“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good;

Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!”

— Psalm 34:8 —

What is it to taste the goodness of the LORD? Jonathan Edwards (quoting an unnamed philosopher) points out that taste skips the normal reasoning process, and if your taste is good, it is a means of making quick and accurate judgments. 

 “To have a taste, is to give things their real value, to be touched with the good, to be shocked with the ill; not to be dazzled with false lustres, but in spite of all colours, and everything that might deceive or amuse, to judge soundly” (Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections [Mineola, NY: Dover Publications Inc. 2013], p. 208).  

Taste can be a means of discerning value; it is a way to learn about something experientially. Taste can grant you a knowledge that is different from the kind you attain through reason. It is not primarily a rational form of knowledge, but an experiential knowledge.

To illustrate, I know that my steak is delicious, because I have tasted and seen that it is good. My experience of it grants me a unique type of knowledge about it. After my first few bites (if I were willing to part with it) I’m sure you could do a chemical analysis, that would confirm what I already knew from experience; that the steak was high quality cut of beef, and was grilled to perfection (which is medium rare by the way; it’s a steak, not a hamburger).

Through your study, you tell me facts about my steak, and could arrive at a rational knowledge that this steak is good. And yet, the scientist running these tests, knowing what he does about the chemical makeup of the steak, does not have the same type of knowledge about the goodness of the steak as I have by experiencing its goodness firsthand through my senses. 

The call to taste and see the goodness of the Lord, suggests that we have spiritual senses as well as physical senses. The Apostle Paul prays that the Ephesians would have the eyes of their hearts enlightened (Ephesians 1:18). Hearts do not literally have eyes, but rather, this is a spiritual sort of sight, a spiritual sense. 

Similarly, the Psalmist writes: “open my eyes, that I may see Wondrous things from Your law” (Psalm 119:18).

This is not a physical opening of the eyes, but a spiritual one. The result of having your spiritual eyes opened in this way will be that in reading God’s Law, you may see the glories that are really there. 

To bring these concepts together, what we see is this: there are wondrous, glorious things in the Law of God. God is good. But in order to see the wondrous things in God’s Law, you need your eyes opened. In order to truly experience the goodness of the Lord, you need properly functioning spiritual taste buds. 

We must seek an experiential knowledge of God. We must taste, see, hear, etc. Part of our duty then, is to seek to sharpen our spiritual senses. We must pray that the Lord would grant us the eyes to see. That He would enlighten the eyes of our hearts, so that as we encounter divine things we would be able to see the glory that is truly there. 

Sensory Sabotage

Why is it that we often find our spiritual senses to be so dull? If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve likely all encountered times when we read God’s Law and did not see any “wondrous things.” We’ve had times where our communion with God was lacking. Though we spent time in prayer, in song, sat under faithful preaching, availing ourselves to the means of grace, we did not seem to taste much of the goodness of the Lord. Why is this? It may be (at least in part) because we have sabotaged our own spiritual senses. 

When your spiritual senses are working well, you are seeing things rightly. That which is truly good and glorious in itself will appear to you to be good and glorious. Through these spiritual senses, you can discern the true nature of glorious things. Likewise, when your spiritual senses are functioning well, those things which are disgusting, evil, and rotten will be repulsive to you. 

If you have become tolerant of any sin in your life, this, by necessity, will involve a deadening of your spiritual senses. In order to walk according to the flesh, you must ignore the desires of the Spirit, “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish” (Galatians 5:17).

Indulging in sin will inevitably dull your spiritual senses, for in order to indulge in sin; you must deliberately ignore what those spiritual senses are telling you. 

One of the common things you’ll hear from people who quit smoking is that food began to taste better for them again. They realize in hindsight that their smoking habit had dulled their taste buds. Sin has a similar effect on our spiritual taste buds. In order to tolerate it, we must downplay its severity. We must ignore what our consciences were telling us. We must put out of our minds the thought that this sin is offensive to God. By tolerating sin, we sabotage our spiritual senses. 

Rich experience of the sweetness of unhindered communion with God and the enjoyment of sin, are therefore mutually exclusive. As Edwards puts it: “The same eye that discerns the transcendent beauty of holiness, necessarily therein sees the exceeding odiousness of sin; the same taste which relishes the sweetness of true moral good, tastes the bitterness of moral evil” (Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections [Mineola, NY: Dover Publications Inc. 2013], p. 227).

Sharpening your Senses

If you have found in yourself that your spiritual senses are lacking; if you read the word, and rarely see any glory… if you have not found any sweetness in your communion with God, if prayer and meditation and singing praises to the Lord seem dull, examine yourself for unmortified sin. Sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:2). You may very well have been sabotaging your spiritual senses. Like a chronic smoker’s taste buds, they can be dulled. 

Would you regain your taste for the things of God? Stop dulling them with the smoke of sin.  Like unused muscles, they atrophy with neglect.

“Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5).

Stop sabotaging your spiritual life, and begin to sharpen your senses. Seek to acquire a taste for the things of God. This will not happen if we give up quickly and easily in our pursuit of God. Neglect in our duties can leave our spiritual senses under-developed. We must approach God with the attitude and perseverance of Jacob, who wrestled with the LORD all night and declared: “I will not let You go unless You bless me” (Genesis 32:26).

Labor to the best of your ability to truly engage your heart. I think of a lesson learned from weightlifting. When trying to lift a heavier weight than you’ve done before, there is a high level of engagement required. I’ve failed many times on my first attempt at a new weight, because I wasn’t properly prepared to give the effort required. There is often a mental barrier to break through. You must decide to truly engage everything you’ve got. 

In my experience, this is often the case in pursuit of God. There seems to be a barrier to break through. Ice upon my heart; a wall of apathy preventing me from truly engaging with the text, or with God in prayer. We must resolve not to quit, simply because it doesn’t come easily. Quitting will leave our senses dull, our spiritual muscles atrophied, and underdeveloped. 

Persevere! Push through, pray until you really pray. Take hold of God in prayer. 

Read, until you really read. Meditate on the Word; until the truths you’re reading and thinking on have worked into your heart. Squeeze the sweetness out of the Word, that you may benefit from it. 

Conclusion

Let your prayer be that the Lord would open the eyes of your heart! God calls us to an experiential knowledge of His goodness. Sin will deaden our spiritual senses. Neglect will leave them underdeveloped. Pursue God aggressively.

Pray that the Lord would grant you ‘good taste’ that you may discern the goodness of God through these spiritual senses; that you would see and experience His glory; that your knowledge would not merely be the rational kind, but would be experiential. 

“Taste and see that the LORD is good!” 

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