 |  |
The apostle Paul wrote:
"The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are
foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned"
(I Cor. 2: 14).
A regenerate mind then is an absolute essential to understand the Bible.
(3) There must be a passion to know God's Word. A lukewarm heart will never
discover Scriptural truth. The searcher must be in dead earnest; the search for Truth
must be priority number one.
(4) There must be a reverence for God and His Word and an unquestioned faith in
both. The Scriptures are called holy, and must be treated as such (II Tim. 3: 15).
(5) There must also be absolute dependence upon the Holy Spirit to enlighten. He is
the Author of the Word and the only One Who can give opened eyes and an
understanding mind. We should be careful not to confuse inspiration and illumination or
enlightenment. We talk about works of art and beauty being inspired, but this is not the
way the Bible uses the term. In the Biblical sense, inspiration finished when the canon of
Scripture closed and the New Testament was complete. No other writings since this time
are "God-breathed" or inspired in this way. What we need now is not inspiration but
illumination, and this is what the Holy Spirit is prepared to give to those of the redeemed
who honestly and painstakingly search the Word. This is something that education and
cleverness, by themselves, cannot command. The profound scholar has no monopoly of
enlightenment. In fact his scholarship and education may be a bar to the discovery of
truth if he is not a humble believer in Christ, and willing to give his education second
place to the revealing power of the Spirit of God. There is one further thing that must be
stressed here and that is that Divine illumination goes as far as Scripture reveals, not
beyond it. Angus and Green write:
"The Spirit of God does not communicate to the human mind any doctrine or meaning
of Scripture which is not contained already in Scripture itself. He makes men wise up to
what is written, not beyond it."
(6) To be a sound interpreter of the Scriptures a knowledge of the original languages
God used is invaluable. Basic doctrine cannot be settled from translations, however good
they are, if only for the reason that no translation can fully represent all that the original
contains. We should be surprised if one who claimed to be a specialist in the
interpretation of Greek tragedy could not read Greek. This may stimulate some who read
these words to commence the study of Greek and Hebrew, which would be a good thing.
Such however should bear in mind that it takes more than a few months study to be in a
position to lay down the law in the translation and interpretation of the Greek or Hebrew
Scriptures. No one can be proficient in a language until they can write it as well as read
it, and that is why composition plays such an important part in learning a language. A
little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and we have seen bad slips in doctrine made
by amateur Greek students.