Our site uses cookies to improve the user experience and we recommend accepting its use to take full advantage of the navigation

I agree
More information

Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

View saints: Memorial of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, bishop and doctor of the Church
Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Download
Gospel text (Jn 5:31-47): Jesus said to the Jews: “If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true. But there is another who testifies on my behalf (…). You search the Scriptures, because you think you have eternal life through them; even they testify on my behalf (…). Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father: the one who will accuse you is Moses, in whom you have placed your hope. For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

The Fourth Gospel is based on the Old Testament

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, in self-defense of Jesus to the Jews, appears one of the Fourth Gospel’s peculiarities: John refers entirely on the Old Testament. “[Moses] wrote about me” (Jn 5:46), Jesus says to His opponents; Philip told Nathanael: “We have found the one whom Moses wrote about in the book of the Law and the Prophets” (Jn 1:45).

The relationship between Jesus and Moses appears programmatically, especially at the end of the Preface: “God gave the Law through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (Jn 1:16-18). The prophecy —the great promise— of Moses (“God will raise up a prophet like me; you shall listen to him”) has been more than fulfilled in an overflowing way just the way God is accustomed to give.

—Who has come is more than Moses, is more than a prophet. He is the Son and now the Son Himself will be “raised”. It became apparent the signs of grace and truth, not as destruction, but as an observance of the Law.