FROM the history of Solomon, and of Greece and Rome, which we have reviewed, we can see why it is that the Lord did not preserve to man any of the treatises that even he himself gave upon science. Suppose that men had it all, as had Solomon, and could teach it as Solomon taught it. With the heart not surrendered to God, with the soul not saved, what good would science do them? It could not restrain them from any kind of wickedness or corruption that is in the human heart.
The sciences are not what the world needs to-day, first of all. More than all else, the heart needs to be purified, the soul needs to be saved, the whole character rebuilt, the mind transformed into the very image and glory of God, so that the life shall reflect his righteousness, to make manifest the knowledge of God alone to all the world. Though men have all that all the sciences can give, it will profit nothing without salvation; for it will be but a little while till they will have none of it at all.
There is another thing: God wants all men to think right on every subject. There are men to-day thinking [562] on scientific subjects, but they do not think right. They get so far along that they find no place for God at all. The man without God, without the guidance of the thought, the mind, of God, is not able to think right on these subjects. And the mind is not right until it is renewed in the image of Him who created it. The mind is to be transformed, renewed. We are to have another mind altogether. Every thought is to be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
That is the work of salvation. It is to restore the image of God in the soul; to bring the mind where it will be but the reflection, of the living God. When that is done, and the work of God is finished in this world, in making known the knowledge of God to all people, then the Lord will open to men the whole universe for all eternity. Then all these other subjects will be open for our study, and the Lord can say to us, Go where you will, I can trust you. The wide universe is open to you. There is nothing kept back from you. It is all your own. It belongs to you. Go where you please, stay where you please, do what you please, think on whatever subject you please, delve into it as deeply as you please, you will do it rightly.
This is not at all to say that men are utterly to ignore all other sciences till we reach the other world. It is simply to say that the science of salvation is to lead in the study of all others. Has not the Lord set us an example as to what attention we should pay to these things, and what use we are to make of them? What is the purpose of reading and studying upon the other sciences?—That these may help us better to understand and to teach the things of the science of salvation, than we could do without that knowledge. That is the use made of them in the Bible. By this the Lord shows us that the science of salvation must take the lead of all the other sciences known in the universe.
It must take the lead of all others in this world, and when we get into that other world it will still take the lead even there. For “the cross of Christ will be the science and the song of the redeemed throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity.”
When the Lord has shown how absolutely vain is all science, all learning of all kinds without his salvation, then we say again, What can he do for men if these things which he has set before the world will not instruct them that that is not the way to take? If men will not be instructed by these things to take the right way, to allow that God’s science is the chief, and that what he knows is the best, then how can mankind hope to escape the evil that has come upon all these that have gone before?
The science of God’s salvation is the one thing for men to know, first of all: that it may lead us, guide us, balance us, and hold us everywhere in all things, and against all things evil. And it will do all this. That is the blessed truth:—
“Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is his grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles [564] the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 3:8, 9.
What is that mystery of God?—“Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God, the gospel, the power of God unto salvation, that is the mystery of God; that is the science of salvation. That is the scientific truth, around which all other sciences center. That power of God unto salvation every man must have to hold him back from the evil that is in him. The evil that is born in every man will carry him to perdition, in spite of all science, all literature, all art, all religion, that the world can furnish, or that it could furnish, unless he lays hold upon the power of God unto salvation, which comes to men by faith of Jesus Christ.
Without that power in the heart, even the science which God taught—to say nothing of the literature, the art, the religion, and all that the heathen taught—is impotent to hold back man from sinning. Without that, every vestige of evil that is in a man will show itself, in spite of all the science that he can eve know.
The mystery of God, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory; Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God, Christ and him crucified—that alone, that all in all, that over all, in all, through all, now and through eternity,—that is the science of salvation, the chief of all sciences. That is the science which leads all other sciences, which rightly takes precedence of all, and which must guide in the study of all. Let it be so with all forever.
Then let the Lord by his Spirit so draw us to himself, let the heart be so opened to that power, to the fellowship of that mystery, to the Spirit of God, that he may implant there Jesus Christ, his grace and his virtue. And as we hold our hearts open to him always, and to none but him, as a flower to the sun, we shall obtain in all its fullness, his righteousness, his power, his salvation, his mercy, his truth, his joy, his gladness, his peace—O, and, his eternal life!