(Notes of an address.)
Scriptures read: Matthew 11:25-27; 1 Corinthians 2:7-10; Ephesians 3:9-10; Colossians 2:1-3.
We have heard of the evil days in which our lot is cast, and of the divine resources that can sustain us amidst all the ruin and evil of these last days. In these Scriptures that we have read together there are hidden things, which God has unveiled to His saints, that we might be encouraged in the path of faithfulness and devotedness. First of all there are the things that God has hidden from the wise and prudent, but which He has revealed unto His own; in 1 Corinthians 2 there is the hidden wisdom, which was unknown by the princes of this world. Ephesians 3 speaks of the mystery that was hid in God throughout the ages; and Colossians 2 tells us that in the mystery of God are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Into these wonderful secrets God has brought His saints of the present dispensation, and He desires that we might be in the deep enjoyment of them in communion with Himself. There are other hidden things besides these of which we have read; our life is hid with Christ in God; we are going on to eat of the hidden Manna, when we enter the Paradise of God; and there is the treasure that Christ has hidden in the field of this world.
The first of these hidden things was spoken of at a very solemn moment in the pathway of the Lord Jesus; Israel, His earthly people have just rejected Him, closing the door of the kingdom upon Him; and how does the Lord answer to these reproaches? "At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank Thee O Father, Lord of heaven and earth because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes, even so Father: for so it seemed good in Thy sight." With all their boasted religious knowledge and pretension, the leaders of Israel knew not the things that were of real, immense and eternal value. These things were to be found in the Son of God Whom the wise and prudent of Israel had just refused. In the Father's good pleasure, what belonged to Him in His Son was not to be acquired by human wisdom, or by the prudence of the world; He had decreed that the despised of the world, those who were accounted ignorant and unlettered — the babes in the estimation of the learned and the great, should receive His wonderful revelations.
But what are these wonderful things that the Father has hidden from the wise and the prudent? The Lord Jesus tells us, "All things are delivered unto Me of My Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." What did these proud leaders of Israel know of all that the Father had delivered into the hands of the Son? What did they know of Him Whom the Son had come to reveal? It was knowledge that could not be acquired in the schools of men; nor could it be found in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. In the Son alone was there the knowledge of the Father, and this they had turned their backs upon in rejecting Him. But the babes: such as Simon Peter and James and John, simple fishermen; they had been attracted to the Son of God, and from His lips they had heard the wonderful things of the Father. These were wonderful secrets indeed! The Son had come from the heights of heaven, out from the realms of eternity, to make the Father known to the untaught in the schools of men, and to tell them of all that the Father had given into His hands.
Passing over to 1st Corinthians we also find the Apostle Paul speaking of the wise and prudent of this world. In 1 Corinthians 1 God says "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." The wise, the scribe and the disputer are not to be found in the church of God: their place is in the world, which by its wisdom has not the knowledge of God. The wisdom of God is unknown to the wise and prudent of this world, but God has made it known to His saints. Of this we read, "We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden, wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory." What can men know by their own wisdom of what God ordained before the world? What do they know of the purpose and counsels of God? These things are not to be learned from the philosophers or scientists; the human mind could never have conceived what God had planned for the glory and blessing of His saints. This hidden wisdom has brought to light things that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived; it is only by the revelation of God that these things are known. We would not have been surprised if we had been told that these things were for God's glory; but here we learn that they are also for "our glory." God's saints are to be glorified along with Christ; for "He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe" (2 Thess. 1:10). These great divine revelations have been made by the Spirit of God, and have been communicated in words chosen by the Spirit, not in the words that belong to the schools of human learning. So that we might be able to enter into the thoughts of God, made known by His Spirit, God has given His Spirit to us, "so that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." These things are not only unknown to the men of this world; they are unknowable to them, for they have not the divine capacity or the divine power to enter into them.
In Ephesians 3 the Apostle Paul speaks of a great secret "which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God." It was not revealed, nor was it hidden, in the Old Testament Scriptures. God made known to Abraham, the friend of God, His intentions regarding Sodom, and also gave him to know something of what He would do in the future, but He did not tell him of this wonderful mystery. Moses, who wrote the first five books of the Old Testament learned much from God, for we read, "He made known His ways unto Moses;" and God showed him that "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God," but these secret things were not disclosed even to Moses. This mystery was hidden in the heart of God; it was precious to Him; and how surpassing wonderful that He has made it known for us. Paul had a special revelation of this divine secret because of the administration of the grace of God that the Lord communicated to him to make known to His saints. Paul's ministry was to preach the Gospel of the unsearchable riches of Christ, which brought out His heavenly glory as God's anointed, exalted to His right hand, and the centre of all His counsels; and to make known the administration of the mystery that had been so long hidden from ages and generations, in the heart of God.
The mystery unfolds God's thoughts for the saints of this dispensation: He has made Jew and Gentile share together in an inheritance, which they have in Christ, a heavenly inheritance, soon to be entered into, when Christ takes up His kingdom. Meanwhile, they form a joint-body, formed by the Spirit of God, and in which they are united to Christ in heaven. This joint-body is composed of all who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, be they Jews or Gentiles. The saints also have the promise of eternal life, that which was promised in Christ by God before the ages of time. This belongs to the saints, Jews and Gentiles, without distinction and discrimination, for there are no racial, religious, social or other distinctions in the joint-body.
Colossians brings before us this same mystery, and in Colossians 1 Paul says that, to His saints, "God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Christ is not seen among His earthly people today; He will yet be found among them on earth; but He is now the life of His heavenly saints, dwelling in and among them by His Spirit. Of this great "Mystery of God" we read in Colossians 2 that in it "are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." The wise and the prudent of this world vainly imagine that they have the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, but alas for them, ALL the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden from them and for us in this great secret that belongs to God. They are hidden where the leaders of religion and philosophy cannot find them, if they have not Christ, for it is in relation to Christ, at God's right hand, that all exists. The more we learn of the greatness of the Head of the body, the church, the more shall we learn of these treasures that God has revealed to us in His word. It is in The Son that The Father has been revealed, and it is in connection with the Son of the Father's love, the Head of the body, that we have all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.