What is it that renders all Scripture so difficult? It is not the language. A striking proof of it is found in this: if anyone were to ask what part of the New Testament I think to be the most profound of all, I should refer to the epistles of John. Yet, if there be any part more than others put in language of the greatest simplicity, it is these very epistles. The words are not those of the scribes of this world. Neither are the thoughts enigmatical or full of foreign or difficult-to-comprehend allusions.
The difficulty of Scripture lies in this: it is the revelation of Christ for the souls that have their hearts opened by grace to receive and to value Him. Now John, of all the disciples, was most favored in intimacy of communion with Christ. He is used of the Holy Spirit to give us the deepest thoughts of Christ's love and personal glory.
The real difficulty of Scripture consists in its thoughts being so infinitely above our natural mind.
We must give up self in order to understand the Bible. We must have a heart and an eye for Christ, or Scripture becomes an unintelligible thing for our souls. But when the eye is single, the whole body is full of light. Hence we see every day a learned man completely at fault, though he may be a Christian—stopping short at the epistles of John or at the Revelation as being too deep for him to enter into.
On the other hand, you may find a simple man, who, if he cannot altogether understand these scriptures or explain every portion of them correctly, can at any rate well enjoy them. They convey intelligible thoughts to his soul and comfort, guidance, and profit too. Even if it be about coming events, or Babylon and the beast, he finds there great principles of God which, even though they may be found in what is considered the most obscure of all the books of Scripture, yet have a practical bearing for his soul.
The reason is that Christ is before him, and Christ is the wisdom of God in every sense. It is not, of course, because he is ignorant, but in spite of his ignorance he can understand it. Nor is it because a man is learned, that he is capable of entering into the thoughts of God. Whether ignorant or learned, there is but one way—the eye to see what concerns Christ. Where Christ is firmly fixed before the soul, I believe that He becomes the light of spiritual intelligence as He is the light of salvation.
It is the Spirit of God who is the power for us to apprehend Scripture, but He never gives that light except through Christ. Otherwise man has an object before him that is not Christ, and therefore cannot understand Scripture which reveals Christ. He is endeavoring to force the Scriptures to bear upon his own objects and thus Scripture is perverted.
Such is the real key to all mistakes of Scripture. Man takes his own thoughts to the Word of God, and builds up a system which has no divine foundation.
W. Kelly