A Depth in the Gospel

Some, we know, have a notion that religion is a mere sentiment; that it lies in being affected about your dead children and your parents in heaven, in weeping over death-bed scenes; in fact, is best seen in excited meetings and their consequent emotions. By worldlings religion is judged to consist in womanly feeling, but to have no truth, no facts, no philosophy at its back. Oh, but it is not so; we can give as good a reason for the hope that is in us as though our religion never brought a tear to our eye, and never stirred the emotion of joy within our souls. I venture to say it, that our religion is as much based on facts as astronomy or geology, I mean indisputable historical facts; and I assert that the doctrines of revelation are verities as certain as the demonstrations of mathematics. The gospel reveals certainties, and they are worthy of the contemplation of men of the most enlarged minds.

Our gospel is not mere platitude and baby talk; there is a depth in it which no intellect can fathom. Titanic intellects have found their match in the things of God. The genius of Newton and Locke did not complain of want of room in the wondrous truths of God; to them they were waters to swim in. There is room for all the high culture, and all the thought, and all the training that this world shall ever see; room for it, ay, and at its utmost, it shall only stand upon the shore of the main ocean of divine truth and cry, “O the depths of the wisdom of the Lord.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Sphere of Instrumentality," delivered May 26, 1872. Image by Louis Vest under Creative Commons License.