But while our Saviour constantly quoted from the Old Testament, He never used its words without definite purpose. The Sword of the Spirit in His hands was either turned against the Evil One, or brought directly to bear with overwhelming force on some mistaken teaching which had blinded the people to the true meaning of the Word of God.
The direct and yet simple way in which He reached the point, and once and for all swept away the difficulty, amazed and confounded the learned Jews.
An instance of this is found in His wonderful answer to the Sadducees, who disbelieved in the Resurrection. 'As touching the Resurrection of the dead,' He said, 'have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?' (Matthew xxii. 31, 32.) His hearers, of course, had heard these words quoted from childhood, but not till the Saviour explained their full significance—'God is not the God of the dead, but of the living'—did they realize that in the first recorded words spoken by God to Moses lay a proof of the Resurrection and of life after death.
Let us take a look at the first time in which Christ publicly read and explained the Scriptures. It is the Sabbath, and the synagogue of Nazareth is full of people, serious and attentive, for they have met together to hear the Word of God.
Now One stands up to read. The sacred Roll is in His hand; the Roll of the Book of the prophet Isaiah. Listen:—
'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
'To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.' (Luke iv. 18, 19.)
He closes the Book and sits down.
From the dim ages of the past those words had been read; in the long, long ages to come they will yet be read, until the World shall cease to exist, and time itself be known no more.
But never before and never again could there be so heart-searching or sacred a reading as this, when the Son of God read from His Father's Book in the simple village meeting in Galilee.