How Jesus Knew the Phrase: His Secret to Scripture Reminiscence

Have you ever ever thought of how Jesus got here to know Scripture?

Anybody who reads the Gospels can see that Jesus clearly knew the Hebrew Bible effectively. He quotes Scripture again and again, and does so with the authority and freshness of somebody who hasn’t solely memorized God’s phrases however actually is aware of God’s coronary heart. Jesus has profound perception into what the phrases of God imply, and so he is ready to put Scripture to make use of in on a regular basis life. He doesn’t merely recite sentences he put to reminiscence, however he is ready to apply Scripture in varied conditions as he encounters them.

You may suppose, Effectively, after all Jesus knew Scripture! Jesus is God! He didn’t have to be taught it, or work at it, like we do. However that suspicion betrays a big misunderstanding in what it means for Jesus to be absolutely God and absolutely man in a single particular person.

So, now we have a bit Christology to do right here first. Jesus, as we encounter him within the Gospels — in human flesh and blood, strolling this earth with human ft, talking with a human tongue and mouth — this Jesus quotes and makes use of what Scriptures he has come to know along with his human thoughts. The human Christ didn’t know Scripture just because he was God. As genuinely human, he needed to be taught it. What he knew, and quoted, is what he had come to be taught. Luke 2 tells us that “the [Christ] little one grew and have become sturdy, stuffed with knowledge,” after which a couple of verses later: “Jesus elevated in knowledge and in stature” (Luke 2:40, 52). Born to us as human, Jesus grew not solely in his human physique however in his human thoughts.

Jesus is the universe’s distinctive two-natured particular person. He’s absolutely God and absolutely man. Which suggests he has not solely a human physique but in addition a “reasoning soul,” that’s, human feelings and a human will, and a human thoughts.

So, that’s our little Christology lesson. Now, in these jiffy collectively, let’s have a look at how Jesus knew Scripture so effectively.

Jesus’s Relationship with Scripture

In an earlier session this afternoon, we checked out Jesus’s habits of retreating and reentering, of withdrawing from society to commune along with his Father after which returning to bless and train and present compassion to others.

And the main piece we left on the market, and now flip to on this session, is Jesus’s relationship with Scripture. It’s a outstanding theme to trace within the Gospels. You may suppose, “Effectively, he’s God, so he simply speaks, and no matter he says is God’s phrase” — which is true — “so he doesn’t really want to cite earlier Scripture.” And then you definitely observe how usually, how strikingly usually, Jesus says, time and again, “It’s written . . . It’s written . . . It’s written . . .” Scripture is central and pervasive in his ministry and educating.

So, I’d love to do two issues. First, let’s briefly see it in motion and get a style of the place of Scripture “within the days of his flesh” whereas amongst us (Hebrews 5:7). Then let’s deal with how Jesus knew the phrase so effectively. Very virtually, how did Scripture come to have such a spot in his life and ministry? And I hope that right here, as we have a look at Jesus, you may catch a imaginative and prescient and discover encouragement for a way Scripture might come to have such a spot in your personal soul and ministry.

‘It Is Written’

First, then, the style. All through the Gospels, we see in Jesus the proof of a person completely captivated by what’s written within the textual content of Scripture.

On the outset of his public ministry, Jesus, led by the Spirit, retreats to the wilderness, and there, within the culminating temptations earlier than the satan himself, he leans, not simply as soon as, however thrice, on what’s written (Matthew 4:4, 6–7, 10; Luke 4:4, 8, 10).

Then, getting back from the wilderness to his hometown of Nazareth, Jesus stands as much as learn, takes the scroll of Isaiah, reads from 61:1–2, and proclaims, “Right now this Scripture has been fulfilled in your listening to” (Luke 4:21). He identifies John the Baptist as “he of whom it’s written” (Matthew 11:10; Luke 7:27). He rebukes the proud by quoting Scripture (Mark 7:6; Luke 20:17). And when he clears the temple of money-changers, he does so on the grounds of what’s written in Isaiah 56:7 (Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46).

At each step on the way in which to Calvary, he is aware of that all the pieces will occur, he says, “as it’s written” (see particularly the Gospel of John, 6:31, 45; 8:17; 10:34; 12:14, 16; 15:25). In Mark 14:21, he says, “The Son of Man goes as it’s written of him.” Luke 18:31: “See, we’re going as much as Jerusalem, and all the pieces that’s written concerning the Son of Man by the prophets shall be completed.”

His life and ministry activate the phrase of God written in Scripture.

How Did Jesus Know the Phrase?

So, then, how does Jesus know the phrase so effectively? If Jesus isn’t merely drawing upon his divinity to cite texts and put to make use of ideas his human thoughts had by no means realized and thought of, then how is it that Jesus is aware of Scripture so effectively?

The inspiration for this session got here from studying Sinclair Ferguson’s chapter on “The Spirit of Christ” (in his ebook The Holy Spirit). There he addresses our query:

Jesus’s intimate acquaintance with Scripture didn’t come [magically from heaven] through the interval of his public ministry; it was grounded little question on his early schooling, however nourished by lengthy years of private meditation. Later, in his public ministry, it turns into evident that he was intimately accustomed to its contents . . . and likewise possessed in his human nature a information of God by the Spirit which lent freshness, authority, and a way of actuality to his educating. (44)

That’s what I would like for you wherever God leads you: freshness, authority, and a way of actuality to your educating.

Now, when Ferguson speaks right here about Jesus’s “public ministry,” he implies an vital relationship between private and non-private life: what Jesus says publicly in his three years of ministry reveals what he has realized and come to know in his three a long time in personal — and what he continues to feed and nurture in secret communion along with his Father.

So, there are two elements right here to Jesus’s personal life, outdoors his public ministry. First, “his early schooling.” Earlier than he might even converse, his mom and Joseph and others in Bethlehem, Egypt, and Nazareth would converse to him. Absolutely Mary quoted Scripture and sang Scripture to her son as he grew. This basis, this “grounding,” of his early schooling, was vital. But Ferguson rightly places emphasis on the second and longer part of Jesus’s personal life.

He says that “Jesus’s intimate acquaintance with Scripture . . . [was] nourished by lengthy years of private meditation.” That is the key to how Jesus knew Scripture so effectively: lengthy years of private meditation. Which is what I wish to problem you to this afternoon.

Misplaced Artwork of Meditation

What’s meditation? It’s vital to ask as a result of we don’t do that very effectively immediately. That is countercultural. Biblical meditation is a misplaced artwork immediately. We’re not speaking Jap meditation, the place you attempt to empty your thoughts and repeat a mantra, however biblical meditation, the place you fill your thoughts with God’s phrases, and his fact, and decelerate and search to extra absolutely perceive the that means of God’s phrases and really feel their significance in your soul.

Biblical meditation pauses and ponders God’s phrases with out hurry. It chews on the reality communicated by the phrases of God. It doesn’t simply carry on studying on the breakneck velocity at which our pixelated screens are educating us to learn (or higher, skim). Meditation pauses and slows down and seeks to deeply ponder the reality of God’s phrase, and sense its weight upon the guts. That’s the type of meditation that nourished “Jesus’s intimate acquaintance with Scripture.”

In different phrases, Jesus, like us, realized Scripture. He labored at it. Jesus knew Scripture so effectively, and quoted it so steadily, and spoke with such freshness and authority and a way of actuality due to his “lengthy years of private meditation.” His public ministry and educating, along with his seemingly easy familiarity with God’s phrase, revealed years of private, personal enjoyment of God’s phrase.

Jesus knew Scripture so effectively not simply because he was God, however as a result of he devoted his human thoughts and coronary heart to day by day, private meditation on the phrase of God — and this even with out having his personal private materials copy of the Bible, like we do immediately. He needed to bear in mind and rehearse what he had been learn and sung and taught. And so he did, to nice impact.

Following Jesus into Scripture

I shut with a threefold exhortation.

One, develop into the type of particular person now, in God’s phrase, in personal, that you simply hope to be sometime in public ministry. Over time, who you may have develop into in secret over your Bible shall be revealed in public ministry.

Two, be taught the facility of memorizing God’s phrases. If you come throughout explicit verses, and even phrases, or longer sections that feed and focus your soul in Christ-honoring methods, put them to reminiscence. Attempt to construct them into the folds of your mind, to place to make use of in sustaining your personal soul and the souls of others.

And at last, three, go deeper nonetheless — deeper than mere studying, deeper even than mere reminiscence. Make reminiscence serve meditation. Memorize to meditate, and decelerate to meditate as you memorize. And memorize, as a facet impact, since you meditated. Set a course now for nourishing your “intimate acquaintance with Scripture” with lengthy years of private meditation, like Jesus, and with the assistance he bought for you within the energy of his Spirit.