You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
Jesus has healed a man on the Sabbath and called God His own Father, and now men want Him dead. He answers by calling witnesses, and the last is the book His accusers trusted most — so how could they read it and still miss the life it points to?
The Fourth Witness
The verse does not stand alone. It closes a list of witnesses the Lord builds through this chapter.
W. T. P. WolstonIn this chapter the Lord brings forward four witnesses to Himself, and it is very important that you and I pay attention to what Jesus says. (1) John the Baptist bore witness of Him. (2) The works the Father gave Him to finish bear witness of Him — a greater witness than John's. (3) And then again, the Father Himself, who sent Him, has borne witness of Him. (4) And last of all, the Scriptures bear witness of Him.
Command or Statement?
Some translations read "Search the Scriptures" as a command. The same words can also describe what these men already did. One commentator says the difference matters little.
William KellyIt makes little practical difference whether we read it as "you search the Scriptures" or as "search the Scriptures." The context decides that it is an appeal, as others have well said, rather than a command. They were not so foolish as to think they had eternal life in themselves. They looked for it in the Scriptures, and so they were in the habit of searching them, as they do, more or less, to this day.
The Key That Unlocks the Old Testament
The witness Jesus points to covers the whole Old Testament, not a few scattered predictions. Later in the same conversation He names Moses in particular.
F. B. HoleVerse 39 applies to all the Old Testament Scriptures: they bear witness about Christ. Verse 46 points to the early books written by Moses, and he wrote of Christ. This, then, is the key that unlocks the whole Old Testament. Its main theme is the Christ who was to come.
Right Instinct, Wrong Address
These men were not wrong to look for life in the Bible. Their mistake was narrower than that.
The Bible TreasuryThe Scriptures, as the Jews judged, were the storehouse of life; and in this they judged rightly. Their error was that they mistook where in the Scriptures the life lay. They thought it lay in the law God had given them, so that life belonged to them alone. But we know it really lay in "the testimony of Jesus," who is the Life.
What Scripture Is For
The verse settles what Bible study is for. Reading that ends anywhere but Christ has failed, however thorough it was.
F. B. HoleThey thought they had eternal life in the Scriptures, but Christ is the Giver of it, and to Him they would not come. If searching the Scriptures brings men to Christ, then they do have eternal life through the Scriptures. If not, they only gain knowledge of a technical, theological sort and remain in spiritual death.
Another writer points to the motive behind their search.
L. M. GrantThey did search the Scriptures, but not to honestly seek the mind of God. They searched only because they wanted eternal life without truly submitting to God. So men may know a great deal about the truth of the Bible and still be complete strangers to the word of God.
Will, Not Ability
The next verse names the real obstacle: they refuse to come to Him. One writer weighs an older translation's wording, "you will not come."
Hamilton SmithThe Lord does not say, "You cannot come," but "You will not come." It is true that man is dead in trespasses and sins and cannot come. It is just as true that he is alive in sins and will not come.
Where Christ Is Still Met
For a reader today, the verse turns from rebuke into invitation. It names the one place where we still meet Christ.
Edward DennettThe only place where we can come into contact with Christ is in the written word of God... In the Scriptures we find Christ in every aspect, position, character, and office: Christ in humiliation and rejection, and Christ in exaltation and glory. So the more I read and think about God's word, the more I will learn of Christ.
Summary
- Witness. Scripture is the fourth and final witness Jesus calls, after John the Baptist, His works, and the Father.
- Witness to whom. Its testimony has one subject. The whole Old Testament points to Christ, and Moses wrote of Him.
- Witness misread. They were right to look for life in the Bible. But they looked for it in the law, not in the One the law announced.
- Witness refused. The barrier was not inability but unwillingness. The Lord said they will not come, not that they cannot.
- Witness received. Study that leads to Christ gives life. Study that stops at facts leaves a person expert in the Bible and a stranger to God's word.