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Purpose of the Bible

John 5:24-37

It is all too common for us to miss what really matters. We get hung up on details and miss the central point of what is going on. It happens in politics. It happens in family discussions. It happens in school classrooms. It happens in church. It happens when we read the Bible.

We get caught up in minutiae or trivia that bears little relevance to what is really going on. We miss what a politician is doing as slight of hand calls our attention to something that is little more than a sideshow to true motives. We focus on an emotional issue in which we feel slighted, rather than truly hearing what a family member is trying to tell us. We worry over details of a class assignment when we should be focused on learning the material being presented. We fight over maintaining our traditions, instead of seeking to understand how God would lead us into a new reality of ministry. We read the Bible out of curiosity over the historical data in a Biblical text rather than allowing God to transform our lives and communities.

With all the opportunities we have for becoming distracted and entertained, we all too often miss what God actually wants to accomplish in our lives. We miss the entire purpose the Bible we claim to love and follow was written to accomplish. We set aside its message to focus on protecting a pet idea, a way of life, or prop up our sense of self-worth and importance. It is, after all, hard to look at a collection of 66 books and see a clear purpose that overcomes all the distractions we throw up before it.

Jesus was having a discussion with some religious leaders in John chapter five. He had healed a man who was lame. This had gotten him in hot water with people who were concerned over the fact that he had done this on a Sabbath day. Given the traditions and laws around the Sabbath day observance, many perceived this to be a big issue. Many pointed to keeping the Sabbath as an essential part of keeping Yahweh happy with Israel. They hoped that by closely following the letter of the law regarding Sabbath observance God would go ahead and send Messiah to redeem Israel from Roman oppression.

The Jews understood that the sin of an individual had consequences for the larger community. They understood it was important that all Jews follow the prescribed forms of keeping the Sabbath in order to help usher in the coming of Messiah and God's redemption. As they understood it, sin was not simply a matter of individual choice. It was a matter that impacted the larger society, the community of Israel with all its hopes and dreams of Messiah and self-governance.

To add insult to injury, Jesus had made comments about Yahweh as his Father. To them, that was a declaration that Jesus was one with God. Their furor with Jesus was not simply the question of Sabbath keeping, but now also one of blasphemy. If keeping the Sabbath was not serious enough, the fact that Jesus was equating himself with God made their blood boil all the hotter. It was of utmost importance for them to silence such blasphemy for the good of the larger society.

It is in this context we find Jesus' words in the passage we have read from John 5. Jesus did not directly address their concerns over sin keeping Messiah from coming. Instead, he spoke of the assurance they could have of entering a reality beyond the concerns of a Messianic Reign. He spoke to them of entering the life of the age to come in the present, instead of positing it as a future reality sin could make unattainable. Jesus addressed the issue underlying their fears, but they could not hear his words above the noise of their fears. They were not able to hear more than what they were already expecting: Jesus was being an obstacle for the fulfillment of their hopes and dreams of Messiah.

In the process, they missed the reality Jesus was communicating. Their hopes and dreams were not captive to some future reality. They were present options that could be received and enjoyed without delay. They could also persist into the future reality yet to come. Instead of seeing what the Scriptures were actually pointing toward, they were focused on their traditions about that reality. Confronted with reality, they could not recognize it. It did not match their expectations.

Jesus was trying to show them that the expectation of the Messianic Reign was already in their midst. God's redemption was present in his healing of the paralytic. God's redemption and promise were fulfilled in the forgiving of sins. God's redemption was realized in Jesus' life and ministry, but they could not see it. They missed the forest for the trees.

All throughout the Bible, God was in the business of calling Israel back to Yahweh. The laws of Moses were focused on caring for one another, loving one's neighbor, treating the oppressed with justice and equity, sharing God's blessings with one another according to the measure of Yahweh's grace. Bringing those realities into the present is the same as ushering in the Messianic age. It is in the process of doing these things that Messiah reigns in our lives, in our midst, in our community. In this process God's will becomes reality on earth.

It is to this which Jesus points us in John five. The Scriptures speak of living even as Jesus lived and ministered. The Scriptures tell us that the “life of the ages,” often translated into English as “eternal life,” is already God's will for us. Instead of searching the Scriptures for a means to force God's hand to send Messiah, we are to begin living the life of the Messianic age. We are to allow this reality to infuse our daily living and so transform our lives.

Instead of attempting to use the Bible to predict the future or somehow manipulate it, they should have been using it to clarify the character and identity of Yahweh, even as Jesus did. They should have been using it to transform their lives after Yahweh's character of love, grace, and mercy.

These themes were already present in the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Bathsheba, Elijah, Isaiah, and so many others. These themes of radical grace, mercy, and care for the downtrodden were there all along. The Exodus event was all about Yahweh's rescue and redemption of a people who found themselves under the yoke of tyranny and oppression. It was a story of Yahweh who cares about those who are considered worthless by the ruling power figures of a society.

It is precisely this that we find in Jesus. We find Yahweh stepping into human history to offer hope and healing to those without hope. We find Yahweh offering forgiveness to those who are in need of forgiveness and can't even ask for it. We find Yahweh undergirding Jesus' ministry to the outcasts with power to redeem, reconcile, and heal. We find the yearning for Messiah transformed into a living reality in the midst of Roman occupation.

Jesus tells us that the Scriptures speak of him. While we are concerned with the promised life of the ages, Jesus puts that life into action. He gives it flesh. He demonstrates its reality in the practice of daily living. This is what we should be looking for in the Scriptures. This is their purpose. They were written to introduce us to Yahweh. They tell us of Yahweh's character and identity. In so doing, we discover God's purposes and designs for our lives, for they flow out of Yahweh's identity and character. They flow out of the reality of Jesus' application of those hopes for the “life of the ages.”

Yahweh's purpose takes us to the paralytic and brings him back into his community. It restores him to full participation in life. This is what we discover throughout Scripture as Yahweh continually works to redeem, restore, and renew. It is this same purpose of revealing God and God's purposes for which Jesus came. This is to be our focus as we read and study the Scriptures. So much of the rest are but distractions.

—Pr. Christopher B. Harbin

© Copyright 2017 Christopher B. Harbin.