1 Corinthians 2:8-9 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.… Note — I. THE INABILITY OF THE LOWER PARTS OF HUMAN NATURE — the natural man — TO APPREHEND THE HIGHER TRUTHS. 1. Eternal truth is not perceived through sensation or science. "Eye hath not seen."(1) There is a life of mere sensation. (a) The highest pleasure of sensation comes through the eye. The Corinthians could appreciate this. Theirs was the land of beauty. They read the apostle's letter, surrounded by the purest conceptions of Art. Let us not depreciate what God has given. There is a joy in contemplating the manifold forms in which the All Beautiful has concealed His essence. It is a pure delight to see. (b) But the eye can only reach the finite beautiful. It does not scan "the King in His beauty, nor the land that is very far off." And the visible is perishable beauty — not the eternal loveliness for which our spirits pant. Therefore Christ came not in the glory of form; "He had no form nor comeliness," &c.; "there was no beauty that they should desire Him." The eye did not behold, even in Christ, the things which God had prepared. (c) This is an eternal truth. This verse is quoted as if "the things prepared" meant heaven. But the world of which Paul speaks God hath revealed, only not to eye nor ear. In heaven this shall be as true as now. The pure in heart will see God, but never with the eye; only in the same way, but in a different degree, that they see Him now. (2) Again, no scientific analysis can discover the truths of God. Science proceeds upon observation. Experiment is the test of truth. Now, you cannot, by searching, find out the Almighty to perfection, nor a single one of the blessed truths He has to communicate. 1. It is in vain that we ransack the world for probable evidences of God, and idle to look into the materialism of man for the revelation of his immortality; or to examine the morbid anatomy of the body to find the rule of right. If a man go to the eternal world with convictions of eternity, the resurrection, God, already in his spirit, he will find abundant corroborations of that which he already believes. But if God's existence be not thrilling every fibre of his heart, if the immortal be not already in him as the proof of the resurrection, if the law of duty be not stamped upon his soul as an eternal truth, science will never reveal these, the physician comes away from the laboratory an infidel. Eye hath not seen the truths which are clear enough to love and to the spirit. 2. Eternal truth is not reached by hearsay — "Ear hath not heard."(1) No revelation can be adequately given by the address of man to man. For all such revelation must be made through words, the mere coins of intellectual exchange. There is as little resemblance between the coin and the bread it purchases, as between the word and the thing it stands for. Looking at the coin, the form of the loaf does not suggest itself. Listening to the word, you do not perceive the idea for which it stands, unless you are already in possession of it. Speak of ice to an inhabitant of the torrid zone, the word does not give him an idea, or if it does, it must be a false one. Talk of blueness to one who cannot distinguish colours, what can your most eloquent description present to him resembling the truth of your sensation? Similarly in matters spiritual, no verbal revelation can give a single simple idea. For instance, what means justice to the unjust, or purity to the licentious? What does infinitude mean to a being who has never stirred beyond a cell? Talk of God to a thousand ears, each has his own different conception. The sensual man hears of God, and understands one thing. The pure man hears and conceives another thing. (2) See what a hearsay religion is. There are men who believe on authority. Their minister believes all this Christianity true; therefore so do they. He calls this doctrine essential; they echo it. They have heard with the hearing of the ear that God is love, that the ways of holiness are ways of pleasantness. But the Corinthian philosophers heard Paul; the Pharisees heard Christ. How much did the ear convey? He alone believes truth who feels it. He alone has a religion whose soul knows by experience that to serve God and know Him is the richest treasure. 3. Truth is not discoverable by the heart — "neither have entered into the heart of man— the power of imagining, and the power of loving. (1) It is a grand thing when thought bursts into flame, or when a great law of the universe reveals itself to the mind of genius, or when the truths of human nature shape themselves forth in the creative fancies of the poet. But the most ethereal creations of fancy were shaped by a mind that could read the life of Christ, and then blaspheme the Adorable. Some of the truest and deepest utterances ever spoken came from one whose life was from first to last selfish. The highest astronomer of this age refused to recognise the Cause of causes. The mighty heart of genius had failed to reach the things which God imparts to a humble spirit. (2) The heart of man has the power of affection. The highest moment known on earth by the merely natural, is that in which the mysterious union of heart with heart is felt. Yet this attains not to the things prepared by God. Human love is but the faint type of that surpassing blessedness which belongs to those who love God. II. THE NATURE AND LAWS OF REVELATION. 1. Revelation is made by a Spirit to a spirit. Christ is the voice of God without the man — the Spirit is the voice of God within. The highest revelation is not made by Christ, for He said, "The Spirit shall take of Mine and shall show it unto you." And therefore it is written here — "The Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God." Now the Spirit of God lies touching, as it were, the soul of man. They mingle. The spiritual in man, by which he might become a recipient of God, may be dulled, deadened, by a life of sense, but in this world never lost. All that is wanted is to become conscious of the nearness of God. God has placed men here to feel after Him if haply they may find Him, albeit He be not far from any one of them. 2. The condition upon which this revelation is made to men is love. These things are "prepared for them that love Him," or revealed to those who have the mind of Christ. (1) Love to man may mean love to his person, or it may mean simply pity. Love to God can only mean love to His character: e.g., God is purity. And to be pure in thought and look is to love God. God is love — and to love men till private attachments have expanded into a philanthropy which embraces all, is to love God. God is truth. To be true — to hate every form of falsehood — to live a brave, true, real life — that is to love God. God is infinite — and to love the boundless, reaching on from grace to grace, and rising upwards ever to see the ideal still above us, aiming insatiably to be perfect even as the Father is perfect — that is love to God. (2) This love is manifested in obedience. (a) "He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me," &c. We remember the Roman commander who forbade an engagement with the enemy, and the transgressor was his own son. He accepted the challenge of the leader of the other host, slew, spoiled him, and then in triumph carried the spoils to his father's tent. But the Roman father refused to recognise the instinct which prompted this as deserving of the name of love — disobedience contradicted it and deserved death: weak sentiment, what was it worth? So with God — strong feelings, warm expressions, varied internal experience coexisting with disobedience, God counts not as love. (b) To love, adoring and obedient, God reveals His truth. As in the natural, so in the spiritual world. By compliance with the laws of the universe we put ourselves in possession of its blessings. Obey the laws of health and you obtain health. Arm yourselves with the laws of nature, and you may call down the lightning from the sky. In the same way there are laws in the world of Spirit, by compliance with which God's Spirit comes into the soul with all its revelations. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." "No man hath seen God at any time." "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us." "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine."(c) These laws are universal and invariable. There is no favourite child of nature who may hold the fire-ball in the hollow of his hand and trifle with it without being burnt; there is no selected child of grace who can live an irregular life without unrest; or be proud, and at the same time have peace; or indolent, and receive fresh inspiration; or remain unloving and cold, and yet see and hear and feel the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him. And if obedience were entire and love were perfect, then would the revelation of the Spirit to the soul of man be perfect too. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. |
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