Jesus routinely quoted scripture back to the people with whom he was speaking. He relied upon it, whether for identifying himself, understanding the nature of God, or in helping even the religious leaders understand that they truly did not understand the ways of God.
One of the instances in which he did this was when Jesus was being confronted by the Saducees in the temple courts. They believed that there is no such thing as the resurrection, so they confronted Jesus with a type of riddle that they wanted him to try to sort out.
But Jesus, being Jesus, skated around them. He helped them to understand how wrong they were by quoting the scripture to them, the scripture that they should understand as the religious leaders, as the teachers of the law. But clearly, they did not.
Jesus quoted from Exodus 3 to them:
“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
Exodus 3:5-6
Specifically, Jesus was making the point that God is the God of the living, not the God of the dead, and for this reason, he says, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive. The patriarchs are alive, not dead, because they are God’s children as they are the children of the resurrection. They did die, but they are the children of the resurrection, so they will live again and never die.
Obviously, this is great news! In Christ, we can also be God’s children and we also can be children of the resurrection, living and never dying again.
But the point that I see here is that of the reliability of the scripture. Think about what Jesus is doing here. He is quoting the scripture back to the Saducees, relying upon it for what he is explaining to them.
If you believe that Jesus is who he claimed to be, you have to believe in the reliability of the rest of the scripture because he learned from it and quoted from it.
Who did Jesus claim to be? He used God’s name for himself, therefore claiming to be God. He showed himself to be the Messiah, therefore claiming to be the one sent by God that would rescue his people. He claimed to have all authority in heaven and on earth, therefore claiming to be the King over all kings.
So if the one man who also claimed to be God himself, who claimed to be the Messiah, and claimed to be the King of the universe, is actually all of those things, and you believe that he is who he says he is…and he is quoting the scripture to you, then you must believe the same texts that he is quoting. In other words, God is quoting the scriptures to you. Believe what God is saying. Believe that the scripture is truly God’s word.
The Veritas Forum captured a discussion between Tim Keller and Martin Basheer as Keller spoke about this very point. You can see it online here: