Taught by God?¹

Thomas Boston

Do you wish to know if you are being taught by God? I offer you the following marks:

1. Christ’s teachings are very humbling to the soul. Human knowledge puffs up, but divine knowledge abases and casts down. It empties a man of all conceit of his own worth and fills him with low and abasing thoughts of himself. So it was with Job: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:5,6). This same light of the Spirit, which shows us the glorious greatness and majesty of God and His other shining perfections, shows also, at the same time, the vileness, baseness, emptiness and utter unworthiness of man, even of the best and holiest of men, as in the case of Isaiah: “Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips,

¹Taken, with editing, from Boston’s Works, vol 1. It is a continuation of January’s article by Boston.

and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (6:5). When Paul got a saving sight of Christ, he calls himself the least of all saints, and the chief of sinners. Were you ever deeply humbled before the Lord and made to see your own emptiness and vileness? Those who are puffed up with pride and self-conceit are strangers to the teaching of Christ.

1. The teachings of Christ deeply impress the heart. They fully reach the soul of a sinner: “I will speak comfortably unto her” (Hos 2:14); or, as in the original, “I will speak to her heart”. When Christ shows unto men the great evil and danger of sin, He so convinces and catches the soul that no creature comforts can yield any pleasure or sweetness, but they prove all tasteless and have no more pleasure than the white of an egg. And when He speaks peace to the soul, and intimates the pardon of sin, He so comforts and refreshes it, that no afflictions or pressures, however heavy and disturbing, have any weight or bitterness in them at all. One drop of consolation from heaven sweetens a whole sea of trouble on earth, and fills the soul with joy unspeakable and full of glory. The Psalmist says, “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, Thy comforts delight my soul” (Ps 94:19).

2. The teachings of Christ are sanctifying and renewing; they reform the heart: “If so be that ye have heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Eph 4:21-23). You see here that holiness and purity are the effect of divine teaching – holiness both external and internal, negative and positive. All the discoveries of God which Christ makes to the soul change it into His own likeness (2 Cor 3:18).

3. All Christ’s teachings are practical, resulting in cheerful obedience. Idle notions and useless speculations are not learned from Christ. As His creating words are always accompanied with an effect, so also His teaching words. As when He said, “Let there be light, and there was light”; so when He says to a soul, Be humbled, it is effectually humbled – as in the case of Job: “Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer Thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will not answer: yea, twice, but I will proceed no further” (40:4,5). And when Christ says, Be comforted, comfort immediately follows: “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you: and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem” (Is 66:13).

4. Christ’s teachings are always agreeable to the written Word. The Spirit of Christ and the word of Christ never disagree: thus “the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have

said unto you” (Jn 14:26). When He speaks to the heart of a sinner, whether in a way of conviction, instruction or consolation, He either makes use of the express words of Scripture, or speaks to the heart in our language in a way that agrees perfectly with them. So the written Word becomes the standard to try all doctrines by: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Is 8:20). Whatever differs from the Scriptures of truth must not pass for something inspired by God, but is an insinuation of the devil.

1. You will have a great love to your Teacher and you will say with David, “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee” (Ps 73:25).