HUMAN INTERPRETATION OF THE TRUTH
HUMAN INTERPRETATION OF THE TRUTH
“For there must be also heresies (i.e., opinions) among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you”, 1 Corinthians 11: 19.
It is deeply interesting and important to note the way by which truth is divested of its power over us through attaching our own opinion to it, though there be no open denial nor any intention to deny the truth.
In christendom, this has resulted in systematised error. I will only adduce two examples of it: one, that though the judgment of man on the cross is believed in, there is no acceptance of the fact, that for [p. 430] the believer, that man is removed from the eye of God, and that every believer is in Christ before God.
The other example is, that while every believer accepts the Lord’s supper, they make it a means of grace to themselves and have no thought of its being a remembrance of Him.
If it is once seen that the power of the truth is lost by adding our own opinions to it, we can easily trace how we may lose the power of it.
When Lot separated from Abraham, he did not leave Canaan, but he chose a spot for himself, and thus he lost the effect of the truth without denying it: he had a sad life and a bitter end.
We see it also in the case of the twelve spies: they brought up a good report of the land, but the opinion of the ten who were afraid was: “We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched” (Numbers 13: 31,32), and therefore they fell under the judgment of God.
Moses was debarred from entering Canaan because he added to the words of God; Numbers 20: 10.
We learn from the similitudes of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 13 that the meal was leavened; it was not refused but it was added to, and thus it was vitiated. This leavening of the truth is fully corroborated in the two examples I have adduced.
Every pious man in christendom believes that Christ bore the judgment of sin, but if you questioned him as to whether the man that sinned is removed and an entirely new man brought in, he will only admit that there is a moral change, that the bad is removed. Hence he can enjoy himself here as a man, satisfied with a good conscience and with a walk characterised by good conduct. Some would quote: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51: 10); but this is millennial and does not apply to the present time. And in the other example [p. 431] I have given as to the Lord’s supper, the remembrance of Christ’s death is limited to our benefit, assuring us only of our gain but not calling upon us to be in fellowship with Christ’s death here.
I think it is important to see in these two examples, the result of the human mind adding to the word of God; for if you do not see that the old man is completely removed and Christ brought in, you will never get a true idea of what the new man is, and still more, you will have no divine conception of Christ personally, and therefore you never could understand what the church is as members of His body: “he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one”. (Hebrews 2: 11) Hence, you must drop into the thought current in christendom, that Christ was made one of us, whereas the truth is that we are of Him.
I hope I have said enough to prove that the tendency, even of the believer, is, not to refuse the truth, but to qualify it and thus to vitiate it. Anyone who will carefully study the epistle to the Corinthians will see how the human mind engendered loss and failure in every circle from the house of God to our own house. But I must add that while in christendom every believer has faith in the blood of Christ, yet the one entangled therein does not reach the fulness of the gospel, because he sees only atonement - that is, the covering of sin - in the work of Christ. I corroborate this by stating that the word ‘atonement’ does not occur in the New Testament; the word for reconciliation is translated ‘atonement’ and thus by the intrusion of the human mind, the greatness of the truth of the gospel is lost.
But I turn now to those who profess to have a full gospel, who believe that the man under judgment is gone in the cross of Christ and see that believing in Christ risen they are justified and have peace with God, who rejoice in the perfectness of their salvation and have received the Holy Spirit as the seal, and [p. 432] therefore are associated together as members of the body of Christ.
Now there is great joy and often great devotedness in knowing this much and yet many who know it do not know deliverance; they can believe that the man is gone from the eye of God in judgment in the cross, but they do not know in themselves that by the Spirit they are in Christ and are delivered from the body of this death, so that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made them free from the law of sin and death. They have never really entered upon the new history that the old man is crucified and Christ liveth in them.
In confirmation of this I would state that however fervent and devoted they are in setting forth what Christ has done, and the blessing that has resulted from all He did in coming to our side, they never can speak of going to His side, or of having part in His things, and hence though they are separate from the world and cultivate amiability and graciousness of manner, they are not separate from the earth and things on the earth, as having fellowship with Christ’s death here, and thus the place where He is, is not really the anchoring ground of their souls. They are deprived of all these great blessings of God’s grace because of putting a human interpretation on Romans 6, that because God sees you clear of the old man in the cross, you, by the reckoning of faith, can see yourself clear.
Now let us trace God’s way with souls. God begins the work; you are born again, you turn to God instead of being alienated from Him. You begin with fear, but you have a sense of His goodness and you are looking for light from Him, like the thief on the cross, who, counting on Christ’s goodness says, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom”. (Luke 23: 42) Then the light of God’s grace shines into his soul in the words of Christ: “Verily I say unto thee, Today [p. 433] shalt thou be with me in paradise”. (Luke 23: 43) Thus the newborn babe desires the sincere milk of the word that he may grow thereby: and you will remark that in reading the word, it is some particular passage that strikingly comes home to you. You are made conscious of the truth of the word: “My sheep hear my voice”: and when this is known to you you look for it again and you feel depressed without it. Then your cry will be: “Keep not thou silence, O God”. (Psalm 35: 22)
I have often said to those who have been listening to an address, I do not ask you to tell me all you remember of it, but tell me the word that came home to yourself.
When I was in college, a divinity student, so-called, I went to hear Mr. Darby preach in a small room. He took up part of Ephesians 1. I do not remember the address, but one word fastened itself on me: “Accepted in the beloved”. I had never before heard the word ‘acceptance’; it was not known in our course of theology. We had the word ‘assurance’, but that refers to our own state, the other to how God is towards us.
You will remark that every man speaking with spiritual power, bases everything upon the word of God, he does not try to embellish it or to make it attractive to the hearers, he relies upon the greatness of the word itself. “The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple”, Psalm 119: 130.
If he quotes human authority he acquires credit for himself, but he really weakens the word of God on which he seemed to rely. You will find as a rule that every man speaking in power adheres to the very words of a passage, but many who have a general and extensive knowledge of the word, and are well up in the references, weaken the passage in hand by quoting passages that do not apply, and which, though having similar expressions, have an entirely different meaning.
[p. 434] Every passage of Scripture, however similar it may be to another, has a meaning peculiar to itself.
Many years ago there was a meeting in London of young men desiring to be in Christ’s service, and each had to write a sheet of note paper on one or two verses, not merely telling of the subject of the passage, but of the importance of every word, adverb or conjunction, and this in order to get a clear idea of the plenary inspiration of Scripture.
Every earnest soul expects, as he reads the word, not to remember all he has read, but to receive something specially from the Lord; and it is a well-known fact that everyone walking with the Lord receives from Him fresh light on the scriptures best known to him, while on the other hand we find that those who are declining can repeat old thoughts on Scripture, but have nothing fresh from it, as we read in Deuteronomy 11: 17, the first mark of departure from the Lord was that they had “no rain”.
Perhaps nothing is more derogatory to a servant than to give out as ministry what he has acquired by reading the best commentaries. We see it in our own day: those who read the Synopsis more than the Bible are never in power as to the present mind of the Lord. It is very easy to gather from the servant’s words where he is himself, and no man has real power but according to the measure of the power the word has upon himself. Everyone can speak of the past as he reads it in the gospels, but he must be in communion with the Lord in order to give out the present mind of the Lord. I do not think I need add more on this point to prove the importance of adhering simply to the word of God, and not being led by authorities or references into any deviation from it.
In conclusion, I would add that the truth is often limited or lost by the human title given to it. I have already referred to man’s idea of reconciliation being atonement; consequently, in the translation of the [p. 435] New Testament, where the word ought to be ‘reconciliation’, we read “atonement”, and thus reconciliation is really limited to atonement, whereas it means a great deal more. It is said in one of the articles: ‘Christ reconciles us to the Father’, whereas even in the parable (Luke 15) the father was reconciled before he kissed the prodigal. In my own time I remember the title ‘gospel of the glory’ was refused as an innovation, whereas in truth the innovation is the limitation given to it by man. More than thirty years ago, a young man proposing at the monthly Bible reading to consider the gospel of the glory, it was objected to by two, who I am sure would not do so now; and at that time I have known an evangelist decline to go to a meeting, alleging that he did not know the gospel of the glory, and regarded it as something visionary. After some commotion about it, the most devoted servant of the day stood up to give an address, stating, ‘I wish to speak this evening of the gospel of the glory, and rightly called the gospel of the glory’.
Thus we see that human interpretation of the truth naturally leads to resistance and opposition to the full meaning of it. As lately, the opposition as to the gift of eternal life arose from the general idea that it is given at new birth, instead of seeing that, as in John 20, it is given with the Spirit: “he breathed into them, and says to them, Receive the Holy Spirit”.
And still more seriously the last phase of the church (Laodicea) seems to have affected some who began well: they contended that all the purpose of God’s grace was free gift and not attainment, and were so far right. They allowed they could see it by the Spirit, but they overlooked new creation and the subjective work of the Spirit in them, so that men could talk of title and great things without really knowing them practically. The prodigal son not only knew his father’s favour to him, but he was made personally fit to enjoy his presence. It would have been vain for [p. 436] him to talk of his possessions, what he was given, when he was not capable of enjoying them. It is lamentable to see men holding the truth of God’s full grace to us, without any practical benefit from it, because they deny the Spirit’s subjective work, which is really new creation, and in their writings and in their ways they declare that they are poor and blind and are not in communion with the Lord.