It may seem strange that God should reveal His purpose and plan for mankind in a book. Here are the reasons why this is precisely what we should expect and how the Scripture and their message are proved to be authentic, and vital to knowing God.

‘Jesus answered and said unto them: ye do err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God.’

And our subject is ‘authentic revelation’. Now the Lord in this passage is answering the Sadducees, the very large section or sect among the Jews of those days. They believed very little of the Jewish faith really; they were devout in their Jewish nationalism and their worship but not great believers in the doctrines, even which were before them in those days. And they didn’t believe (as is recorded here) the resurrection, and they were trying to trip up Christ about the resurrection and dismally failed to do so; but that doesn’t so much concern us – it’s the reply of the Lord. Jesus answered and said unto them ‘ye do err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God’ and that’s very important: ‘the power of God.’

What does he mean by that? Well, the workings of God, the mighty power of God – but it flows out of knowing the scriptures. ‘Ye do err’, your great mistake is: you don’t know the scriptures, and our translation says ‘nor the power of God’, but the sense of the passage is that because you don’t know the scriptures, you don’t know anything about the power of God. The power of God is more than just raw power. You may think from our perspective that it’s a thunderbolt or lightning; capricious in its way – there you see it, where’s it going to strike? Well, you cannot tell – you have no idea – it seems to be random from our point of view: maybe here maybe there, while the power of God isn’t like that.