But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?
But if ye believe not his writings (see the note at Luke 16:31).
How shall ye believe my words? - a remarkable contrast, not absolutely putting Old Testament Scripture below His own words, but pointing to the office of those venerable documents to prepare Christ's way, to the necessity universally felt for documentary testimony in revealed religion, and perhaps, as Stier adds, to the relation which the comparative "letter" of the Old Testament holds to the more flowing "words" of "spirit and life" which characterize the New Testament.
Remarks:
(1) The light in which the ministry of angels is presented to us in connection with the pool of Bethesda is most interesting and instructive. First, it would appear that one particular angel had charge over the miraculous virtue of this pool. And next, all that he did was to "trouble" the water. That the patient who first stepped in after this owed his cure to angelical virtue is not said. The contrary is rather implied and is in accordance with all else that we read of their ministry. They ministered to the tempted Saviour, but only in the way of bringing Him, as one of them did Elijah (1 Kings 19:5-8), the bodily sustenance for which He had so long confidingly waited (Matthew 4:11). In the extremity of His agony, there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him; but for spiritual strength there is no reason to suppose that Jesus was indebted to an angel, except insofar as the consciousness of supernatural vigour of body and spirit to sustain the Conflict, certainly imparted by this angel, would tend to reassure Him of His Fathers love and presence with Him in that awful hour.
When apprehended, He expressed His confidence that He could immediately have, for the asking, more than twelve legions of angels, to free Him-If He desired it-from the hands of men; but that only. In heaven, He tells us, the angels of His dear "little ones" always behold the face of His Father which is in heaven (Matthew 18:10) - to receive, we may suppose, His commands concerning them. And Lazarus, in the parable, when he died, was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom. But in no case do their ministrations extend beyond what is outward. That they have either command or ability to interfere between the soul and God in things purely spiritual, or to affect the spiritual life at all except in the way of external ministration, we are bound-with such Scripture statements before us-positively to deny. How different from this is the teaching of the Church of Rome is known to all.
(2) Those who can see in the discourse which our Lord uttered on this occasion no claim to essential equality with God, and no assertion of the distinct conscious Personality of the Father and the Son, are not likely to see it anywhere else. It is not, in fact, more evidence that such want: it is the right appreciation of the evidence they possess. Nor can there be any doubt that unwillingness-whether conscious or not-to credit these truths on any evidence lies at the bottom of the rejection of them. But those who recognize in this discourse the Personal distinctions in the Godhead should not overlook these further intimations clearly to be gathered from it-that unity of action among the Persons results from unity of nature; and that Their oneness of interest is no unconscious or involuntary thing, but a thing of glorious consciousness, will, and love, of which the Persons themselves are the proper objects.
(3) In the announcement that the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and hearing shall live-first, spiritually at this present time, and then corporeally at the resurrection-day (John 5:25; John 5:28-29) - were have one of those apparent paradoxes which "the wise and prudent" ever stumble at, but to faith are full of glory. See the notes at Matthew 12:9-21, Remark 3 at the close of that section.
(4) Observe the honour accorded to the Scriptures generally, and the Old Testament Scriptures in particular by the Lord Jesus. Whether we understand him to bid them "Search the Scriptures," or in the way of commendation to say, "Ye do search the Scriptures," even though this was addressed more immediately to the rulers, the reason assigned for it-that in them they thought they had eternal life-is enough to show that in His view it was alike the interest and the duty of all to search them. How directly in the teeth of this is the teaching of the Church of Rome, none need to be told. See the notes at Luke 16:1-31, Remark 9 at the close of that section. But,
(5) In that miserable "searching of the Scriptures" to which the Jewish ecclesiastics certainly addicted themselves-and in which they have been even exceeded by the learned rabbis of later times-we see how possible it is to rest in the mere Book without the living spirit of it, and above all without the living Christ of it-to direct the soul to Whom is its main use and chiefest glory.