience would have known to have been
murdered (2 Chr. 24:20-22).]
D. Luke 24:44 Jesus also used the usual Jewish classification of the Old Testament books when He
spoke of them as “the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms.”
1. “The Law, the Prophets and the Psalms” was the way the Jews divided their Scriptures, which
are the same 39 books that we have, though arranged differently.
2. Jesus did not make reference to any other books.
E. Now, there were other religious books written during the period of the Old Testament in addition to
the 39 books that we have. There were about 15 books written between 250 B.C. and 100 A.D.
that are now called apocrypha because they are not considered to have divine authority.
1. Some of these books are included in the Roman Catholic Bible, and are, therefore, considered
by them to be inspired of God.
2. But the Jews, including Jesus, did not recognize these books to be inspired of God. Jesus
believed the canon of Scriptures that the Jews had was complete.
V. Jesus Considered Its Teaching Infallible and Authoritative.
A. Luke 22:37
1. The statement “And He was numbered with the transgressors” is a quote from Isaiah 53:12.
2. Jesus said that this which is written must be fulfilled in Him. He believed this statement to be
infallible.
B. Luke 24:44
1. Jesus believed what was written in the Scriptures had fulfillment.
C. John 10:34-35
1. Jesus quotes a passage of scripture, and then He says, “and the Scripture cannot be broken.”
2. He, therefore, believed the Scriptures to be infallible and authoritative.
Conclusion: From all this it is clear that Jesus believed in the inerrancy and infallibility of the Scriptures which He had in His day. The question is, “How should we view Scripture?” Shouldn’t we believe what Jesus believed: that the stories of the Bible are accurate, the words of the Bible are inspired of God, its original text is pure, and its teachings are infallible and authoritative?
