Let’s read that verse from the New American Standard Bible: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify of Me.” Who was Jesus speaking to? The answer is found in verses 18-19a, “For this reason therefore THE JEWS were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” Many Jews were seeking to kill Him because they believed He was guilty of blasphemy by calling God His Father and claiming to be the Son of God. They were dead wrong, for Jesus was and is God! From verse 19-47 Jesus defended this claim, emphasizing His equality with the Father (verses 19-31) and adding FOUR WITNESSES (John the Baptist, His miracles, His Father’s testimony, and the holy Scriptures) in verses 32-47. We will only dwell on the “WITNESS of the Scriptures” to answer your question.

The Jews were “students of Scripture” and yet they failed to see that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the Old Testament scriptures that foretold His birth in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2 with Luke 2:1-7), His being born in the Royal Line of David as the Promised Messiah (2 Samuel 7:4-13 with Matthew 1:1), and the miracles He would perform (Isaiah 35:4-6 with Mattheew 11:35 & Mark 7:37). Instead of bowing at His feet as their long-awaited King, He was “despised and rejected of men” (as the Prophet Isaiah predicted in Isaiah 53:1-3).

Not only did they fail to recognize Jesus as their Messiah, they also failed to see their sinful condition and their need of Jesus as their SAVIOR Who could give them eternal life. They THOUGHT by their “searching the Scriptures” they were meriting eternal life. Jesus rebukes them for THINKING they could gain eternal life by simply reading and studying the scriptures when the scriptures plainly TESTIFIED OF JESUS as the “Savior of sinners.” Jesus told them plainly, “it is THESE THAT TESTIFY OF ME.”  Jesus, whose very name means SAVIOR, is the focus of the Old Testament scriptures. Isaiah 45:20-22 reads, “Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you who have escaped from the nations. They have no knowledge…and pray to a god that CANNOT SAVE…. And there is no other God besides Me, a just God and a Savior; there is none besides Me. Look to Me, and BE SAVED, all you ends of the earth.” These words were TESTIFYING OF JESUS, the Son of God, who came to SAVE SINNERS (1 Timothy 1:15; Luke 19:10 with John 3:14-17).

But Jesus’s words fell on deaf ears so He told them, “And you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life” (verse 40). God desires that all men would come to Jesus to be saved, as we see in 1 Timothy 2:3-6, “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God and men, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all.” God is willing to save men, but men are unwilling to come to Jesus to be saved. How solemn and sad! Because of man’s PRIDE, they would rather put their trust in their own “religious works” (studying the Bible, praying to God, attending religious services, etc.). They are going in “the WAY of Cain” (Jude 11), who trusted in “his own works” to be saved and accepted by God (Genesis 4:1-5). His brother Abel came to God in God’s “appointed way,” through faith in a “slain lamb,” which is another scripture that “testified of Jesus,” who is the Lamb of God (John 1:29 & 1 Peter 1:19). Jesus declares, “I AM THE WAY, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father, except through Me” (John 14:6). Has my reader “come to Jesus” for salvation? To COME means to BELIEVE in Him as your Savior (see John 6:35; Acts 16:31).  (DO)  (692.5)