Matthew 22:30-40 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.… The mere knowledge of things will not necessarily exert any influence on conduct; and it were profanely absurd to call that man religious whose deportment is unaffected by the great truths of religion.- In respect even of the things of sense, we require a combination of love with knowledge in order to the constitution of character; for we do not call a man a sensualist merely because he knows the objects of sense. He must love those objects, he must have given his heart to those objects, before we think of applying to him such a title; before we think of calling him a sensual man. In like manner you can have no right to say that acquaintance with the articles of religion makes a man a religious man. He may know the articles of religion just as he knows the objects of sense; but he is not a sensualist unless attached to the objects of sense; neither is he religious unless his affections fasten on the articles of religion. When, however, it has been allowed that the affections must be engaged in religion, there will arise various questions as to degree and direction. We have already said, that with many the majesty and the awfulness of the Almighty pass as evidence of the impossibility of His being the objects of our love. They will tell you that He might rightly be the object of the fear, of the reverence, of the adoration of His Creatures; but that it savours of an unholy familiarity, and therefore marks a species of enthusiasm to speak of Him as the object of love — and when you set against such an opinion the grave requirements of Scripture, which insist on the love of God as the sum and substance of religion, then you will be told that love as directed towards the Creator must be something wholly different from love as felt between man and man; and thus by representing it a mystic and unearthly thing, they will quite remove it from your comprehension and attainment. (H. Melvill, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. |
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