THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCRIPTURES ACCORDING TO THE MIND OF GOD

THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCRIPTURES ACCORDING TO THE MIND OF GOD

The blessed God in His goodness and love has given to us the holy Scriptures, that we may know His mind in relation to His people. Now, while acknowledging this great favour the question which should deeply occupy our hearts is - Do we truly understand His mind? It is evident, even with regard to human things, that you may have much knowledge without the ability to use it; and this is also the case in divine things. The greatest departure from the truth has been the result of a mere human knowledge of the Scriptures. Thus Rome, in carnal wisdom and fearing any interpretation of the Bible not authorised by the so-called church, has interdicted the reading of it.

^[p. 346] Now the Scriptures are, as we may say, in two volumes: the Old Testament which reaches from Adam to Christ; the New Testament which is from Christ’s birth to His coming in glory. As far as I see, the Old Testament is for the individual saint, while in the New you are connected with the assembly. As to the Old Testament Scriptures, Timothy is told that they are able to make him “wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus”, 2 Timothy 3: 15. Now though he read and re-read them and might have a correct knowledge of what is recorded in them, yet if he had not faith in Christ Jesus, he is not made wise by them. We see in Hebrews 11, from Abel until the walls of Jericho fell down, the history of a soul walking in faith; and every believer now can ascertain the stage he has arrived at in that history. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, is specially characterised by faith, so that it is not merely knowledge of the Lord’s words that is sufficient, but having faith in Himself. Cain had the knowledge of His word, but he had not faith. Lot had the knowledge of His word, but he had not faith. The spies had the knowledge of His word, but only two of them had faith. Saul had the knowledge of His word, but he had not faith. Israel had the knowledge of His word, rehearsed over and over by the prophets, and yet they had not faith; so that eventually they made the word of God of none effect through their tradition, and used the law of God to crucify the Lord of glory.

I press this, because, from the first, the tendency of everyone is to be satisfied with the gift, without any exercise of soul as to whether he can turn the gift to right account. It betrays the ignorance and the littleness of the human mind to suppose that the blessed God could give to man, the object of His love, such a gift as the revelation of Himself, even the words of His mouth, which must be beyond the comprehension of the human mind, without giving him the ability to ^[p. 347] enjoy it fully. Even natural things, such as light and air, are beyond the comprehension of man, and yet the youngest child can fully enjoy them.

When the grace of God is made known to a soul, the work of God begins. When through the greatness of the work that has been done for him on the cross, that soul is assured by the Holy Spirit of his acceptance with God, he has not only the enjoyment of being on terms with God, but He is given a condition by the Spirit of God to enjoy the greatness of God’s gift. It is impossible for the God of all goodness to place the prodigal in happy relations with Himself, without giving him the fitness to be near Himself. He would not give him a position without the condition to enjoy it, so he gets the best robe. The delay in souls is in entering on the new condition to enjoy this new position. We are unwilling to put off the old man. It is not God’s side of the grace that is ever deficient; the deficiency is with us, in our slowness to accept the condition to enjoy the grace. The man who came to the marriage without a wedding garment was not asked why he came there, but why he had not on a garment suited to the place; Matthew 22.

I have been led into this digression in order to show the perversity of the human mind, which assumes to understand the word of God, without the divinely-given ability to enter into it. No natural man would give his child a watch without being assured that he had ability to appreciate and use it properly.

We have seen that the word of God, however plainly declared, is ineffectual without faith. Faith is as much the gift of God as the word itself. The soul that is more occupied with God than with any of His gifts finds that he receives faith from Him with regard to His gifts, for without faith it is impossible to please God. The one who has faith in God for one thing, has faith in Him for everything which His grace bestows. We see the history of faith in Hebrews 11;

^[p. 348] we begin with the true sacrifice to God set forth by Abel, and go on to possession of the land by the mighty power of God. And now, as the man with the drawn sword indicates (Joshua 5: 13), we know that Christ is the leader and completer of faith, so that anyone in Christ has now the whole course open to him. Thus he can be wise indeed unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works”, 2 Timothy 3: 6. So much for the individual path.

Now we turn to the New Testament, where we shall find the Man of God’s pleasure fulfilling all His will, He is the Head of the church which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. God is manifest in flesh, “made of a woman, made under the law”, Galatians 4: 4. Up to this every trait of grace in a man from Adam down was typical of the Lord Jesus Christ. When man had failed under every trial, He is born into the world. He begins at the weakest point - a babe, as presented to the shepherds, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. He who made man has Himself become a Man. He does not begin at maturity like Adam; He begins at the lowest point of infancy. The Creator who gave man all the attributes and qualities which God desired for man, is now a Man Himself, to encounter all the trials and difficulties which would affect a man in the weakness of humanity. His was a wonderful path; no trial, no vicissitude, no want, no opposition, nor the adverse circumstances to which man was reduced by his departure from God, ever diverted Him from His holy dependence on God or evoked a thought of self-consideration. He was always the Holy One of God - a Nazarite from His birth. He never sought human pleasures, and maintained this wonderful unique path, with His resources ^[p. 349] only in God. He never was tinged with the smallest shade of human frailty. He was the spotless One, as He must be, to atone for fallen man. When of mature age, a voice from heaven declared, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”. (Matthew 3: 17) Every contrariety which He encountered was only an opportunity to disclose His perfection, and the beauty of the grace of depending on God. He is led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, forty days without food, or any succour on the human side; He utterly confounds Satan, and now He enters upon an entirely new course. He had shown out the beauty of grace in the weakness of humanity; He had maintained everything that was due to God from a man under the law; now He turns round to declare God to men; “the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”, John 1: 18.

Eventually, when refused and rejected of man, He laid down His life according to the will of God. He suffered, “the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”, 1 Peter 3: 18. He was put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit. All the divine beauty which shone out in Him in the feebleness of humanity, though no longer expressed in the flesh, remains in Him, “the second man” - the Man “out of heaven” (see 1 Corinthians 15: 47). And now the secret of God is divulged; the collective company, the church, is the body of Christ. Every christian is a member of the body of Christ, so that all the grace which was displayed by Him here, might be perpetuated for ever in the members of His body.

When He was exalted to God’s right hand, He received for the church the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, and on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended to His own who were gathered together. Then the first-fruits unto God began. We are all baptised by one Spirit into one body, and now,

^[p. 350] what was not known before Christ came is true for every believer; all the light and truth one gets from Christ is not for oneself alone, as in Old Testament times, but for the benefit of others: “the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal”, 1 Corinthians 12: 7. So that everything one gets from the word has now a new responsibility connected with it - it is for the profit of all; as the bee that finds the honey miles off, carries it back to the hive. It is important to bear in mind that every member of the body affects us, and we affect them. If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it. It is not enough for a person to receive light from the Lord, to enjoy it himself, and unless he has to do with Christ as Head, outside of everything here, he is not directed as to the effectual use of it for the saints.

Thus there is a peculiar interest now in knowing the Scriptures. The man who has received his knowledge from the Lord feels it incumbent on him to share it with his fellows. But however plainly truth is unfolded in words, we must ever bear in mind the saying of the Lord: “Why do ye not know my speech? Because ye cannot hear my word”, John 8: 43. Hence in Ephesians, where the truth of the mystery is plainly revealed in words, the apostle prays that they may have “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him”. (Ephesians 1: 17) Although they had the words, they required the Spirit of God in full power to make them acquainted with the mind of God. We find that many are well acquainted with the letter to the Ephesians who have not apprehended the greatness of the mystery.

The church had not long shone out in beauty and power before the whole force of the enemy was directed against it. Paul falls into the hands of the Romans; he writes to Timothy before his martyrdom, that all in Asia had turned away from him; and the church had become like a great house with vessels to ^[p. 351] honour and to dishonour. In the book of Revelation we find the Lord walking in judgment in the midst of the churches, and He first censures Ephesus, which was so bright, as having left her first love. He tells of the downfall of the church which He had brought so close to Himself; and eventually there are those in Laodicea who could boast that they were rich and had need of nothing, while He Himself was outside. That is the last phase, when all the light and truth which the church could boast of was practically ineffectual. When there was no repentance the church was spued out of His mouth as no longer a vessel of testimony. That which in its calling was nearest to Him, is so estranged from Him that it is called the harlot, and the beast, the power of the world, carries her. Nothing has helped to civilise the world like the Bible; no moral code propounded by man was ever equal to it, and the result of it is that the church, set as the pillar and ground of the truth, but having become apostate, is used by the power of the world to bring about a condition of things called Babylon, which can say, “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow”, Revelation 18: 7.

I need not add more. My desire has been to show how the word without the Spirit of God can be perverted and so used for man’s benefit, that his one thought is to be independent of God, which is what Babylon expresses. If on the one hand the word of God leads us into the heights and blessedness of the Father’s presence, and into the knowledge of Himself by the Spirit of God, on the other hand we see the depth of degradation and distance, which a knowledge of the word without the teaching of God leads to.