By Dr. James H. Brookes
T 'THE .beginning of our Lord’s' public ministry it is said that “Jesus, when He was' baptized went up straightway out of the water,
is the least turn or twist of a Hebrew letter. So the smallest word, and parts of a word, in Scripture, are exalted to the high place of divine and immutable author ity assigned to His own. words, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away,” Matt, xxiv :35. “Why do ye also transgress the com mandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded,.saying, Honor thy father and mother,” Matt. xv:3, 4. It was. God who commanded, and not Moses, and ac cording to the testimony of Moses, “the tables were the work of God, and the writ ing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables,” Ex. xxxii :16. To the Sadducees our Saviour said, “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. . . . As touching the resur rection of the dead, 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? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,” Matt xxii :29-32. He tells us that it was God who spoke, although Moses wrote the narrative; and He makes the argument turn upon the difference between the past and
and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him.” The next record tells us: “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil.” The three-fold temp tation was calmly met, not by argument, not by a dazzling display of His divine ma jesty, but by quoting Scripture. Three times He said, “It is written,” and each time He quoted from Deuteronomy, as if he foresaw the shameful charges brought against the authenticity and genuineness of that book by the audacious assaults o f Higher Criticism, Matt, iv :1-11. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am come not to destroy, but-to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled,” Matt. v:17, 18. A jot is the smallest Hebrew letter, some thing like our English comma, and a tittle
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