HOW AND WHY GOD CONCEALS TRUTH

 Using the illustration of a soldier, the sort which would have been a common sight on the streets of Palestine in his day, the Apostle Paul portrays the defensive and offensive armament in spiritual terms (Eph. 6: 13):

 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day . . . having your loins girt about with truth . . . . And take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

 In Heb. 4: 12 he expands on the figure of the sword, a frightful implement in the hand of a seasoned fighter, describing it as

 quick [living or vital], and powerful, and sharper than any [literal] two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

 The Word of God is all about knowing, the ascertaining and corroborating of truth. ‘Prove [test] all things; hold fast to that which is good’ (1 Thes. 5: 21). The gospel is not only an evangelical message for the conversion of souls, but is rooted in the truth about Abraham and God’s promise to him. The Apostle Paul defines the gospel when he says (Gal. 3: 8),

 The scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before [hand] the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. [emphasis added]

 Understanding God’s plan of the ages, which is dispensational, requires that we view history through the divine lens, tracing the progression of events which lead from the fall of man (Genesis) to his restoration in the end of days (Revelation). The fall and rise of man are the two bookends between which there is a vast and complex story, comprehended under the doctrine of The Permission of Evil. The Bible’s teachings pertain both to the inner life of the believer (‛soul and spirit . . . joints and marrow’) and to the workaday world in which we all live.

 The prophecies contained in the Word inform the thinking Christian of the what, when, how and why of God’s dealings with humanity. For in the final analysis, salvation includes not only believers of the past and present, but the putative believers of the future, when Christ’s kingdom is to be established on the earth and the dead are resurrected and taught the life-saving truths. Christ died for all, without exception. As Jer. 31: 34 puts it, when speaking of the overspreading of righteousness throughout the world in that day,

 they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

 In that day, the knowledge of salvation will be familiar to all. But repentance for sin and faith in Christ as Saviour and King is the only basis on which any will receive everlasting life.

 An Ever-Present Future

As Christians, we are of necessity in the world, though not a part of it in our spirit and preferences. In this twenty-first century we find ourselves still waiting for that blessed change of dispensation (‘thy kingdom come’), with its long-promised Abrahamic blessing of all families of the earth. It has tarried long; or at least that is how it seems to us, down here, on our little bit of croft. But it is not God who is behind schedule; it is we who do not understand his schedule. As someone has said, ‘God does not pay all his bills on Thursday.’ His clock does not have to synchronise with our own.

 Many have set out dates for the arrival of the kingdom the temptation to do so is apparently very strong but none have got it right, and their predictions have always failed. The lure of the future holds a powerful fascination for all of us. More than any preceding generation ours seems to have a peculiar interest in what will come to pass. As a generation swamped by the media of film we are conscious of our place in history and have an acute sense of the passage of time, the contrasts between old and new, and wonder what might be next on the horizon.

 The Parable Of The Pounds

Why doesn’t the Lord tell us when the kingdom will come? Why does he conceal such information from those who long for it? Because, as Jesus said to his disciples (John 16: 12), ‘I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear [carry] them now’. In other words: (1) the truth on the exact arrival of Christ’s kingdom is not yet due, (2) for reasons which we cannot yet grasp.

 That there would be an indeterminate hiatus between Christ's first advent and his second and a period of confusion on the part of the watching disciples, is suggested by Jesusʼ parable of the ʻpoundsʼ, in which the master of the household departs with an exhortation to his servants to ʻoccupy till I comeʼ that is, until I return (Luke 19: 13).

 The master is Christ; the servants are his people, awaiting his promised return in the end of the ages. But, he tells us, we are to ʻoccupyʼ or ʻtradeʼ (so the Greek), with patient resignation, in an attitude of hopeful anticipation until he is made manifest to the world. That this will happen is certain; but exactly when, is not revealed here.

 Looked at from another persective, the kingdom of Christ is simultaneously both near and far off, a contradiction which the thoughtful and attentive watcher can appreciate, and which the Apostle Peter expresses this way (2 Pet. 1: 19-21):

 19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: 20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. 21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

 Striving to be godly in this present evil world requires that one live in assurance of faith, energised by hope of future deliverance, penetrating the haze which obscures the future by trust in the declarations and prophecies found in the Word of God. We are to remain useful and busy, going about our daily affairs in an attitude of thankfulness to God, and with an earnest desire to do his will in all things.

 It’s A Mystery To Me

The Apostle Paul emphasises the value of truth factual knowledge to Timothy, his young protégé. He writes (1 Tim: 4: 16): ‘Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine [learning]; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.’ Elsewhere (2 Tim. 3: 15) he adds, ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.’

 To be a rounded Christian requires one to be both godly and informed. To be aware of the world around us is to be tuned into the signs of the times, the indicators of prophecies given long ago. To understand the plan of the ages requires us to pay intelligent attention to the manner in which God is working out his purpose. This does not mean that we can understand all things in advance, any more than Jesus himself knew everything while he was in the flesh. The revealing of divine truth comes in its appropriate seasons and, until then, remains a ‘mystery’ mysterious not because it is unfathomable or magical, but because the time for it to be explained is not yet due.

 For example, Paul writes in Rom. 11: 25: ‘I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant [agnoeo, un-knowing or agnostic] of this mystery [secret], . . . that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.’

 The ‘secret’ here is not the fact that the Jews were blinded, or hardened against the truth that Christ was their Messiah that was evident at the time but that they would remain in this condition until the full ‘number’ of the Church, the Little Flock, would be gathered and return in glory with Christ, an event still future. As Paul had elsewhere pointed out, the Jewish nation, represented by the olive tree, was pruned right down to a relative few who had answered the gospel call. In their place, believing Gentiles were grafted in. This meant that the Church then and since comprised more Gentiles than Jews, the natural heirs of the Abrahamic promise. All this is explained in Rom. 11: 13-32, which please see.

 Blindness or hardness of heart will be lifted from Israel when Christ returns with his Church to set up the kingdom on earth and Israel is converted. But their conversion could not occur before the Church was complete. This passage in Romans, therefore, informs us of at least three important facts:

1. That Israel was blinded for a purpose (that God might have mercy on them);

2. That their blindness could not be removed before the Church was filled up; and

3. That there is a numerical upper limit of those who become members of the Church, the Very Elect.

 Connected with this latter point is the truth, hitherto not understood, that ‘the body [of Christ] is not one member, but many’ (1 Cor. 12: 12, 14, 27; emphasis added). Compare this passage with Eph. 5: 31, 32, in which Paul refers to the same mystery under the figure of a husband and wife, where Christ Jesus is the groom and the Church is his wife (a solid proof, if any were needed, that marriage is legitimate only when contracted between a man and a woman).

 Viewed this way, a biblical ‘mystery’ is not a fantastical conglomeration of impossibly unreasonable concepts, but a secret, not revealed before its due time, for reasons which the Heavenly Father reserves to himself.

 Ignorance vs. Not (Yet) Knowing

Only those things which God has made known can be known, either through creation or revelation. Some things of life and the universe are self-evident to the senses and the rational mind, and such knowledge is the birth-right of humanity. It is man’s remit to investigate the world around him. Knowledge is often won at the expense of time and mental and physical effort, and should be prized and respected. There is a costly price to pay if one would be expert in anything. But those things which God has kept in reservation cannot be teased out this way.

 Nothing works better than the urgency imposed by a looming deadline, and we might think that if we knew the date when Christ’s kingdom would come, we would work harder. But in the absence of a clear deadline one is justified in concluding that the event is not so close as one might wish. The best-intentioned forecasts have (obviously) been wrong, though often the one making the forecast has excused the failure of the prediction with the claim that the disappointment was a good test of character for the Lord’s people. This, is perhaps, a dubious way to claim a half-way success.

 A Bright Future

God does not contrive to keep us in ignorance, but there are certain things he will keep up his sleeve until such time as we are ready to receive them. This applies at the personal level, too. There are many things we might wish to know, but perhaps the sure knowledge of a family catastrophe or one’s own death might not be among them. Some things we are better off not knowing. As for the more distant future, take heart from the words of 1 Cor. 2: 9:

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

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September 2015. Author asserts usual rights, but you are free to reproduce or reprint this article without express permission. Please acknowledge the source.

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