Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Paul's words belong to his description of professed believers in the last days, whose outward profession can hide the dark traits he catalogues. They picture people who keep taking up new ideas and theories yet never arrive at a settled knowledge of the truth. This happens because truth is found only in God, in Christ, and in Scripture, while learning apart from Him only repeats human assertion, speculation, and tradition that leave the mind uncertain and disconnected from Him. It also happens when learners will not practice what they hear, bury what is essential under words and side issues, and remain unsettled instead of holding the faith once established. By contrast, those who reach the truth are humble learners under the Holy Spirit who search the heart, act on what is plainly revealed, grow more like Christ, and pass on to others what they receive.
Last-Days Setting and Warning
The verse belongs to Paul's portrayal of professed believers in the last days, a dark catalogue of traits that can hide beneath a profession of Christianity and that stands as a faithful picture of the popular churches. Its signs and conditions were also seen as corresponding to the world in Miller's time.
Every word of the chapter applies at this time to all churches throughout the world. It shows ministers and brethren in America in lethargic slumber while the world is in darkness. It calls them to wake, to trim their lamps with grace and let them shine in clear bright rays, to do the great work still to be done, to bear the message that fits up a people to stand in the day of the Lord, and to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty. The warning is of people who keep learning but never arrive at the knowledge of the truth.
It describes people in the last days who keep presenting and pursuing new theories but never reach a knowledge of the truth, a condition fulfilled in San Francisco and Oakland in corrupt officials and false theories. Those who keep learning without reaching truth stand in contrast to the saving truths deemed essential from eternity and revealed in inspired Scripture for instruction in righteousness to make the man of God perfect and thoroughly furnished unto all good works. The chapter warns of departure from the faith and deception by those who refuse sound doctrine, follow their own lusts, heap up teachers having itching ears, turn to fables, and profess God while denying Him in works as unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, abominable and disobedient and unto every good work reprobate. Against this, believers are called to continue in the Scriptures that make wise to salvation through faith in Christ, with all Scripture given by inspiration profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. Ministers are called to preach the word with reproof, rebuke and exhortation with longsuffering and doctrine before God who shall judge the living and the dead, to be instant in season and out of season and to rebuke sharply that hearers may be sound in the faith, while believers stand fast together for the faith of the gospel in the lowly mind of Christ, likeminded with the same love and of one accord, esteeming others better than themselves and in nothing terrified by adversaries even unto suffering for His sake.
Why Learners Never Find Truth
Human learning apart from God is constant studying that never reaches truth, because truth is found only in God, in Christ, and in Scripture. Human teachers can only repeat previous teachers, speaking assertion rather than truth, unable to trace first principles to the source of unerring wisdom, leaving learners in painful uncertainty and constant searching. Masses of tradition, infidel literature, and human science disconnect minds from God and can never fit learners for this life or for immortal life, while by contrast Christ taught with exclusive divine authority, every sentence from God, spirit and life, simple enough for a child yet high and ennobling, bringing definite assurance of hope and restoring the moral image of God, and Scripture given by inspiration instructs in righteousness to make the man of God perfect and thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
People remain unable to know the truth when they pursue wisdom independently of God, pry into what He has withheld, and disregard what He has revealed and commanded. Their claims of intellectual progress and philosophy are empty speculation and deception, leaving them groping in darkness about true knowledge. Learning can also fall short because human wisdom is limited before an infinite God, so people may keep searching, inquiring, and learning while still facing mysteries beyond understanding, and those unrevealed mysteries call for faith rather than proving that God does not exist.
People keep learning but never come to knowledge of the truth when precious saving truth is buried under a mass of words, side issues, unessential matters, foolish and unlearned questions, striving about words to no profit, drollery, novelty, romance, vain philosophy, and carnal devices to please and attract people. True knowledge comes only when truth stands out clear and prominent in every discourse as saith the Lord, with the burden Jesus Christ and Him crucified, with nothing interposed between the soul and the Savior. Hearers must thus be educated to become intelligent in the Scriptures and to communicate the Word of God to others. Learning does not lead to truth when the mind is shaped by false teaching, as when Hume studied arguments for infidelity with earnestness and perseverance, became imbued with skeptical sophistry, and came to believe its delusive teachings.
The verse describes people who keep learning from ideas built on their own imagination but never reach genuine truth as it is in Jesus. They often avoid teaching about the origin of evil and its results, though these subjects bring Christ and immortality to light. It also shows that people who continually seek new teachings without settled faith remain unable to know the truth, as with scattered groups that claim God is specially with them and leading them while holding conflicting views, accepting false doctrines, becoming confused about what they believe, and separating from the people united in the third angel's message. Their continual search for something new leaves them confused and deceived about divine leading.
The verse warns against remaining unsettled rather than recognizing and holding to truth, where truth is connected to the faith established through long-standing guidance, especially the sanctuary question and the foundations of faith. Uncertainty leads to erroneous theories and rejection of evidence previously received, while preserving the old waymarks keeps believers from losing their bearings. The chapter describes persons who accept error, including one mind exercising complete control over another mind, which God forbids. This mind-cure may appear innocent but is one of Satan's greatest sciences with no place in Christian medical work or health institutions and sanitariums, for in its development it destroys rather than restores, taking possession so that Satan rather than the man acts, as seen when liquor control leads to cruelty such as a drunkard striking the wife he promised to cherish, and no one must dare make another mind a machine in his hands.
The verse describes people who are more desirous to teach than to learn and therefore never reach the truth. Their state leaves the blood of souls upon their garments, puts them directly before the wheels of the car of truth and salvation to hinder rather than push it on, makes them murmurers and accusers of the brethren who open a door for the enemy to come in with temptation and control them, and brings upon them reward according to their works. Ministers may continually learn without coming to know the truth because they do not practice what they learn, being hearers but not doers, and they need an experience in the truth that enables them to understand the elevated character of their work.
People can keep learning about the truth yet never gain an experiential knowledge of it because they will not receive the Word and practice it. This is a class having a superabundance of sermons and advantages who know the truth and could have understood far more than they practice. Devoting more money, time, and labor to them while thousands perish in ignorance displeases God, and home missionaries must instead learn to receive the Word and enter into home missionary work. Mature people who have received much light, knowledge, and experience but still give way to childish malice show by lives that do not reflect what they learned that they have not come to a true knowledge of the truth and must put away childish ways. People who receive repeated instruction and many opportunities but retain no lasting impression do not come to know the truth and make no real progress until they put to work what they have already received, yet as they share the light they have God gives them more, and opposition, unbelief, and error drive them back to Scripture and earnest prayer which God hears.
Learning That Reaches the Truth
Those in view are the opposite of humble learners who keep learning under the control of the Holy Spirit and with whom the Lord will work, for true learners of Christ learn to a purpose and become more and more Christlike in word and action. The truth to be reached is the principles plainly revealed in God's Word, to be understood intelligently and acted upon. Coming to that knowledge requires searching the heart closely, resisting every temptation by which Satan would win the soul to his side, and looking to Jesus in faith to preserve the spirit untarnished. To fail here is to waste a short life in recklessness and disobedience, no better than the ungodly, when trial is coming to all.
Students are not to remain in continual learning without arriving at truth, but are to receive instruction and pass on what they have learned. They are to put what they have learned to use by teaching others, receiving further understanding as they impart knowledge. God's servants are called to communicate the truth to others and not to spend year after year in ministerial institutes while fields ready for harvest are neglected. For ministers, repeated attendance can become a mistake when it keeps workers from sharing the gospel and the light of truth with others.
Bible teachers must not stay in continual learning without arriving at knowledge of the truth in regard to justification by faith and the imputed righteousness of Christ. As soon as the truth is grasped and the Holy Spirit impresses the image of Christ on the soul, there must be no tarrying but going forth everywhere proclaiming the Word of Life as the apostles did. In teaching they will themselves be taught by the Holy Spirit, who is trusted to teach them as they teach.
Paul's words belong to his description of professed believers in the last days, whose outward profession can hide the dark traits he catalogues. They picture people who keep taking up new ideas and theories yet never arrive at a settled knowledge of the truth. This happens because truth is found only in God, in Christ, and in Scripture, while learning apart from Him only repeats human assertion, speculation, and tradition that leave the mind uncertain and disconnected from Him. It also happens when learners will not practice what they hear, bury what is essential under words and side issues, and remain unsettled instead of holding the faith once established. By contrast, those who reach the truth are humble learners under the Holy Spirit who search the heart, act on what is plainly revealed, grow more like Christ, and pass on to others what they receive.
Last-Days Setting and Warning
The verse belongs to Paul's portrayal of professed believers in the last days, a dark catalogue of traits that can hide beneath a profession of Christianity and that stands as a faithful picture of the popular churches. Its signs and conditions were also seen as corresponding to the world in Miller's time.
Every word of the chapter applies at this time to all churches throughout the world. It shows ministers and brethren in America in lethargic slumber while the world is in darkness. It calls them to wake, to trim their lamps with grace and let them shine in clear bright rays, to do the great work still to be done, to bear the message that fits up a people to stand in the day of the Lord, and to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty. The warning is of people who keep learning but never arrive at the knowledge of the truth.
It describes people in the last days who keep presenting and pursuing new theories but never reach a knowledge of the truth, a condition fulfilled in San Francisco and Oakland in corrupt officials and false theories. Those who keep learning without reaching truth stand in contrast to the saving truths deemed essential from eternity and revealed in inspired Scripture for instruction in righteousness to make the man of God perfect and thoroughly furnished unto all good works. The chapter warns of departure from the faith and deception by those who refuse sound doctrine, follow their own lusts, heap up teachers having itching ears, turn to fables, and profess God while denying Him in works as unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, abominable and disobedient and unto every good work reprobate. Against this, believers are called to continue in the Scriptures that make wise to salvation through faith in Christ, with all Scripture given by inspiration profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. Ministers are called to preach the word with reproof, rebuke and exhortation with longsuffering and doctrine before God who shall judge the living and the dead, to be instant in season and out of season and to rebuke sharply that hearers may be sound in the faith, while believers stand fast together for the faith of the gospel in the lowly mind of Christ, likeminded with the same love and of one accord, esteeming others better than themselves and in nothing terrified by adversaries even unto suffering for His sake.
Why Learners Never Find Truth
Human learning apart from God is constant studying that never reaches truth, because truth is found only in God, in Christ, and in Scripture. Human teachers can only repeat previous teachers, speaking assertion rather than truth, unable to trace first principles to the source of unerring wisdom, leaving learners in painful uncertainty and constant searching. Masses of tradition, infidel literature, and human science disconnect minds from God and can never fit learners for this life or for immortal life, while by contrast Christ taught with exclusive divine authority, every sentence from God, spirit and life, simple enough for a child yet high and ennobling, bringing definite assurance of hope and restoring the moral image of God, and Scripture given by inspiration instructs in righteousness to make the man of God perfect and thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
People remain unable to know the truth when they pursue wisdom independently of God, pry into what He has withheld, and disregard what He has revealed and commanded. Their claims of intellectual progress and philosophy are empty speculation and deception, leaving them groping in darkness about true knowledge. Learning can also fall short because human wisdom is limited before an infinite God, so people may keep searching, inquiring, and learning while still facing mysteries beyond understanding, and those unrevealed mysteries call for faith rather than proving that God does not exist.
People keep learning but never come to knowledge of the truth when precious saving truth is buried under a mass of words, side issues, unessential matters, foolish and unlearned questions, striving about words to no profit, drollery, novelty, romance, vain philosophy, and carnal devices to please and attract people. True knowledge comes only when truth stands out clear and prominent in every discourse as saith the Lord, with the burden Jesus Christ and Him crucified, with nothing interposed between the soul and the Savior. Hearers must thus be educated to become intelligent in the Scriptures and to communicate the Word of God to others. Learning does not lead to truth when the mind is shaped by false teaching, as when Hume studied arguments for infidelity with earnestness and perseverance, became imbued with skeptical sophistry, and came to believe its delusive teachings.
The verse describes people who keep learning from ideas built on their own imagination but never reach genuine truth as it is in Jesus. They often avoid teaching about the origin of evil and its results, though these subjects bring Christ and immortality to light. It also shows that people who continually seek new teachings without settled faith remain unable to know the truth, as with scattered groups that claim God is specially with them and leading them while holding conflicting views, accepting false doctrines, becoming confused about what they believe, and separating from the people united in the third angel's message. Their continual search for something new leaves them confused and deceived about divine leading.
The verse warns against remaining unsettled rather than recognizing and holding to truth, where truth is connected to the faith established through long-standing guidance, especially the sanctuary question and the foundations of faith. Uncertainty leads to erroneous theories and rejection of evidence previously received, while preserving the old waymarks keeps believers from losing their bearings. The chapter describes persons who accept error, including one mind exercising complete control over another mind, which God forbids. This mind-cure may appear innocent but is one of Satan's greatest sciences with no place in Christian medical work or health institutions and sanitariums, for in its development it destroys rather than restores, taking possession so that Satan rather than the man acts, as seen when liquor control leads to cruelty such as a drunkard striking the wife he promised to cherish, and no one must dare make another mind a machine in his hands.
The verse describes people who are more desirous to teach than to learn and therefore never reach the truth. Their state leaves the blood of souls upon their garments, puts them directly before the wheels of the car of truth and salvation to hinder rather than push it on, makes them murmurers and accusers of the brethren who open a door for the enemy to come in with temptation and control them, and brings upon them reward according to their works. Ministers may continually learn without coming to know the truth because they do not practice what they learn, being hearers but not doers, and they need an experience in the truth that enables them to understand the elevated character of their work.
People can keep learning about the truth yet never gain an experiential knowledge of it because they will not receive the Word and practice it. This is a class having a superabundance of sermons and advantages who know the truth and could have understood far more than they practice. Devoting more money, time, and labor to them while thousands perish in ignorance displeases God, and home missionaries must instead learn to receive the Word and enter into home missionary work. Mature people who have received much light, knowledge, and experience but still give way to childish malice show by lives that do not reflect what they learned that they have not come to a true knowledge of the truth and must put away childish ways. People who receive repeated instruction and many opportunities but retain no lasting impression do not come to know the truth and make no real progress until they put to work what they have already received, yet as they share the light they have God gives them more, and opposition, unbelief, and error drive them back to Scripture and earnest prayer which God hears.
Learning That Reaches the Truth
Those in view are the opposite of humble learners who keep learning under the control of the Holy Spirit and with whom the Lord will work, for true learners of Christ learn to a purpose and become more and more Christlike in word and action. The truth to be reached is the principles plainly revealed in God's Word, to be understood intelligently and acted upon. Coming to that knowledge requires searching the heart closely, resisting every temptation by which Satan would win the soul to his side, and looking to Jesus in faith to preserve the spirit untarnished. To fail here is to waste a short life in recklessness and disobedience, no better than the ungodly, when trial is coming to all.
Students are not to remain in continual learning without arriving at truth, but are to receive instruction and pass on what they have learned. They are to put what they have learned to use by teaching others, receiving further understanding as they impart knowledge. God's servants are called to communicate the truth to others and not to spend year after year in ministerial institutes while fields ready for harvest are neglected. For ministers, repeated attendance can become a mistake when it keeps workers from sharing the gospel and the light of truth with others.
Bible teachers must not stay in continual learning without arriving at knowledge of the truth in regard to justification by faith and the imputed righteousness of Christ. As soon as the truth is grasped and the Holy Spirit impresses the image of Christ on the soul, there must be no tarrying but going forth everywhere proclaiming the Word of Life as the apostles did. In teaching they will themselves be taught by the Holy Spirit, who is trusted to teach them as they teach.