Chapter 22: The Necessity of Divine Teaching to give us a description of the world he had left. We should understand it according to our ideas and experience. Now, if the analogy between the two worlds is very imperfect, it is plain that our knowledge of things there, from his description, must be imperfect in proportion. So, when we find in the Bible descriptions of heaven and hell, or anything in the invisible world, it is plain that from mere words we can get no true ideas at all adequate to the reality.
2. The wickedness of our hearts is so great, as to pervert our judgment, and shut out from our minds much that we might understand of the things of religion.
When a man's mind is so perverted on any subject, that he will not take up the evidence concerning it, he cannot, of course, come at the knowledge of the truth on that subject. This is our case in regard to religion. Perverseness of heart so shuts out the light, that the intellect does not, and from the nature of things cannot, get even the ideas it might otherwise gain, respecting divine things.
3. Prejudice is a great obstacle to the reception of correct knowledge concerning religion.
Take the case of the disciples of Christ. They had strong Jewish prejudices respecting the plan of salvation so strong that all the instructions of Christ himself could not make them understand the truth. After teaching them personally, for three years, with all the talent, and simplicity, and skill he was master of, he could never get their minds in possession of the first principles of the gospel. Up to his very death, he could not make them see that he should die, and rise from the dead. Therefore he says in his last conversation "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you." This was the very design of his going away from them, that the Spirit of Truth might come, and put them in possession of the things which he meant by the words he had used in teaching them.
The general truth is this; that without divine illumination, men can understand from the Bible enough to convict and condemn them, but not enough to sanctify and save them.
Some may ask, What, then, is the use of revelation?
It is of much use. The Bible is as plain as it can be. Who doubts that our Lord Jesus Christ gave instructions to his disciples, as plainly as he could? See the pains which he took to illustrate his teaching; how simple his language; how he brings it down to the weakest comprehension, as a parent would to a little child. And yet it remains true, that without divine illumination, the unaided reason of man never did, and never will attain any available knowledge of the gospel. The difficulty lies in the subject. The Bible contains the gospel, as plain as it can be made. That is, it contains the signs of the ideas, as far as language can represent the things of religion. No language but figurative language can be used for this purpose. And this will forever be inadequate to put our minds in real possession of the thing themselves. The difficulty is in our ignorance and sin, and in the nature of the subject. This is the reason why we need divine illumination, to get any available knowledge of the gospel.
III. The Spirit of God alone, can give us this illumination.