How that by revelation He made known unto me the mystery.
Revelation of God’s mystery
1. Those whom God sends, He also teaches.
2. We have by nature a veil before our eyes, that we cannot see spiritual matters till they be revealed.
(1) Wherefore we must all pray that the veil may be removed from these points of the gospel, that the spirit of liberty may be given us, which brings light and understanding wherever it comes.
(2) See what we must impute our not profiting to, viz., this, that we have not got that eyesight of the Spirit, wherewith our eyes should be cleared. Many of us are like the woman who, going to bed seeing and in the night taken blind, waking in the morning, complained of the curtain; for, not discerning our spiritual blindness, we complain of the curtain--strange manner of teaching, obscure speaking, perplexed sentences, I know not what in the teacher--when the fault is nearer home; we are too much in our own light, not knowing ourselves.
3. The doctrine of salvation is a hidden thing to the world. Things are lightsome or obscure in themselves, or to us. To be made lightsome in themselves, there needs but the light of the sun to shine upon them; but to make them lightsome to us, we must have inward light in the eye whereby to discern them: thus the counsel of God is for the nature of it light itself.
4. It is made sensible or visible, the light of revelation shining on it.
5. It is so discerned where there is the supernatural eye of the Spirit, by benefit of this external light to discern it. We need to pray with David, “Lord, open our eyes, that we may see the wonders or hidden things of Thy law.” You see, we are all of us men of clay, and living here as it were in the bottom of the ship, walking upon clay; and therefore, if we would know the will of God, concerning us men here below, either God must be revealed from heaven extraordinarily, whereof we have no warrant, or ordinarily, and that is by these books written and indited by the Spirit of God, to be seen, read, and understood. Now this must stand by great reason, for if a man were in a mineral or coal pit, infinite fathoms toward the centre of the earth, it were impossible he should know the will of us men here above, unless we either descend ourselves, or send, or at least throw in a letter of our mind, which notwithstanding will be never the nearer unless we convey light to read the same: so I say, either God must call to us in an audible voice, or send His angels, or raise up afresh some extraordinary means of revealing His will, or else send His letter of His mind to us His loving friends, redeemed by the blood of Christ, yea, and reach us light also for the perusing of the same, or surely we shall never as long as we live attain to the knowledge of His will. Now I grant that the books of Scripture contain the Divine will of God, but such is the darkness of our understanding, that we cannot conceive thereof unless the outward means of the preaching of the Word be joined with the inward working of the Spirit, as fire to enlighten the whole house. Not that the Word in itself is obscure and dark, but that it lighteth into those hands of such blind expositors, in whom is nothing but darkness, as the bright silver lying in a dark chest. (Paul Bayne.)
Revelation
No revelation can be adequately given by the address of man to man, whether by writing or orally, even if he be put in possession of the truth itself. For all such revelation must be made through words: and words are but counters--the coins of intellectual exchange. There is as little resemblance between the silver coin and the bread it purchases, as between the word and the thing it stands for. Looking at the coin the form of the loaf does not suggest itself. Listening to the word, you do not perceive the idea for which it stands, unless you are already in possession of it. Speak of ice to an inhabitant of the torrid zone, the word does not give him any idea, or if it does, it must be a false one. Talk of redness to one who cannot distinguish colours, what can your most eloquent description present to him resembling the truth of your sensation? Similarly in matters spiritual, no verbal revelation can give a single simple idea: for instance, what means justice to the unjust--or purity to the man whose heart is steeped in licentiousness? What does infinitude mean to a being who has never stirred from infancy beyond a cell, never seen the sky or the sea, or any of those occasions of thought, which, leaving vagueness on the mind, suggest the idea of the illimitable? It means, explain it as you will, nothing to him but a room: vastly larger than his own, but still a room terminated by four walls. Talk of God to a thousand ears, each has his own different conception of the Almighty Being who rules all. The sensual man hears of God, and conceives one idea; the pure man hears, and pictures another. Whether you speak in metaphysical or metaphorical language; in the purest words of inspiration, or the grossest images of materialism; the conceptions conveyed by the same word are essentially different, according to the soul which receives them. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
Accepting the mysteries of God
The decree of God is a sealed book, and the names in it are secret; therefore thy part is to look to God’s revealed will--namely, to “make thy calling and election sure” by making thy regeneration sure. Dost thou not know that secret things belong to God, but revealed things, to us and to our children? Oh ‘tis dangerous to meddle with the secrets of princes! (G. Swinnock.)
The gospel a revelation
It is an historical fact which has not been sufficiently noticed, that human nature is always below revelation. This fact indicates the Divine origin of revelation. Great discoveries are usually the product of preceding ages of thought. One mind develops the idea; but it is the fruit of the age ripened in that mind. A pearl is found, but the location had been indicated by previous researches. But revealed religion is something different from this. It is separate from and superior to the thought of the age. It calls the wisdom of the world foolishness, and introduces a new standpoint, and starting point, around which it gathers what was valuable in the old, and destroys the remainder. (J. B. Walker.)
Few words
Very wisely does an American writer say, “There is a mighty difference between preaching the everlasting gospel and preaching the gospel everlastingly.” There is no end to the truth, but there should be an end to the sermon, or else it will answer no end but that of wearying the hearer. A friend who occasionally visits the continent always prefers the passage from Dover to Calais, for a reason which we commend to the notice of certain prosy speakers--it is short. If you speak well, you will not be long; if you speak ill, you ought not to be so. We commend to the verbose brother the counsel of a costermonger to an open-air preacher--it was rather rude, but peculiarly sensible--“I say, old fellow, cut it short.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)