Isaiah 54:13 And all your children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of your children. 1. In the writings of all the apostles, as well as in the anticipations of evangelical prophets, this place of the Spirit as instructor and guide of the elect individual is ungrudgingiy recognized. James speaks of a wisdom that comes to every believing suppliant direct from the Father of lights. Paul speaks of an enlightenment and revelation that are gifts of the Spirit, and says that "no man can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." And John speaks of "the anointing of the Holy one through which all doubts may be resolved, and the lowly disciple made safe against current sophistry and error. Peter asserts that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. Such testimony coming from leading and honoured apostles has a peculiar emphasis and impressiveness about it. The best barrier against heresy which could be raised up was that which consisted in the common knowledge possessed by all who had received the Spirit, and none of the apostles shows the slightest jealousy of the growing insight of their converts. They were quite content that the Church official should be abased and even superseded, so that the work of the teaching Spirit should be magnified. 2. The spirit of man has been degraded by evil, warped by prejudice and mistaken training, distracted and torn in opposite directions by the fickle and contradictory movements of a flesh inflated with egotisms and bubbling self-sufficiencies. It must undergo some radical transformation before it can become the test of what is true. One might as well call in a boiler-riveter organically deaf with the din of his occupation to settle conflicting criticisms respecting a quarter tone in music, or some spirit-drinker with burnt-up tongue and palate to do the work of an accomplished tea-taster, as appeal subtle spiritual questions to such a court as that. It is only after the Spirit has come to possess the nature of a man, and to make the undefiled conscience rule the life, that the nature can become in any sense a test of religious truth. The heart of man must be disengaged from its old embarrassments and distractions, redeemed from the bias of its passion and wilfulness, chastened into docility and meekness and humility, quickened, purified, exalted, before it can discern. It is this specific anointing with the Spirit which confers upon the conscience its new prerogative as a competent judge of truth. (T. G. Selby.) Parallel Verses KJV: And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children.WEB: All your children shall be taught of Yahweh; and great shall be the peace of your children. |
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