That many persons find the bible
hard to understand will not be denied by those acquainted with the facts.
Testimony to the difficulties encountered in Bible reading is too full and too
widespread to be dismissed lightly.
In human experience there is
usually a complex of causes rather than but one cause for everything, and so it
is with the difficulty we run into with the Bible. To the question, Why is the Bible
hard to understand? No snap answer can be given; the pert answer is sure to be
the wrong one. The problem is multiple instead of singular, and for this reason
the effort to find a single solution to it will be disappointing.
In spite of this I venture to
give a short answer to the question, and while it is not the whole answer it is
a major one and probably contains within itself most of the answers to what
must be an involved and highly complex question. I believe that we find the Bible
difficult because we try to read it as we would read any other book, and it is
not the same as any other book.
The Bible is not addressed to just anybody. Its message is directed to
a chosen few. Whether these few are chosen by God in a sovereign act of
election or are chosen because they meet certain qualifying conditions I leave
to each one to decide as he may, knowing full well that his decision will be
determined by his basic beliefs about such matters as predestination, free
will, the eternal decrees and other related doctrines.
But whatever may have taken place
in eternity, it is obvious what happens in time: Some believe and some do not;
some are morally receptive and some are not; some have spiritual capacity and
some have not. It is to those who do and are and have that the Bible is
addressed. Those who do not and are not and have not will read it in vain.
Right here I expect some readers
to enter strenuous objections, and for reasons not hard to find. Christianity today is man-centred, not God-centred.
God is made to wait patiently, even respectfully, on the whims of men.
The image of God currently
popular is that of a distracted Father, struggling in heartbroken desperation
to get people to accept a Saviour of whom they feel no need and in whom they
have very little interest. To persuade these self-sufficient souls to respond
to His generous offers God will do almost anything, even using salesmanship
methods and talking down to them in the chummiest way imaginable.
This view of things is, of
course, a kind of religious romanticism which, while it often uses flattering
and sometimes embarrassing terms in praise of God, manages nevertheless to make
man the star of the show.
The notion that the Bible is
addressed to everybody has wrought confusion within and without the church. The
effort to apply the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount to the unregenerate
nations of the world is one example of this. Courts of law and the military
powers of the earth are urged to follow the teachings of Christ, an obviously impossible
thing for them to do. To quote the words of Christ as guides for policemen, judges
and generals is to misunderstand those words completely and to reveal a total lack
of understanding of the purposes of divine revelation. The gracious words of Christ are for the sons and daughters of grace,
not for the Gentile nations whose chosen symbols are the lion, the eagle, the
dragon and the bear.
Not only does God address His
words of truth to those who are able to receive them, He actually conceals
their meaning from those who are not. The preacher uses stories to make truth
clear; our Lord often used them to obscure it.
The parables of Christ were the
exact opposite of the modern “illustration,” which is meant to give light; the parables
were “dark sayings” and Christ asserted that He sometimes used them so that His
disciples could understand and His enemies could not (see Matthew 13:10-17). As
the pillar of fire gave light to Israel but was cloud and darkness to the
Egyptians, so our Lord’s words shine in the hearts of His people but leave the
self-confident unbeliever in the obscurity of moral night.
The saving power of the Word is
reserved for those for whom it is intended. The secret of the Lord is with them
that fear Him. The impenitent heart will find the Bible but a skeleton of facts
without flesh or life or breath. Shakespeare
may be enjoyed without penitence; we may understand Plato without believing a
word he says; but penitence and humility along with faith and obedience are
necessary to a right understanding of the Scriptures.
In natural matters faith follows
evidence and is impossible without it, but in the realm of the spirit faith
precedes understanding; it does not follow it. The natural man must know in
order to believe; the spiritual man must believe in order to know. The faith that
saves is not a conclusion drawn from evidence; it is a moral thing, a thing of
the spirit, a supernatural infusion of confidence in Jesus Christ, a very gift
of God.
The faith that saves reposes in
the Person of Christ; it leads at once to a committal of the total being to
Christ, an act impossible to the natural man. To believe rightly is as much a
miracle as was the coming forth of dead Lazarus at the command of Christ.
The Bible is a supernatural book
and can be understood only by supernatural aid.
** Written by Aiden Wilson Tozer (A.W. Tozer) **
*** From the Book - "Man: The Dwelling Place of God" ***
THE TRUTH MEDIA
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