Jesus knew then that the Scriptures would not be clearly understood by many. It’s true today, and it was true in the first century. Modern Christians disagree over all sorts of issues: baptism, spiritual gifts, the end times, church government, and so on, and if we read church history, we’ll discover that we’re not the first generation like so.
It is rather clear in Jesus’ use of scripture that it cannot be inferred truthfully. He consistently ignored or even denied exclusionary, punitive, and triumphalist texts in his own Jewish scriptures in favor of passages that emphasized inclusion, mercy, honesty, and above all love.
He knew what passages were creating truly God's means and which passages were merely cultural, self-serving, paranoid, tribal, and legalistic additions. Jesus read his own inspired scriptures in a spiritual and highly selective way, which is why he was accused of “teaching with authority and not like our scribes” (Matthew 7:29). He even told the fervent and pious “teachers of the law” that they had entirely missed the point: “You understand neither the scriptures nor the power of God” (Mark 12:24).
John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me."
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