THINGS REVEALED, ONCE CONCEALED
THINGS REVEALED, ONCE CONCEALED
“It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; but the glory of kings is to search out a thing”, Proverbs 25: 2. Thus spake Solomon, for God reveals, and man learns. The revealer can select his own time for the revelation; till then what he knows is kept concealed. The learner searches out a matter to increase his store of acquired knowledge. How these words, the last clause especially, became themselves an illustration of the truth they set forth, in a way Solomon surely never thought of! For, uttered by him before Israel was separated from Judah, they were probably, with what follows them, not incorporated with the book of Proverbs till Israel had ceased to be a distinct kingdom on earth. They were copied out by the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah. It was to that king’s honour to search out all that he could of the sayings of the wisest of men replete with divine wisdom, which God till then had not allowed to form part of this book.
But the former clause of the verse receives a fuller illustration when we turn to other parts of Scripture, and observe how God has concealed things from man till the right moment arrived to reveal them. Centuries rolled by before He placed in the hands of His people the first written portion of the volume of the book. During fifteen hundred years subsequent to that epoch, the Spirit of God, from time to time, added to the sacred volume, till, at the death of John the evangelist and apostle, the pen of inspiration was laid aside, the range of God’s revelation to His church being by that [p. 130] time complete. Commencing in Genesis with the record of the old creation, it carries us on to the new creation of all things, an outline of God’s dealings with man and the earth in time, which divides the eternity of the past from the eternity of the future. But as it speaks a little of the eternity of the future, so does it of the eternity of the past. Yet we must penetrate far into the book, and read almost to its close, ere we gather up all we are permitted to collect of what took place near the beginning. God reveals things to man, but each in his season.
The history of the creation is an example of this. To learn about it we turn naturally to the beginning of Genesis, where we find it the special subject of revelation. But all is not told us at once, for we must turn to Job 38: 7 to learn whether any created intelligences witnessed the fastening of the foundations of the earth. To rebuke Job, who was speaking of things he knew not, the Lord mentions the morning stars singing together, and all the sons of God shouting for joy, as they beheld almighty power dealing with this our earth. How then should Job, whose existence, compared with these, was so limited, and whose knowledge was so scanty, presume to sit in judgment on the actions and motives of his Creator?
Far back as this takes us, we can travel in thought to a period still more remote, when we hearken to Wisdom’s voice, persuading men to give ear to her teaching, as one fully competent to instruct them Proverbs 8. In presenting, as it were her credentials in proof of the claims she asserted, she tells us, “Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old ... When he prepared the heavens I was there”, etc. In Genesis neither of these matters is stated. God brought them out when needed, the truth in season for men. Do we not feel, as we gather up these notices of creation, that all has not yet been told us that God knows about it? We know something,
[p. 131] but only what He has revealed; and His manner of relating it suggests to the heart that, were it requisite, He could tell us yet more. It is the full treasury of knowledge dealing out at times a little of its store.
If we turn to the epistle of Jude, we are furnished with a few more illustrations of God’s concealing a matter till the time arrives to declare it, as we read of the sin of the fallen angels, and the contention of Michael the archangel with the devil, and as we peruse the prophecy of Enoch, the seventh from Adam.
In 2 Peter 2 we are told that punishment awaits the fallen angels; for the sure punishment of sins is the subject there in hand. In Jude we learn what their sin was — they “kept not their first estate”. But why is their existence kept a secret till so late in the world’s history? Why is it that what happened, we believe, before man was created is not disclosed till after atonement has been made? The character of their sin is similar to that of apostate christendom. They left their first estate. Men in the latter days will despise dominion. Both cast off the position of subjection in which God has placed them. Now this evil having been introduced in the days of Jude, the Spirit by him warns souls of it. The evil was then germinating through the introduction privily of ungodly men to the assembly of believers, who turned the grace of God into lasciviousness, and denied the only Lord (despot)† and our Lord Jesus Christ. Great is the sin of these men; but if earth has not been a stranger to such daring wickedness, heaven witnessed something similar when the fallen angels forsook the place God had originally assigned them. So their history is referred to as a warning to souls now.
But if the character of their sin finds a parallel in that of the fallen angels, their presumption, their arrogance, stand rebuked by the conduct of Michael the archangel. Here we are introduced to a contention
†”God” is omitted by the best MSS and textual critics.
[p. 132] between him and the devil which took place, not, like the previous event, before Adam was created, but, though man was unconscious of it, after Israel had been called out to be the Lord’s peculiar people. These men would speak evil of dignities. Michael the archangel would not allow himself to bring a railing accusation against a dignity, even though it was a fallen one, the devil. He would maintain the authority of the Lord. “The Lord rebuke thee”. That was the Lord’s, not Michael’s part. They would shut God out of the world, and act in a manner the archangel would shrink from.
Privily these men had entered in amongst believers, deceiving the saints as to their real character, though they could not deceive the Lord. He saw them, described them, and had even foretold their latter end by His servant Enoch. If we turn to the inspired biography in Genesis we read nothing of his prophecy, and should not have gathered from it that he had ever been used as a prophet. Jude however discloses this fact, and gives us the very terms of his prediction; so we read what men before the flood heard and knew, we can listen to language with which some of them may have been familiar. As long as God was dealing with Israel as a distinct people apart from others, the gentiles were not brought into view, generally speaking, except as they were connected with the people of Israel. But now that God will deal with the whole world, and pour out His wrath upon the ungodly, the prophecy of Enoch again has its place amongst the revelations He has made, and for the first time is recorded in the volume of His word. It was truth in season for souls in Jude’s day; so, though in existence for more than three thousand years, it was not brought forward after the flood, till the time for its use as a warning of coming events had arrived.
How simply are these revelations of the past unfolded to us! They come not as discoveries just made by the [p. 133] writer, but as facts which God had never forgotten.
These examples of God concealing matters till the revelation of them would profit men might well speak to man’s heart, and make him pause ere he sat in judgment on his Maker, questioning whether he is as fully informed of all he needs to know as he ought to be, if the actions and character of the Lord are to be judged at the bar of human opinion. How limited is his knowledge of what had taken place before Adam walked in the garden! How ignorant too is he of what may be taking place around him, between spirits invisible to mortal eyes, and impalpable to mortal sense!
Who of the children of Israel witnessed that dispute Jude alone speaks of? Who of them was cognisant of its taking place? And how ignorant too man may be of what has happened on earth in bygone ages, as this prophecy of Enoch, recovered by God after the lapse of so many years, strikingly testifies. Reading these notices of the past, man should surely feel there is a history known to God and other created beings of which we know little, and there may be a history of the present, some day to be learnt, of which we know nothing. How well then, with these glimpses of what has been before us, to be humble and teachable about the ways of God, instead of proudly judging the omniscient Creator!