He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for He knew what was in man”—John 2:24, 25.
THIS was not knowledge acquired by personal experience of the sins and errors of fallen humanity, for He was ever “the Holy One of God” (Luke 4:34). Neither was it an understanding that resulted from the study of some form of philosophy or psychology, for He was not a product of the schools or a disciple of some adept in scientific lore (John 7:15). He knew what was in the hearts and minds of men because He was God manifest in flesh, He who of old could say, “I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins” (Jer. 17:10).
Therefore He spoke with absolute authority (Matt. 7:29), recognizing man as the highest of God’s creation (Matt. 6:26; 12:12), yet marred and blighted by sin so that his very heart is now a nest of every unclean thing (Matt. 15:19) until cleansed by the regenerating power of God, which lifts him from the natural to the spiritual plane (John 3:6).
“My rescue from eternal woe,
My every blessing while below,
My life, my joy, my heaven, I owe
To God’s forgiving love.
I have no merit of my own;
In Christ I stand—in Him alone—.
Complete before Jehovah’s throne,
Through God’s forgiving love.
Oh, wondrous grace! that Thou wilt take,
Yea, prize a heart that sin doth break,
Accepting it for Jesus’s sake,
In Thy forgiving love.”