34 The Fmidame11tals. But the most serious consequence of this theory of the structure and inspiration of the Old Testament is that it overturns the juridic authority of our Lord Jesus Christ. WHAT OF CHRIST'S AUTHORITY? The attitude of Christ to the Old Testament Scriptures must determine ours. He is God. He is truth. His is the final voice. He is the Supreme Judge. There is no appeal from that court. Christ Jesus the Lord believed and affirmed the historic veracity of the whole of the Old Testament writings implicitly (Luke 24 :44). And the Canon, or collection of Books of the Old Testament, was precisely the same in Christ's time as i t is today. And further. Christ Jesus our Lord believed and emphatically affirmed the Mosaic authorsip of the Pentateuch (Matt. 5 :17-18; Mark 12 :26-36u; Luke 16 :31u; John 5 :46-47) . That is true, the critics say. But, then, neither Christ nor His Apostles were critical schol\rs ! Perhaps not in the twentieth century sense of the term. But, as a German scholar said, if they were not critici doctores, they were cloctores veritatis who did not come into the world to fortify popular errors by their authority. But then they say, Christ's knowledge as man was limited. He grew in knowledge (Luke 2 :52). Surely that implies His ignorance. And if His ignorance, why not His ignorance with regard to the science of historical criticisl'nu? (Gore, Lux Mundi, page 360; Briggs, H. C. of Hexateuch, page 28.) Or even if He did know more than His age, He probably spoke as He did in accommodation with the ideas of His contemporariesu! (Briggs, page 29.) ( In fact, what they mean is practica11y that Jesus did know perfectly well that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, but allowed His disciples to believe that Moses did, and taught His disciples that Moses did, simply because He did not want to upset their simple faith in the whole of the Old Testament as the actual and authoritative and Divinely revealed Vlord
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