2nd Peter 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: 20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. 21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
[The Great Controversy pp. 344>346] The work of God in the earth presents, from age to age, a striking similarity in every great reformation or religious movement. The principles of God's dealing with men are ever the same. The important movements of the present have their parallel in those of the past, and the experience of the church in former ages has lessons of great value for our own time. No truth is more clearly taught in the Bible than that God by his Holy Spirit especially directs his servants on earth in the great movements for the carrying forward of the work of salvation.
Men are instruments in the hand of God, employed by him to accomplish his purposes of grace and mercy. Each has his part to act; to each is granted a measure of light, adapted to the necessities of his time, and sufficient to enable him to perform the work which God has given him to do. But no man, however honored of Heaven, has ever attained to a full understanding of the great plan of redemption, or even to a perfect appreciation of the divine purpose in the work for his own time. Men do not fully understand what God would accomplish by the work which he gives them to do; they do not comprehend, in all its bearings, the message which they utter in his name.
Even the prophets who were favored with the special illumination of the Spirit, did not fully comprehend the import of the revelations committed to them. The meaning was to be unfolded, from age to age, as the people of God should need the instruction therein contained.
Though the finite minds of men are inadequate to enter into the counsels of the Infinite One, or to fully understand the working out of his purposes, yet often it is because of some error or neglect on their own part, that they so dimly comprehend the messages of Heaven. Not infrequently the minds of the people—and even of God's servants—are blinded by human opinions, the traditions and false teaching of men, so that they are able only partially to grasp the great things which he has revealed in his Word. Thus it was with the disciples of Christ, even when the Saviour was with them in person. Their minds had become imbued with the popular conception of the Messiah as a temporal prince, who was to exalt Israel to the throne of universal empire, and they could not understand the meaning of his words foretelling his sufferings and death.
They preached the message which Christ had committed to them, though they themselves misapprehended its meaning. While their announcement was founded on Daniel 9:25, they did not see, in the next verse of the same chapter, that Messiah was to be cut off. From their very birth their hearts had been set upon the anticipated glory of an earthly empire, and this blinded their understanding alike to the specifications of the prophecy and to the words of Christ. They performed their duty in presenting to the Jewish nation the invitation of mercy, and then, at the very time when they expected to see their Lord ascend the throne of David, they beheld him seized as a malefactor, scourged, derided, and condemned, and lifted up on the cross of Calvary.
What despair and anguish wrung the hearts of those disciples during the days while their Lord was sleeping in the tomb! And yet their minds were shrouded in uncertainty and doubt. In their anguish they did not then recall the words of Christ pointing forward to his suffering and death. If Jesus of Nazareth had been the true Messiah, would they have been thus plunged in grief and disappointment? This was the question that tortured their souls, while the Savior lay in his sepulcher during the hopeless hours of that Sabbath which intervened between his death and his resurrection.
In our day, we too need to beware of the insertions and additions of finite men, into the teaching of the scriptures, and it is quite advisable that when we open the authoritative word of God, that we let its majestic truths and themes instruct our hearts, without bias, or any of our preconceived ideas being inserted therein. It requires great humility to study the word of God objectively, and what we should fear most is the temptation to make it say what we think it should. Personal opinions, culture, tradition, and our own preferences should never be allowed to intrude into the study and exegesis of the word of God. If something in the Bible does not rub us the right way, then it would be best to leave it alone, rather than try to bend it to suit our own ideas of what we think it should mean.
We therefore end with a passage of scripture which encourages us to study the scriptures with the intent that they should instruct us, rather than the other way around. Let's read:
2nd Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
May The Lord add His blessing to the study and practice of His every word. God bless!