III. The wisdom of God is appreciated by those who have realised its adaptation to human needs. (Ver. 9.) There is a twofold knowledge, or “understanding,” of Divine truth, as there is of much else with which we are acquainted. There is an acquaintance with the general facts of Divine revelation—a theoretical understanding of its suitableness to the needs of men, and there is a knowledge which arises from an experience of its adaptation to our personal need—a practical understanding which springs from having received a personal benefit. The chemist knows that a certain drug possesses qualities adapted to cure a particular malady, but if he comes to experience its efficacy in the cure of the disease in his own body, he has a knowledge which far surpasses the merely theoretical. It is then “plain” to him from an experimental understanding. The wisdom of God in the abstract, or in the personal Logos, is allowed by many to be adapted to the spiritual needs of the human race. They see the philosophy of the plan of salvation in the general, but its wonderful adaptation and “rightness” is only fully revealed when they have “found” the “knowledge” by an experimental reception of Christ into their own hearts. To him that thus “understands” all is “plain.”
outlines and suggestive comments.
Verse 4. Christ offers Himself as a Saviour to all the human race. I. The most awakening truth in all the Bible. It is commonly thought that preaching the holy law is the most awakening truth in the Bible, and, indeed, I believe this is the most ordinary means which God makes use of. And yet to me there is something far more awakening in the sight of a Divine Saviour freely offering Himself to every one of the human race. . . . Does it not show that all men are lost—that a dreadful hell is before them? Would the Saviour call so loud and so long if there was no hell? II. The most comforting truth in the Bible. If there were no other text in the whole Bible to encourage sinners to come freely to Christ, this one alone might persuade them. Christ speaks to the human race. Instead of writing down every name He puts all together in one word, which includes every man, woman, and child. III. The most condemning truth in all the Bible. If Christ be freely offered to all men, then it is plain that those who live and die without accepting Christ shall meet with the doom of those who refuse the Son of God.—McCheyne.
They are called to repentance, they are called to the remission of their sins; they may and must repent, and they, by repentance, are sure of pardon for all their sins. The good angels have not sinned, the bad angels cannot repent; it is man that hath done the one, it is man that must do the other.—Jermin.
“O men.” Some render it, “O ye eminent men,” (see [Critical Notes]), whether for greatness of birth, wealth, or learning. But “the world by wisdom knows not God” (1 Cor. i. 21); and “not many wise men, not many mighty, not many noble, are called” (verse 26). And yet they shall not want for calling, if that would do it. But all to little purpose, for most part. They that lay their heads upon down pillows cannot so easily hear noises. “The sons of men,” i.e., to the meaner sorts of people. These, usually, like little fishes, bite more than bigger. “The poor are gospelised,” saith our Saviour. Smyrna was the poorest, but the best of the seven churches.—Trapp.
Several ways whereby God addresses Himself to men. How different the method which God uses towards the rational from that which He uses towards the material world. In the world of matter God has not only fixed and prescribed certain laws according to which the course of nature shall proceed, but He is Himself the sole and immediate executor of those laws. . . . It is to Himself that He has set those laws, and it is by Himself that they are executed. But He does not deal so with the world of spirits. He does not here execute the laws of love, as He does there the laws of motion. He contents Himself to prescribe laws, to make rational applications, to speak to spirits. He speaks to them because they are rational, and can understand what He says, and He does but speak to them because they are free. And this He does in several ways. 1. By the natural and necessary order and connection of things. God, as being the Author of nature, is also the author of that connection that results from it between some actions and that good and evil that follows upon them, and which must therefore not be considered as mere natural consequences, but as a kind of rewards and punishments annexed to them by the Supreme Lawgiver, God having declared by them, as by a natural sanction, that ’tis His will and pleasure that those actions which are attended with good consequences should be done, and that those which are attended with evil consequences should be avoided. Not that the law has its obligation from the sanction, but these natural sanctions are signs and declarations of the will of God. 2. By sensible pleasure and pain. A thing which everybody feels, but which few reflect upon, yet there is a voice of God in it. For does not God, by the frequent and daily return of these impressions, continually put us in mind of the nature and capacity of our souls, that we are thinking beings, and beings capable of happiness and misery, which because we actually feel in several degrees, and in several kinds, we may justly think ourselves capable of in more, though how far, and in what variety, it be past our comprehension exactly to define. 3. By that inward joy which attends the good, and by that inward trouble and uneasiness which attends the bad state of the soul. This is a matter of universal experience. It is God that raineth this pleasure or this pain in us, and that thus differently rewards or punishes the souls of men, and thus, out of His infinite love, is pleased to do the office of a private monitor to every particular man, by smiling upon him when he does well, and by frowning upon him when he does ill, that so he may have a mark to discern, and an encouragement to do his duty.—John Norris.
Verse 5. A man may be acutely shrewd and yet be a fool, and that in the very highest sense. Nor is this a mere mystic sense. He must be a fool actually, and of the very plainest kind, who gives the whole labour of a life, for example, to increase his eternal agonies.—Miller.
The heart is frequently used, simply for the mind or seat of intellect as well as for the affections; so that “an understanding heart” might mean nothing different from an intelligent mind. At the same time, since the state of the heart affects to such a degree the exercise of the judgment, “an understanding heart” may signify a heart freed from the influence of those corrupt affections and passions by which the understanding is perverted, and its vision marred and destroyed.—Wardlaw.
Verse 6. The discoveries of Wisdom relate to things of the highest possible excellence; such as the existence, character, works, and ways of God; the soul; eternity; the way of salvation—the means of eternal life. And they are, on all subjects, “right.” They could not, indeed, be excellent themselves, how excellent soever in dignity and importance the subjects to which they are related, unless they were “right.” But all her instructions are so. They are true in what regards doctrine, and “holy, just, and good” in what regards conduct or duty. There is truth without any mixture of error, and rectitude without any alloy of evil.—Wardlaw.
Right for each man’s purposes and occasions. The Scriptures are so penned that every man may think they speak of him and his affairs. In all God’s commands there is so much rectitude and good reason, could we but see it, that if God did not command them, yet it were our best way to practise them.—Trapp.