He Wrote of Me!

By Archibald Brown, Chatsworth Road Chapel, London

"For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote of me." John 5:46

LAST Tuesday I was suddenly called upon to read a portion of Scripture at a large meeting held at the King's Hall, Holborn, on behalf of the integrity of the Scriptures. I had little time for selection, but were instinctively led to John chapter 5, and I read the few closing verses. As I was reading without note or comment, the words seemed to grow in wonder and depth; and the little sentence, 'he wrote of me', came to me with altogether a new force and freshness of meaning. The words have clung to me ever since. I shall only be able this morning to deal with a very small portion of that which we trust the Lord has given me.

'He wrote of me.'—To understand the sentence you must look at the surroundings. Jesus is not speaking to a sympathetic congregation; he is not preaching to those who are hanging on his words, and to whom it is a joy to speak—the very reverse. He has before him a congregation that is mainly antagonistic in feeling toward him. It is a carpingly critical congregation. It is a congregation that is not prepared to accept what he says; and yet it is a company of professedly religious men. There is a large element of the scribe and the Pharisee in it. They are mostly proud of the fact that they are students of the Scriptures; and when our Lord said to them, 'You search the Scriptures', that was literally true. They did; and doubtless in that congregation there were those who would have been able without a moment's hesitation to have given the number of words there were in Moses' writings, or how many letters there were in the whole of the Old Testament. Christ says, 'Those Scriptures that you are searching so narrowly, they are they which testify of me.'

Now this is one of the greatest statements that even Christ himself ever made; 'They are they which testify of me.' We get too used to reading these words. We need them to come to us with all the freshness of novelty. Think what they mean. Jesus lays his hand upon the entire Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi and says, 'All these Scriptures that you are studying so closely are all full of me.' Never did the Lord Jesus say a greater thing than that. He claims that the theme of the whole of the Old Testament is concerning himself, and he adds, 'If you had really searched the Scriptures to any profit, you would have discovered me long before this.' Then he narrows the circle and instead of speaking of the whole of the Old Testament, he limits his statement to the Pentateuch. Perhaps he had overheard some of the talk that was taking place, even while he preached concerning Moses, and he says, 'There is one that accuses you, even that Moses you are boasting of; for if you believed him you would believe me because he wrote of me.'

Now our subject this morning is not the authorship of the Pentateuch. But in parenthesis, let me say that this sentence of our Lord's settles the question of the authorship of the Pentateuch for every humble disciple of the Master. I want for a moment to read to you a remarkable testimony which I came across incidentally on this very point, although, as I have said, it is not the authorship of the Pentateuch that we are dealing with this morning. The writer says:

As there is such controversy about the book it will be interesting amid the din and tumult to find out what Christ thought of it. If he makes it out to be a good book, I shall continue my trust in it. If he is hesitant or doubtful I shall not hesitate to give it up.

Oh you may read the Scriptures and make nothing of them—a great many do that today. But read the Bible with Christ and you will find his person, his claims, his promises, vindicated everywhere.

1. Let us now view the Pentateuch in the light of this great statement. Let us come to this subject as if neither you nor I had ever had any preconceived views on the matter. Let us look at these five books simply in the light of this sentence, 'He wrote of me.' What an extraordinary change comes over them! It is almost impossible to recognize them! Or has the change come over me as a reader?

I dare say many of you have often seen those so-called 'picture puzzles'. They beautifully illustrate this very point that I am on. Before you may be a card with a picture of some rural scene. There is a cottage and a tree by the side of it. You see nothing else, but underneath are the words, 'Find out the face.' You hold the card this way and that way, and you look at it from every angle until all of a sudden you behold a face. When once you have found that face you can never look at that card again without seeing it; you only wonder you did not see it before.

Now that is what Jesus Christ said of the Pentateuch. 'There is a face in it, but you have not seen it. If you had seen the face you would have recognized me.'

What is the book of Genesis to many of you? Little more than a most interesting collection of eastern stories. But you say, 'Oh, I like Genesis a great deal better than Leviticus; it is not half so dry. Its stories are delightful.'

And Exodus—what is that to you? You reply, 'I like the first part very well—the story of the bringing of the children of Israel out of Egypt, but the latter portion is occupied with so many details about the tabernacle that I seldom read it.'

And Leviticus? I think I hear you say, 'Oh, please pass that. Don't ask me anything about it; I really don't know anything about it, but as far as I can see, it seems to be a collection of ancient Jewish ritualistic customs.'

Numbers? You say, 'That is a little more interesting as it tells of the wandering of the children of Israel in the wilderness.'

Deuteronomy? 'Well, that is rather a long dry sermon that Moses delivered, and seems to be a repetition of much that has gone before.'

That is how the Pentateuch looks to nine people out of ten. Jesus' face has not yet been discovered. Have you ever asked, 'Why are there some narratives put in that seem to be very small in their value and interest, and why are some told at such a length, while others are so curtailed?' If you only see Jesus' face in this book of Genesis you will never be troubled any more by these questions. And when you come to Exodus you will find that Jesus' face is so clear that you will see little else. Leviticus no longer remains a collection of old Jewish customs, but becomes all gospel—it is Jesus' face. There is that face looking at me in every chapter. I can see it in that wreath of smoke which goes up from the brazen altar. The whole of the Pentateuch becomes another book altogether, it is a revelation of Christ!

Have you ever read the first five books of the Bible in that light? If you are at all troubled with skeptical thoughts I know no better cure, and (I think I may speak from experience), you will find that a hundred difficulties melt, the moment you remember that the object of the writing of that book was simply to show a coming one. Look for Jesus' face, and you will find that every incident has a new meaning altogether.

2. Next, I want you to view the Speaker in the light of these words. We have seen that the book assumes a different appearance; but now look at the Speaker. Turn the light of his own utterance upon himself. How can I put it in realistic form? Here is one dressed in the garb of Nazareth. He belongs, as we should say, to the lower class. He is, in appearance, a simple working man, and he makes this extraordinary statement. He says, concerning Moses, 'Why, he wrote all about me.' If Jesus Christ is able to say this, and there is much truth in it, then I am brought face to face with a personality compared with which all other personalities are as nothing. What inconceivable blasphemy it would be—or, rather, I think the general judgment of the people would be; 'What insanity for any mere man to say, "If you want to know about me, read books that were written fifteen-hundred years before I was born." Christ lays his hand on books over which fifteen-hundred years had passed, and says, 'It is all about me, and if only you had read to any profit you would have seen my face.'

Oh, how infinitely precious Jesus must have been to the Father! How the coming of Christ occupied the Father's thoughts. May I say it without undue boldness? It looks as if God the Father could think of nothing else. And when the Holy Spirit writes the book, he too can never get away from that face. Every story, every incident, all serve to picture Jesus.

Now, have you ever thought how all this magnifies the wisdom of God? Here in five books you have almost numberless types and shadows—you have word pictures—and all sorts of symbols, and they have all to receive their fulfillment in one character—how is that possible? I want you to listen again for a moment to another voice, and this time it will be the voice of Henry Melville. He says,

'I would like to see a company of acute and scientific reasoners, but ignorant of Christianity, sit down to the study of the books of Exodus and Leviticus; and they shall be told the following: Now these books are full of types and emblems and figures and ceremonies, and you are to devise a simple religious system which will give significance to every item of this symbolic array. There are 'mysterious intimations', we will tell them, in every page, couched in parabolic language or under sacrificial institutions, and your endeavor must be to invent a scheme of theology which will give a rational explanation of all that is thus obscure. Do you honestly think that our company of ingenious and intelligent writers would make much headway with their task? Can you believe that as a result of their joint labors there would be sent into the world any scheme of religion which should fix a plain meaning and afford a clue to the mysteries of the books of Exodus and Leviticus?'

And yet, this is precisely what has been done by Christianity. Talk about the age of miracles being over! Here is a miracle—that in the gospel which we call the simple gospel—there is a plan which meets every prophecy, every prediction, of the five books. As Handley Moule says, 'only the supernatural could accomplish such a task'. With joy and reverence we hear our Lord say concerning these five books, 'He wrote of me' and 'had you believed Moses, you would have believed me'.

3. Let us view the contents of these five books. Jesus says, 'Moses wrote of me.' What was in our Lord's mind then when he 'uttered this sentence? You will see to begin with that Jesus Christ himself was a careful student of the Scriptures. He did not think he was independent of the book. Jesus Christ all the way through the thirty-odd years of his life on earth was a diligent student of the Word. You can tell that by the marvelous way in which he quotes 'Scripture'. When he said, 'he wrote of me', I think there must have been some passages especially present to his mind.

What I want to do is this; for a moment with all humility to put ourselves into the place of Jesus and imagine how he would read certain portions, and when he read them how instinctively he would say, 'That's me!' Now what were those portions which evidently so laid hold of the heart and mind of our Lord and Master when he said, 'he wrote of me'?

Let us imagine we see our Lord with his Bible in hand, and ever bear in mind that the Bible of our Lord Jesus was precisely the same as you have in your pews from Genesis to Malachi, and I can imagine our Lord opening at the first chapter of Genesis.

Have you ever noticed in the reading of this chapter that eight times over you have that sentence, 'And God said.' I can imagine Jesus reading that first chapter, and as he reads 'And God said', he looked up and said, 'Father, that's me.' Perhaps you look towards this platform and say, 'What warrant have you for saying that?' You have to read the first chapter of Genesis in the light of the first chapter of John's Gospel; 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.' And when Jesus read this first chapter of Genesis he was reading about a time he remembered well; it was the time when he was the Father's word of creation. As we read in the Colossians, 'For by him were all things created ... All things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things hold together.'

Can you imagine with what thrilling interest Jesus would read that third chapter of Genesis at the fifteenth verse? Where the Lord says to the serpent, 'I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.' Can you imagine Jesus as he reads that, saying, 'Father, this is a precious word, it is all about me, here is the reason for my coming. I know my heel is to be bruised and I must suffer, but the end shall be that I shall crush the serpent's head!'

Suppose we pass on almost to the end of the book of Genesis and come to that story of Joseph; have you ever asked the question, why should eight or nine chapters be given to the story of that lad? What an extraordinary thing it is that when there is so much history going on in all parts of the, world, we have at least eight chapters devoted to the story of Joseph. But look at the Lord Jesus as he reads the story, and I don't think I am drawing on my imagination when I say I think he must have read it with a tear in his eye, and yet a smile of joy on his face.

You know the story. Here is one that is hated by his brethren and he is sold for twenty pieces of silver, he is thrown into a pit and he is given up as dead, and then he is brought out of the lowest ignominy and shame, and then he is exalted to be the highest in the kingdom. All the fullness of the land is put into his hands, and if any are in distress it is said to them, 'Go to Joseph.' There is the picture. Read the word 'Jesus' instead of 'Joseph', and you have the history of our Lord almost complete. I hear Jesus say as he reads, 'He is writing of me.'

And when I come to Genesis 49:10, I see an old patriarch dying--there is more than a man dying--there is the old patriarchal dispensation dying with the man. He is propped up in his bed, and he is predicting the future of his sons. When he comes to Judah look what a light there is in the old man's face as he says, 'He scepter'—that is the rod, the tribal staff, 'shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes.' And when Jesus read that, he would say, 'He wrote of me!' Do you see how clear and plain it is the moment you look at it fairly? You will see, therefore, Genesis is full of our Lord.

How about Exodus? I would like to have seen our Lord when he read Exodus 3:4, the story of the bush that was ablaze in the desert. A voice comes out of the bush. It is Jesus who speaks. You read at the beginning of the chapter, 'the angel of the Lord', but you read at the end, 'and God spoke out of the bush'. I hear Jesus again say, 'He writes of me; well do I remember that visit in the desert to my servant Moses.'

If there is one portion of the Pentateuch that charms me and has held me for forty years it is the twelfth chapter of Exodus. A dear friend, singularly enough, was speaking about this only a few hours ago. He said, 'I have a book at home I very much enjoy—C.H Mackintosh on Exodus.' I turned to him and said, 'It's a singular thing you should say that; under God, I owe everything to Mackintosh on Exodus.' I had gone to college, but I knew nothing about theology. I strayed one day into the library and took down Mackintosh on Exodus. All these theological books were new to me, and I took down this one because it looked small. As the Lord would have it, I opened on his exposition of the twelfth chapter of Exodus. I remember as if it were only yesterday, how in that chapter, in great type, he says, 'THE BLOOD MUST STAND OUT IN SOLITARY GRANDEUR'; this is the teaching of the twelfth of Exodus. I remember as a young fellow how, tremblingly, in that library I said 'Lord if you will allow me to speak or preach, I vow that the blood shall stand out in solitary grandeur in all my sermons.'

Now imagine Jesus reading it. What is the story? The Israelites are to take a lamb without spot and without blemish. It is to be taken on the tenth day of the month" and it is to be kept until the fourteenth, and on the fourteenth day, that Lamb is to be slain and its blood is to be sprinkled upon the door posts of the house, and God says, 'When I see the blood I will pass over you.' Jesus is reading that and he says, 'He writes of me!'

Why it was on that very date our Lord was crucified. It was while the Passover Lamb was being killed. Do you think that the Roman soldiers were anxious to fulfill prophecy? What did they know about it? But as I turned up these passages, there was one that made me feel that Jesus could never have read it without a thrill passing through him, that, in Exodus 17:6; 'Behold I will stand before you there upon the rock in Horeb; and you Moses, shall smite the rock and there shall come water out of it that the people may drink.' Jesus read that, and he said, 'He wrote of me. I am that rock, and I am to be smitten by the rod of the law, and through my smiting there shall be streams of living waters for others.'

I have only time just to mention those later chapters of the book of Exodus telling of the making of the tabernacle. There is not a loop, there is not a veil, there is not a socket in the whole of the rearing of that tabernacle that does not teach spiritual truth. The altar, the mercy seat, the garments of Aaron, are referred to again and again in the New Testament. When our Lord read about that tabernacle and the beautiful veil, he knew all what it meant, and the rending of that veil that was to take place. Exodus to him was full of himself.

I believe a preacher needs a certain amount of boldness even to mention the word Leviticus. It is counted the driest of books—so it is until you see Jesus face.

Look at chapter 1:4; try and imagine your Lord reading that. Here is a man who has sinned and he has brought an offering, a sacrifice. 'And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.' Can you find a more beautiful bit of gospel than that in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John? And cannot you conceive that as the Lord read that he would look up and say, 'Father, I know what it means. I am that sacrifice! I am that offering, and sinners shall put their hands upon me; they shall be linked with me by faith, and I shall stand for them, and they shall be accepted in me.' So far from outgrowing that verse it isn't long since many of us sang:

My faith shall lay her hand
On that dear head of Thine,
While like a penitent I stand
And there confess my sin.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, shall we give one out of Numbers? It is a very striking one, Numbers 21:8. You know the story well. There are fiery serpents, and they have bitten Israel, and it looks as if the whole camp is going to die, and the Lord says; 'You shall make a fiery serpent and put it upon a pole, and whoever looks upon it, shall live.' When Jesus read that, he surely said, 'He writes of me! I have to be lifted up upon a cross; I have to be made sin for others, and, oh Father, you have said that whoever looks upon me, and trusts me shall be saved.' Remember how when he was talking to Nicodemus, he said, 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'

Now, my dear young men, I am most anxious for many of you. Do you not see the strong drift of this subject? It is this, that if you are going to judge Bible narratives and Bible histories, apart from their relationship to Jesus Christ, you must go astray. You haven't got the clue to the maze, but the very moment you catch the teaching of our Lord in this passage, that all that Moses wrote was with a view to himself, you will find a hundred difficulties melt.

One passage in Deuteronomy. Here is the last book that our Savior refers to, and I imagine that it was very specially in his mind, the eighteenth chapter and the eighteenth verse. It is very singular, because it seems that not only did Moses write what was typical, but Moses himself was a type. 'And the Lord said unto me, I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren like unto you, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass that whoever will not hearken unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.' Solemn words! The Lord said to Moses, 'After all you are only a type, I am going to raise up one like you, chosen from among your brethren. You had this honor that you have been allowed to speak to me face to face, but I am going to raise up a prophet who will be infinitely more intimate with me.' And then comes those solemn words of warning, and I think I hear Jesus say, 'I am that prophet! I am that one who speaks all that God has commanded!'

Dear brethren and sisters, it is dangerous to reject what Christ says. He is that prophet and the eternal Father says, 'If any man refuses to accept the words that fall from his mouth, I will require it of him.'

Oh, that you would receive this glorious Jesus. Jesus never appeared so glorious to me in all my life, as he did last week when thinking over this subject; I felt if I had never been converted before, I would be obliged to be converted even through my own sermon. What a new light came! I saw, as I had never seen before, Jesus face in these five books, and I want you to see that face and accept that one; and then you will be able to go like Philip to Nathaniel and say, 'We have found him of whom Moses wrote in the law and the prophets, even Jesus.' May God grant that this Jesus of the Pentateuch may be the Savior of each one of you for his name's sake. Amen.