THE SPIRIT OF SCRIPTURE

THE SPIRIT OF SCRIPTURE

As a rule I think the scriptures should be read with the thought that God is making Himself known to me — communicating to me how He views everything and how He determines with respect of everything. I ought, in fact, as I read the scriptures to be so in the spirit of scripture, not in the mere letter of it, as to imbibe His mind and so to learn Himself, and this in a variety of ways.

In the Old Testament He is dealing with man as man is, feeble and hindered by the intervention of any difficulty or power stopping his way, at one time no water to drink, at another time too much of it. Satan is not so much seen, but it is more all creation and man ostensibly hindering and balking any one who is faithful to God on the earth, and God shewing His people that He is above circumstances for their support; the way in which He does this is most interesting, and not only that, but it also discloses to us His own nature, so that as we apprehend the record by the Spirit we grow in the knowledge and understanding of Him.

Now in the New Testament His heart is declared to me by the Son of His love, and I am taught, not so much ^[p. 111] that He is above circumstances for His own, but that He places His own in the Son of His love above all the circumstances here. Christ walked here above everything in full rest of heart in the Father’s love; as I read the record of Him I comprehend not merely the goodness and the ways of God in His goodness as I find it in the Old Testament, but more, I am in company with the heart of God fulfilling its own unspeakable will, and in and according to that will which I see accomplished, I find myself included and set by Him in the majesty of His purpose, above every power and hindrance, in the cloudless and unfading blessedness of His presence and home, in that nearness and glory which satisfies His love. There is no fear of your getting ‘too full of scripture’ (as you say) if there is real apprehension of the spirit of scripture; and if with this there is conscience and faithfulness, God will place you in circumstances where you will learn practically the truth of Himself, which verbally He has committed to you; so that it will become not only His own saying of Himself to you, but it will come to be your own saying of Him from yourself in your own experience. The study and apprehension of God’s ways as a whole impart a breadth and strength to the mind, enabling it to view all things before God in their order and subjection to Him. It enlarges the new mind and gives a quickness in adaptation of truth which is so necessary for us here and which can only be acquired by the study of God’s mind. You may cheer your spirit with detached portions of scripture, but you do not acquire that breadth and volume in the power of which you can reduce everything into its place before God, unless you in some degree apprehend His mind in the greatness and variety in which it is revealed as a whole.