Daniel 12:10

And none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.

A Virtuous Mind the Best Help to Understand True Religion

To seek a man’s true and final interest, by parting with some present and inconsiderable advantages for the sake of more and much greater ones to come, is the proper act of wisdom; and the general character of folly is the purchasing of soma trivial present benefit at the hazard of much better and more valuable things in reversion. Folly is but another name for sin. To “understand” may be taken in two senses. Either the understanding of particular providences, or the understanding the true nature of religion in general. Consider the text, according to the latter interpretation. The proposition they contain is this--A virtuous disposition of mind is the beat help, and a vicious inclination the greatest hindrance, to a right understanding of the doctrine of true religion. What is there in the nature of things themselves, and what there is in the positive appointment of God, which makes a virtuous disposition so great a help, and a vicious inclination so great a hindrance, to a right understanding in matters of religion.

1. There is something in the nature of things themselves, something in the very frame and constitution of the mind of man, something in the nature and tendency of all religious truths, which helps to verify the general proposition. In a mind virtuously disposed, there is a native agreeableness to the principles of true religion; in like manner as in a healthful body the organs are fitted to their proper objects; and as in the frame of the material world, everything is suited to its proper use and employment. In the study of every human science there is some particular previous temper, some certain predisposition of mind, which makes men fit for that particular study, and apt to understand it with easiness and delight; generally and specially, a love to that particular science, and a high esteem of its value and usefulness. The same holds true in proportion in religious matters likewise. A general love of virtue, an equitable, fair, and charitable spirit, and a just sense of the necessity and reasonableness of obeying God’s commands, is the first principle and beginning of religion. Practice and experience in the course of a virtuous life, and in the obedience of God’s commands, is in continuance the best information and perpetual improvement of a man’s understanding and judgment in the knowledge of Divine truths. “He that keepeth the law of the Lord, getteth the understanding thereof,” says the wise Son of Sirach. He that practises what he knows, improves his knowledge continually by that practice. “By actions, even more than by speculation and study, is the understanding of practical truths enlarged. There is a spirit and a life in the discourse of a righteous man, proceeding from the sincerity of an upright heart, which no skill or art can imitate. In religion, there is no man truly wise and knowing but he that has lived like a Christian, instead of disputing about it. On the other hand, a vicious disposition blinds men’s eyes, corrupts their principles, and subverts their judgments. It prejudices men against the truth, and causes them even to hate it, and become professed enemies to it. Now we consider what there is in the positive appointment and constitution of God, by which we are assured that none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise (righteous) shall understand.

1. In general, God will take care that righteous and piously-disposed persons shall attain to so much understanding as is necessary for their own particular salvation.

2. By the secret influence and assistance of His Holy Spirit, God will peculiarly direct and enlighten those that are truly sincere. But where there is a vicious inclination, and an affection to wickedness, there men’s minds are not only blinded by the natural consequence of such a disposition, but God moreover withdraws His Spirit from them, and the Holy Ghost will not dwell in a heart that takes pleasure in unrighteousness. Indeed,, God justly permits wicked men, when they obstinately refuse to hear Him, to be deceived by the Evil One to their own destruction. From what has been said, we may infer:

(1) That wicked men have no reason to complain for their not being able to understand religion, and infidels no excuse for their not believing it.

(2) From hence appears the reason of our Saviour’s speaking so much in parables.

(3) We may observe how it comes to pass that faith ,which is generally looked upon us an act of the understanding, and so not in our own power, is yet in the New Testament always required and insisted upon as a moral virtue. The reason is, because faith, in the Scripture sense, is not barely an act of the understanding, but a mixt act of the will also, consisting very much in that simplicity and unprejudicedness of mind which our Saviour calls “receiving the Kingdom of God as a little child.”

(4) There is then no need of an infallible guide on earth, or of an unerring Church. All necessary truth is sufficiently made known in Scripture.

(5) Yet this must be so understood as to be a security, not against all, but against fatal mistakes. The best and most pious persons may in many things err, but their errors cannot be dangerous, or of final ill consequence; for in things absolutely necessary to salvation the wicked only can be void of understanding. (S. Clarke, D. D.)

Ability to Understand Moral rather than an Intellectual Quality

This passage seems to warrant three inferences of importance.

(1) That though God for certain reasons saw fit to give this revelation of the future to Daniel at a certain date, He did not intend it to be understood for centuries; since, whatever may be the exact limits of the “time of the end,” it could not include more than the course of this dispensation, the commencement of which was several centuries distant when Daniel wrote.

(2) That even when in the lapse of ages the men, nine of this prophecy should become apparent to some, even when knowledge “should be increased,” and the wise understand, it was the will of God that it should still remain a dark mystery to others, that “none of the wicked should understand.”

(3) That the comprehension or ignorance of this prophecy, when the time for its being understood at all arrived, would depend rather on the moral than on the intellectual state of those who should study it. The wise alone should understand it; the wicked should not. (H. Grattan Guiness.)