You Will Fail Your Own Exam?

John 5:45-47
(45) “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. (46) If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. (47) But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”

New Living Translation
“Yet it isn’t I who will accuse you before the Father. Moses will accuse you! Yes, Moses, in whom you put your hopes.

Good News Translation
Do not think, however, that I am the one who will accuse you to my Father. Moses, in whom you have put your hope, is the very one who will accuse you.

Contemporary English Version
Don’t think that I will be the one to accuse you to the Father. You have put your hope in Moses, yet he is the very one who will accuse you.

Amplified Bible
Do not think that I [am the One who] will accuse you before the Father. There [already] is one who accuses you: Moses, [the very one] in whom you have placed your hope [for salvation].

Jesus healed a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath day. Jewish leaders confront Jesus because of this. Our Bible text today is part of the conversation between Jesus and the Jewish leaders.

At the end of the conversation, Jesus tells them that He will not accuse them before God the Father. The reason Jesus will not accuse them is not that they are innocent. Jesus will not accuse them because there is another accuser already. Jesus tells them that Moses through the Torah will accuse them.

Jewish people and their leaders claimed to be faithful to Moses by keeping the law that Moses wrote in the Torah. They based their belief and practice on Moses’ teaching in the Torah. They believed they will be saved because they were faithful to what Moses wrote in the Torah. The hopes of the Jewish people were in their faithfulness to the Torah that Moses wrote.

However, Jesus tells them that they have not even been faithful to what Moses gave through the Torah. Everything written in the Torah by Moses condemned the Jewish people at that time. The Jewish people had set Moses through the Torah as their standard that ought to be achieved. Yet, Jesus says they never came close to achieving that standard they set for themselves. They had failed the standard they had set. They failed their own exam!

Jewish people were wrongly interpreting the writings of Moses and therefore missed the fact that it was talking about Jesus. They did not notice that Moses was testifying about Jesus in his writings. Therefore, their wrong interpretation meant they did not understand the writings of Moses that were fundamental to their faith. They had failed their own exam!

Jesus tells the Jewish people that because they failed their own exam, He will not need to accuse them before God the Father because they would have failed themselves anyway. They had not attained the standard they set. They did not pass the exam they prepared.

We set standards for other people, would we attain that standard? If what we expect of our juniors was given to us, would we manage it? If we were put under pressure that we put on others, would we survive? If the pay we give our workers was given to us, would we make it to the next payday? Will you fail your own exam or will you pass?

What exam have you set for yourself? What exam have you set for others? What exam have you set as a spiritual goal? Will you pass your own exam? May God help us to pass our own exam, in Jesus’ name, Amen!

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