Everything that belongs to God is wonderful, taking character from Him whose Name is “Wonderful” (Isa. 9:6), and God delights to engage the thoughts of His saints with all that He has revealed in His word for their guidance and pleasure. The Holy Scriptures are open to all men, but all have not the capacity to perceive what is contained in them. Before any man can apprehend any of the wonderful things of God, he must be born again. This is found in the words of the Son of God on earth, who said to Nicodemus, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). New birth gives a man the sight to discern the things of God; it opens his eyes to view what is divine.
Wondrous Things in the Law
The writer of Psalm 119 knew that there were wondrous things in the law, and prayed to God, “Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law” (verse 18). God’s law was given to Israel by Moses, and is not only spoken of as the legal system, but it comprehends the five books that bear the name of the lawgiver. From these we can indeed behold many wondrous things, things that rejoice the hearts of God’s children, and cause them to praise and worship Him who has revealed them for their instruction and pleasure. The godly in Israel, such as the Psalmist, meditated on God’s word, and were enabled by Him to discern some of His great secrets that His word revealed.
Genesis. Although God gave to His servant Moses His own account of how all things came into being, and Moses wrote this by divine inspiration, it still required the eyes to be opened by God to “understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God” (Heb. 11:3). The great men of this world, down the ages, have speculated and theorized regarding the existence of themselves and all around them, and are in darkness as to the origin of all; but the godly by accepting the revelation of God have the certain knowledge of how all things came to be. How it must have delighted the saints of God in Old Testament times to read His word, and to understand by faith the truth of creation, while the great minds of the heathen philosophers groped in darkness.
With the added light of the New Testament, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God, the saints of this day can apprehend yet more than the saints of old in the mysteries of creation. When reading of Adam and Eve, the saints of old learned how man came into this world but by the revelation of the Spirit of God we see in this the great mystery of “Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:31-32).
When the godly in Israel read the wonderful prophetic history of Israel given by Jacob as he was about to depart this life (Gen. 49) there was much for them to learn, and much in which they could take pleasure; yet much must have been mysterious to them. Now, by the Spirit of God, who has come to guide us into “all truth” (John 16:13), the mysteries of Jacob’s remarkable prophecy have been revealed. We are now able to read there the history of the nation, what has already been fulfilled, and what remains to be fulfilled, and above all of the true Shiloh who, as God’s anointed, will gather Israel around Him in His kingdom, and as the true Joseph, who was hated of His brethren, but who in resurrection and glory is the Shepherd and the Stone of Israel (verse 24). How much there is for the opened eye to see in this and in other Scriptures in God’s law.
Exodus. With what gratitude and delight the godly among the nation of Israel would contemplate God’s deliverance of His people from the bondage of Pharaoh, and the great works of divine power manifested in its accomplishment, both in Egypt and at the Red Sea. How much more is now to be seen in these great events by those who realise that “whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). We have been delivered from greater foes, and that through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, who shed His precious blood to shelter us from the divine judgment that comes upon those who know not God.
It was a wonderful thing that God should bring a people to Himself that He might dwell among them, that they should surround Him in His dwelling, should be protected by Him, and sustained with manna from heaven, and refreshed by water from the flinty rock. If these things were wondrous to the Psalmist, they represent what is surpassing wonderful in this day, God dwelling among His own by His Spirit, and supplying them from heaven with all that meets their spiritual needs, and brings them to rejoice in Him and in the One through whom all has been provided for us.
A godly Israelite must have realised that there were holy mysteries bound up in the golden candlestick, the golden altar, as also in the laver and the altar of burnt offering. It would be his delight to think about them, and to know that they were not to be found among any other nation than the privileged nation of Israel, chosen of God, and immensely favoured with the custody of what had been fashioned on the pattern shown to Moses by Jehovah Himself. For saints today these holy things bring before us the Person of the Christ in His varied glories and the offices in which He exercises His present ministry in heaven, the Minister of the true sanctuary, and our Great High Priest.
Leviticus. God taught His people Israel that the only way of approach to Him was on the ground of sacrifice. They could worship Him with burnt offerings, and have communion with Him in bringing peace offerings; and where there was failure, in sins of ignorance, provision was made for them in the sin and trespass offerings. This sacrificial system, with its day of atonement and its red heifer, yea, and its daily and special sacrifices, constituted one of the many wondrous things contained in God’s law. If the types were wonderful, how much more wonderful is the fulfilment in the death of Christ, the One sacrifice that answers to every sacrifice that pointed forward to the atoning death of God’s own Son, whose precious blood has met all the claims of His throne, given us boldness to enter the holiest, and laid the foundation for the accomplishment of all the eternal purposes of God.
The priesthood of Aaron and his sons, with their consecration was another wondrous thing, and the priestly garments with the ephod and the Urim and Thummim would cause the saints who contemplated them to marvel at God’s care for His people; yet how very little of what was before the mind of God in all this could be known in those early days. It was not until Christ had died, and entered into His glory that the Holy Spirit came, and unfolded the deep, deep meaning that was secreted in the priesthood of Aaron and of his sons. We see all fulfilled in Christ in heaven, and in those He has in grace associated with Himself as an “holy priesthood,” and “a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5, 9).
It was wonderful to take part in the feasts that Jehovah had instituted (Lev. 23), to recall what the Sabbath meant to Him, and what the Passover had meant to their forefathers, and to contemplate the goodness of God in providing for Israel, and for the strangers within their gates; but how very wonderful is our present knowledge of God’s ways with His people as seen in these feasts. Do we not learn of Christ’s death in the Passover, of His resurrection in the wave sheaf, and of the coming of the Holy Spirit in the feast of Pentecost? And if we see in the trumpets the regathering of Israel, and in the day of atonement the repentance of the nation when Christ returns, and in the tabernacles their future blessing in the land of promise, have we not also a secondary application in the preaching of the Gospel, and in the repentance that brings heavenly blessings to those who trust in the Saviour now? Truly these are “wondrous things.”
Numbers. Among the many wonderful things in this book is the appearing of the glory of the Lord to the people of Israel. The divine glory had been seen on Mount Sinai, and on the eighth day of the consecration of the priest (Lev. 9:23), and in Numbers when the people refused the report of the land flowing with milk and honey (Num. 14:10), when Korah and his company rebelled (Num. 16:19), when, on the day following, the people accused Moses and Aaron of killing “the people of the Lord” (Num. 16:41-42) and when the people murmured because of the lack of water (Num. 20:2–6). No other nation had seen the glory of God, though, alas, it usually appeared in answer to the rebellion and murmuring of Israel. How much more blessed for the disciples to behold the glory of the Son of God shining through the human veil (John 1:14), and for us to see the glory of God unveiled in the face of Jesus in heaven (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:4–6).
Another wondrous thing in Numbers was the way in which God frustrated Balaam when he desired to curse Israel. Instead of cursing, he was compelled to bless, and by the Spirit of God proclaimed the final triumph of Israel, and the coming of Messiah, the “Star out of Jacob,” and the “Sceptre…out of Israel” (Num. 24:17–24). With the clear light of other prophecies, including the words of our coming Lord, we await the advent of Him who as the “Day Star” is the hope of His heavenly people, and as the “Sceptre” is the hope of Israel.
Wondrous Things in God’s Son on Earth
The wondrous things of the law are the delight of God’s saints today in a fuller way than for the Psalmist in his day, as having the presence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit; but how much more wonderful were the things found in the incarnate Son of God on earth. In Him God was fully and perfectly revealed in all that He was in all His words, and in all His works. He manifested the Father’s Name, made known His disposition of grace towards men, and unfolded the secrets of His counsels for the blessing of His own. The disciples were highly favoured to be with Him, even as He said, “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).
Although this wonderful revelation was made before the eyes of all, all had not the perception, the opened eyes, to apprehend it. In John 9 we see the Son of God opening the eyes of one born blind, not only manifesting the words of God for temporal blessing, but in this making known that God was acting in the sovereignty of His grace to open spiritually blind eyes to perceive what had come in Him, the Son of God (verses 3–7, 35–38). Like that blind man, our eyes have been opened to behold the wondrous things that have come to light in Jesus the Son of God, and like him we too have come to worship Him.
Wondrous Things Revealed from Heaven
After the Son of God had glorified God in His death upon the cross, securing for God the glory of redemption, He was glorified by the Father at His right hand. From the Father, the Holy Spirit has come to make known the eternal counsels of the Father which centre in the glorified Christ of God. These are indeed wondrous things. In Ephesians 1 God’s eternal purpose in Christ is brought before us, and according to this purpose, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. It is God’s desire that we should enter into the wondrous things of His purpose in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Every true believer in Christ is born of God, and so has his eyes open. Believers also have the indwelling Spirit of God who gives the power to apprehend divine revelations, the revelations that are found in the Holy Scriptures. Something more is required for entering into God’s wonderful counsels, and for this the Apostle Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:17. He desired that the saints might have the spiritual state, that affinity of soul with the divine revelations, “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of” God as found in these wondrous heavenly unfoldings by the Spirit. With this state of soul we shall indeed be able to enter into the wondrous things of the law, the wondrous things made known in the Son on earth, and the wondrous things made known by the Spirit in connection with God’s eternal purpose in Christ.
R. 1.5.68