The Secret Things

How God is working in this world?  I sometimes rationalize and say “God is doing this because…..”.  If I really knew His workings then I would have the mind of God…..knowing all things.  None of us can speak for God although I have heard people try.  When reading the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures I believe that they were relating truths that God wanted His people to know.  However, God only told them what needed to be told.  He never told them why.

There are a great many things we do not know which the Scriptures have only hinted.  We are left guessing at what lies beyond the edge of our perception.

Here’s a few for you.  What is the reward of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked after the grave? Is it always hell fire and damnation?  What is the nature of Messiah? How do we reconcile His divinity with His humanity?  What is the nature of God?  How can He be fathomed and explained? What about the problem of evil? What is the role of the Adversary, and how do we reconcile his presence with the sovereignty of God? How is it that God both chooses His people and assigns them choice? How will the age culminate and when will the Master return?

These and similar matters, are always of great interest to Bible students. Our minds and souls are naturally curious to probe these mysteries and the Scriptures offer insight into all of them but we peer them as a man peers into a dim mirror.  Paul said in 1st Cor. 13…. “ For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”  Therefore we know in part and understand in part, because there are secret things that belong to the Lord.

When reading Deuteronomy 29:29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this Torah.” Moses said these words to the people when they didn’t understand how God was working.  However, God didn’t leave them clueless.  He gave them the ordinances that they were to follow to be a people set apart for Him.  They were to be His chosen ones, a kingdom of priests that would pass on the words of His commandments to generations that followed.  And then, of course, the Gentiles were to receive the grace shown to Israel through the Messiah which was embodiment of God’s goodness and love.

Ironically, things which are essentially unknowable and intangible are the things which divide us, one from another.  Differences of opinion and interpretation on theological issues typically define the borders between one belief system and another.

Things that are inferred from the Scripture but left unanswered often cause the most problems between us.  When we attempt to take possession of the secret things of the Lord, we find that they slip through our hands and leave us fractured and divided.  We cannot create unity when unity depends on us defining the indefinable!!

We should learn to let the secret things remain the Lord’s and expend our energy in accomplishing clearly what is revealed.

“He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.” Col 1:28