Knowledge Is Not Life
Scripture: John 5:37-40
In the previous lesson, we were working on John 5:37: “And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen.” “His voice you have never heard” has been interpreted in various ways, but it seems that the main intent was to reprove the Jews for not believing the evidence that he was the Messiah. Jesus is implying that God had given them sufficient evidence of who he was in the Scriptures, but they chose to ignore it. All throughout the Old Testament, the Jews were instructed by God, but they refused to obey. We find an example in Deuteronomy 4, when Moses and the people “came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. 12 Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice” (Deuteronomy 4:11 – 12 ESV). The Lord gave them the ten commandments, but we find them making calf of gold and worshipping it.
“His form you have never seen” does not mean God himself, but to some visible manifestation of himself, like the burning bush, the appearance of the cloud that rested on the tabernacle, and the Holy Spirit appearing in the bodily shape of a dove. These manifestations and appearances they disregarded and perverted the testimony of God.
Jesus continues speaking and says: Jn 5:38 “you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.” That which God had spoken to them, they did not regard or obey it. God had foretold them that the Messiah would come and what to look for, but they formed their own ideas about the Messiah and when he came in the person of Jesus they were unwilling to accept him or believe him. No matter the kind of miracle Jesus performed or the power or authority he commanded in them, the Jews refused to believe and wanted to destroy him; the Messiah the Scriptures spoke of.
Jesus continues the pressure against them and says: Jn 5:39 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” The Jews were students of the Scripture and believed that by knowing it they had eternal life, but knowledge of the Word does not by itself impart life. Those Scriptures simply bear witness to the One who gives life, namely, Jesus.
A danger that I face in studying the Scriptures each day in preparing these bible studies is that I grow in knowledge, but the gap can grow between that knowledge and its application to my life and my obedience to it. I must carefully monitor that gap and keep in under control. The Jews allowed the gap to grow and when Jesus appeared they were unprepared for him and would not come to him, the source of life spoken of in the Scriptures they studied.
What is your relationship to the Scriptures? Is it a verse here and there as given in a devotional you are reading? Do you have a reading plan? To what extent are you applying 2 Timothy 2:15 (ESV) to your life: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”?
Conclusion
In areas of persecution, people are willing to risk their lives to own a Bible or even a portion of it, because it is so important to them. We may have several copies, but I wonder how much we are willing to sacrifice to keep a copy for daily study if persecution were to come upon us. What level of sacrifice or risk are we willing to take as our demonstration to the world of the value the Bible is to us?
Anchor My Faith 
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