Psalm 42:10 As with a sword in my bones, my enemies reproach me; while they say daily to me, Where is your God? During the prevalence of the disease known as the "Black Death," in the fourteenth century, the people in some of the European cities, attributing the disorder to poison secretly disseminated by Jews, furiously murdered these Israelites, it is said, by thousands, and then built Christian churches and church belfries out of the houses and estates of the slaughtered victims. See, too, the atrocities of the Inquisition, who tormented mankind in the name of God. Also the malignity of the Jews in John 9. toward the blind man cured by our Lord. These and other such facts move two questions — What is our knowledge of God? and, What has such knowledge to do with personal character? We speak of God as if there were a common understanding about Him, which is far from being the case. There are as many impressions of God as there are persons, and no uniformity will be attained by any attempts at definitions, for all these will be modified by our own individuality. Still we are told in Scripture that we ought to know God, and that the people that know Him shall be strong. But our apprehensions of God's character depends, and was meant to depend, very largely on conditions for which we are ourselves responsible. The text implies this. The mere idea of God — however derived — may be said to be natural, but the conception of the Divine character is compounded of many elements. Christians deem the grand essentials of that character to be wisdom, power, goodness. Find these three in perfect degree and balance in a living person, and He will be the Christian's God — All-wise, Almighty, All-good. But we can only realize these as we possess them in ourselves. If we have no goodness in us we cannot understand goodness. In the measure that we receive God's Spirit shall we know God, and so only. Slavish peoples crouch before a despotic deity. Given the character of the people, and you may know what their gods will be. As to character, God is what we look to as the best goodness embodied in an unseen person. Even Revelation, in all its many and varied forms, its combined voices and cross lights, will not produce uniformity of conception, for that must depend upon what our minds are. We must long to be better men would we know how good God is. (Bishop Huntington.) Parallel Verses KJV: As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God? |
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