1 Corinthians 2:11-12 For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knows no man… In regeneration men become able to understand and appreciate the Holy Scriptures. Of course this proposition implies that unrenewed men are incapable of a true knowledge of Divine truth. The things of the Spirit of God are beyond the reach of the natural man; he cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned. The history of the world, using both terms history and world in their broadest sense, has two aspects. We will endeavour to discern between them, and to point out their true, mutual relations. That view of the world which is almost universally taken may be designated as the natural one, in opposition to the spiritual one. The world is contemplated as a vast system of causes and effects curiously linked in together, and susceptible of analysis into distinct series arid orders, emanating perhaps in the first place from an intelligent, holy, and benevolent first cause, and pointing to some indefinable harmony and concentration far off in the future. It is the work of science to perform this analysis. The plain matter-of-fact man sows and reaps, buys and sells, manufactures and operates, produces and consumes, untroubled by matters in which he has no direct concern. The shaking of kingdoms affects him only as it affects his markets. Or if he is aroused to a momentary excitement, he never forgets the main chance. If his plans succeed he magnifies his own wisdom and skill, and rejoices that the sun shone, and the rain fell, and the winds blew all in their season. Or if his plans fail, he regrets his undertaking and laments over the occurrence of unfavourable events. Everything is material and according to sense. The more reflecting and philosophic men of the world entertain essentially the same views, only refined, and generalised, and lifted above the grossness of mere appetite and calculation. In their silent retreats or their dignified assemblies they theorise, and speculate, and affect to decide upon the past and prophesy concerning the future, while the multitude, with little reflection, does the acting that is the counterpart and occasion of their thinking. They discover and announce the laws of moral, and intellectual, and natural science as they are gathered from history, and observation, and consciousness. But alter all, something is wanting of which science gives no account. What she has told us is of the earth and has an earthly savour. It may be true, but it is not all the truth. No scientific man however skilful, no philosopher however profound, ever get beyond the world and above it. Their views are sensuous; such as they might entertain were there no Bible; such as they do entertain with the Bible but without the enlightening Spirit of God. Now there is another view of the world which we may call spiritual in distinction from natural. It includes the natural, the whole of it. It discards no genuine science. It rejects no philosophy that is not falsely so called. It interferes with no personal, domestic, or social duties. It is ready to investigate all the processes of matter and of mind. It will dig with the geologist into the bowels of the earth, and with the astronomer scan, through the telescope, the nebulae that whitens the heavens. It will discuss the law of nations with the statesman, and urge the individual and the community to personal and social reform as boldly and zealously as any reformer of them all. It is a view of the world as a whole and in all its parts; omitting nothing, and unjustly condemning nothing. But it is not a view of the world alone; as if the object of its creation, and the assurance of its continuance were in itself. It sees something before the world, out of which it came; and something after it to which it tends. It sees a harmony between this beginning and end, that is unbroken by the intermediate time. Nay, it sees in time but the confluence of the eternities, and in matter and sense the vesture and energetic working of the Infinite Spirit. It sees the world as it is. And, what is the world? Why was it made? Why is it continued? What is the motive power of all this vast and varied machinery? Whence these compensating forces that keep the solid globe and its sister planets balanced and moving in their orbits? What keeps the river channels full, and agitates the restless sea, and stirs the viewless winds, and brings out from the unpromising soil the tinted flower, and the leafy oak, and the nutritious grain? What is the meaning of history? What intend all these records that are carved on the mural faces of mountains, or deposited in the strata that compose the earth's crust, and scattered everywhere both on and beneath the earth's surface? What may we learn from the annals of our race imperfectly kept though they have been? What will become of Europe? What will become of the Jew, and what of the Gentile? How will the connection between them result? Such questions as these suggest themselves in numbers without number. We want an answer disclosing the spiritual and true idea of the world and of human affairs. And there is an answer to them. The mystery of life has its solution. The confused and jarring course of events has its order, and has had from the beginning. There is one grand idea, one primal truth, that pervades the entire system of the universe. Every thing, every event, every mode of existence, refer directly or indirectly to it. This truth is the truth of Christ. Of Him and for Him are all things; by Him they were created, by Him they stand, and to the manifestation of His glory they tend. No man is a scholar who does not study Christ as the essence of all knowledge, and the embodiment of all truth. All history is the revelation of Christ; and all histories which do not present this fact are partial and inconsequent. The age to come is the Christian age; and whoever puts a sensuous and worldly interpretation on prophecy, or ventures with uninspired lips to predict a state of society and the introduction of a new era, in which Christ shall not be all in all, will find his prediction falsified and his interpretation scattered like chaff before the wind. It is in Christ, then, that we find all the strange and, complicate phenomena of the world resolved. There is no other light than that. The light of nature, the light of science, the light of reason, the dim light of antiquity and the glare of modern times are illusory and vain, mere ignes fatui, will-o'-the-wisps that lead those who follow them ever deeper and deeper into the mire. This Divine light shines only from the Word of God. What is the Bible to an unbeliever? Perhaps a moral treatise; perhaps a story, or a song, or the rhapsody of an enthusiast; perhaps a treasure-house locked up and barred, in which he, knows there is treasure, but to which he has no key. But it is no word of Christ, condemning, convincing, converting, sanctifying, saving. It is not the truth, living and brilliant, and able to raise the dead. In his unbelief he seeks no life there, but hunts for it in the weak and beggarly elements of this world. What is the Bible to the believer? It is his all. It is light in darkness, joy in sorrow, life in death. It is the communication, the embodying of the Holy Ghost, proceeding forth from the Father and the Son. It is the touchstone of all wisdom. Tell me, does not regeneration teach men that Word which is the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation? And can any one who has not tasted of this good Word, and been enlightened by the Spirit of God, attain this knowledge? Does any such one believe in Christ? Does not every unregenerate man believe in the world, and in himself, and in his personal experience, and in his reason, and in his arithmetic, and his science, and his philosophy, and refuse to believe in Christ and the Scriptures which testify of Christ? And in conclusion, let me ask you, do you sufficiently appreciate your privilege of knowing the Word of God? Do you subordinate all. other knowledge to this, and regulate all other knowledge by this? The Bible must be everything or nothing. It is the chart of redemption, and everything in creation and providence is subservient to redemption. It is the inspired record of Christ; of what He was, and is, and will be. Let it dwell in your hearts. Let it control your lives. Let it animate your affections. Let it stimulate your devotion. (J. King Lord.) Parallel Verses KJV: For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. |
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