“For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.”
My Notes
What Does John 5:46 Mean?
Jesus makes the logical connection explicit: "had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me." The relationship between Moses and Jesus isn't sequential but testimonial — Moses' writings are about Jesus. Rejecting Jesus isn't just rejecting a contemporary teacher; it's retroactively rejecting the one Moses was writing about all along.
The phrase "he wrote of me" claims that Jesus is the subject of the Pentateuch. Not just the prophets, not just the Psalms — Moses himself, in the foundational documents of Israel's faith, was writing about the person now standing in front of them. The Torah points to Christ.
The conditional — "had ye believed" — implies they don't actually believe Moses, despite claiming him. Their rejection of Jesus exposes a prior rejection of Moses that was invisible until now. The test of whether you truly believe Moses is whether you recognize who Moses was writing about.
Reflection Questions
- 1.How does your reading of the Old Testament lead (or fail to lead) to Jesus?
- 2.What does it mean that Moses 'wrote of' Jesus — and how does that change how you read the Torah?
- 3.Where might religious expertise actually be obscuring the text's real message?
- 4.How does your response to Jesus reveal how you actually understand Scripture?
Devotional
If you actually believed Moses, you'd believe me. Because Moses was writing about me.
Jesus makes a claim that should have rocked the Pharisees' theological world: the Torah — their life's work, their professional specialty, the text they'd memorized from childhood — was about him. The five books of Moses weren't just law and history. They were testimony about the person standing in front of them. And their failure to recognize him was proof that they didn't actually understand what they'd been studying.
This is devastating for religious specialists. The people who knew the text best missed the text's subject. Their expertise in Moses didn't produce recognition of Moses' fulfillment. The letters were memorized; the meaning was missed. You can spend your life studying a map and still not recognize the destination when you arrive.
The test Jesus proposes is simple: if your reading of Moses doesn't lead to Jesus, you're reading it wrong. Not because Jesus is reading himself into someone else's text, but because Moses was writing about Jesus all along. The sacrificial system, the Passover lamb, the serpent in the wilderness, the prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15) — every thread runs toward the person the Pharisees are rejecting.
How you respond to Jesus reveals how you actually read Scripture. Not how you think you read it. How you actually read it. The Pharisees thought they believed Moses. Jesus says their rejection of him proves otherwise.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
But if ye believe not his writings,.... They believed them to be his writings, and that they were the word of God, and…
Do not think that I will accuse you - Do not suppose that I intend to follow your example. They had accused Jesus of…
He wrote of me - For instance, in reciting the prophecy of Jacob, Gen 49:10. The scepter shall not depart from Judah,…
In these verses our Lord Jesus proves and confirms the commission he had produced, and makes it out that he was sent of…
had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me Better, If ye believed Moses, ye would believe Me:the verbs are…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture