Galatians 3:1-9

  • David Fairchild
  • Aug 27, 2006
  • Series: Galatians
Galatians 3:1-9 “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain--if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith-- 6 just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’? 7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’  9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

We’ve been moving through the book of Galatians and really digging into what the Gospel is and what it is not.  Much of our discussion has focused on “what” rather than “why” or “how.”  Paul defends his apostolic authority in chapters 1 and 2, and now in chapters 3 and 4, he is going to defend the theology of the Gospel, and then finish with chapter 5 and 6 by teaching us the outworking of the Gospel on a practical level. 

 

 

When we come to the text it is easy to get lost in the details of the text and miss the subtle nuances that Paul is communicating.  We don’t want to miss the forest for the trees, but every now and again, it is perfectly acceptable for us to stop and stare at a tree to see its beauty.  This will be what we’re doing this morning.  We are going to reread the beginning of the chapter through to verse 9 so that we get the context, then we are going to zoom in and focus on verse 8 and try to pull out a nugget that Paul mentions which many commentators and Christians blow right by.  Don’t worry, we’ll get back to this text again next week so that we don’t miss anything, but this week I want to devote our time and attention to a single verse.

 

 

STUDY

 

 

Verses 1-5 “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain--if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—”

 

 

Last week we looked at this passage and discussed how Paul communicates the way in which we are to be set free from our tendencies to be justified by our performance rather than by Christ’s performance which is credited to us only by faith. 

 

 

It also dealt with the role of the Holy Spirit, what it did and does, and how we get more Spiritual power and see Him have a greater influence in our lives.

 

 

This is a relevant topic in our day and certainly in San Diego .  We are looking for some kind of spiritual experience to validate us.  Most people in San Diego are not atheists.  They are open to a spiritual dynamic as part of their makeup, but aren’t sure as to what that means or how to get it, so they search feverishly to find it in many ways. 

 

 

Paul says that you received the Spirit by hearing the Gospel message with faith, you see God working in your life by hearing the message and believing in faith, and you are perfected and grow in spiritual maturity by hearing the Gospel message with faith.  It can’t be earned, and if you attempt to work to manipulate God and get an experience through things you do or perform rather than by hearing with faith, you will not get the very things you are working so hard to receive.  In other words, the harder you work, the more you are demonstrating you don’t really understand the Gospel, don’t really believe its message, and won’t sense spiritual strength and the presence of God in the measure you desire.  These things come only by seeing with the eyes of your heart the crucified Messiah and believing in the message of the Gospel with faith.  So that, to receive more of the Spirit, you must continue to hear the message with faith, and as you hear with faith, you will sense His presence and see the affect He is having on your life.  It is impossible to be perfected by the flesh, but only by trusting in the Gospel.  The preaching of the Gospel then is the main way to thrive spiritually.  The Gospel supplies faith to believe, then by believing the Gospel more and more you receive more of the spirit!  It’s a beautiful and amazing truth that many of our brothers and sisters are not aware of.  It’s not what you do; it’s what you hear.  It’s the message of the Gospel. How do you understand the Gospel, where do you find it?

 

 

Now, let’s get to the verse that I believe is beautiful and very stunning.

 

 

Verse 8 “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’”

 

 

Let me summarize what this verse is saying: The Scripture preached the Gospel to Abraham. 

 

 

When people begin to say, “where do I find this Gospel,” or, “how do I understand this Gospel,” we are taught a couple of answers from this text.

 

 

1-     We only understand the Gospel through the Scriptures.

 

2-     We only understand the Scriptures through the Gospel. 

 

 

Without the Scriptures, no Gospel, but without the Gospel there is no understanding of the Scriptures.  The Scriptures preached the Gospel to Abraham, which is what the Scriptures are all about!  If you miss this, you’ll miss the meaning of Scripture.  If you don’t understand that every book, every passage, every verse, every story, every example, every piece of history and poetry is about the Gospel, you will end up reading the Gospel to your peril, and perhaps even to your doom.

 

 

Let me unpack this a bit.  Verse 8 is one of the most profound and powerful statements to demonstrate the divine authority of Scripture, as well as the divine nature of Scripture.  This is a grenade to everyone that has come to assume that God doesn’t really care how we feel about the inspiration of His word, its origin, or its divine nature and quality.

 

 

Paul said that the “Scripture, forseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying ‘in you shall all the nations be blessed.’”  Paul is quoting the Scriptures because he is quoting Genesis 12:3.  If you go back to Genesis chapter 3 you’re going to find that it was God who came to Abraham.  And, if you know anything about the Bible, you know that there was no “Scripture” at the time of Abraham.  Moses wrote Genesis and it was years and years after Abraham lived.  He was giving an account and telling the story of Abraham, yet the verse says that the Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and that the Scripture preached the Gospel to Abraham.  How is that possible if there was not Scripture then?  There was no book of Genesis for Abraham to read.  There was only a voice, a voice from God which brought truth to Abraham’s heart, yet Paul says that the Scripture preached to Abraham.  This is stunning because the implications are very, very important.

 

 

Paul is teaching three things about the Scripture.  These three words are words that theologians use to describe certain truths.  I want to use them because I want you to get familiar with them.  Paul is teaching:

 

 

·         The plenary inspiration of the Scriptures

 

·         The infallibility of the Scriptures

 

·         And, the sufficiency of the Scriptures

 

 

What do we mean by “plenary inspiration?”  Essentially, plenary means all, full, or complete.  In other words; the entire Scriptures are inspired.

 

 

Let’s take a look at some passages of Scripture that demonstrate the view of what the authors of Scripture wrote. 

 

 

Paul is not the only one who holds to view.  Jesus in Matthew 19:4-5 says, “He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,  5  and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh”?’”  Here Jesus is quoting Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24.  By Jesus quoting this, He is appealing to the authority of Scripture to make His point, and in doing so, He is saying that “God said this.”  But if you go back to Genesis 2:24, you’ll see that it was simply the author of Genesis who said it.

 

 

Peter holds this view of the inspiration and authority of Scripture.  We see in Acts 4:25, one of the first sermons that was preached by the early church after Pentecost.  Peter preaches and says this: “You (the Lord God), who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David Your servant, said, 'WHY DID THE GENTILES RAGE, AND THE PEOPLES DEVISE FUTILE THINGS?’”  Peter is saying that even though David spoke these words in Psalm 2, it was actually God by the Holy Spirit, speaking through the mouth of David, that David said what he said. 

 

 

Peter also considers Paul’s writings to be the authoritative word of God.  In 2 Peter 3:14-16 we see Peter’s view: “Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.”

 

 

There are many people that will say that they trust what Jesus said in the Scriptures, but they won’t trust Paul, or they won’t trust Job, or Peter, or Ecclesiastes.  They play a game of eeny meeny miney mo, this verse stays, this verse goes, and they play with the Scriptures and delete sections that Jesus and the prophets and Apostles already authenticated.  This is a dangerous game if you’re going to correct God on the job He’s doing as chief editor of the Bible!

 

 

Paul says that the Scripture preached the Gospel, or in other words, God preached the Gospel to Abraham beforehand.  Paul makes this startling claim that the Scripture as this revelatory word, existed before it was actually inscripurated.  He personifies the Scripture because he can not separate the revelation from the Revealer.  What Scripture says, God says; what God says, Scripture says.  They are confluent, or run parallel, they can’t be detached from one another.  Paul speaks of the Scripture as if it had a being and an existence.  It is so divine that it was in existence before it was written.  Paul is making the basic claim that anything that the Scripture says, must be viewed as God saying it, and that it is God’s revelation of Himself and they are joined together. 

 

 

Not only do we see in Scripture that the Scripture has this plenary inspiration in which all of it is inspired, but we also see that it is infallible.  The Scripture is seen as being this divine power in the world before it was actually written down.  When the prophets or apostles sat down to write the word, they didn’t just casually say to themselves “oh I think I’ll write a letter today,” they understood that God was at work in them and through them to use them to communicate His truth. 

 

 

Also, we see in this verse the sufficiency.  The text says that the Scripture foresaw something.  This is spooky because it not only says that Scripture is authoritative and is from God, but that Scripture is a living thing.  Hebrews says this: “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).  Now, in this context it is clear that this is speaking of more than just the written document or word on paper.  This is speaking of Christ and the Word in an interchangeable way.  It is about Christ and it is about God’s Word—the Logos of God.  Again, the two can’t be detached.  This passage also shows us that it is living and active.  It is a living and enduring word (1 Peter 1:23), not a dead letter that needs us to breathe life into it, but alive on its own.  It is also active.  This means that it is effective and powerful.  God’s word has a power to it.  God spoke His word and the universe came into existence.  Then consider what John 1:1-3 says about the Logos and how everything came into being.  Let’s read John 1:14.

 

 

God’s word recreates man dead in transgressions and sins (Eph. 2:1-5). 

 

 

The Bible isn’t a dead word, comparable to a law that is no longer enforced.  Those who refuse to heed and listen to its message will not only experience its power one day, but that it has a sharp edge to it as well.  It is sharper than any two-edged sword.  In the ancient world, this was the sharpest weapon available in the arsenal.  It is a weapon that is pictured as coming out of the mouth of Jesus Christ when He returns on His white horse to judge the living and the dead.  It penetrates.  It judges our thoughts and attitudes, our intentions in every area of our life.  God’s word uncovers what is hidden in secret. 

 

 

Yet it also provides protection.  It is the sword of the Spirit in our armor, it is the word of God (Eph. 6:17).  Do you see the power in that statement?  The Spirit works through the word and the word through the Spirit.  If you ask for peace, you can’t just sit there, you have to think.  The Spirit is an intelligent Spirit and always works through truth, and what the Spirit does is take the truth found in the word about who Christ is and what Christ has done for you, and He makes this truth, this word, radioactive in your heart to get rid of the worry.   

 

 

Paul is teaching us that when we sit down and open the Bible and read it, that we can be as sure about its revelatory power as was Abraham when God spoke out of heaven to him.  There isn’t any difference.  It’s just as powerful.

 

 

Jesus also held the view that all of Scripture was inspired.  There is an amazing example of this where Jesus in John 10:34 is having a discussion with the Pharisees about His divinity, and instead of taking them to Isaiah or some other passage that would clearly explain who He is, He takes them to Psalm 82:6.  I won’t get into the answer, and why Jesus used this verse.  What is significant to me for the point is that He used an obscure passage in the Psalms, which is poetry, and quotes Asaph, who we know almost nothing about, and calls it Law!  “Has it not been written in your Law…?”  This is amazing.  Psalm 82 would not have been considered weighty Law like other parts of Scripture, it was a collection of poetry, and it wasn’t even written by David.  Yet Jesus uses this passage, calls it Law, and then argues for His divinity from it.  An unimportant passage, in a piece of poetry from an obscure author, and Jesus says it’s Law.

 

 

Jesus Christ believes in the sufficiency of Scripture.  Jesus shows this when He speaks at the end of His parable about Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31.  In this parable Christ is speaking through Abraham to a rich man who horded his wealth and did not give it to the poor and is now in hell.  The man is thirsty and in torment and desires for Abraham to send someone to go to his father’s house where he has five brothers who need to be warned about where he is so they can avoid coming there.  Jesus speaks through Abraham in this story and says, “they have Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them” (verse 29).  The man then tells Abraham, no, but if they send someone from the dead, they’ll repent and listen.  Abraham replies, "But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead’” (Luke 16:31). 

 

 

Paul already told us that if an angel from heaven comes to you with a Gospel other than that which He preached, kick him out!  The Bible is sufficient, and it is authoritative.  So much so that even if we have a vision, see someone from the dead, or are introduced to an angel from heaven, if they are not speaking and in agreement with God’s word, they are to be rejected.  Basing your life or major decisions on visions or “words of knowledge” is very dangerous because we treat them as if they are equal to God’s Word.  God works through His Word and if we desire more spiritual vitality, we need to hear and understand the Gospel, the word, which has already been given to us.  As I said last week, most of our spiritual growth comes not from acquiring new things from God, but apprehending what God has already given us.  He has given us His spirit, His Gospel, and His word which teach us about both of them.  In the parable of Abraham and the rich man, essentially what Jesus was saying was that if you’re not going to believe Moses and the Prophets—or in other words, the word of God—why should you believe a spirit or a miracle or vision? 

 

 

Jesus and Paul also agree and believe in the infallibility of Scripture.  The Scriptures are trustworthy.  You can trust every part of it, and you can trust every part of you to it.  To trust God is to trust His word because the word is essentially God made known.  To argue against His word or to deny its truth is to call God a liar. 

 

In the Bible, we have 1800 verses of Jesus’ words.  In those verses, Jesus quotes the word of God over 180 times. 

 

 

After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, "I am thirsty" (John 19:28).  Why does Jesus say this?

 

 

Jesus also cried out from the cross and quoted the word of God in Psalm 22:1. "ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?" that is, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?" (Matthew 27:46). Why does Jesus quote this?  Is it simply to fulfill prophecy?  This shows us that Jesus not only uses Scripture to teach others about God and Himself, but to lead Himself in truth.  He based His human life upon the word of God.  If this is the case for Christ, how can we say that we love Him and desire to grow in Him and yet not believe the word or pursue it like it’s gold? 

 

 

Don’t you see the significance of Jesus quoting the Word in His greatest times of pain and suffering?  When we are in danger or we see someone we love in danger, we don’t have time to contemplate the right response, or think of the right verse.  Whatever we really believe or are thinking, comes out.  For Jesus, when He was stabbed in the heart, he bled Scripture. 

 

 

Don’t you see that to deny the authority, inspiration, and sufficiency of Scripture, is to call Jesus mistaken, a liar, or not in touch with reality.  You can’t have Jesus without Jesus’ view of the Word, since Jesus was the Word made flesh, and Jesus’ view of Scripture is the final authority and standard of what we believe about the word of God.

 

 

How can we dare claim to know Jesus if we doubt any of His word?  How can we say we love Him and yet call Him a liar?  What right do we have to say that we know more about God’s word than the Son of God, the Word made flesh? 

 


This is like someone coming up to you and saying, “I’d like to get to know you,” only for you to respond by saying, “great, I’m a Christian and love Jesus Christ and base my life upon Him.”  The person responds by saying, “that’s fine, but I’d prefer to see you as a New Age person who doesn’t really believe that Jesus is the only way.”  You’d say to the person, “then you really won’t ever know me.”  This is what we do with Jesus when we deny what He said and don’t take His word (all of Scripture) as the final authority, fully sufficient, and completely inspired by His Spirit. 

 

 

All of Scripture was about Jesus, the tabernacle, the Temple , the candlesticks, the showbread, the sacrificial lamb, and everything in Scripture is about Jesus.  It reveals Him.  Therefore, we must not dissect the Bible up and exclude any of it from our learning, since all of it is about Him!

 

 

Let’s look at Jesus authentication of Scriptures inspiration and authority (Taken from Robert L Reymond’s “A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith”):

 

 

CHRIST’S AUTHENTICATION OF SCRIPTURE

 

 

Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, whom his Father raised from the dead on the third day after death,23 regarded the Scriptures precisely this way and declared them to be such.24 Among other things he said about the Old Testament, he declared: “The Scripture cannot be broken [οὐ δύναται λυθῆναι ἡ γραφή, ou dynatai luthÄ“nai hÄ“ graphÄ“]” (John 10:35). Concerning this statement Warfield declares:

 

The word “broken” here is the common one for breaking the law, or the Sabbath, or the like (Jn. 10:18; 7:23; Mt. 10:19), and the meaning of the declaration is that it is impossible for the Scripture to be annulled, its authority to be withstood, or denied.25

 

Likewise, Jesus said: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matt. 5:17–18).

 

He also stated: “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail [τοῦ νÏŒμου μίαν κεραίαν πεσεá¿–ν, tou nomou mian keraian pesein]” (Luke 16:17).26

 

Again and again Jesus referred to “the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 5:17; 7:12; 11:13; 22:40), often citing them to settle an issue (Matt. 12:5; 15:3–6; 21:13, 42), and implying as he did so that the Old Testament was for him a fixed canon of authority.

 

He regarded its history as unimpeachable, often choosing for his illustrations the very Old Testament events that prove least acceptable as factual history to the contemporary critical scholar, such as the creation of man in the beginning by a direct act of God (Matt. 19:4–5), the murder of Abel (Matt. 23:35), Noah’s flood (Matt. 24:37), the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Matt. 10:15; 11:23–24), the tragic end of Lot’s wife (Luke 17:32), and the fish’s swallowing of Jonah (Matt. 12:40).

 

Jesus repulsed Satan simply by citing Deuteronomy 8:3, 6:16, and 6:13 (see Matt. 4:4, 7, 10), each time demonstrating his belief in the final authority of the Old Testament by prefixing his citation with “It has been written [and stands so]” (γέγραπται, gegraptai, or its Aramaic equivalent), meaning by the expression, “God says” or “It is certainly true” (see also Matt. 11:10; 21:13; 26:24, 31).

 

Repeatedly Christ asked: “Have you not read [the Scriptures]?” (Matt. 12:3; 19:4; 21:16; 22:31).

 

He regarded words spoken by Moses (Gen. 2:24) as ultimately from God (Matt. 19:4).

 

He declared that if someone would not believe Moses and the Prophets, he would not believe God on the basis of a miraculous resurrection (Luke 16:31).27

 

He charged that the Sadducees erred concerning the resurrection because they did not know the Scriptures (Matt. 22:29), implying thereby that the Scriptures did not err.

 

He taught that the Old Testament Scriptures “testified” about him (John 5:39), and that Moses wrote about him (John 5:46–47).

 

After reading Isaiah 61:1–2 aloud in the synagogue at Nazareth , he stated: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” He also declared to his disciples: “We are going up to Jerusalem , and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled” (Luke 18:31).

 

At the Last Supper he declared: “The Son of Man is going just as it has been written about him” (Matt. 26:24), and then he stated: “This Scripture [Isa. 53:12] must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment” (Luke 22:37).

 

Then on the Mount of Olives he declared: “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written, ‘I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered’ ” (Matt. 26:31).

 

Clearly Jesus believed that the Old Testament spoke explicitly and authoritatively about him. Indeed, so authoritative for Jesus were the prophetic Scriptures that it was more important to him that they be fulfilled than that he escape arrest and the horrible death of crucifixion: “Do you think,” he asked Peter, “that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen this way? … But all this has happened that the Scriptures of the prophets may be fulfilled” (Matt. 26:53–56; Mark 14:49).28

 

At his death his thoughts were centered upon Scripture, for he cited Psalm 22:1 just moments before dying "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46).

 

Then after his resurrection the glorified Christ taught his disciples: “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44; see 24:45–47).

 

Not only did Jesus endorse the Old Testament’s divine origin, inspiration, and authority, but he also “preauthenticated” the New.

 

To his disciples he declared: “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, … will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26), and “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you” (John 16:12–14).

 

The Apostles shared in Christ’s view of the Old Testament, but they also recognized the authority of their words as “God’s word.”

 

Accordingly, the apostles not only shared Christ’s view of the Old Testament but also, with his authentication of them as his authoritative messengers and of their message as his word to both church and world, they presented themselves to their auditors as his ambassadors and their message as God’s word (see 1 Thess. 2:13), proclaimed “not in words taught … by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:13). They declared that the churches must acknowledge that what they wrote were the commands of Christ (1 Cor. 14:37–38), that the churches should bow before apostolic rulings (1 Cor. 11:2; 2 Thess. 2:5), and that church members who did not do so must be put out of the fellowship (2 Thess. 3:6, 14).

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


23 See Robert L. Reymond, Jesus, Divine Messiah: The Old Testament Witness (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 1990), and Jesus, Divine Messiah: The New Testament Witness (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1990), for the Old and New Testament witness both to Jesus’ deity as the Second Person of the Holy Trinity and to his messianic investiture.

 

24 Christ’s authentication of Scripture as the Word of God is not the only reason the Christian believes the Bible is God’s Word but it is certainly a major one. See John W. Wenham, “Christ’s View of Scripture,” in Inerrancy, ed. Norman L. Geisler (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1980), 3–36; see also his suggestions for further reading, 35–36.

 

25 Warfield, “The Biblical Idea of Inspiration,” 139. Leon Morris comments on this passage: “The term ‘broken’ is not defined, and it is a word which is not often used of Scripture and the like.… But it is perfectly intelligible. It means that Scripture cannot be emptied of its force by being shown to be erroneous” (The Gospel According to John [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1971], 527).

 

26 According to some critics Jesus often criticized and repudiated parts of the Old Testament. Seven examples have been advanced (his teaching on the sabbath, sacrifice, “clean” foods, the Old Testament ethic, divorce, the lex talionis, and one’s attitude toward one’s enemy). But see Wenham’s response to these charges (“Christ’s View of Scripture,” 23–29).

 

27 Christian apologists should heed Christ’s statement here: evidences, no matter how compelling, will not convince those who have not submitted in faith to God’s Word of the truth of the claims of Christianity.

 

28 John puts Jesus’ words on a par with the prophecies of the Old Testament when he employs the same “that it might be fulfilled” formula for Jesus’ words (John 18:9, 32) that is employed with reference to the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies.

 

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