The Higher Faith
Sad, indeed, would the whole matter be, if the Bible had told us everything God meant us to believe. But herein is the Bible itself greatly wronged. It nowhere lays claims to be regarded as the Word, the Way, and the Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustible, the ever unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” not the Bible, save as leading to him. And why are we told that these treasures are hid in him who is the Revelation of God? Is it that we should despair of finding them and cease to seek them? Are they not hid in him that they may be revealed to us in due time—that is, when we are in need of them?
There is more hid in Christ than we shall ever learn, but they that begin first to inquire will soonest be gladdened with revelation; and with them he will be best pleased, for the slowness of his disciples troubled him of old. The Son of God is the Teacher of men, giving to them of his Spirit, which manifests the deep things of God, being to a man the mind of Christ. The great heresy of the Church is unbelief in this Spirit. If we were once filled with the mind of Christ, we should know that the Bible had done its work, was fulfilled, and had for us passed away, that thereby the Word of our God might abide forever. The one use of the Bible is to make us look at Jesus, that through him we might know his Father and our Father, his God and our God.
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