302 The Spiritual Man
rationalization. No matter how clever man’s mind is nor how much it
understands about God, his knowledge of God remains veiled. All he
can do is rationalize what is behind the veil, because he has not
penetrated the reality hidden from view. Since he has not yet “seen,”
man can “understand” but never can he “know.” If there is no
revelation, personal revelation, Christianity is worth nothing.
Everyone who believes in God must have His revelation in his spirit,
or else what he believes is not God but mere human wisdom, ideals
or words. Such a faith cannot endure the test.
This kind of revelation is not a vision, a heavenly voice, a dream,
or an external force which shakes the man. One may encounter these
phenomena and still not have revelation. Revelation happens in the
intuition—quietly, neither hastily nor slowly, soundless and yet with
a message. How many denominate themselves Christians, though the
Christianity they embrace is simply a kind of philosophy of life or of
ethics, a few articles of truth, or some supernatural manifestations.
Such an attitude will issue neither in a new birth nor in a new spirit.
Numerous are these “Christians” whose spiritual usefulness measures
up to zero. Not so are those who have received Christ, for by the
grace of God they have perceived in their spirit the reality of the
spiritual realm, which opens to them like the lifting of a veil. What
they today know is far more profound than what their mind has
comprehended; yea, it seems as though a new meaning has been
imparted to all which they had only understood or comprehended in
the past. Now everything is thoroughly and genuinely known,
because the spirit has seen it. “We speak of what we know, and bear
witness to what we have seen” (John 3.11). This is Christianity.
Searching with intellect never delivers men; revelation in the spirit
alone gives true knowledge of God.