Jesus use of Scripture

The use of the Old Testament in the gospel or the interpretation of the Scripture is often said to reflect a common promise fulfillment theme. What the Old Testament promises to have been fulfill in Christ. The gospel writers believed those promises to have been fulfilled in Christ.

The gospel reflects the situation in which the Pharisees were dominant and it is well known that Jesus was severely critical for them. What is perhaps more severe is that his criticism centered on question of biblical interpretation to which he provided a unique and most unsettling answer.

Jesus agreed with his contemporary that the “torah” was the word of God in its fullest sense of the term. And its authority was foundation for its own teaching but at the same time he re-interpreted the scriptural texts in numbers of ways. 

First of all he exalted Abraham and his faith as a model for true religion of Israel. Secondly, Jesus declared that He was superior even to Abraham who had actually known him and who had actually awaited his future coming. Thus, the whole of Israelite religion was a looking forward to the revelation of God Jesus Himself. The Pharisees failed to see this because they were so focused in the legalistic detail of the Torah.

Finally Jesus claimed the authority to interpret the Torah in such a way many of its provision redundant because in Him they had been fulfilled. In other case, Jesus extended the provision of the Torah in a way which made them radically different. In arguing with his contemporaries Jesus is sometime known to be using their own method of arguing. For example, this can be seen in His dealing with Sadducees whose literalistic interpretation of Torah led them to deny life after death by being literally equalistic. Jesus quoted Exodus 3:6 as evidence that our personal relationship with God carries on after death (Mark 12). Jesus’ own exegesis seems to focus very strongly on the fulfillment of prophecy. This is the theme of his first public address in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:16-21) where He reads from Isaiah 61 and then announces that the scripture has been fulfilled in His own person.

Furthermore, His use of term such as “Son of Man”, “Servant of the Lord” etc. to refer to Himself and in his ministry all point to Pesher type of interpretation. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that Jesus offered Himself as comprehensive and the only key to understanding the scripture.