Two passages on the Understanding the Word ...

. . . (or Lack Thereof)

In Isaiah 28 God declares that the understanding of the doctrines of the Word of God is given to "them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts". That is, God gives much fuller understanding of His word to those whose sole authority is the Word of God, and who do not have the co-authorities of human ideas such as creeds, confessions, or any ideas from the minds of mortal men.

Isaiah 28 teaches that the doctrines of the Bible are sprinkled throughout the Bible, "here a little, there a little". God further explains in the chapter that the reason God wrote the Bible the way He did insofar as the non-elect unsaved are concerned is that "they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken." (Isaiah 28:13).

Incidentally, I used to be pursuaded that Isaiah 28:11 referred to the sinful practice of speaking in tongues. I am not so pursuaded of that now, because the verse says "with another tongue will HE speak to this people." We know from Revelation 22:18-19 that when someone is speaking in tongues at any time after the Bible was completed, it is NOT God speaking. When someone speaks in tongues nowadays, it is possibly just the person themselves faking it and speaking out of their own deceived mind. It is also possibly Satan himself or one of Satan's evil spirits acting as a "lying spirit" in the mouth of the one speaking in tongues (1 Kings 22:19-23). But in any case the act of speaking in tongues is NOT God speaking.

But Isaiah 28:11 refers to God speaking to the people. I therefore believe that Isaiah 28:11 refers to how God speaks through the Bible. To the unsaved it is as if God is speaking in gibberish, since the unsaved do not come to a saving understanding of the Word of God. Instead, the Word of God plunges them further and further into error, resulting in their coming under the full wrath of God.

1 Corinthians 2 is related to Isaiah 28 inasmuch as this chapter is concerned with how the Word of God is savingly understood. 1 Corinthians 2:13 declares that the Word of God is given through prophets such as Paul "comparing spiritual things [words] with spiritual." Thus since the Word is given in comparative fashion ("here a little, there a little"), it is understood in this fashion as well. This is why we go through the mechanical process of turning from one part of the Bible to another to another as we search out a doctrine. This is not to say that this mechanical process is deterministic for anyone who employs it. The unsaved can use all the concordances and Biblical Greek/Hebrew computer programs they want, but they will still not come to a saving understanding of the Bible. They still end up under judgment, even thought they might attain to a significant intellectual head-knowledge of the Bible.

May each of us have the unsderstanding that is imparted by the "mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:16), for truly this is a great and wonderful expression of the love of God to us.