How Jesus viewed the OT

i) Some critics of inerrancy claim that Jesus corrected the OT. Therefore, Jesus didn't subscribe to inerrancy. Of course, if inerrancy is false, how do they know for sure what Jesus really said? But let's bracket that for now. 

ii) The most often-cited passage to prove their contention is Mt 19:8. But there are some basic problems with that appeal:

a) If would be circular and counterproductive for Jesus to use Genesis to correct Deuteronomy. How can Moses correct himself? Christ's appeal to Gen 1-2 still assumes the authority of the Pentateuch. 

b) Marriage is a creation ordinance. Divorce is not. So the two lack equal standing. 

c) Although divorce was a concession to human hard-heartedness, that doesn't mean Deut 24 was mistaken or uninspired. There's a fundamental sense in which the entire old covenant is a divine accommodation to sinners. Same thing with the new covenant. Strict justice demands immediate retribution. The fact that God provides lesser penalties, temporary remedies, or simply forgives sin, is a merciful concession to our moral and spiritual plight. Gen 1-2 presents the ideal. Deut 24 fell short of the ideal. But that's true of God's dealings with his people in general. God doesn't punish us as we deserve. 

iii) Sometimes critics cite the so-called antitheses in Mt 5 ("You have heard, but I say"). But that doesn't mean Jesus is correcting the Mosaic law. In context, Jesus is criticizing the Pharisees. Criticizing the oral Torah. Something he did on other occasions as well. Pharisaic casuistry was, by turns, stricter and laxer than the Mosaic law. 

iv) Finally, critics appeal to how Jesus would sometimes break the Sabbath. However, the Sabbath was never an end in itself, but a means to an end. Higher obligations supersede lower obligations. 

Likewise, the ceremonial law was never a moral absolute. It was inherently temporary: meant to foreshadow something greater and more enduring.  

v) Moreover, we need to consider Christ's overall view of the OT. As Warfield documents:

     (3) John 10:34-35. How far the supreme trustworthiness of Scripture, thus asserted, extends may be conveyed to us by a passage in one of Our Lord’s discourses recorded by John (John 10:34-35). The Jews, offended by Jesus’ “making himself God,” were in the act to stone Him, when He defended Himself thus: “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), say ye of him, whom the Father sanctified (margin “consecrated”) and sent unto the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?” It may be thought that this defense is inadequate. It certainly is incomplete: Jesus made Himself God (John 10:33) in a far higher sense than that in which “Ye are gods” was said of those “unto whom the word of God came”: He had just declared in unmistakable terms, “I and the Father are one.” But it was quite sufficient for the immediate end in view—to repel the technical charge of blasphemy based on His making Himself God: it is not blasphemy to call one God in any sense in which he may fitly receive that designation; and certainly if it is not blasphemy to call such men as those spoken of in the passage of Scripture adduced gods, because of their official functions, it cannot be blasphemy to call Him God whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world. The point for us to note, however, is merely that Jesus’ defense takes the form of an appeal to Scripture; and it is important to observe how He makes this appeal. In the first place, He adduces the Scriptures as law: “Is it not written in your law?” He demands. The passage of Scripture which He adduces is not written in that portion of Scripture which was more specifically called “the Law,” that is to say, the Pentateuch; nor in any portion of Scripture of formally legal contents. It is written in the Book of Psalms; and in a particular psalm which is as far as possible from presenting the external characteristics of legal enactment (Psalm 82:6). When Jesus adduces this passage, then, as written in the “law” of the Jews, He does it, not because it stands in this psalm, but because it is a part of Scripture at large. In other words, He here ascribes legal authority to the entirety of Scripture, in accordance with a conception common enough among the Jews (cf. John 12:34), and finding expression in the New Testament occasionally, both on the lips of Jesus Himself, and in the writings of the apostles. Thus, on a later occasion (John 15:25), Jesus declares that it is written in the “law” of the Jews, “They hated me without a cause,” a clause found in Psalm 35:19. And Paul assigns passages both from the Psalms and from Isaiah to “the Law” (1 Cor. 14:21; Rom. 3:19), and can write such a sentence as this (Gal. 4:21-22): “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written ....” quoting from the narrative of Genesis. We have seen that the entirety of Scripture was conceived as “prophecy”; we now see that the entirety of Scripture was also conceived as “law”: these three terms, the law, prophecy, Scripture, were indeed, materially, strict synonyms, as our present passage itself advises us, by varying the formula of adduction in contiguous verses from “law” to “scripture.” And what is thus implied in the manner in which Scripture is adduced, is immediately afterward spoken out in the most explicit language, because it forms an essential element in Our Lord’s defense. It might have been enough to say simply, “Is it not written in your law?” But Our Lord, determined to drive His appeal to Scripture home, sharpens the point to the utmost by adding with the highest emphasis: “and the scripture cannot be broken.” This is the reason why it is worth while to appeal to what is “written in the law,” because “the scripture cannot be broken.” The word “broken” here is the common one for breaking the law, or the Sabbath, or the like (John 5:18; 7:23; Mat. 5:19), and the meaning of the declaration is that it is impossible for the Scripture to be annulled, its authority to be withstood, or denied. The movement of thought is to the effect that, because it is impossible for the Scripture—the term is perfectly general and witnesses to the unitary character of Scripture (it is all, for the purpose in hand, of a piece)—to be withstood, therefore this particular Scripture which is cited must be taken as of irrefragable authority. What we have here is, therefore, the strongest possible assertion of the indefectible authority of Scripture; precisely what is true of Scripture is that it “cannot be broken.” Now, what is the particular thing in Scripture, for the confirmation of which the indefectible authority of Scripture is thus invoked? It is one of its most casual clauses—more than that, the very form of its expression in one of its most casual clauses. This means, of course, that in the Savior’s view the indefectible authority of Scripture attaches to the very form of expression of its most casual clauses. It belongs to Scripture through and through, down to its most minute particulars, that it is of indefectible authority.

     It is sometimes suggested, it is true, that Our Lord’s argument here is an argumentum ad hominem, and that His words, therefore, express not His own view of the authority of Scripture, but that of His Jewish opponents. It will scarcely be denied that there is a vein of satire running through Our Lord’s defense: that the Jews so readily allowed that corrupt judges might properly be called “gods,” but could not endure that He whom the Father had consecrated and sent into the world should call Himself Son of God, was a somewhat pungent fact to throw up into such a high light. But the argument from Scripture is not ad hominem but e concessu; Scripture was common ground with Jesus and His opponents. If proof were needed for so obvious a fact, it would be supplied by the circumstance that this is not an isolated but a representative passage. The conception of Scripture thrown up into such clear view here supplies the ground of all Jesus’ appeals to Scripture, and of all the appeals of the New Testament writers as well. Everywhere, to Him and to them alike, an appeal to Scripture is an appeal to an indefectible authority whose determination is final; both He and they make their appeal indifferently to every part of Scripture, to every element in Scripture, to its most incidental clauses as well as to its most fundamental principles, and to the very form of its expression. This attitude toward Scripture as an authoritative document is, indeed, already intimated by their constant designation of it by the name of Scripture, the Scriptures, that is “the Document,” by way of eminence; and by their customary citation of it with the simple formula, “It is written.” What is written in this document admits so little of questioning that its authoritativeness required no asserting, but might safely be taken for granted. Both modes of expression belong to the constantly illustrated habitudes of Our Lord’s speech. The first words He is recorded as uttering after His manifestation to Israel were an appeal to the unquestionable authority of Scripture; to Satan’s temptations He opposed no other weapon than the final “It is written”! (Mat. 4:4,7,10; Luke 4:4,8). And among the last words which He spoke to His disciples before He was received up was a rebuke to them for not understanding that all things “which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and psalms” concerning Him—that is (Luke 24:45) in the entire “Scriptures”—“must needs be” (very emphatic) “fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). “Thus it is written,” says He (Luke 24:46), as rendering all doubt absurd. For, as He had explained earlier upon the same day (Luke 24:25-27), it argues only that one is “foolish and slow of heart” if he does not “believe in” (if his faith does not rest securely on, as on a firm foundation) “all” (without limit of subject-matter here) “that the prophets” (explained in Luke 24:27 as equivalent to “all the scriptures”) “have spoken.”

4. Christ’s Declaration That Scripture Must Be Fulfilled

The necessity of the fulfillment of all that is written in Scripture, which is so strongly asserted in these last instructions to His disciples, is frequently adverted to by Our Lord. He repeatedly explains of occurrences occasionally happening that they have come to pass “that the scripture might be fulfilled” (Mark 14:49; John 13:18; 17:12; cf. 12:14; Mark 9:12,13). On the basis of Scriptural declarations, therefore, He announces with confidence that given events will certainly occur: “All ye shall be offended (literally, “scandalized”) in me this night: for it is written ....” (Mat. 26:31; Mark 14:27; cf. Luke 20:17). Although holding at His command ample means of escape, He bows before on-coming calamities, for, He asks, how otherwise “should the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” (Mat. 26:54). It is not merely the two disciples with whom He talked on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24:25) whom He rebukes for not trusting themselves more perfectly to the teaching of Scripture. “Ye search the scriptures,” he says to the Jews, in the classical passage (John 5:39), “because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me; and ye will not come to me, that ye may have life!” These words surely were spoken more in sorrow than in scorn: there is no blame implied either for searching the Scriptures or for thinking that eternal life is to be found in Scripture; approval rather. What the Jews are blamed for is that they read with a veil lying upon their hearts which He would fain take away (2 Cor. 3:15-16). “Ye search the scriptures”—that is right: and “even you” (emphatic) “think to have eternal life in them”—that is right, too. But “it is these very Scriptures” (very emphatic) “which are bearing witness” (continuous process) “of me; and” (here is the marvel!) “ye will not come to me and have life!”—that you may, that is, reach the very end you have so properly in view in searching the Scriptures. Their failure is due, not to the Scriptures but to themselves, who read the Scriptures to such little purpose.

5. Christ’s Testimony That God Is Author

Quite similarly Our Lord often finds occasion to express wonder at the little effect to which Scripture had been read, not because it had been looked into too curiously, but because it had not been looked into earnestly enough, with sufficiently simple and robust trust in its every declaration. “Have ye not read even this scripture?” He demands, as He adduces Psalm 118 to show that the rejection of the Messiah was already intimated in Scripture (Mark 12:10; Mat. 21:42 varies the expression to the equivalent: “Did ye never read in the scriptures?”). And when the indignant Jews came to Him complaining of the Hosannas with which the children in the Temple were acclaiming Him, and demanding, “Hearest thou what these are saying?” He met them (Mat. 21:16) merely with, “Yea: did ye never read, Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou has perfected praise?” The underlying thought of these passages is spoken out when He intimates that the source of all error in Divine things is just ignorance of the Scriptures: “Ye do err,” He declares to His questioners, on an important occasion, “not knowing the scriptures” (Mat. 22:29); or, as it is put, perhaps more forcibly, in interrogative form, in its parallel in another Gospel: “Is it not for this cause that ye err, that ye know not the scriptures?” (Mark 12:24). Clearly, he who rightly knows the Scriptures does not err. The confidence with which Jesus rested on Scripture, in its every declaration, is further illustrated in a passage like Mat. 19:4. Certain Pharisees had come to Him with a question on divorce and He met them thus: “Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh? .... What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” The point to be noted is the explicit reference of Gen. 2:24 to God as its author: “He who made them .... said”; “what therefore God hath joined together.” Yet this passage does not give us a saying of God’s recorded in Scripture, but just the word of Scripture itself, and can be treated as a declaration of God’s only on the hypothesis that all Scripture is a declaration of God’s. The parallel in Mark (10:5 ff) just as truly, though not as explicitly, assigns the passage to God as its author, citing it as authoritative law and speaking of its enactment as an act of God’s. And it is interesting to observe in passing that Paul, having occasion to quote the same passage (1 Cor. 6:16), also explicitly quotes it as a Divine word: “For, The twain, saith he, shall become one flesh”—the “he” here, in accordance with a usage to be noted later, meaning just “God.”

     Thus clear is it that Jesus’ occasional adduction of Scripture as an authoritative document rests on an ascription of it to God as its author. His testimony is that whatever stands written in Scripture is a word of God. Nor can we evacuate this testimony of its force on the plea that it represents Jesus only in the days of His flesh, when He may be supposed to have reflected merely the opinions of His day and generation. The view of Scripture He announces was, no doubt, the view of His day and generation as well as His own view. But there is no reason to doubt that it was held by Him, not because it was the current view, but because, in His Divine-human knowledge, He knew it to be true; for, even in His humiliation, He is the faithful and true witness. And in any event we should bear in mind that this was the view of the resurrected as well as of the humiliated Christ. It was after He had suffered and had risen again in the power of His Divine life that He pronounced those foolish and slow of heart who do not believe all that stands written in all the Scriptures (Luke 24:25); and that He laid down the simple “Thus it is written” as the sufficient ground of confident belief (Luke 24:46). Nor can we explain away Jesus’ testimony to the Divine trustworthiness of Scripture by interpreting it as not His own, but that of His followers, placed on His lips in their reports of His words. Not only is it too constant, minute, intimate and in part incidental, and therefore, as it were, hidden, to admit of this interpretation; but it so pervades all our channels of information concerning Jesus’ teaching as to make it certain that it comes actually from Him. It belongs not only to the Jesus of our evangelical records but as well to the Jesus of the earlier sources which underlie our evangelical records, as anyone may assure himself by observing the instances in which Jesus adduces the Scriptures as Divinely authoritative that are recorded in more than one of the Gospels (e.g. “It is written,” Mat. 4:4,7,10 (Luke 4:4,8,10); Mat. 11:10; (Luke 7:27); Mat. 21:13 (Luke 19:46; Mark 11:17); Mat. 26:31 (Mark 14:21); “the scripture” or “the scriptures,” Mat. 19:4 (Mark 10:9); Mat. 21:42 (Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17);Mat. 22:29 (Mark 12:24; Luke 20:37); Mat. 26:56 (Mark 14:49; Luke 24:44)). These passages alone would suffice to make clear to us the testimony of Jesus to Scripture as in all its parts and declarations Divinely authoritative.

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