Knowledge of God, Part II, Matthew 26

This morning begins with an interesting overlap of concepts between Hosea and Luke; some of my most quietly compelling convictions come from such synergies. Yesterday's truth was we are urged to seek greater knowledge of God and that one day this knowledge will be undisputed and universal:

"Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 6:3

A piece of my frustration in this world is the lack of knowledge of and respect for God---any god, never mind the true God. Those outside of traditional faiths diminish evidence or absolute understanding of anything outside of that which can be empirically quantified. Or they seem drawn to the other extreme--throwing off all reason in faith-based areas and embracing pseudo-scientific spiritual conceptions: crystals, energy waves, things that seem super regressive. 

Those inside these faith systems often choose their faith by default (family tradition) or with only a passing nod of an effort to understand the scriptures that undergird their faith, thus accepting a revelation second-hand without longing for a deeper understanding and fulfillment. To me, this is not faith but wishful manipulation of God. 

Beyond this, the nature of knowledge alone is debatable. Though there may be indisputable facts, even the hardest facts are seen and interpreted through the lens of man's understanding.  Maybe this is what makes this passage from Luke so liberating: 

"Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures...." Luke 24:44-45

God can open our minds as if flipping a light switch. This truth is woven throughout both the Old and New Testaments. Jesus picked up that thread from the prophets--seeing but never seeing, hearing but never hearing. All of these threads speak of not just access to knowledge, but point to our questionable ability to receive and understand it properly outside of the Holy Spirit's help.

Matthew Henry furthers understanding of this principle:

"In his discourse with the two disciples he took the veil from off the text, by opening the scriptures; here he took the veil from off the heart, by opening the mind. Observe here,

[1.] That Jesus Christ by his Spirit operates on the minds of men, on the minds of all that are his. He has access to our spirits, and can immediately influence them. It is observable how he did now after his resurrection give a specimen of those two great operations of his Spirit upon the spirits of men, his enlightening the intellectual faculties with a divine light, when he opened the understandings of his disciples, and his invigorating the active powers with a divine heat, when he made their hearts burn within them. 

[2.] Even good men need to have their understandings opened; for though they are not darkness, as they were by nature, yet in many things they are in the dark. David prays, Open mine eyes. Give me understanding. And Paul, who knows so much of Christ, sees his need to learn more. 

[3.] Christ's way of working faith in the soul, and gaining the throne there, is by opening the understanding to discern the evidence of those things that are to be believed. Thus he comes into the soul by the door, while Satan, as a thief and a robber, climbs up some other way. 

[4.] The design of opening the understanding is that we may understand the scriptures; not that we may be wise above what is written, but that we may be wiser in what is written, and may be made wise to salvation by it. The Spirit in the word and the Spirit in the heart say the same thing. Christ's scholars never learn above their bibles in this world; but they need to be learning still more and more out of their bibles, and to grow more ready and mighty in the scriptures. That we may have right thoughts of Christ, and have our mistakes concerning him rectified, there needs no more than to be made to understand the scriptures.