It is very blessed for the saints of this day to have the knowledge of God that has come to us through the incarnation of the Son of God, and to have the light of God's purposes of love that centre in Christ as Man at the right hand of God. These wonderful revelations of God bring with them immense privileges for us, and are given that there might be a suitable response from us in worship to the Father and the Son, and in lives for God's glory and praise. Moreover, God has shown us in the Holy Scriptures His ways with men from the beginning, so that we can trace the progress of divine revelation, and discover the privileges belonging to His saints from earliest days.
Outstanding among the saints of God before the flood were Enoch and Noah, and of both it is recorded that they "walked with God" (Gen. 5:22, 24; Gen. 6:9). This was a great privilege, and it brought with it the knowledge of God's thoughts. Enoch was able to speak of the Lord coming with ten thousands of His saints, and this great event has not yet taken place (Jude 14, 15).
Then there was the privilege of being rapt to heaven without dying, a privilege only shared so far by the prophet Elijah, though we are now waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus to rapture all His saints, those who are asleep and those who are "alive and remain," the saints of the old dispensations as well as those of the Christian era.
Noah also received revelations from God as to the flood which would bring judgment on a world of violence and corruption, but he was privileged to pass through the flood in the shelter of the ark which God commanded him to build for his house. When he emerged from the ark on to the new world, God revealed to him that He would never again destroy the world with a flood, giving His token of the covenant He made with "every living creature" in the "bow in the cloud" (Gen. 9:8-17).
After the flood, idolatry appeared on the earth, and God called Abram from Ur of the Chaldees, saying, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee … and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 12:1-3). It was faith in God that led Abram to answer the divine call, a faith that again came into evidence after his return from the slaughter of the kings, when the Lord said to him, "Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward" (Gen. 15:1). Then God promised him a son, and an innumerable seed, and "he believed the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness" (verse 6). It was a great privilege to have the promises of God, and to be counted righteous by God.
A great revelation was made to Abram when God appeared to him, "and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect" (Gen. 17:1). With God revealing Himself to Abram as the Almighty God, Abram would understand that nothing could possibly frustrate God in carrying out the promises already given, and the promises given in connection with the revelation of His great Name (Gen. 17:2-21).
When God again appeared to Abraham, He said. "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" (Gen. 18:17), and in wondrous grace God made known to him His purpose to destroy the cities of the plain, where Lot dwelt; "and it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt" (Gen. 19:29). Surely God's confidence in Abraham in disclosing to him His secrets, and sparing Lot on his account, shows why God spoke of "Abraham my friend" (Isa. 41:8).
After Abraham's faith had been tried in the offering up of Isaac, God confirmed His promises to Abraham with an oath, saying "By myself have I sworn … that in blessing I will bless thee … and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 22:16-18). Here too was revealed the Seed in which all God's promises would be fulfilled. Certain of the promises would be fulfilled in Isaac, but it was Christ that God had before Him when He confirmed the promises, as is shown in Galatians 3:16.
The promises made to Abraham were confirmed to Isaac and Jacob, the Lord appearing to Isaac to renew the promises (Gen. 26:2-5), and to Jacob as he fled from his brother, and giving to him the promises afresh, saying, "I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed … I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of" (Gen. 28:13-15). It was indeed wonderful that God should reveal Himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, making them the depositaries of His promises, giving them His blessings, and also granting to them the privilege of approach to Himself through their altars.
At the burning bush God made a new revelation of Himself to Moses as the I AM, but this revelation was not for Moses only, for in sending him to the children of Israel God said, "Thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my Name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations" (Ex. 3:14-15). With the revelation of His Name as the great I AM there was also the revelation of God's purpose to deliver Israel from the bondage of Pharaoh, and bring them into the land of promise (verses 7, 8).
Moses had peculiar privilege in his generation, for he was in the mount with God, and received from Him the pattern of the tabernacle. Although Aaron, as high priest, was able to enter the holiest once a year on the day of atonement it was not to hear Jehovah speak, or to commune with Him, but to make atonement for him-self, for his house and for Israel. Moses had access to God's presence in quite another way, for God said to him, "There I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims" (Ex. 25:22; Ex. 30:6, 36).
At the request of Moses, God showed him His glory (Ex. 33:18-23), and God "made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel" (Ps. 103:7), for Moses had asked of God, "if I have found grace in Thy sight, show me now Thy way (or ways)" (Ex. 33:13). The special privilege of Moses is again spoken of by the Lord when Miriam and Aaron spoke against him, when He said, "If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth" (Num. 12:1-8).
What divine revelations must have been made to Moses by the Lord to enable him to write the Book of Genesis, and how highly privileged he was to write other books of Scripture as well, and how great the favour of Israel to receive through Moses, both orally and in his writings, the oracles of God. In later years the children of Israel also received other divine oracles, in the historical books, the Psalms and the prophets, and this was one of their chief advantages over the nations of the world (Rom. 3:1-2).
To David there were divine promises in relation to the kingdom, promises that were to be made good in Messiah. The promises, so far as David's successors were concerned, required them to be faithful to Jehovah, for God said, "If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men" (2 Sam. 7:14), though God would not take His mercy from them. The last words of David show him to be a vessel of revelation, "The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me," and also a vessel of inspiration, "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue" (2 Sam. 23:2-3). In this Scripture, and in such Psalms as 45 and 72, we see what glorious visions David had of Messiah's kingdom. Psalm 16 gives a wonderful presentation of Christ's Manhood, and the last verse of Psalm 17 seems to show that David had light far beyond his generation.
By divine revelation the prophets gave God's mind to Israel for the days in which they prophesied, but they also, by the Spirit of God, Wrote of events which were to be fulfilled long after they had left this world. The Apostle Peter shows that they spoke of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow, yet they could not understand their own writings, God telling them that they were writing for a generation to come (1 Peter 1:10-12). Many of their prophecies have already been fulfilled in the coming and death of the Lord Jesus, and also in regard to His present place at God's right hand, but the glowing prophecies of the kingdom are yet to be fulfilled when the Lord comes again.
Isaiah wrote of the greatness and glory of Immanuel, and of Israel's glorious destiny; Jeremiah wrote of the new covenant that is to be made with both the houses of Israel; Ezekiel gives the dimensions of the house of God for the millennium, and the feasts and sacrifices of that day; and Daniel shows that all God's dealings with Israel and the nations of the world have as their great centre "Messiah the Prince" (Dan. 9:25-26). God's ways with His people Israel, and with the nations of the world, from the beginning until the end, are brought before us in many of the prophets' writings.
The coming of Messiah was revealed to Mary and Joseph, and spoken of by Elizabeth and Zacharias as filled with the Holy Spirit, while the aged Simeon spoke of Him as God's salvation, and Anna "spake of Him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem" (Luke 2:38). How thrilled the hearts of the godly remnant must have been with the wonderful revelation of the coming of Him who had been so long expected, and realising that it was not to the great of this world that the divine revelation had been given, but to those who were of little account in the reckoning of the great (See Luke 1:47-55).
To John there had been given a sign by God, "Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost," so that John could say, "And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God" (John 1:33-34). It was a wonderful revelation to John Baptist that Jesus was the Son of God, and also the Lamb of God. Jesus had come as Messiah for Israel, but He had come to do a great work for God and for men, to take away the sin of the world. God would not allow sin to mar His fair creation for ever, and it was His own Son who had come to deal with it, first by sacrifice to remove it from before God in judgment, and finally by power to take it away as an active agency of defilement from the world into which man had brought it.
When the Son of God came into the world there was in Him the manifestation of all that God is, and also the revelation of God in grace for the blessing of the creature, so that the Apostle John could write, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him" (John 1:18). Although the Son of God spoke of His Father to Israel and the leaders of the people, it was to His disciples that He made the Father known, even as He said, "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes … 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" (Matt. 11:25-27).
Although all that God is in His nature was to be seen in the Son, in all that He was personally before the eyes of men, in all His words, and in all His works, few there were that were able to discern what was before their eyes, or to see "the Godhead glory shine through the human veil." Nor was it to the leaders of Israel, the wise and the prudent, that the Son made known the Father, but to His disciples, those who were of little or no account in the eyes of the great men of this world.
What was made known in the Son is now the portion of all who have truly believed in the Son of God, for even the babes in the family of God know the Father (1 John 2:13), and it is the privilege of every true Christian to walk in the light of the revelation of God, to have the nature of God, and to have the Spirit of God indwelling him. All the wonderful unfoldings that are found in John 13 – 17 now belong to the believer in Christ, for we are not only His servants, but also His friends and His brethren, knowing His Father as our Father, and His God as our God.
While God was fully revealed in His nature of love in the Son in manhood, and especially in His death upon the cross, there was more of God to be revealed in relation to His eternal purpose in connection with His Son at His right hand, even as the Son said, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth" (John 16:12-13). The Holy Spirit was to speak of the counsels of God that centre in Christ as the Man of God's counsels, for the Lord added, "He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you" (John 16:14).
In the epistles of Paul, and especially in the epistle to the saints at Ephesus, we learn of the eternal purpose of God for His own glory, for the glory of His Son, and for the blessing of those He chose in Christ before the foundation of the world. In Ephesians 1 we learn of our present blessing in Christ, and of the relationship in which we enjoy those blessings as sons with His own Son, and as sharing His inheritance with Him. We also learn of the mystery of God's will, and of the church as associated with Christ as His body and His bride.
These great truths bring to us the knowledge of the riches of God's grace, and the glory of His grace, and of His "great love wherewith He loved us" (Eph. 2:4-7). Even now God indwells the church as His habitation by the Spirit, and the church grows unto an holy temple in the Lord (Eph. 2:19-22). It is in relation to Christ glorified in heaven that we have the full-knowledge of the Son of God, and the full-knowledge of God (Eph. 4:13; Col. 1:10), and that we have the privilege of access to the Father, and to walk worthy of the calling wherewith we are called (Eph. 2:18; Eph. 4:1).