Psalm 119:18 Open you my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. I. SOME THINGS IN WHICH IT DOES NOT CONSIST. 1. It does not consist in any degree of knowledge acquired in the ordinary manner. 2. It does not consist in revelations of new truths. 3. It does not consist merely in lively and affecting views of the truths already revealed in the Word of God. 4. It does not consist in any conceptions, or creations of the imagination, respecting God, Christ, heaven, or hell. II. IN WHAT, THEN, DOES IT CONSIST? It is a sense Of Divine things. In its results it differs entirely from a mere opinion or judgment of the mind. There may be an opinion founded on the testimony of others, that light is pleasant; but of this pleasantness the blind man has no just conception. If sight is granted to him, he will find light to be widely different from anything which he had ever conceived. So of Divine things. The natural man may believe them to be excellent and glorious, but of this excellency and glory he has no just conception. The natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit. A sense of their superlative excellency and glory in the mind is as certainly the work of God as sight in the natural eye, or hearing in the natural ear, or tasting in its appropriate organ. III. THE PRODUCTION OF THIS SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING HIS PEOPLE IS EVERYWHERE IN THE SCRIPTURES LITERALLY AND IMMEDIATELY ASCRIBED TO THE ALMIGHTY. IV. CONCLUSION. This subject suggests, 1. The reason why those who have been newly born into the kingdom of Christ seem to regard everything as new, and feel themselves to be in a new world. 2. That persons of very limited capacities may have spiritual understanding. 3. The importance of inquiring concerning the nature of our understanding in a spiritual respect. 4. No other knowledge is so pure and elevated as that which is thus acquired. 5. No other knowledge is so capable of producing sacred joy. 6. No other knowledge is so purifying in its influence. A spiritual understanding of the character of God, a holy sense of His presence, a sacred view of the character of Christ, a holy sense of the presence and work of the Spirit, a spiritual appreciation of the extent and spirituality of the law — all these things are pre-eminently calculated to excite the renovated heart to walk in the statutes and commandments of the Lord. (J. Foot, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.WEB: Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things out of your law. |
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