Have you tasted God Himself?

«Spiritual understanding consists, first of all, in this feeling or taste of the moral beauty of divine things.» — Jonathan Edwards, Religious Feelings«

Oh, that I could be of some use to the souls of some of God's people as Jonathan Edwards was to me! Neither he nor I are inspired messengers of God, as the apostles were. But we are, with them, in some measure "stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 4:1). These stewards were the household managers of the owner's resources, managing them in such a way as to benefit the members of the household.

Like a good steward, Edwards spoke of these «mysteries»—these once-hidden, now-revealed wonders of God—in a way that for forty years he revived my soul as no other outside the Bible. What C.S. Lewis did to awaken me to the beauty of the world, Edwards did to awaken me to the beauty of God.

Here is a little glimpse into how Edwards changed my perspective on God and His Word. Perhaps you will experience something similar.

Two types of knowledge

Many of us have a vague idea that there is a difference between knowing biblical truth intellectually and knowing it spiritually. We read 1 Corinthians 2:14:

«"For the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.".

We read 3 John 11: «he who does evil has not seen God.» And we guessed that there must be some vision that is more than just an intellectual vision that leaves us unchanged in our sin.

We read Jesus« prayer in John 17:3, where He says, »This is eternal life, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” And we concluded that this kind of knowledge is different from the kind that the devil has. This knowledge is life.

Spiritual understanding

For me, it was Jonathan Edwards who took these two kinds of knowledge—intellectual and spiritual—and brought together the biblical fragments, brought them to light in their coherent brilliance, and showed me the enormity of their significance for all of life.

There is a difference between a mere imaginative consciousness, where the mind merely contemplates things in the process of speculative activity, and a feeling of the heart, where the mind… tastes and feels… The one is merely speculative knowledge; the other is sensible knowledge, in which more than mere intellect is involved; the heart is the proper object of this knowledge, or the soul as such, which not only contemplates, but also has an inclination, and which has pleasure or displeasure. («Religious Feelings,» p. 272)

Edwards drew my attention to the phrase «spiritual understanding» in Colossians 1:9: «For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.» Then he made the obvious comment:

«That there is an understanding of divine things which is in its nature and kind entirely different from all the knowledge which natural men have, is evident from the fact that there is an understanding of divine things which the Scriptures call spiritual understanding.» («Religious Feelings,» p. 270)

And what is this spiritual understanding? How is it different from speculative or imaginary or intellectual understanding? Edwards answers:

It consists of a feeling of the heart, of the supreme beauty and sweetness of the sanctuary or moral perfection of divine things, together with all that discernment and knowledge of religious things which depend upon and flow from such a feeling. («Religious Feelings,» p. 272)

A new language, beyond Calvin

This was a new vocabulary for me: «the feeling of the heart» and «the beauty and sweetness of the sanctuary.» Edwards argued that spiritual knowledge «is often depicted as tasting, inhaling, or feeling» («Religious Feelings,» pp. 272–73). This was not the language of spiritual knowledge that I had learned in church, college, or seminary.

We are so subservient to our key teachers. For example, compare the ways in which John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards argue that the Spirit’s role in giving us spiritual knowledge does not include providing new information that is not in the meaning of Scripture.

Calvin: The ministry of the Spirit promised to us does not consist in creating new and unheard-of revelations, or in inventing a new form of doctrine by which we may be led away from the received doctrine of the Gospel, but in confirming in our minds that very doctrine which the Gospel recommends. ("Institutes")

Edwards: Spiritual understanding does not consist in any new doctrinal knowledge, or in offering to the mind any new proposition that has not been read or heard before: for it is evident that this offering of new propositions is quite different from giving to the mind a new taste or a sense of beauty and sweetness. (Religious Feelings, p. 278)

Both Calvin and Edwards« statements are true, accurate, and important. But the emphasis is different. Calvin says that the Spirit’s work in giving spiritual understanding is to »confirm in our minds that very doctrine which the Gospel recommends.« Edwards says that the Spirit’s work is to »give to the mind a new taste or sense of beauty and sweetness.”.

Calvin's language remains in the realm of reason, doctrine, and affirmation. Edwards's language explores the actual experience of this affirmation and describes it as "tasting beauty and sweetness.".

A new vision

Edwards opened my eyes to the practical biblical reality of Psalm 34:9: «Taste and see that the Lord is good.» There is a vision and a taste that the natural mind does not have.

«"There is a vision and a taste that the natural mind does not have.".

For example, Paul says that unbelievers suffer from Satan «in whose minds the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine to them» (2 Cor. 4:4). This blindness is overcome only when God «who said, »Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

So there is a spiritual vision that is different from natural vision. And what the Spirit sees is «the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.» The light is visible. But not natural light. Rather, it is the light of divine glory. The glory of Christ, the image of God.

This is what Edwards means when he says that the «new spiritual sense» sees «the highest beauty and perfection of the nature of divine things…. It is in the conception or feeling of this that the immediate and chief spiritual understanding consists» («Religious Senses,» pp. 271–272).

New tasting

This spiritual vision is also described as a spiritual tasting. «Taste and see that the Lord is good.» «How sweet are your words to me! Sweeter than honey to me!» (Ps. 119:103). «…as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow up in salvation, for you have tasted that the Lord is good» (1 Pet. 2:2–3).

Until I read Edwards's Religious Feelings, I had not given such words meaning or realized their profound spiritual, cognitive, and pastoral significance. But Edwards took me by the collar and made me realize how striking the implications are for the meaning of conversion, the miracle of the new birth, and the reality of communion with the living God.

For example, Edwards wrote about Psalm 119:

«In this psalm the perfection of the sanctuary is presented as the immediate object of spiritual relish, pleasure, appetite, and joy; the law of God, that great expression and manifestation of the holiness of God’s nature, and the prescriptions of the sanctuary for creation, are presented throughout the psalm as the food and entertainment, and as the great object of the love, appetite, pleasure, and joy of the gracious nature, which esteems the commandments of God above gold, yea, even above the purest gold, and to whom they are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb» («Religious Feelings,» p. 260)

Completely and supernaturally new

These words are not metaphorical for right thinking. They refer to the supernatural fruit of right thinking; namely, spiritual feelings—appreciation, love, delight, savoring, joy, satisfaction. These acts of the soul are conditioned by a new faculty of spiritual understanding—spiritual perception.

This ability did not exist before the new birth. It was created by the Spirit.

The mind has received a completely new kind of perception or sensation; and this is, as it were, a new spiritual sense with which the mind is endowed… which is essentially different from all previous kinds of perception of the mind, since tasting is different from other sensations; and something is perceived by the true saint… in spiritual and divine things, as absolutely different from everything… that is perceived… by natural men, as the sweet taste of honey is different from the ideas of men about honey, only by observing and feeling it. («Religious Feelings», pp. 205–206)

«"Consuming the "milk" of the word will lead to salvation not if you hear it, or know it, or decide it, but if you taste it.".

Without this «new spiritual sense of the mind,» there is no salvation. That is what it means to be born again. How many professing Christians are deprived of this spiritual capacity to enjoy God? One way to know is for pastors and teachers to pay more attention to the conditional sentence of 1 Peter 2:2–3:

«"Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation, for you have tasted that the Lord is good.".

Every pastor should think seriously about this. Peter says that drinking the milk of the word will lead to salvation «if you have tasted.» Not if you have heard, or if you have known, or if you have decided. But if you have tasted.

I thank God that more than sixty years ago He came into my life and gave me a new heart. I thank Him that for more than sixty years He has awakened and reawakened countless times a taste for the «moral beauty of divine things.» I pray that He will do the same for you. «Taste and see that the Lord is good.».