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Secrets, Mysteries, and Hidden Things
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Bonners Ferry Seventh-day Adventist Church, ID, USA
Delivery: 2011-09-17
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2011-10-06 21:35Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/ser/kirl-secrets.php
You hold in your hand the Bible—a book of mystery. Publishers capitalize on this interest in secret things. Books are printed about how to decode the Bible. Hal Lindsey, in his best-seller, The Late Great Planet Earth, likened the inter-connectedness of Bible prophecy to a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces are available—just buy Hal’s book and use his method—come into possession of the special key, the interpretive system, that unlocks its hidden truth.
William Miller’s statement comes much closer to the truth: “the Bible is a system of revealed truths, so clearly and simply given that the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein” (Ellen G. White quoting Miller in, The Great Controversy, p. 320).
Both see that the Bible contains a system of truth, but only Miller states that these are “clearly and simply given.” Is the Bible some kind of puzzle-book? Let’s study together and see if it is a puzzle-book or if most of its truths are “clearly and simply given.”
We set forth now study three words that appear in the Bible: “secret,” “mystery” and “hidden.” Before finishing, we will remember the most important mystery of all: the mystery of our Jesus.
Secret
First, “secret.” Let’s look at some passages from before the New Testament. One is Isaiah 45:19. There, God says that He has not spoken in secret; He has not chosen Israel in vain. He made the earth to be inhabited and it will be. By whom? Israel. He will deliver Israel. In this passage then, God is not holding back anything. He is not keeping something secret. Then we have Isaiah 48:16. Read the whole chapter. God presents Himself as the Creator. He again declares to the Hebrew people that He has not spoken in secret. God has been with us from the beginning. And in Genesis we find this to be true. God has spoken with humans from the very beginning.
We come to the book of Daniel, and in particular, chapter two, verses 18, 19, 22, 27, 28, 29, 30 and 47. Notice what is going on here. God created a situation. He intervened here in planet earth. He gave a dream to king Nebuchadnezzar but provided him no interpretation. Notice: there was no secret, then God revealed part and kept part back. He was creating a situation to break through into the life experience of this pagan king.
So, God creates a situation, reveals some of the future, and then through Daniel and his three friends, reveals to Nebuchadnezzar the solution. That is to say, that the “secret” stage of the situation is only temporary. When chapter one ends there is no secret, and when chapter two ends there is no secret. God reveals. In Daniel chapter four Nebuchadnezzar is given another vision, and again, before the chapter is over, the secret is revealed through Daniel
Our next text is found at Amos 3:7. It tells us that before He acts, God gives warning through His prophets. If you look carefully at Amos chapter three God has warned His rebellious people that they must change their ways or experience His chastening. They have not complied, and now He tells them He will send chastening. Our interest today is found in this: God warns before He acts. That is, He reveals. He does not condemn the blind; He helps the blind to see. Then He acts.
Our next text is John 18:20. Jesus is being tried before the high priest. They ask him about His teachings. Jesus says,
I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them; they know what I said (John 18:20, 21 ESV).
Jesus here emphasizes what? His openness. He taught in the synagogue, in the temple, the most public of places in Jewish society. He has said nothing in secret. That is, His teachings are fully in the open. Of course, there were quiet interviews on the side, as between Jesus and Nicodemus (John 3), and the woman at the well (John 4). But His teachings were public. In private He adapted and repeated them, but they did not differ in substance from his public teachings.
Jesus sometimes veiled His teachings in measure in order to simply be able to proceed with His ministry, but His teaching was in the open. All this was in harmony with the essential nature of His mission. He said,
For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind (John 9:39).
Jesus came to give sight. Not just to open the eyes of those physically blinded, but especially to clear away misinterpretation encrusting His Word. Those who insisted on clinging to the false would be hardened; those willing to see would see. Because Jesus was the Author of truth, He must inevitably be the measure of truth. Those who reject God's standard erect their own. Such choose blindness. The problem is not in what is revealed but in the response of the rejector.
In summary, when you see a “secret” or “secrets” in the Bible, they are always secrets that God has or soon shall reveal.
Mystery
Try this in Romans: 11:25: “I do not want you to be ignorant of this. . .” In 1 Corinthians 2:7 Paul says that he is declaring a mystery that had been hidden but now isn’t. In 4:1 he speaks of God’s workers as being entrusted with “the mysteries God has revealed” (NIV2011). In 15:51 he says that he is showing them a mystery. He is not hiding but revealing.
On to Ephesians and 1:9. Paul speaks of God's having made known to him the mystery. In 3:3, 4 he writes how God has revealed the mystery to him which he is now revealing to others. In 5:32 he is teaching and pauses in order to tell us exactly what he means. He says that the mystery of which he speaks is the relationship between the Christ and the church. In 6:19 Paul asks for prayer so that he may open his mouth and boldly present the mystery about Jesus.
Onward to Colossians 1:25-29:
Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily (Colossians 1:25-29 KJV).
The mystery “now is made manifest to His saints.” It is the experience of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Not Christ in you later, but Christ in you now; something revealed, not hidden. In 2:2 Paul wants them to know the same mystery. In 4:3, he speaks of proclaiming, that is, making understood, the mystery.
And mystery in the last book of the Bible? In Revelation 1:20, we have this:
As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
John explains the mystery. He tells exactly what stands for what. And in Revelation 17:7, “But the angel said to me, ‘Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her.’” Which he proceeds to do. When we actually consider the biblical data, “mystery” is not something secret; it is something that God reveals.
Hidden and Hide
Now to “hidden” and “hide.” Deuteronomy 30:11 says that God's commandment is not hidden. Recent translations offer that God’s commandment is not too difficult for you. Are they hidden from us? No. How could they be commandments to us if He did not make them known to us?
In 1 Corinthians 4:5 we have the idea of “hidden” again. God says that He will expose hidden personal motives. In context, Paul is concluding his pastoral discussion where he is trying to help the Corinthian church move beyond partyism.
And back to Genesis 18:17. God goes out of His way to speak with Abraham. He asks him, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” He tells him that he is investigating the situation in Sodom. Abraham proceeds to intercede for the righteous there. God gives information and invites dialogue. He reveals what He is about to do to His servant. Thus, all through the Bible we find that God is not trying to hide but to reveal, not to keep secrets but to share truth, not to create mysteries but to demystify.
We have not dealt with the phenomenon of parables; that we will save for another time. However, just reviewing these key uses of “secret,” “mystery,” and “hidden,” we find that the Bible is about truth revealed. But here we come to another issue. How is it revealed? Do we need Hal Lindsey—or someone else’s—private method? Do we need a man-made formula?
Central Propositions
Here, we find ourselves dealing with central propositions. If, fundamentally, the Bible is about revealing truth, and if it is not a puzzle-book which we need someone's secret-sauce to decode, then where does this proposition that the Bible is a jar full of secrets come from?
The story begins in Greece. You see, there were two main bodies of Greek writings: religious ideas, and another set of writings of especially philosophical and historical ideas. The ideas in the religious writings were fanciful, grotesque, absurd, often immoral. But Homer and Hesiod were central to Greek thought; repudiating them unthinkable. What to do then?
Here is the solution they arrived at. The religious writings were best to be understood by allegorizing them. Here’s how Barnard Ramm in Protestant Biblical Interpretation puts it:
The stories of the gods, and the writings of the poets, were not to be taken literally. Rather underneath is the secret or real meaning. . . . this Greek tradition of allegorizing spread to Alexandria where there was a great Jewish population and eventually a large Christian population (p. 25).
Ramm continues:
The Alexandrian Jew faced a problem similar to his fellow Greek. He was a child of Moses instructed in the law and the rest of a divine revelation. But as he mingled with the cosmopolitan population of Alexandria he soon learned of the Greek literature with its philosophical heritage. Some of these Jews were so impressed that they accepted the teaching of Greek philosophy. . . The Jew faced the tension of his own national Sacred scriptures and the Greek philosophical tradition (especially Plato). How could a Jew cling to both? The solution was identical to the Greek’s solution to the problem. . . . The allegorical method arose to save the reputation of ancient Greek religious poets. . . Then it was bequeathed to the Christian church (pp. 25, 26).
But what is the allegorical method? Doesn’t the Bible contain allegories? And the answer is, yes, it does. There are some. One example is Galatians 4:21-31. And what of Paul Bunyan's Pilgrim’s Progress? A very helpful book, allegory all the way through. Nothing wrong with that. Ellen White even recommended that book. But we are discussing the Bible. There is allegory in it, but not at all the same as what soon arose.
Here’s the trail. Aristobulus comes about 160 BC. He said that by employing the allegorical method, the teachings of Greek philosophy could be found in Moses and the prophets. Next is Philo (died about 54 AD). Ramm again:
Philo did not think that the literal meaning was useless, but it represented the immature level of understanding. The literal sense was the body of Scripture, and the allegorical sense its soul. Accordingly, the literal was for the immature and the allegorical for the mature (p. 27).
Down through history we next come to Clement, then Origen. To Origen, the meaning of the Bible is found only by spiritualizing it. To Origen, the New Testament is the Old Testament in a concealed manner. In his understanding it is the function of the Christian expositor to discover these secrets and bring them to the surface. Next comes Jerome and then Roman Catholic bishop Augustine of Hippo. Now if all this seems a bit esoteric, you will be interested at this point. For although Augustine lived 1600 years ago, his impact hits us here close to home.
See if this begins to sound familiar. Augustine wanted to interpret the Bible carefully. So do we. But he was a child of his age—a blender of Greek philosophy with Christianity. Allegorical interpretation then remained much in vogue. If only it could be used with more carefulness. He decided that what was needed was a system of signs. That is, he would sort carefully between the things mentioned in the Bible so that he only allegorized the right ones. His solution was to sort between the “real objects” and the “spiritual” ones.
First he speaks of natural objects, like a piece of wood or metal. These signify only what they are. Then there are things which signify other things. “A tree may signify forestry service, a shoe a shoemaker, and an anvil the blacksmith gild.” He understood 2 Corinthians 3:6 “to mean that the spiritual or allegorical interpretation was the real meaning of the Bible” (Ramm, p. 35).
Hear it from Augustine himself, in his Confessions, book 6, paragraph 4:
I joyed also that the old Scriptures of the law and the Prophets were laid before me, not now to be perused with that eye to which before they seemed absurd, when I reviled Thy holy ones for so thinking, whereas indeed they thought not so: and with joy I heard Ambrose in his sermons to the people, oftentimes most diligently recommend this text for a rule, The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life; whilst he drew aside the mystic veil, laying open spiritually what, according to the letter, seemed to teach something unsound; teaching herein nothing that offended me, though he taught what I knew not as yet, whether it were true. For I kept my heart from assenting to any thing, fearing to fall headlong; but by hanging in suspense I was the worse killed. For I wished to be as assured of the things I saw not, as I was that seven and three are ten (http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/augustine/Pusey/book06).
He hesitated to believe, but allegorizing was so helpful. The literal seemed to teach something unsound. But drawing aside the mystic veil, finding the spiritual meaning, things seemed to make sense. Augustine could not resist mentioning how useful it is to be able to lay aside the literal and deal with the Bible figuratively. Here is Augustine from De Doctrine Christiana, Book 3, paragraph 34:
The chief thing to be inquired into, therefore, in regard to any expression that we are trying to understand is, whether it is literal or figurative. For when it is ascertained to be figurative, it is easy, by an application of the laws of things which we discussed in the first book, to turn it in every way until we arrive at a true interpretation, especially when we bring to our aid experience strengthened by the exercise of piety.
Augustine’s allegorizing method was at once simple yet problematic. It amounted to picking out certain words to assign spiritual meanings to, and then assigning these meanings to the Scripture and reading the passage with their insertion. Remember, the basis for this practice is the idea that the divinely-intended meaning of Scripture is hidden and must be extracted by those using the these methods. But if the Bible is a book of secrets revealed, mysteries opened, hidden things unhidden, neither Augustine nor we need resort to speculative, subjective, arbitrary, imaginary, dubious understandings. As William Miller stated the Bible is a system of revealed truths “clearly and simply given.” Our view of the Book then is different. Then we anticipate discovering God's truth without recourse to fables.
Biblical scholar Philip Hughes wrote that allegorizing as a method
presupposes that under the the surface of the text, hidden from the sight of the multitude, there lies a profound ‘spiritual’ sense that only the expert is capable of discerning. This inevitably fosters an attitude of disdain and disregard for the plain, natural sense of the text and reduces the Bible to a book of intellectual word puzzles (Donald G. Bloesch, Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration, and Interpretation, quoting Philip Hughes, p. 184).
I cannot but think that what Ellen White has written about this is inspired:
The world is full of false theories and seductive spiritualistic ideas, which tend to destroy clear spiritual perception, and to lead away from truth and holiness. . . . The plain teachings of the Word of God are not to be so spiritualized that the reality is lost sight of. Do not overstrain the meaning of sentences in the Bible in an effort to bring forth something odd in order to please the fancy (Selected Messages, vol. 1, p. 170).
The Mystery of Jesus and Conclusion
We finish with the most important point of all: the mystery of Jesus. Our text comes from our Scripture reading: Romans 16:25 KJV.
Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: to God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen.
The passage is a doxology, an ascription of glory to God. Notice though—God has power to establish you, according to the gospel. There is someone at the center of the gospel: Jesus. He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). For four-thousand years He worked and waited, but at last He came. He was made manifest in His death on the cross, but Paul recognizes that that generation will pass, and that the revelation will travel through time via the Scriptures of the prophets, made available to all nations, so that all who are willing would experience the obedience of faith.
The greatest mystery there ever was or ever shall be, is Jesus come in human flesh. His Word is not a jigsaw puzzle. He can be known. If Jesus, the greatest mystery, is not hidden, what use in hiding lesser things? To that God who reveals secrets, mysteries, and hidden things by His Word, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. GCO
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