Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: February 1st

"IT PASSETH KNOWLEDGE"

That they may know the mystery of God, even Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. - Colossians 2:2-3

I DO not suppose that the paradox of knowing the love of Christ which " passeth knowledge" is to be explained by taking "know" and "knowledge " in two different senses, so as that it means we may experience, and know by conscious experience, that love which the mere understanding is incapable of grasping. That of course is an explanation which might be defended, but I take it that it is much truer to the Apostle’s meaning to suppose that he uses the words "know" and " knowledge" both times in the same sense. And so we get two familiar thoughts. The understanding can grasp, but it can never grasp all round, the love of Jesus Christ. You and I believe, I hope, that Christ’s love is not a man’s love, or at least that it is more than a man’s love. We believe that it is the flowing out to us of the love of God, that all the fulness of the Divine heart pours itself through that narrow channel of the human nature of our Lord, and therefore that the flow is endless and the Fountain infinite.

I suppose I do not need to show you that it is possible for people to have, and that in fact we do possess, a real, a valid, a reliable knowledge of that which is infinite, although we possess, as a matter of course, no adequate and complete knowledge of it. But I only remind you that we have before us in Christ’s love something which, though the understanding is not by itself able to grasp it, yet the understanding led by the heart can lay hold of, and can find in it infinite treasures. But we can only lay our poor hands, as a child might lay its tiny palm upon the base of some great cliff - we can lay our poor hands on His love, and hold it in a real grasp of a real knowledge and certitude; but we cannot put our hands round it, and feel that we comprehend as well as apprehend. Blessed be His name, we cannot!

His love can only become to us a subject of knowledge as it reveals itself in its manifestations. Yet after even these manifestations, it remains unuttered and unutterable, even by the Cross and grave, even by the glory and the throne.

My friend, God hath loved us with an everlasting love. He has provided an eternal redemption and pardon for us. If you would know Christ at all, you must go to Him as a sinful man, or you are shut out from Him altogether. If you will go to Him as a sinful being, fling yourself down there, not try to make yourself better, but say, " I am all full of unrighteousness and transgression: let Thy love fall upon me and heal me "; you will get the answer, and in your heart there shall begin to live and grow up a root of love to Him, which shall at last effloresce into all knowledge and into all purity of obedience; for he that hath had much forgiven, loveth much; and "he that loveth, knoweth God," and " dwelleth in God, and God in him."