Don't Miss Jesus in the Bible
In John 5:39-40, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for misreading the scriptures. “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me that you may have life!”
The Pharisees were the most diligent Bible readers the world has ever seen, but Jesus said they missed the entire point because they didn’t see him. That means it is possible to read the Bible and miss what it says.
How can that happen? It’s not as hard as you might think. We do it all the time. Preachers even do it all the time. Any time we take a passage of scripture and read it isolated from the grand story of the gospel of Jesus, we miss the point. Any time we make something the main thing that isn’t Jesus and his gospel, we miss the point. That is not to say we cannot and should not also glean other things from the Scripture, but we must be careful what we live our life on from our reading. Anything other than Jesus is sinking sand.
I want to highlight just two ways we can miss Jesus. There are certainly more, but I think these are two main ways.
Missing Jesus in the Law
The easiest place to miss Jesus is in God’s law. The Pharisees were famous for their piety. They obeyed God’s law better than anyone. The Apostle Paul, himself a former Pharisee, talks about the rigidness of his former obedience in Philippians 3:4-6. “If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” Later, after his conversion to Christianity, he realized his folly. He counted all that past righteousness as nothing at all and clung to a righteousness not his own that came from the law but that which came through faith in Christ (Phil. 3:9). Once, all he cared about what seeing the law. Later, all he could see—even in the law—was Jesus.
Paul realized later on that the law was not given to show him how to obtain righteousness but to show him how far from it he really was (Gal. 3:24-27). The law was a pointer to our failure, not a ladder to our inheritance. The proper response is to fall on our knees, not rise on wings of self-righteousness.
Why, then, the law? We needed to understand sin. “It was added because of transgressions.” Paul explains this in more detail in Romans. “Through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20). “Where there is no law there is no transgression” (Romans 4:15). “If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin” (Romans 7:7). Romans 5:20 says, “The law was added so that the trespass might increase.” Timothy George comments on this.
In Romans the word for “added” means literally “came in by a side road.” The main road is the covenant of promise—inviolate, irrevocable. The law has the character of something additional, a side road intended to carry extra traffic and excess baggage and, if we may anticipate Paul’s argument, designed not to lead to a separate destination but to point its travelers back to the main road.[1]
In his grace, God gave the law to show us how far we’ve fallen. But what God gave as a view into the fallen heart, we tend to construct into a ladder to God. We seek to prove ourselves holy when God intends to prove us needy. Therefore, how we understand the law determines how we understand grace and, ultimately, how we understand the gospel. What is good about the news of salvation if you believe you can attain it on your own?
Under the strict watch of the law, our failure is highlighted, which prepares us for grace. Martin Luther said, “The principal point of the law is to make men not better but worse; that is to say, it shows their sin, that by the knowledge thereof they may be humbled, terrified, bruised and broken, and by this means may be driven to seek grace, and so to come to that blessed Seed.”[2]
Missing Jesus in the Stories
The other place we can miss Jesus is in the stories. Ed Clowney said, “It is possible to know Bible stories, yet miss the Bible story.”[3]
If we aren’t careful, we can get caught up in the Bible’s stories without connecting each story to the big story of Jesus and his gospel. We can focus on the characters and the events, and even the places and times. We can get fascinated by the little things that seem like big things and miss the truly big thing, which is Jesus.
Every story whispers Jesus’s name, as Sally Lloyd-Jones says.[4] No matter how great the story, it always points to someone greater. There is a danger with the narrative portions of scripture to make the characters the main point. Joseph running away from Potiphar’s wife is an example of running away from our lusts. David slaying Goliath is our example of facing our fears. Jonah’s prayer in the belly of the whale is our example of repentance. We may be able to draw some very important lessons from each of those stories, but they are not the main point. Jesus is the true Joseph who always avoided sin but was cast into the real dungeon and rose again to save his brothers. Jesus is the true David who fought for his people to save them. Jesus is the true Jonah who entered the belly of the earth for three days and rose again, taking our sins into the ground and leaving them there.
We can do this even in the New Testament stories. We can read about Jesus without really seeing him. We can use him as an example instead of beholding him as a savior. We can look at Paul’s faith instead of rejoicing in his savior. We can get caught up in John’s images in Revelation and miss the Lamb worthy to open the seals.
In one of the end notes in his book on preaching, Tim Keller discusses how to “get to Jesus” and make Jesus the hero from harder parts of scripture. One way to do that is to develop the narrative tension of what we’re reading.[5]
For example, there may be some conflict in the passage that we can’t figure out how to resolve. Perhaps, as Keller points out, God is acting complexly or inexplicably. How can God be both just and loving? Only Jesus can hold both together. For all who trust him, God pours out the fullness of his wrath on Jesus at the cross and saves them by his substitutionary death. For those who reject him, there is a final judgment to come. Both just and loving.
Are the covenants conditional or unconditional? Only Jesus can answer that question. There are blessings and curses in God’s law based on obedience. But we fail to obey. Yet God also promises his everlasting love and faithfulness. How can both be true? Because Jesus lived the perfect life for us and fulfilled every condition, and by his substitutionary death, gives us his righteousness as he takes our sin upon himself (2 Cor. 5:21).
Another tension is a prophecy, promise, blessing, or human longing that seems impossible to fulfill. Until we see Jesus is the fulfillment of every prophecy (Luke 4:21), of every promise (2 Cor. 1:2), of every blessing (Acts 3:25-26), of every longing (Rom. 8:31-39), we will not understand how God can say such things.
If every story truly whispers his name, let’s not let the louder parts tune him out. Let’s amplify the name of Jesus because he alone is worthy of all our praise. He alone can change us. He alone can bear the weight of being the one main thing of every story.
[1] George, Timothy, Galatians: The Christian Standard Commentary.
[2] Luther, Martin, Galatians, Crossway Classic Commentaries, page 176.
[3] Clowney, Edmund P., The Unfolding Mystery, page 11.
[4] Lloyd-Jones, Sally, The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every story whispers his name, pages 14-17.
[5] Keller, Timothy J. Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism, pages 259-260.
