SECRETS OF GOD

No. 1

In the Old Testament

Every bit of divine revelation is the communication of divine secrets, but it is one thing to hear of what God has made known and another to be in the knowledge of what God has revealed. Sometimes we find God communicating His secrets to individuals for their own encouragement and blessing, sometimes it is in order to pass on what has been made known to others. There are divine secrets that only those who have the divine nature can enter into, and often the very words that communicate God’s secrets to His people hide them from those in whom there is no living faith in God.

The Creation

It was to Moses that God gave the privilege of communicating to His people the truth of creation. What Moses wrote in the first two chapters of Genesis is open for all to read, but how few accept the divine account of God’s creating and making the things that we see all around. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us the reason for this where he says, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (11:3). The greatest of natural intellects have wrestled with the problem of accounting for all that they eye perceives, and countless have been the theories put forward, but not one of them can give a satisfactory explanation of how the things around us came to be.

God could quite well have left men to grope in the dark regarding the creation, but, in His goodness, He has been pleased to tell us through Moses that He created all things, and He has been pleased to give us the details of the work of the six days of Genesis 1. It was impossible for Adam or any other man to tell us of these things; only a revelation from God could make known to us this secret of God, and only faith in God and His word enables us to clearly apprehend what God has set out so simply for us on the page of inspiration. While the great men of this world remain in the dark, confused and perplexed, the simple believer in the Lord Jesus apprehends the truth concerning the creation and the Creator, as brought out in Genesis 1 and 2, John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, and other Scriptures. How very simple is the language in which the Holy Spirit discloses the great secrets of God, in marked contrast to the forbidding theses in which the smallest discoveries of the scientists are written.

God’s Communications to Abraham

We cannot but marvel at the condescension of God as He permits us to hear Him say, “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do…?” (Gen. 18:17-18). It is indeed wonderful that God should find pleasure in communicating His secrets to His creatures. But it was not to Lot that God confided what He was about to do; it was to Abraham, one who had answered to His call, who would “command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment” (verse 19). In Abraham we have borne out the words of Psalm 25:14, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.”

Having made known to Abraham what He intended to do to Sodom and the cities of the plain, how graciously God listens to the intercession of His servant on behalf of the doomed city. God ever delights in intercession, and how great must His pleasure have been as He listened to Abraham gradually reduce the number for which God would spare Sodom; but not ever the ten righteous persons could be found in the wicked city to save it from destruction.

Jacob’s Question

If there is the desire of the Lord to make known to His people the secrets of His heart, there is also the desire of His saints to know the secrets of God. We find this in Jacob. After the Lord had given Jacob the name of Israel, a prince with God, Jacob, now knowing who was wrestling with him, asked, “Tell me, I pray thee, Thy Name?” (Gen. 32:29). The divine answer was, “Wherefore is it, that thou dost ask after my Name?” In blessing Jacob, the Lord evidently discloses to Jacob who He was, for the patriarch says, “I have seen God face to face.” What a wonderful secret for Jacob to carry with him through life! He had desired to know the Name of the One who wrestled with him, and discovered that it was the Lord Himself.

Manoah’s Question

When the angel of God spoke to the wife of Manoah concerning the birth of Samson, Manoah prayed to the Lord, saying, “O my Lord, let the man of God which Thou didst send come again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born” (Judges 13:8). There was real faith in God’s word, and a true desire to know the mind of God. In answer to this prayer, the angel of the Lord returns to Manoah’s wife, who made haste to call her husband.

After hearing the angel’s message, Manoah desired to detain the heavenly messenger, and to entertain him, not knowing who He was. Then Manoah said, “What is Thy Name, that when Thy sayings come to pass we may do Thee honour?” The answer from the Lord was, “Why asks thou after my Name, seeing it is secret? (or wonderful).” How deeply affected Manoah and his wife were as they saw the actions of the Lord as they offered their sacrifice, and as “the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar.” There was no need for them to ask further of the Name of the One who is Wonderful, for He made known to them who He was. What divine secrets were theirs that day, secrets to sustain them in the difficult days in which they lived.

Moses’ Questions

Moses, in Exodus 33, was in a most privileged position, where he could learn the secrets of God, for in verse 11 it is written, “And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaks unto his friend.” In the intimacy of that wondrous hour, Moses said unto the Lord, “If I have found grace in Thy sight, show me now Thy way, that I may know Thee” (verse 13). Most graciously the Lord responded to His faithful servant, saying, “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.” While Israel were suffering the consequences of their sin, Moses was in communion with God learning His ways. Commenting on the ways of God, the Psalmist wrote, “He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel” (Ps. 103:7). Israel could only take account of what they saw of the acts of God, but Moses, in communion with God, learned His ways.

Encouraged by the gracious answer of Jehovah, Moses made another request in Exodus 33, saying to the Lord, “I beseech Thee, saying, “I will make all my goodness pass before thee…and thou shalt stand upon a rock: and it shall come to pass, while my glory passes by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: and I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen” (verses 18–23). How great were the secrets of God made known to Moses: how great was the privilege granted to God}s servant; and how great must have been God’s pleasure in hearing the request of Moses, and in His manifesting to Him His glory that day on the mount.

The Secret Things Belong unto . . . God

Israel’s departure from the Lord was plainly foretold by Moses in Deuteronomy 29, with the judgment of God that would follow, a judgment that would be interpreted by the nations, who would say, “They went and served other gods…and the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land…and the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day” (verses 24–28). There would be nothing secret about the reason for God’s punishment of His rebellious and idolatrous people; it would be evident to all.

Moreover, God revealed these things through Moses that Israel might be forewarned, and “do all the words of this law.” Still, in spite of all that Israel was, and would be, God had His secrets regarding them, and of this Moses also spoke, saying, “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God” (verse 29), and these secret things are made known in the first ten verses of the following chapter. God would not only punish His people for their idolatry, but when they returned unto the Lord their God, he would turn their captivity, having compassion on them, and father them “from all the nations” whither He had scattered them. This was partially accomplished when the remnant returned under Zerubbabel, but what is spoken of in verse 6, their loving the Lord their God with all their heart, and with all their soul must await the writing of the law in their heart under the new covenant.

The Secrets of Prophecy

In the prophetic writings of the Old Testament there are many things that could not be understood in the day in which they were penned. We are expressly told of this in 1 Peter 1, where the apostle, in writing of the salvation that has come to us through faith, says, “Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow” (verses 10, 11). Then Peter shows that they had it revealed to them that they wrote, not for themselves, but for a generation yet to come.

The Spirit of Christ that inspired the prophets to write has been given to us, so that we might be able to understand what He wrote in those early days, and also what has been written in the New Testament Scriptures. Of this the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples, even as it is recorded for us in John 16:13, “Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all truth…and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.”

All the divine secrets of the Old Testament, hidden in the prophetic writings, can now be learned by those in whom the Spirit of God dwells. What concerned the sufferings of Christ, now accomplished, is made plain to those who believe in God’s word. The things concerning the present glory of Christ, prophesied of old, and the things concerning Him in God’s counsels, revealed since, are secrets into which believers now can enter, as are also the “things to come.”

Secrets Concerning the Earth

Although God has told us in Genesis 1 about the creation and forming of the earth for man’s habitation, there are many secrets He has not revealed. What He has made known is for our spiritual good, not to instruct us in natural science. In Job 38, the Lord calls the attention of Job to some of the great secrets that are beyond man to discover, as for example when He asks, “Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened?” (verse 6). Then God leads Job in thought to heaven, asking him, “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion…canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?” God used these secrets to bring before Job His own greatness, that man might be seen as he truly is in God’s sight.

Still, faith can enable us to answer many of the things asked by God in this wonderful chapter, for we do know who laid the earth’s corner stone, and we know who shut up the sea with doors, and said to the rushing waters of the seas, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” The possession of God’s Holy Spirit, and faith in Him, are the keys that open out to us so many of the wonderful secrets of God.

R. 27.6.67

No. 2

In the Gospels

When the Son of God became flesh He brought to light the most wonderful of divine secrets. In His Person there was the revelation of God, for He was God manifest in flesh, and His words, though so simple, expressed divine mysteries that had never before been disclosed to the creature. Regarding these things He said to His disciples, “For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them” (Matt. 13:17). Those wonderful secrets, disclosed to the disciples by the Lord on earth, have been brought to us on the pages of inspiration.

God’s Revelations to Babes

The rejection of the Lord Jesus by the cities of Galilee where most of His mighty works were done, fully exposed what man is in himself, even when having the most wonderful of divine privileges. Israel’s leaders had shown that they had no place for God’s Son, even when professing to be the servants of God. If the leaders of Israel, and the mass of the people who followed them, would not have what God offered them in His grace, God would not be thwarted in His plans. As the door of Israel closed upon his Son, God opened another door, for those who accepted Jesus, into the richest of His treasures. Those who rejected the overtures of God considered themselves to be wise and prudent, but their wisdom was the wisdom of the world, which is foolishness with God.

Those who follow Jesus were reckoned to be but babes in the eyes of the great of this world, but they had had their eyes opened by God to discern who His Son was, and to perceive the wonderful treasures that He had brought to them. The divine treasures, the secrets of the heart of God, could never be apprehended by the natural intellect, or acquired by the learning of this world; they could only be known through the revelation of the Father and the Son. It was the Father’s good pleasure that it should be thus: He would make known His thoughts to those who valued His Son, to those who were despised by the learned and the great of a world that had no place for His Son.

Who would have perceived by natural intelligence that “all things” had been delivered into the hands of the rejected, lowly Jesus? Yet it was so; everything in the universe had been committed to the Son by the Father. This was something far greater than the possession of the throne of David, which the Son had been refused by Israel. Here were the things that were hidden from the wise and prudent. The details of all that had been given to the Son could not yet be opened out, but the door is seen as open into all that belonged to the Son according to the eternal purpose of God.

The glory of the Son was hidden from the great of this world; indeed, to Him belonged glories that could not be disclosed to any, for “No man knows the Son, but the Father.” And it was at this very point of the Son’s rejection that He discloses the object of His coming. He had come to bring blessing to the nation, but they would not have it; now its the time to tell His own that He had come to make known the Father to them. None but the Son knew the Father; it was a secret Name until this moment; now the Son is free to tell His own about the Father, the One who had been pleased to hide His heavenly secrets from the wise and prudent, and disclose them to His disciples.

The Lord’s Parables

In Matthew xiii, the disciples asked the Lord why He spoke to the multitude in parables. His answer clearly shows that the object of the parable was to reveal to His own the secrets of the kingdom of heaven (verse 11). The very words that opened out to His disciples the secrets of God hid from others what God desired His own to know. Those who had not ears to hear, those who had not accepted the Son of God, could not understand the divine truths contained in the parables. Only those in whom God has wrought by His Spirit have the divine capacity to apprehend the truth of God hidden in the parables.

Verse 35 of this same chapter tells us what the parables contained, for of old it had been written, “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.” These truths relating to the kingdom of heaven had neither been disclosed nor hidden in the Old Testament; they were secrets that God reserved until the coming of His into the world. Having the divine nature, and the Spirit of God indwelling us, it is our privilege to understand the divine secrets spoken by the Son.

Revelations to Peter

Although Jesus had wrought so many miracles, the crowds were ignorant as to who He was. When the Lord challenged His disciples, asking them, “But whom say ye that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matt. 16:15-16). Then Jesus answered, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood has not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” The knowledge of the Son of God can only be given by divine revelation; and only a divine work in the soul can open the eyes to perceive who Jesus is in the glory of His Person. The incarnation of the Son of God was like mud upon the eyes of those who did not believe in Jesus, it hid from the glory of the Person of the Lord (John 9:6, 11), in whom there was life, and who had come to impart life to those who received Him.

Having been brought into the secret of the Father as to who Jesus was, the promised Messiah, the Son of the God who lives, and who imparts divine life, the Lord Jesus lets Simon Peter into another divine secret, saying, “I also say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (verse 18). Here was the revelation of what the Lord Jesus would do in resurrection. Israel had rejected Him, and for the time being would be set aside and the Son of the Living God would bring into existence an entirely new structure, that which was of His own building, a living, spiritual assembly, and against this the powers of darkness would not be able to prevail.

God’s Revelation to John Baptist

Twice over John Baptist said of the Lord Jesus, “I knew Him not” (John 1:31-33), and this is remarkable in the light of the words of John’s father, Zacharias, “And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways” (Luke 1:76). The relationship of the mother of John and the mother of Jesus is sufficient evidence that John would know Jesus in a natural relationship, but it required a revelation from God to bring John into the secret of who Jesus really was. The words of his father, though recalled, would not suffice, God must reveal to Him the glory of Jesus.

By divine communication, John learned that the One to whom he was to bear witness would be pointed out to him by a sign from heaven. He would see the Holy Spirit “descending, and remaining upon Him.” Having seen the Spirit “descending from heaven like a dove,” and abiding upon Jesus, John bore witness that He was the Son of God. The realisation of who Jesus was filled the heart of John with divine admiration, expressed in the words of an overflowing heart, “Behold the Lamb of God.” It was the knowledge of who Jesus was, learned in secret with God, that affected John in his soul, and gave character to his witness to Jesus.

What Jesus Revealed to Nicodemus

When Nicodemus came to Jesus, the Lord spoke to him about new birth and the kingdom of God, things which the teacher of Israel ought to have known. Then Jesus said to him, “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things” (John 3:12). The leaders of Israel did not understand what their own Scriptures taught, and this because there was no real faith in God within them. How then, without faith, could they receive the “heavenly things” the Son of God had come to make known?

Jesus alone could speak of heavenly things, no man had gone up to heaven to bring to earth its secrets, He only knew the heavenly things, the things of the Father, the eternal life that was offered to all through faith in Him, the Only-begotten Son of the Father’s bosom. The eternal life in which there was the knowledge of the Father, and of His Son, with the affections that belonged to the relationships of this life, though manifested in the Person of the Son, could not be made available to men except through the death of the Son of Man. In appropriating the death of Christ, we feed upon the love of God made known in that wondrous death, and thus receive and enjoy the eternal life made known in the Son.

Divine Revelations in John 5.

How wonderful were the secrets disclosed by the Lord Jesus in John 5. Although He spoke to the Jews in simple language, they were unable to apprehend the wonderful mysteries spoken to them, for they knew not the Son of God who was among them, nor the Father who had sent Him. When He told them that His Father had been working hitherto, and He worked (verse 17), their reaction was to seek His life. They could not enter into the wonderful secret that the Father and the Son were working to secure an eternal rest that would not be broken in to by sin; what they were producing by their labours was a new creation scene that could not be defiled, and where God would rest forever with those brought there through the death of His Son.

Blinded by their sin and folly, the Jews could not receive the blessed secret that in their midst was One who communicated divine life to those He chose. Although revealing that all judgment had been committed to Him, the Son, that all might honour the Son as they honour the Father, the opposition of the Jews was undiminished. Before their eyes was the One who would raise all the dead, either at the resurrection of life or the resurrection of judgment, and although this amazing secret was spoken to them, the Jews were unmoved by it, being blinded by the god of this world, whom they preferred to God’s own Son.

The Things of the Father Made Known

The disciples of the Lord were highly favoured in having been in His company to hear the wonderful secrets revealed in His ministry. Much had been disclosed in what He spoke publicly, but there were things that He reserved for those whom the Son of God now called His friends (John 15:13–15). His love for them as His friends was soon to be evinced in the giving of His life for them, but already He spoke of the intimacy into which He had brought them by making known to them all the things that He had heard from His Father.

What can transcend the communications of John 13–17, in which these wonderful things of the Father were revealed. In chapter 13 He tells them of the glory of God and the glory of the Son of Man; in chapter 14 He speaks to them of the Father’s House, and of His coming to receive them to be forever with Him there. He speaks of the Holy Spirit coming from the Father and from Himself, and of all that the Spirit would be for them; and wonderful secrets concerning His glories are revealed as they here Him speaking to His Father. How very wonderful are the secrets of God made known by the Son on earth!

R. 28.6.67

No. 3

In Paul’s Epistles

Although the Lord revealed much to His disciples, He plainly told them that there was much more to be revealed, even as He 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). Through John, the Lord Jesus revealed the prophetic history of the church in Revelation 2 and 3, and unveiled many more of God’s secrets in that same book. To Peter it was given to show, in his Second Epistle, how the words of the Lord would be fulfilled, “Heaven and earth shall pass away” (Matt. 24:35; 2 Peter 3:10–12); but it was to Paul the Lord gave a special ministry, of which he says, “Let a man so account of us, as…stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1). Let us consider some of the secrets of God that the Spirit of God inspired Paul to give us.

God’s Wisdom in a Mystery

If the cross of Christ exposes human wisdom to be foolishness the Spirit of God reveals the wisdom of God in what Christ has done, and also in what God has purposed for the blessing of those who have received the truth of the Gospel. God’s wisdom is hidden from the great of this world, the evidence of this being found in the way the world’s princes treated the Lord of glory. Had the leaders of Israel, and Pilate and Herod, known the secrets of God they would never have laid their hands on the Son of God, and brought upon themselves the judgment of God.

This divine wisdom had marked out for glory those whom the great of earth despised, and this before the world began. God’s purpose could not be frustrated by what men did to His Son, indeed, He took the occasion of their wickedness, in crucifying His Son, to work out through redemption His eternal purpose. In that purpose, Christ was the Head and centre of all the glory to be displayed, but He also determined to bless with Christ those who accepted Him as Saviour. In God’s purposes of blessing we learn the hidden wisdom of God, and by the Spirit even now are brought into the secret of what our part shall be with Christ in the coming day, things that cannot now be seen, of which the men of this world have never heard, and that are beyond their conception.

“Behold, I show you a mystery”

1 Corinthians 15 is a great resurrection chapter that develops much of what the Lord had spoken while on earth, and in verse 49 the apostle had written, “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” Already, there had been the explanation of how the dead would have their bodies of glory at the resurrection, but what was to happen to the saints who had not died, and were still in bodies of flesh and blood at the time of the resurrection of the saints? Were all to pass through death in order to have their bodies changed? A special revelation is given to let us know about this matter.

Here is the divine secret unveiled, “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” (verse 51). It was just as necessary for the living saints to have their bodies changed as it was for the dead to be raised in a new condition, for “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (verse 50). This great transformation will take place “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump” (verse 52). Dead and living saints will both be changed at the coming of the Lord, when His trumpet sound is heard. Bodies that are subject to death will put on immortality; bodies that are subject to corruption will put on incorruptibility; and in this new state will be suited for the heavenly scene into which they shall enter.

The Rapture of the Saints

In 1 Corinthians 15 we have just seen that the saints, dead and living, are changed, to fit them for heaven, but in this Scripture we do not see them go up to heaven. Through Paul, by a special word from the Lord, the Thessalonian saints are told of the ascent of the saints to heaven. It is the complementary revelation to that of 1 Corinthians 15. The Thessalonian saints had evidently been troubled about those who had fallen asleep in Jesus, wondering how they would have part in the kingdom when the Lord came.

The saints were waiting for God’s “Son from heaven” (1 Thess. 1:10). Paul tells them that they would be “in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming” (2:19); and that the Lord would come “with all His saints” (3:13). Chapter 4 explains how these things are to be achieved. How could the saints, the dead and the living, be in the company of the Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? Because the Lord would first come for them and take them to heaven, so that they might be with Him when He comes out of heaven. When He comes for them, “the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air” (verses 16, 17). When He comes for us, He will meet us in the air; when He comes with us, “His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives” (Zech. 14:4).

The Mystery of the Gospel

Paul, in Ephesians 3:8 wrote of “the glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of the Christ,” and in Ephesians 6:19 of “the mystery of the glad tidings.” With delight, the apostle contemplated all the riches of Christ in the place He now occupies at God’s right hand according to the eternal purpose of God, and thinks of the great secret of God unveiled in His glad tidings. There was in the Gospel that of which the law and the prophets had spoken, but there were things that had not been divulged in the Old Testament, that which God had secreted in His own bosom until the Lord Jesus had taken His place at His right hand in heaven. On account of the Gospel, the apostle was “an ambassador in bonds,” and he asked for the prayers of the saints that he might be able to open his mouth boldly to speak of this wonderful secret of God.

When writing to Timothy, Paul instructs that one of the features of a deacon was to hold “the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience” (1 Tim. 3:9). The faith of the Gospel is one of the deep secrets of God in to which the believer in Christ has been brought, and it has been given to us that our whole life might be affected by it. By the faith of Christ we have been saved; it brings to us divine knowledge in which the soul can live and rejoice, but it is to control our thoughts, words and actions, so that we might be here for the will and pleasure of God. One who looked after temporal matters in the assembly of God required to be walking according to the truth of the Gospel.

The Secret of Piety

It is utterly beyond the understanding of the men of this world that Christians should live lives of godliness in separation from all the pursuits and pleasures that naturally engage men. The secret is found in the Person of the Son of God, who was manifested “in the flesh…preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory” (1 Tim. 3:16). Faith in the Son of God is the controlling power in the Christian’s life, even as Paul said of himself, “the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

We look back to the cross to see the love of Christ displayed and through faith in what He has done we obtain salvation; but we live as knowing that the One who died for us is in the glory of God, and there He is the object of the heart, the One who enables us to be here for Himself, apart from the world that crucified Him and still rejects Him. We find delight in contemplating His life here below, who is the admired object of the heavenly hosts as He was upon the earth, and who is the subject of the Gospel of God in which, through grace, we have believed.

The Mystery of Iniquity

Even when the apostle was writing to the saints in Thessalonica, there was a secret working of evil that would come to a head in the appearance of “that man of sin,” and in the apostasy both of professing Christendom and Judaism. Christendom is already giving up the foundations of the faith, and the truth of the inspiration of the Scriptures, and this will culminate in the complete rejection of all that is vital in Christian teaching. The apostasy of Judaism will be headed up in him “who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he…sits in the temple of God, showing Himself that he is God” (2 Thess. 2:3-4).

The Christian should not be surprised at this secret working of evil, the evidences of which are all around us today, though the church is likely to have been raptured to heaven before the apostasy is full blown, and the man of sin sits down in the temple at Jerusalem. Events of this day point towards the speedy accomplishment of these things, which evinces that the coming of the Lord for His church must be very near.

The Mystery of God

When we read in Revelation 10:7 of the time when “the mystery of God should be finished,” it is that we might understand that God will not always work in secret, but at the time indicated here God will come out publicly to deal with men. Paul’s presentation of the “mystery of God” is quite different, for, he tells us, in this mystery there “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). To the Christian, God has been fully revealed in the Son of His love, both in Manhood here below, and in the place the Son occupies now in the presence of the Father.

On earth, the Son could say, “He that has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14: 9); in heaven, He is presented to us as “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are to be found in the revelation of God in His Son. Man in his estrangement from God is entirely ignorant of Him; but the believer has been brought into the wonderful secret of the knowledge of God, seen in all that the Son is, and in all that centres in the Son in the Father’s presence. All the treasures of divine wisdom and divine knowledge are opened out to the believer in occupation with the Son. There is not a single treasure of wisdom or knowledge to be procured outside of the Son of God.

The Mystery

Among the many secrets of God that Paul was privileged to make known there is one that he calls THE MYSTERY in Romans 16:25, Ephesians 3:3, and Colossians 1:26; and which he also speaks of as “the mystery of the Christ” (Eph. 3:4), “the mystery of Christ” (Col. 4:3), and “a great mystery…concerning Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:32). The apostle tells us that this was a secret, hid in God, until the Lord had gone on high, and the Spirit had come to reveal it. It brought out the relationship in which the church stands to Christ as His body and His bride; and of the uniting of Jew and Gentile believers in one body even now.

It was hard for the Jew to understand that the Gentile believer was to share with the believing Jew in the most wonderful privileges of Christianity, privileges far excelling that of the Jew nationally, and blessings that gave to men heirship before God, and a unique and heavenly relationship with His Son.

R. 29.6.67