Matthew 11:25

§ 41. THANKS FOR THE REVELATION TO BABES, Matthew 11:25-26 .

25. At that time And doubtless in the same connection. For in contrast with the unbelieving cities above named, there were a choice few, the children of wisdom, (Matthew 11:19,) who accepted the Gospel in its simplicity. He thanks the Father that to such the Gospel is revealed, (25, 26,) affirms his complete concurrence with the Father in the whole plan, (27,) and issues an invitation for all to come in accordance with that plan, (28-30.) I thank thee The divine arrangement was so wise and good that our Saviour was grateful at its completion. Hid What was hid? The spiritual kingdom above described. How hid? By the very fact that God has constituted it a spiritual kingdom; for eyes that wickedly persist in being gross and carnal cannot see spiritual realities. The plainest divine truths, though placed before them, are hid, as the plainest objects by daylight are hid from the eyes of the owl; only the owl’s blindness is natural and innocent, theirs is voluntary and guilty. God does right in establishing spiritual things; that their spirituality renders them hid, is the sensual man’s fault. Those who understand by this text that God has from all eternity made salvation impossible to be attained by a fixed part of mankind, wrong divine justice, and abuse our Lord’s words.

Yet it is not at all probable that the thanks of our Lord rested upon the fact that the Gospel was hid; but upon the fact that though hid, it was wisely and graciously revealed to its spiritual receivers. Parallel to this is the language of Paul: “God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin; but ye have obeyed,” etc. If in either passage we insert although after the word that, we shall obtain the actual meaning.

But it is asked by Calvinists and other predestinarians, has God not a predetermined plan for the regulation of all events? That God has determinations founded on his foreknowledge, we have illustrated in our note on Matthew 11:23. That God’s plan, however, does not predestinate and fix all the wicked acts of wicked men, and then fix their damnation for committing those decreed acts, may appear from the following remarks by Dr. Fisk in his sermon on predestination and election:

“We acknowledge and maintain that God has a plan, one part of which is to govern his responsible subjects without controlling their will by a fixed decree; to punish the incorrigible, and save those who repent and believe. Does such a plan imply the necessity of a change, ‘on condition that his creatures act in this or that way?’ If indeed it was necessary for God to decree an event in order to foreknow it, this inference might be just. But as this is seen to be false, it follows that a perfect God, whose eye surveys immensity and eternity at a glance, and who necessarily knows all possibilities and contingencies, all that is, or will be, can perfectly arrange his plan, and preclude the possibility of a disappointment, although he does not, by a decree of predestination, fix all the volitions and acts of his subjects.”

Wise and prudent He calls them what they call themselves, and what, for this world, they may be called. But the carnal heart, however sagacious in carnal things, understands not the things of the Spirit. Revealed them unto babes Babes, from the very fact that they received the truth in its simplicity; babes, as the statesmen of Rome, the philosophers of Greece, and the Sadducees of Judea, would style them. They are the ones who realize eternal things, but value low the temporal. If eternal things be unreal, they are not only babes, but fools. But if eternal things be real, these babes, so called because they receive those things with simplicity, and ignore the depraved wisdom of the world, are wiser than the “wise and prudent.”