Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 94:374 (Apr 1937)
Article: Scripture Unity concerning Christ
Author: William C. Bennett

BSac 94:374 (Apr 37) p. 239

Scripture Unity concerning Christ

William C. Bennett

“Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, ‘Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldst not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me.’...’In the volume of the Book it is written of Me.’” It might be questioned as to the exact time the Lord Jesus uttered these words but it was “when He cometh into the world.” Undoubtedly it was at His birth. The infant child Jesus was quoting from Psalm 40 a truth which is true to the very letter. A perusal of Scripture from Genesis one to Revelation twenty-two will convince one that Christ is the center and theme of the Word of God. He not only spoke words but He was the Word “made flesh.” That there is a harmony in all these Scriptures and a consistency that sets it apart from all other books is the thesis of this paper.

There is a plenitude of literature that one might read for testimonies concerning Christ. They will be many and varied, good and bad, orthodox and unorthodox, yet none are as complete and consistent as the Word of God itself. Even commentaries and books on the Bible fall short and misinterpret what the Scriptures themselves teach. For proof of this we turn to some of the Jewish writings.

In the Talmud we find that the “Messiah expected was far above the conditions of the most exalted of God’s servants, even His angels; in short, so closely bordering on the divine, that it was almost impossible to distinguish Him therefrom.”1 But even though it was a great expectation

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it still falls short of the true Christ. The Messiah of the Talmud does not fit the Lord Jesus Christ of the New Testament, but the Christ of the Old Testament does. The Old Testament expectation was one of a coming Messiah and Redeemer.

As to the preëxistence of Christ the Scriptures have the only true teaching. The Talmud says He was preëxistent while the “Midrash on Psalm 8:9 expressly mentions the Messiah among the seven things created before the world.”2 In turning to the Apocrypha we find no Messiah at all. “The silence of the Apocrypha about the Person of the Messiah is so strange, as to be scarcely explained by the consideration, that those books were composed when the need of a Messiah for the deliverance of Israel was not painfully felt.”3

We do not read far into either Testament before we realize that they agree in their teaching, history, and doctrine. This agreement is most essential. The Jews ...