We are familiar and affirmative of the relationship between Jesus and Scripture as one where Jesus fulfils Scripture (Matt 5:17). Jesus is the one whom Scripture’s characters, images, and promises point. As Telford Work in Living and Active: Scripture in the Economy of Salvation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 168, states, “[Jesus] makes Scripture intelligible. With Jesus’ arrival, the tables are turned and the man becomes the new context for the biblical text.”
But Work suggests that the relationship is more than just one-way. In as much as Jesus fulfils Scripture, Scripture also informs Jesus. The ‘biblical Word is instrumental to the incarnation of the logos. Canonical Scripture plays an indispensable part in Jesus’ human formation’ (p.168). Here’s an extended quote from Work which highlights his point:
“Obedience names Jesus’ respect for the will of the Father (John 6:38-40). Jesus’ obedience takes concrete shape as obedience to Scripture. As a child of the covenant, he humbly accepts God’s total claim on his life. As the creator of Israel becomes a son of Israel, so th
e creator and content of Israel’s Scripture grows up obedient to Scripture (Luke 2:41-52; John 6:38). In Jesus’ life Scripture acts as the revealer of God’s will for humanity and for the Son of Man. It commands Jesus’ obedience and so defines his mission. The Tanakh reveals the Father’s will for Jesus’ career like no other institution in Jesus’ world.[...] Jesus is not only the antitype of the Old Testament’s predictions and pointers. [Tanakh] does not simply map out a course that leads others to him. The Tanakh discloses Jesus’ significance to others because it firsts discloses Christ to himself. In the Tanakh, the written Word encounters the incarnate Word. Jesus listens to the voice of the Father, and hears – himself.
Did Jesus know at some point in his itinerant ministry that he was Israel’s Messiah? [...] If Jesus’ self-awareness was an effect of his anointed prophethood [...] and not merely of his status as incarnate Word, then it was also in large part a function of Jesus’ relationship with Scripture. N. T. Wright traces likely indications of Jesus’ messianic self-awareness in the Gospels, and concludes that Jesus’ baptism is as likely an inauguration of messianic consciousness as any. And at the center of Wright’s speculations is the fact that if Jesus became aware of his own messiahship, he did so on the basis of the Tanakh’s descriptions of his messianic anointing. If the earthly Jesus knew he was Messiah, he knew it from his own exposure to Scripture.” (p.170-171)
Food for thought there by Work. Regardless of whether one agrees or not, one effect of Work’s proposal is that it serves to reinforce the doctrine of Scripture (here, Old Testament Scripture) as God’s Word. If Scripture is central in informing Jesus’ awareness and understanding of his messiahship, then the view that Scripture is merely a ‘witness’ to the Word incarnate is too weak a view to substantiate how Jesus viewed Old Testament Scripture. Rather, what we seem to have is as Work puts it ‘the written Word encountering the Incarnate Word”. As how Work states it further in his book, “Scripture is Jesus’ heritage, his horizon, his formation, his practice, his authority, his instrument, his medium, his teaching, his crisis and vindication, his witness, his confession, his community, and his glory. The Bible is the very language of the Messiah.” (p.212)
