02.07. The Fifth Paper

(Fifth Paper, Things to Come, Jan. 1896, 2(7):116-117)) V.- OTHER PASSAGES RELATING TO THE SECRET.

We have now considered the four important passages which contain the revelation of the great secret, viz., Rom 16:25-26; Eph 3:1-11; Col 1:24-27, and 1Ti 3:16. But there are other passages which refer to it and throw light upon it. Some writers treat these as all referring to so many different mysteries; buy we shall see that they all refer to and throw light upon that which is called THE GREAT MYSTERY (except of course those we have already considered, connected with the Present interval, the Kingdom, Israel’s blindness, and the Mystery of Iniquity.) (1) Eph 1:9-11.

Here we read how the same grace which was wrought redemption and forgiveness for His people, has also caused us to abound “in all wisdom and knowledge.”

What is this wisdom? - “Having made known unto us the mystery of His will.” These words convey no sense to the English reader, unless we translate (instead of transliterate) the word mystery, viz., His secret purpose, i.e., the secret which He hath willed of His good pleasure. God has now caused us to abound in all wisdom because He has revealed to us His secret purpose which He purposed in Him (i.e. in Christ - so R.V.); that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one (re-unite under one Head) all things in Christ; both which are in heaven and which are on earth; even in Him, in Whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.

Here we have the great secret and its purpose referred to, and in Eph 1:22 we are told how “” the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory… hath put all things under His feet and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him that filleth all [the members of that Body] with all [spiritual blessings]” (Eph 1:3).

(2) Eph 6:19.

Here the Apostle prays “that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the secret of the gospel,” i.e., the doctrine of the Body of Christ, which is the great secret and the great subject of the gospel. It was specially the good news revealed to and made known by Paul according to what he calls “my gospel” (Rom 16:25). It was in a very special manner his gospel. The gospel - the good news of a Saviour for lost sinners - was (as we have already seen) never a secret. It was “preached before unto Abraham” (Gal 3:8), and all the saints of God rejoiced in it. But the good news concerning the Body of Christ was kept secret, and then became, and could be called, Paul’s special gospel to be made known among all nations. It is the good news of the Body of Christ. Hence, in 2Co 4:4, it is called “the gospel of the glory of Christ,” i.e., the gospel of Christ’s glory. God highly exalted Him and gave Him to be the Head of the Body. This is now “the secret of the gospel.”

(3) Col 2:2.

Here it is called “God’s secret,” i.e., the secret which God purposed, and kept in silence through times eternal and in His own good time made known. He prays for these Colossian Saints that they “might be comforted and knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God (i.e. God’s secret) even the Christ* in whom (marg. wherein) are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” That is to say, all the treasures of divine wisdom are contained in the Mystery - i.e., the Body of Christ.

[* Note: According to the R.V. and the Ancient Text, the words “and of the Father” go out. They were doubtless added by a later hand for some purpose, and by someone ignorant of the Mystery. Indeed that ignorance is manifested by the Revisers’ note: “The ancient authorities vary much in the text of this passage.”] This is the secret, which, according to

(4) 1Ti 3:9,

We are to hold, as the essence of “the Faith.” “Holding the Mystery (the secret) of the faith in a pure conscience.” Here again the great secret of Christ’s Body is the central object of the Christian Faith.

These are all passages which refer to the great secret, but there is one other which is full of instruction for us, (5) 1Co 2:1-16; 1Co 3:1-23.

True, the word Mystery is not in the Received Text, but according to the R.V. and all the great Critical Greek Texts we must read the word musthrion (musteerion), secret, instead of marturion (marturion), testimony, in 1Co 2:1. It will be seen that there is but little difference between the two words - just one or two letters changed by some scribe who did not understand the Mystery, made the word “Testimony,” instead of “Mystery.”

It is worthy of remark how the ignorance of this Mystery on the part of Scribes has led to so much confusion of the Text in the passages which refer to it. The condition of the Corinthian saints was such that they were not spiritually fitted to receive instruction in this wondrous truth. When the first epistle was written to them, the apostle explained this to them, and says: “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the Mystery of God (i.e., God’s Secret). For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” Instead of declaring to them the Mystery, he had to confine himself to the simplest truths of the Gospel. He preached only a crucified Saviour. He could not declare all the great truths involved in a risen and glorified Saviour. He had preached “the Gospel of the grace of God,” but he could not proclaim “the gospel of the glory of Christ.” The reason why he “could not”, he now proceeds to explain.

“My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom,… howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect,” or that are initiated. This word was the technical term for those who were initiated into the ancient and wrong heathen “mysteries”, or “the wisdom of this world.” I could not speak “wisdom” to you, he says, “howbeit we do speak wisdom to those who are initiated into it,” “yet not the wisdom of this world,… but we speak the wisdom of God in a (concerning the) secret, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory (i.e., with a view to our glory).” Here is again a reference to the great secret, which had been hidden in God, and ordained by Him before the ages. “None of the princes of this world knew” about it, he says, for “it is written 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. But God hath revealed it unto us by His spirit.”

These words are usually taken in a general sense, as teaching that the natural man cannot receive spiritual things. This fact is perfectly true, of course, as is definitely stated elsewhere and further on. But it is not what these words say here. these words have a special reference to the “hidden wisdom,” i.e. the Mystery, and what is stated here is, that no human being ever dreamed of it. It never entered the head or heart of mortal man. “BUT GOD HATH REVEALED IT BY HIS SPIRIT.” It will be noted that the word “them” (1Co 2:10) is in italics, and we are quite at liberty to insert the word “it” as referring to the secret (as indeed the R.V. suggests in the margin).

Then he goes on to explain what is the essence of a secret, in verses 1Co 2:10-11, and argues that as no one can tell what a man’s secret was unless He had been pleased to reveal it. And this He has done, as 1Co 1:12 states: - “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the holy spirit teacheth, declaring to spiritual persons spiritual things.” With this the R.V. margin agrees, “interpreting spiritual things to spiritual men.”

Why? Because the next verse goes on to explain that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

“Declaring to spiritual persons spiritual things”: the three words which follow have been variously rendered and interpreted. In the Greek they are pneumatikois pneumatika sunkrinontes. The first word is in the dative case, masc., plural “to spiritual [persons].” The second word is in the accusative case, neuter, plural, “spiritual [things],” and the third word is peculiar. The A.V. and R.V. render it “comparing,” but the R.V. margin suggests “combining” or “interpreting.” It occurs only here and in 2Co 10:12 in New Testament, and means literally to separate and compound anew; hence to explain a thing, as is done when one takes it to pieces and puts it together again; to explain by comparing one thing with another; or to compare with a view to explaining; to expound, make known, declare. It is used in Num 15:34 of those who had caught the man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day, and it says: “they put him in ward because it was not declared what should be done to him.” The word in this sentence is used to represent the word “declared.” Hence, it means to declare, make known, explain, or expound. The words here mean simply this that we speak the words “which the holy spirit teacheth, declaring spiritual things to spiritual persons.”

Westcott and Hort, in their Greek Text, preserve an ancient reading, but not being supported by the other MSS., they put it in the margin. It is pneumatikos, spiritually; and would read, “declaring spiritual things in a spiritual manner.”

Then 2Co 3:1 comes in, taking up the thought where it was left in 2Co 2:1, “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it (or to receive it), neither yet now are ye able, for ye are yet carnal; for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are yet not carnal and walk as men (or marg., according to men). For while one saith, I am of Paul’ and another, I am of Apollos: are ye not carnal?” The great central truth of the whole argument is that these Corinthian Christians were taken up with “Bodies” of men, as we now call them, and they were therefore totally unfitted to receive the truth of the “one Body” of Christ. While they were putting the members in the place of the Head they were carnal and not spiritual, and therefore not in a position to have the truth concerning “God’s Mystery” declared to them.

Hence, when the Apostle went to Corinth he determined not to go beyond the simplest elementary gospel teaching, to feed them with milk, to proclaim a crucified Saviour; for they were not in a condition to hear about the glorified Saviour - “the gospel of the glory of Christ,” and all the glorious things which are freely given to us of God, and which He has prepared with a view to their glory, the glory of the members of the Body in Christ, their glorified Head in heaven.