To possess a divine revelation is the greatest blessing which could be conferred upon the creature. God's Word is such a revelation given to us. He used men of different temperaments and from varied ranks of life to give it forth, but the words they used were "divinely inspired" (God-breathed; 2 Tim. 3:16). Human learning and ability (valuable as these are) will not, of themselves, enable any one to apprehend this revelation. As the source of it is divine, there must be the possession of the divine nature to understand it.

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14).

The believer, born again by the sovereign operation of the Spirit of God, possesses the divine nature, which finds its delight in the things which are of, and according to, Him of whom he has been begotten. He has thus the capacity to enter into and enjoy the whole mind and thoughts of God as revealed in His Word. The possession of this nature alone, however, would not suffice for such apprehension and enjoyment. Our Lord Jesus Christ, ere He left His disciples, said:

"But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (John 14:26).

"Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all (the)truth:for He shall not speak of (from) Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak:and He will show you things to come" (chap. 16:13).

Another principle of deep importance is to be borne in mind-I might even say a condition precedent-if We are to enter into and grow in the thoughts of God as revealed in His Word:there must be communion with God.

This may be brightly seen in the lives of many of the saints as recorded in His Word. Let us briefly look at three of these:Abraham, Daniel and Mary-noting, however, that Abraham possessed no written revelation of God's mind, and Daniel and Mary had but a partial one.

ABRAHAM. He was called out of idolatry, as Joshua 24:2 plainly tells us. And Stephen, in his defense before the Jewish council, says:

"The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran; and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land wherein ye now dwell" (Acts 7:2-4).

Speaking generally, Abraham walked with God. True, he swerved more than once from the path of faith and consequent strangership, but this did not characterize him. It is most refreshing to trace the pathway of the "father of the faithful." It was comparatively an uneventful one, almost free from thrilling incidents, such as marked, for example, the course of Jacob. He pursued the "even tenor of his way." He was unknown to the world. His call was to the land of Canaan, but he did not rest satisfied with that, "For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb. 11:10). His faith looked beyond all dispensations to the eternal state.

Furthermore, he believed in a God of resurrection:

"By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called:accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure" (Heb. 11 :17-19).

Again, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad" (John 8:56). How came he to believe in a God of resurrection, to see Christ's day and to look forward to the eternal state? Having no written revelation, I can only conceive of one answer, namely, he was in the enjoyment of communion with God.

I would specially recall the deeply interesting narrative recorded in Genesis, chap. 18. Three men came to Abraham:he rises to meet them. They gladly partake of his proffered hospitality. (With what reluctance they partook of Lot's!-chap. 19.) After announcing that Sarah would have a son, the two men went toward Sodom, but Abraham stood yet before the Lord. "And the Lord said, Shall I bide from Abraham that thing which I do?" (verse 17). The Lord was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, but He would not do so till He had first told Abraham. Precious intimacy! "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" Such words bespeak the most tender and intimate relations. We communicate our thoughts to our friends. We have no secrets to withhold from them.

Three times over in the Scriptures Abraham is spoken of as "the friend of God."

"Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? Soest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness:and he was called the Friend of God" (James 2:21-23).

Jehoshaphat, on the occasion of the invasion of Judah by the Moabites and Ammonites, besought the Lord, and m his touching supplication uses these words:

"Art not Thou our God, which didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend for ever?" (2 Chron. 20:7).

Sweet indeed to hear Abraham thus described by men of like passions with ourselves. But we have a yet closer touch in Isaiah 41:8, where we read:

"But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend."

"My friend!" And it is none other than God Himself who speaks thus of a poor creature of the dust!

Daniel was among those who were taken captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. He seems to have been a mere youth at the time. But he and his three young fellow-captives – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego- though submitting themselves to the Babylonian power, did not swerve from the path of faithfulness to God. In Dan. 1:5 we read:

"And the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat, and of the wine which he drank; so nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king."

Here was a real test for these young captives.

"But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself" (verse 8).

Note well, "Daniel purposed in his heart" that he would not defile himself. This is true separation to God. He refuses to eat of the king's meat. Human expediency might have led him to argue that the providence of God had placed him in this favored position in the court of the world's greatest monarch, and that it was foolish to carry his principles so far; he should accommodate himself to his circumstances. But the food he was called upon to eat had been offered to a heathen idol; therefore to eat of such was to defile himself. When the king's appointment was made known to Daniel and his companions, immediately Daniel conferred not with flesh and blood. And God honors the faith which counts upon Him.

"Then said Daniel to Melzar, whom the prince of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us pulse to eat and water to drink. Then let our countenances be looked upon before thee, and the countenance of the children that eat of the portion of the king's meat:and as thou seest, deal with thy servants. So he consented to them in this matter, and proved them ten days. And at the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king's meat.

"As for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom:and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. Now at the end of the days….the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. And the king communed with them; and among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azraiah:therefore stood they before the king. And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king enquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm" (Dan. 1:11-15, 17-20).

His obedience to, and communion with, God, put Daniel in the place where he could receive those divine communications concerning the course of the four great world-empires and the millennial kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, which give to his prophecy such a fascinating charm, and without which the prophetic word as a whole would be unintelligible.

Finally I would call attention to:

Mary. In the end of Luke 10 we find the blessed Lord in the house of Martha. Martha served, but her service was cumbersome, even though she had Jesus for her guest! But Mary sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. The person of Jesus absorbed her heart, and her ear was opened to hear from His blessed lips words which were to form her thoughts after Him. For I cannot doubt that this incident throws great light upon that other instructive scene in the house of Simon, the leper, recorded in John, chap. 12. There, Jesus is the central figure. "There they made Him a supper." Lazarus, whom He raised from the dead, was at the table, and Martha served. Martha's service is here beautifully appropriate; it is no longer cumbersome, but Mary is now the specially active one.

"Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment" (verse 3).

How great is the contrast between the two scenes! Without noticing the whole scene in Simon's house, I would call attention to the words:"Suffer her to have kept this for the day of my preparation for burial" (N.T.).

She entered, probably alone, into the fact that Jesus was to die, and she anoints His body beforehand. She is not found at His tomb. May we not say that her intelligence as to this fact was obtained when she sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word?

"Yet sure if in Thy presence my soul still constant were, Mine eye would more familiar, its brighter glories bear; And thus Thy deep perfections much better should I know, And with adoring fervor, in this Thy nature grow."

May writer and reader find increasing delight in the word of God, that we may be formed in the divine nature, and thus be more to the praise of our God and Father while waiting for His Son from heaven. J. R. Elliott