Psalm 34:8; Hosea 6:3; Isaiah 7:9; Hebrews 10:32-34
O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.
If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.
Call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used…and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): In matters of divinity we must first believe, and then know; not know, and then believe. In human sciences it is otherwise. Men are brought to assent and believe by experience, knowledge, and sense; as to believe that fire is hot—but here, belief and assent go before experimental knowledge, sense, and use.
JOHN FLAVEL (1630-1691): There are two sorts of knowledge among men; one traditional, the other experimental: this last the apostle calls a “knowing in ourselves,” Hebrews 10:34, and opposes it to that traditional knowledge which may be said to be without ourselves, because borrowed from other men. Now this experience we have of the power of religion in our souls is that only which fixes a man’s spirit in the ways of godliness; it made the Hebrews take joyfully the spoiling of their goods; no arguments or temptations can wrest truth out of the hand of experience.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): The Lord alone can give us the true, vital, comfortable, and useful knowledge of His own truths. We may become wise in notions, and so far masters of a system, or scheme of doctrine, as to be able to argue and fight in favor of our own hypothesis, by dint of application, and natural abilities; but we rightly understand what we say no farther than we have a spiritual perception of it wrought in our hearts by the power of the Holy Ghost.
JOHN TRAPP: This makes knowledge to become experimental, as in Psalm 116:6, Romans 8:1,2; this is to “follow on to know the Lord,”—as without this men’s knowledge is but a flash, and may end in ignorance and profaneness, because never formed and seated in their hearts, never digested by due meditation and application to their own consciences―it is notional knowledge, not experimental and practical…Men should get a Bible stamped in their heads, and another in their hearts, as David had, Psalm 119:11—“Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” Knowledge that swims in the head only, and sinks not down into the heart, does no more good than rain on the surface.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Experience is very different from theory; and when we are taught of God, we have other views of those things of which we have read and heard before…And there is such a thing as experience, or an acquaintance with divine things derived from trial, in addition to testimony, which is peculiarly satisfactory.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): One grain of the truth of God experienced in the heart is more valuable and precious than the whole system in the head only. And so, to deepen their knowledge of the truth, to ground and settle them in it, to bring it out in all its practical power, a good, covenant God often places His children in sore trials and temptations. The mariner becomes practiced in his trade in the storm and the hurricane, amid rocks and shoals. All that he knew before he launched his vessel on the ocean or encountered the storm was only theory—but a single tempest or one escape from shipwreck imparts more experiential knowledge than years of merely theoretical work. So learns the believer. How theoretical and defective his views of divine truth; how little his knowledge of his own heart, his deep corruptions, perfect weakness and little faith; how imperfect his acquaintance with Jesus and His fullness, value, all-sufficiency, and sympathy, until the hand of God falls upon him! When messenger after messenger brings news of blasted gourds or broken cisterns, when brought down and laid low, they are constrained to confess like Job, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes,” Job 42:5,6.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): He is precious to us by experience because He has helped us in many a dark hour of trial.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: Welcome whatever makes you more acquainted with God; despise nothing that will deepen your intimacy with God in Christ. Welcome the cross, though it may be heavy; welcome the cup, though it may be bitter; welcome the chastening, though it may be severe; welcome the wound, though it may be deep. Welcome to your heart whatever increases your knowledge of God. Receive it as an advantage sent to you from your Father; receive it as a heavenly message to your soul. Listen to the voice that is in that rod: “My child, I want you to know Me better, for in knowing Me better you will love Me better, and in loving Me better, you will serve Me better. I send this chastening, this loss, this cross, only to draw you closer and closer to My embrace—only to bring you nearer and nearer to Me.”
C. H. SPURGEON: “O taste and see.” Make a trial, an inward, experimental trial of the goodness of God. You cannot see except by tasting for yourself; but if you taste you shall see, for this, like Jonathan’s honey (1 Samuel 14:29) it enlightens the eyes, “that the Lord is good.” You can only know this really and personally by experience. There is the banquet with its oxen and fatlings; its fat things full of marrow, and wines on the lees well refined; but their sweetness will be all unknown to you except you make the blessings of grace your own, by a living, inward, vital participation in them. “Blessed is the man that trusteth in him.” Faith is the soul’s taste; they who test the Lord by their confidence always find Him good, and they become themselves blessed.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious,” 1 Peter 2:1-3. Regenerate persons have tasted that He is so: an unregenerate man has no spiritual taste; his taste is vitiated by sin, and not being changed, sin is a sweet morsel in his mouth, and He disrelishes everything that is spiritual. But one that is born again savours the things of the Spirit of God; sin is exceeding sinful to him, and Christ exceeding precious; He, and His fruit, His promises, and blessings of grace, His Word and ordinances, are sweet unto His taste—and the taste he has is not a mere superficial one, such as hypocrites may have of the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come; but such a taste of Christ, and of His grace, as by a true faith, to eat His flesh, and drink His blood, and so have everlasting life. Such have a saving and experimental knowledge of Christ, an application of Him, and His saving benefits to them, a revelation of Him in them, so that they find and feel that He dwells in them, and they in Him; such receive out of Christ’s fullness, and grace for grace, and live by faith upon Him, and receive nourishment from Him.
AUGUSTINE (354-430): If you do not believe you will not understand.
