and religion. That “the earth is the Lord’s” is not a clever saying of man’s life-experience, for it is a truth too great for man to express, know and perceive, as he would express, know and perceive other truths. God and the divine is not a subject of our perception or measurement. That He has created the world and that it is His—that is not a scientific fact to be taught, and we must be careful not to allow it to become such. It is true, but true from God and not from us. There is an eternal world, but we cannot see it, not even as a city above the clouds, and we would do well not to forget that when our artists represent it as such to us. Perhaps it would be better for them to let these things be.
As far as our knowledge is concerned, God is hidden. He does not ask, as he draws near to us: “Do you understand me?” But he asks: “Will you, in spite of the fact that you do not perceive me, will you put yourself in my hands and let yourself be led by me, even through the night?” In our own times there is a strong tendency, whether through science or through earnest investigation of the Bible, to get behind the plan, existence, and government of God. Whoever has understanding, who really understands God, will not meddle with these matters. To understand God means to bow before God, to pray to God, to make God authoritatively valid without understanding Him. To come to this position a cleansing of the desire to understand with one’s own powers is required. It requires the insight that only God Himself can place us upon the path that leads to Himself. It requires the insight that revelation is necessary. That is what is meant by the “pure heart” which alone is able to pierce through the darkness in which God lives. It signifies that a renunciation is necessary which acknowledges that all our knowledge about God comes from the knowledge that we know nothing, except what He wills to reveal to us. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” A person cannot give himself a new heart, but he can plead for it. And in this pleading, if it is earnest and humble, there lies concealed the purity of heart. And in this purity lies the promise, “He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.”
But is it not possible that this knowledge, this perception of the majesty of God and His word, might be reduced to mere human knowledge?—perhaps to a teaching, a theology, or a sermon, which we might possess as we possess other things? Yes, that is possible. It has always and frequently happened in Christianity. Not for nought are we warned, by a third word in our text, about “falsehood,” loose doctrine, or, literally, that we turn our hearts to that which is nothing. Nihilistic teaching, loose teaching, that is the opposite of holy teaching. This warning tells us that we must, in seeking after God, look upon God Himself. Not upon our own doctrines, even if they are ever so pure; not upon what grows in our own heads or dwells in our own hearts, even if it is ever so spiritual and living. “Who will ascend into the hill of the Lord?” … “The generation of them that seek after him, that seek thy face, God of Jacob.” Much zealous striving after truth or much praying is in vain, because we will never merely by these ways make it right with God. The holiest thing is lacking, even though we talk much about it: that deep respect for God’s majesty, that real reverent respect is wanting, in that God’s thoughts in every case are higher and other than our thoughts. There is wanting that earnest prerequisite of knowledge of God: not what I think, intend, say, but only: Thy name, Thy Kingdom, Thy will—that is wanting, and when that is wanting it is not merely something that is wanting, but everything is wanting. When that is wanting then nothing will succeed, everything is loose, empty doctrine, even if it be tenfold pure.
In closing, a great requirement sums up everything: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates … ye ancient doors.” A great king desires to enter. Our distress is not that there is no help before our gates. The help is there, but the doors are too narrow, too low, too small for help to enter. Our ears are callous and deaf. God can continue to speak His word for a long time, but we do not hear it, we do not understand it as it ought to be understood and in such a way as to help us. “Lift the doors and open the gates”—this is the exhortation which must first of all be heard and obediently followed. Our small, selfish human thinking must be opened wide that it may become a vessel into which God will pour the great, the bright, the streaming content. It is a command to become humble, for only humility can open wide and high the door. Humility means: not I, not my understanding and knowing,—and this “not I,” this “not my” understanding and knowing is the lifted door through which God would enter into the least of these. To be humble means to wonder and to wait and to hope for that which is truly great, for that which God desires to do unto us; and wherever this wondering, waiting and hoping is to be found, that which is truly great is not distant.
But can one summon this, can one demand it? Is this “Lift up your heads O, ye gates, and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors!”—is this really a command? Is it not much rather a proclamation, a promise? Not that we have the capacity to open wide and high our gates, but because the King comes, because He is at our gates, and because, with His coming and existence, He would present humility to mankind; therefore, the call goes forth: “Lift up your heads O, ye gates!” The King is there, the One who makes us humble, because of whom we are humble at all times, who gives us pure hearts and clean hands. And this thy King comes to thee! Verily, more is expressed here than mere human command and human wisdom. Here Jesus Christ is speaking, the Son of the living God. Here alone one can withdraw the bolt and permit the blindness and foolishness and stubbornness of heart to be forgiven, and become joyful so that what this Psalm says is true, Yea and Amen, in Him. The earth is the Lord’s; man is God’s! Oh, that our eyes and ears might open soon!
Every man regards his ways as clean in his own eyes; but the Lord weigheth the spirits.—Proverbs 16:2.
“But” says the wisdom of the Bible. For one who has once heard and understood this wisdom nothing can surpass this panoramic, significant, heavily-contended, biblical “but.” We can never be done hearing and comprehending it. One can divide the readers of the Bible into those who note it and those who note nothing of it. Not all the learned belong to those who note it—nor all the unlearned. All of us belong at times to those who note, oftentimes to those who do not note. “But” means that there is still something that is overlooked and forgotten, still something to be taken into consideration, there is still another possibility at hand. “But” signifies that in all of our thinking and speaking and perceiving and doing we must turn a sharp corner. A ship is traveling at full speed with both happy and sad travellers, with hardworking stokers and sailors aboard, ploughing forward, straight ahead,—“but” the man at the helm swerves the rudder around as he avoids a disaster, because a sandbank lay in the direct path of voyage. One simply cannot always sail straight ahead. A group of hikers are travelling a dusty highway, fretting because of the heat, complaining because of the length of the hike,—“but” one suddenly bends down and in the dust of the highway finds a gold coin. Many times it pays not to fret and complain, but to keep your eyes open; something quite different might suddenly appear. But these are only illustrations and parables. That something different to which the “but” of the Bible points, is the totally different which is expectantly waiting upon us, which comes to meet us, which might instantly appear to us to tell us that it was always there and that it will always be there. It may be that when it meets us we shall be filled with fear, or with joy, but that is not the main issue. Happy is that servant whom the Lord, when he comes, finds awake—that is the main issue.
The “but” in the Bible is the great “but” which is the cause of all these many little and littler “buts” which are to be found in our lives and in the world. It is the reason of all reasons, the reason why we humans must so often turn the corner, the reason why again and again we must learn to see things in a different light, to think differently and to speak differently. It reminds us of the Greatest which is often overlooked and forgotten, but which is to be respected, but not only does it remind us of the Greatest, but rather of the One and Only. Because we overlook this One, we overlook so much. Yet if this One is respected, then everything is respected.
