THE Bible has been compared to a river in which a child may wade, and an
elephant swim; by which is meant that it is full of practical truth so
plainly revealed that a little child may rejoice in it, while at the same
time it is full of truth so deep that the loftiest intellect of man is
very soon out of its depth in the study of it. Thus there are few things
more beautifully simple than a living faith. It is the unquestioning
trust of one who loves his God and Saviour; the calm repose of the
dependent heart on One who has summed up His Gospel in the words “Come
unto Me.” Thus there are thousands, and tens of thousands, of happy
believers who have accepted the great salvation just as God has given it;
and who, without perplexing their minds about matters which they cannot
understand, most thankfully receive what God has revealed, and rejoice in
it with their whole hearts as belonging to themselves and their children.
As little children they receive and trust, the result of which is that
they rest in their Saviour as a child rests in its mother’s arms. I
believe there are those by whom such persons are despised, and by whom
they are regarded as weak, foolish, and contemptible; but they have the
joy of the Lord, and, instead of being _despised_, they may well be
_envied_ by those who, in the consciousness of superior intellect,
consider themselves qualified to despise their folly.
But, while we rejoice in this simple and childlike Christian faith, it is
vain to deny that in “the deep things of God” there are difficulties, and
that there are other minds to whom these difficulties are a source of
real and grave perplexity. I am not now speaking of those who delight in
magnifying difficulties, and whose only object in reading their Bible is
to find out something at which they may cavil; but I am speaking rather
of thoughtful men who respect religion, and are not opposed to truth; who
have never set their face against the Gospel; and to whom it would be a
real cause of heartfelt thanksgiving if they were able to receive, in the
simplicity of faith, the great salvation revealed to them in the Word of
God. They have no wish to be unbelievers; their hearts are not set
against the truth; and they believe enough to make them long to believe
_the whole_. But there are some things that perplex them, and there are
certain difficulties which they cannot quite get over.
Now, without the slightest hesitation or disguise, I fully and frankly
admit that there are very serious difficulties in the revelation of God,
and difficulties which I believe it is not in the power of the human
intellect to solve. When, therefore, a person says that he cannot
understand all that is revealed, I agree with him. If he add that on
that account he cannot believe, I altogether dissent from his conclusion;
but as to the existence of difficulties he is undoubtedly right. We, who
believe, know perfectly well, and fully admit, that there are things in
divine revelation which we are altogether unable either to explain or
understand.
Think, for example, of the divinity of our blessed Lord and Saviour, and
the perfect union of a divine and human nature in His one sacred person.
I am not afraid to state plainly my firm conviction that no human
intellect can explain it. If He were only an appearance of God Himself
that would be intelligible; or if He were only man endued with very high
qualifications, that again would be within our reach; but that He should
be in His one person both perfect God and perfect man, or, in other
words, both infinite and finite, that I believe to be far beyond the
reach of _human_ explanation.
It is the same with the doctrine of election, and its union with human
responsibility. The two appear to be opposed to each other, but,
notwithstanding that, they are both found in the Gospel. How can it be
explained? How can it be? I cannot tell. Some people meet the
difficulty by cutting out one side, and some by cutting out the other;
but neither one process of excision nor the other can satisfy a really
thinking mind. And the difficulty remains, for we find both sides in
Scripture.
Who, again, can explain a resurrection? We see in spring that wonderful
revival of life which is a type of it. But who can explain the thing
itself? What physician, or what scientific philosopher, can explain how
the dead shall be made alive? Whenever it is done it must be done by
some power of which man knows nothing, so that the resurrection of the
dead is something which, _to the knowledge of man_, appears impossible.
Then again, in conclusion, look around on all the sin and misery of the
world. We know that it is explained in the Scriptural account of the
fall, and that there is a remedy provided in Christ Jesus. But there is
something inexpressibly appalling in the facts. Here is this beautiful
world, that appears to have been created as a happy home for holy
inhabitants, filled with sin, misery, ruin, pain, anguish, remorse,
strife, sickness, and ultimately death. And when we think of the words,
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” and when we
contrast the Creator with the present condition of creation, there is
enough to fill the heart with amazement, and to make the thoughtful man
exclaim, “How can these things be?”
Now with this full and frank acknowledgment of difficulty we are brought
face to face with the question, _What effect should these difficulties
have on our faith_? Should they shake it, or should they confirm it?
Should they lead us to give up the Gospel, or should they establish our
trust, and induce us to cleave to it more stedfastly than ever? Some
people will say, “Give it up,” and will tell you, because there are
difficulties to settle, to settle down in sceptical distrust! But surely
they are not wise in giving such advice, nor in acting on such
principles. They certainly do not act so in common life, and such
conduct is not in harmony with the wisdom of the world.
Can you explain how a little thin vapour rising up from boiling water can
force a long line of heavy-laden carriages through the country at the
rate of fifty miles an hour? But you rely on the arrangements of those
who can, and, trusting them, you do not refuse to take your seat in the
train.
Can you explain all the deep currents of the ocean, or how it is that
water became endowed with such properties as to bear up a great, heavy,
iron ship? But you trust those who have constructed the vessel, and,
without attempting to understand the construction, you do not hesitate to
go to sea.
Can you explain the chemical properties of medicine, or how it is that it
will act on your system and do you good? But you trust a physician, and
you take it.
Can you explain how it is that the will, that secret, hidden,
indescribable power within you, makes your hand move in obedience to your
wish? But would you on that account think it wise never to move your
limbs?
The fact is that in practical life we are surrounded in all directions
with things which we cannot explain, and problems which we cannot solve.
We cannot escape from such difficulties; they meet us at every turn. But
in daily life we never think of them. Our practical conduct is not
affected by them. We see what we have to do, and we do it. We take our
place in the train, we go on board the ship, we send our telegram, we eat
our food, and we move our limbs, without ever endeavouring to solve the
mysteries which underlie all that we are doing. Now all I ask is that
men should act on the same principle with reference to the Gospel. There
are, as I have said, difficulties, and if you never act until they are
solved, a weary time you will have to wait. But there is also a plain,
simple, clear word of invitation; there is a great salvation prepared,
presented, and proclaimed. There is a way of life so clearly taught that
he may run that readeth it. So the wise course is to say, “Difficulty or
no difficulty, I accept the invitation,” and to act practically just as
you do with your food or your medicine. Your physician gives you
medicine, and, though you cannot explain how it will act, you take it in
trust. So your God gives you His salvation, and your part is to accept
His gift, and leave it to Him to solve the deep mysteries of His hidden
will.
But I cannot leave the subject there, for I am prepared to maintain that
these difficulties should confirm the faith, and to claim them even as
“witnesses to truth.”
1. They are _witnesses to the truth of the Scriptures_, for in them we
are told that we are sure to meet with them.
While, as I have already said, the way of life is presented so clearly
that he may run that readeth it, there is at the same time the perfectly
clear statement that we must expect to find difficulties in the
revelation of God. Only look at St. Peter’s description of St. Paul’s
Epistles in 2 Peter iii. 16. In that passage he associates those
Epistles with the other Scriptures, and plainly declares that they
contain some things “hard to be understood.” Are we then to be surprised
if, in reading them, we meet with things “hard to be understood,” or if
we meet with men who venture to cavil at them, and so wrest them to their
own destruction? I am prepared to maintain that if in St. Paul’s
Epistles, and the other Scriptures, there had been nothing “hard to be
understood,” then St. Peter himself would not have spoken truth. The
difficulties in the writings of St. Paul are necessary to the complete
truth of the Epistle of St. Peter.
So St. Paul himself plainly teaches us that our knowledge in this world
is only partial. Only refer to his language in 1 Cor. xiii. 12. There
are two facts there stated—first, that our vision is indistinct, and then
that it is limited. It is indistinct, for we see through a glass darkly,
or through a dull refractor; and it is limited, for we know only in part.
“Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in
part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Are we to be
surprised then if we do not enjoy a full, clear, sun-light vision of the
whole? And is not the indistinctness of our vision a proof of the truth
of the Scriptures?
So we meet in the Scriptures with the full recognition of the selfsame
difficulties that arise in modern times. These difficulties are no new
discoveries of the sharpened intellect of the nineteenth century, but are
as old as the Gospel itself.
Do you find a difficulty in explaining the perfect union of a perfect
Godhead and a perfect manhood in the one person of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ? I acknowledge frankly, “So do I.” I am not afraid to
acknowledge that I cannot explain it, and that I believe no one can. But
my point is that the Scriptures have prepared us for it, and that it is
the very difficulty which our Lord Himself presented to the Pharisees
when He said, “If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?” (Matt
xxii. 45.)
Do you find a difficulty in the doctrine of “election,” and are you
unable to reconcile the gift of life to a chosen number with the perfect
equity of the universal government of God? If so, remember that there is
nothing new in such a difficulty. It is as old as the Gospel itself, and
it is fully recognized in the Scriptures. Nothing can be more perfectly
clear than the statement made respecting it in Romans ix. 1–13, or than
the full recognition of the difficulty in verse 14—“What shall we say
then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.”
So, once more, with the resurrection. Does it appear impossible that the
dead should rise again? Are you unable to conceive the possibility of a
body, lost in the ocean, burnt in the flames, or corrupted in the grave,
being restored to unity, life, and vigour? I grant you that it does
_seem_ impossible. I see the difficulty as much as any of you. But let
no man suppose that this difficulty is new, or the discovery of it the
result of his own independent intellect; for in the Scriptures of truth
we are fully prepared for it. We are not taken by surprise, for we were
warned of it 1800 years ago in our Bibles; for there we read, in verse 35
of the great resurrection chapter (1 Cor. xv.), “But some man will say,
How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?” Possibly
there may be, at this present time, some whom I am addressing, actually
fulfilling that prophecy, and so living amongst us as unintentional
“witnesses to its truth.”
But, whether there are or not, my point is that the difficulties
themselves are “witnesses to the truth of the Word of God.” The Bible
says, plainly and repeatedly, that there are things “hard to be
understood,” and, therefore, if I were to meet with nothing of the kind,
and if everything contained in St. Paul’s Epistles and the other
Scriptures were perfectly plain, the only conclusion at which I could
arrive would be that those Scriptures had not given a true description of
the fact. Now, however, I find them in this most important matter
perfectly true. The objection of the sceptic only leads me to trust my
Bible. If there were no difficulties, then I should begin to be afraid
that my Bible could not be from God. But now the infidel himself is one
of the best “witnesses” that I can put into the witness-box, and the very
argument which he brings against the possibility of the fulfilment of the
promises of God is an evidence, as clear as the noonday sun, of the
wisdom, the foreknowledge, and the perfect acquaintance with the human
understanding, with which God inspired, 1800 years ago, (by His Holy
Spirit) the Scriptures of truth. It reminds me of the words of the
apostle—“Let God be true, but every man a liar.”
But this is not all; for not only are these difficulties exactly what are
revealed in the Scriptures, but they are also exactly what, as thinking
men, we ought to expect in a divine revelation.
Let us think what we mean by a divine revelation. We mean, the
communication from an infinite God to fallen man, of His own plan for the
salvation of the sinner. Now what would a reasonable person expect in
such a communication? He would expect Him to inform us of all that
concerned our own action, and to make plain to us the way of life in
which it is His will that we should walk; but he would not expect Him to
indulge our craving after full information respecting His own hidden
being, or the mode and power by which He would carry out His promises.
He would expect Him to make His promises plain, but he would not expect
Him to explain to us His divine plan for their fulfilment; he would
expect Him to do exactly what He has done in the case of the
resurrection—promise it faithfully, and so lead us to trust Himself,
without giving any explanation as to the mode or the instrumentality by
which that promise should be fulfilled. And this is exactly the
principle which He Himself has laid down in His own Word, as when He said
(Deut. xxix., 29), “The secret things belong unto God,” _i.e._ they are
hidden in the depths of His own infinite mind; “but those things which
are revealed belong unto us, and to our children for ever, that we may do
all the words of this law;” _i.e._ all that He has revealed we may freely
make use of, and even our little children may learn in it the blessed
secret of a Father’s love.
But does it not follow that the moment we attempt to reach into the
secrets of God we are perfectly certain to meet with difficulty? We get
out of depth directly, and are like people who cannot swim. For how can
the human mind, for one moment, expect to solve the mysteries of the deep
things of God? How can it aspire either to fathom its depths, or to
scale its heights? Think for one moment what man is, a little creature
on this little ball of earth, here for a few years, and then passing away
for ever. And think what He is, “the high and lofty One that inhabiteth
eternity, whose name is Holy,” the “everlasting God, the Creator of the
ends of the earth.” And is it likely that man should be able to put as
it were into the balances the deep mysteries of His eternal will? When
Zophar thought of it he said (Job xi. 7, 8), “Canst thou by searching
find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as
high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou
know?” When David thought of the knowledge of God, he said (Psalm
cxxxix. 6), “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot
attain unto it.” When St. Paul was meeting the objection of those who
cavilled at the righteousness of the government of God, he met them with
the words (Rom. ix. 20), “Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest
against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast
thou made me thus?” And when the Sadducees put a difficult puzzle on the
subject of the resurrection, our Lord Himself silenced them with the
words, “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.”
(Matt. xxii 29.) And were they not all right? Shall the finite sit in
judgment on the infinite? the created on the Creator? the man of to-day
on the God of all eternity? And are we to doubt His revelation because
we cannot fathom the depths of His wisdom nor the hidden mysteries of His
being? Nay, rather, are not those very depths witnesses to the divinity
of His revelation? If it were all so shallow that any young man could
wade in it without wetting even his ancles, might we not then believe
that it came from some shallow mind no deeper than his own? If it
contained no mysteries, might we not begin to doubt whether it really
came from a mysterious God? So these difficulties of which we hear so
much in modern times, these difficulties on which so many of our young
men are so perfectly ready to decide, and on account of which they are
even tempted to cast aside the revelation of God—these very difficulties
are to us who believe, divine “witnesses” to the divine authorship of the
whole. Had the Book been a man’s book, drawn up by man to commend itself
to the mind of man, it never would have had in it those high and holy
mysteries by which we see the intellect of man altogether baffled. Man’s
mind would have produced nothing which man’s mind could not comprehend.
We may rejoice, therefore, in “the breadth, and length, and depth, and
height;” and, instead of being dismayed or disheartened because we cannot
fathom the unfathomable depths of the unfathomable counsels of our God,
we would rather say with St. Paul, “Who hath known the mind of the Lord?
or who hath been His counsellor?” and cling, with more tenacity than
ever, to this sacred and holy Book, thus shown by its very mystery to be
superhuman and supernatural, nothing less than a revelation from God.