Life And Knowledge

And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." — Genesis 2: 9.

There are two ways of knowing things. The one is in mind by notation or conception; I know about a thing. The other is in life; I know by inward experience. A blind man, who is clever, may know all that science teaches about the light, by having books read to him. A child, or a savage, who has never thought what light is, yet knows far better than the blind scholar. The latter knows all about it by thinking; the former knows it in reality by seeing and enjoying it.

It is even so in religion. The mind can form thoughts about God from the Bible, and know all the doctrines of salvation, while the inner life does not know the power of God to save. This is why we read “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love, he may be able to utter beautiful thoughts about it; but unless he loves, he does not know God. Only love can know God. The knowledge of God is life eternal.

God’s Word is the word of life. Out of the heart are the issues of life. The life may be strong, even where knowledge in the mind is feeble. And the knowledge may be the object of the most diligent pursuit and of great delight, while the life is not affected by it.

An illustration may make this plain. Suppose we could give to an apple tree understanding, with eyes to see and work, this might enable the apple tree to do for itself what the gardener now does, to gather manure or bring moisture. But the inner life of the apple tree would still be the same, quite different from the understanding that had been added to it. And so the inner divine life in a man is something quite different from the intellect with which he knows about it. That intellect is indeed most needful, to offer to the heart the Word of God which the Holy Spirit can quicken. And yet it is absolutely impotent, either to impart or quicken, the true life. It is but a servant that carries the food: it is the heart that must feed, and be nourished and live.

The two trees in Paradise are God’s revelation of the same truth. If Adam had eaten the tree of life, he would have received and known all the good God had for him in living power as an experience. He would have known evil only by being absolutely free from it. But Eve was led astray by the desire for knowledge— ”the fruit was to be desired to make one wise,” and the man got knowledge of good without possessing it, a knowledge of it, only from the evil that was its opposite. Since that day, man has sought his religion more in knowledge than in life.

It is only life, experience, possession, of God, and His goodness that gives true knowledge. The knowledge of intellect cannot quicken. “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13:2. It is in our daily Bible reading that this danger meets us; it is there it must be met and conquered. We need the intellect to hear and understand God’s word in its human meaning. But we need to know that the possession of the truth by the intellect cannot profit but as the Holy Spirit makes it life and truth in the heart. We need to yield our hearts and wait on God in quiet submission and faith to work in us by that Spirit. As this becomes a holy habit, we shall learn the art of intellect and heart working in perfect harmony, and each movement of the mind is ever accompanied by the corresponding movement of the heart, waiting on and listening for the teaching of the Spirit.