C.H. Mackintosh Quotes

"Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" This was Satan's crafty inquiry; and had the word of God been dwelling richly in Eve's heart, her answer might have been direct, simple, and conclusive. The true way in which to meet Satan's questions and suggestions, is to treat them as his, and repel them by the word. To let them near the heart, for a moment, is to lose the only power by which to answer them. The devil did not openly present himself and say, "I am the devil, the enemy of God, and I am come to traduce him, and ruin you." This would not be serpent-like; and, yet, he really did all this, by raising questions in the mind of the creature. To admit the question, "hath God said?" when I know that God has spoken, is positive infidelity...

Now, either to add to, or take from, God's Word, proves, very clearly, that His Word is not dwelling in my heart, or governing my conscience. If a man is finding his enjoyment in obedience, if it is his meat and his drink, if he is living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of Jehovah, he will, assuredly, be acquainted with, and fully alive to, His Word. He could not be indifferent to it. The Lord Jesus, in His conflict with Satan, accurately applied the Word, because He lived upon it, and esteemed it more than His necessary food. He could not misquote or misapply the Word, neither could He be indifferent about it. Not so Eve. She added to what God had said. His command was simple enough, "Thou shalt not eat of it." To this Eve adds her own words, "neither shall ye touch it." These were Eve's words and not God's. He had said nothing about touching; so that whether her misquotation proceeded from ignorance, or indifference, or a desire to represent God in an arbitrary light, or from all three together, it is plain that she was entirely off the true ground of simple confidence in, and subjection to, God's holy Word. "By the words of thy mouth, I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer."

There are few things in which we exhibit more failure than in maintaining vigorous communion with the perfect manhood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence it is that we suffer so much from vacancy, barrenness, restlessness, and wandering. Did we but enter with a more sincere faith into the truth that there is a real Man at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens–One whose sympathy is perfect, whose love is fathomless, whose power is omnipotent, whose wisdom is infinite, whose resources are inexhaustible, whose riches are unsearchable, whose ear is open to our every breathing, whose hand is open to our every need, whose heart is full of unspeakable love and tenderness toward us—how much more happy and elevated we should be...

... Surely, if there is that in the Person of Christ which can perfectly satisfy God, there is that which ought to satisfy us, and which will satisfy us in proportion as, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we walk in communion with God.