John 3:27; John 14:26; John 16:13-15; Corinthians 2:12-14
A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from Heaven.
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself…He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Let no man hesitate to acknowledge, that he is incapable of understanding the mysteries of God, any further than he has been illuminated by Divine grace.
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): What is the reason that you shall see some things in a chapter at one time, and not at another; have some grace in your hearts at one time, and not at another; have a sight of spiritual things at one time and not at another? The eye is the same, but it is the Holy Ghost that openeth and shutteth this dark lantern, as I may so call it; as He openeth it wider, or contracts it, or shutteth it narrower, so do we see more or less: and sometimes He shutteth it wholly, and then the soul is in darkness, though it have never so good an eye.
GEORGE MÜLLER (1805-1898): In our day, as well as in former times, He is the teacher of His people.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): Can any man understand the Scriptures without the Spirit of God helps him? Jesus Christ must open our understanding to understand the Scriptures, and the Spirit of God must take of the things of Christ, and show them unto us.
MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): Believe one who is speaking from experience—the Bible cannot be understood simply by study or talent; you must count only on the influence of the Holy Spirit. Your first duty, then, is to begin with prayer. Entreat the Lord that He will in His great mercy deign to grant you the true knowledge of His Word. There is no other interpreter of the Word of God than the Author of that Word, according as it is said, “They will all be taught of God,” John 6:45.
BROWNLOW NORTH (1810-1875): You have got Bibles, read them. You cannot understand them unless the Holy Spirit teach you—therefore, pray for the Holy Spirit.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and that wait on Him continually; to these He will shew His covenant, not notionally, but experimentally. A few minutes of the Spirit’s teaching will furnish us with more real useful knowledge, than toiling through whole folios of commentators and expositors: they are useful in their places, and are not to be undervalued―but it will be our wisdom to deal less with the streams, and be more close in applying to the fountain head. The Scripture itself, and the Spirit of God, are the best and the only sufficient expositors of Scripture. Whatever men have valuable in their writings, they got it from hence; and the way is as open to us as to any of them. There is nothing required but a teachable humble spirit; and learning, as it is commonly called, is not necessary in order to this.
GEORGE MÜLLER: It was my beginning to understand this latter point in particular, which had a great effect on me; for the Lord enabled me to put it to the test of experience, by laying aside commentaries, and almost every other book, and simply reading the Word of God and studying it. The result of this was, that the first evening that I shut myself into my room, to give myself to prayer and meditation over the Scriptures, I learned more in a few hours than I had done during a period of several months previously. But the particular difference was that I received real strength for my soul in doing so.
JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): There is nothing that so abides with us as what we receive from God; and the reason why Christians at this day are at such a loss as to some things is, because they are content with what comes from men’s mouths, without searching and kneeling before God, to know of Him the truth of things. Things that we receive from God’s hand come to us as things from the minting house, though old in themselves, yet new to us. Old truths are always new to us if they come to us with the smell of heaven upon them.
JOHN NEWTON: We learn more, and more effectually, by one minute’s communication with Him through the medium of His written Word, than we could from an assembly of divines, or a library of books.
JOHN CALVIN: Here we must remember, that the Scripture is not only given us, but that interpreters and teachers are also added, to be helps to us…Some, which trust too much in their own wit, will vouchsafe to hear no man, and they will read no commentaries. But God will not have us to despise those helps which He offers unto us.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): It seems to be the besetting sin of mankind and one of the most terrible results of the Fall, that there is nothing difficult as to maintain a balance. In correcting one thing we go to such an extreme as to find ourselves in an equally dangerous position.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Richard Cecil says his plan was, when he laid a hold of a Scripture, to pray over it, and get his own thoughts on it, and then, after he had so done, to take up the ablest divines who wrote upon the subject, and see what their thoughts were. If you do not think and think much, you will become slaves and mere copyists. The exercise of your own mind is most healthful to you, and by perseverance, with divine help, you may expect to get at the meaning of every understandable passage. So to rely upon your own abilities as to be unwilling to learn from others is clearly folly; so to study others as not to judge for yourself is imbecility.
JOHN ROBINSON (1575-1625): Make use of the commentaries and expositions of such special instruments, as God in mercy hath raised up for the opening of His Word, and edifying the Church thereby: remembering always, that “the word of God neither came from him nor to him alone,” 1 Corinthians 14:36. He that depends too much upon other men’s judgment, makes it as if the Word of God came not to himself at all: he that neglects it, as if it came to him only.
JOHN NEWTON: I am glad to be beholden to such helps, either to explain what I do not understand, or to confirm me in what I do.
HULDRYCH ZWINGLI (1484-1531): I study them with the same feelings with which one asks a friend, “What do you understand by this?”
J. W. ALEXANDER (1804-1859): As the Bible is the best of books, so the next best is that which is most like it, which teaches the same thing, or explains the Bible.
