Mysteries Revealed
All God’s mysteries are revealed in Jesus, so, are we looking for revelation in the right places? - Romans 16:25.
In the contemporary church, there are discussions and even claims about discovering new “revelations” of God by accessing the “spirit realm” via visions, dreams, and the like, insights into things beyond what is recorded in the New Testament.
For example, one of the so-called “Facebook prophets” deciphers spiritual insight from baseball scores. It seems that God has been holding back many things until the modern age when that game was invented. Another gentleman teaches his internet patrons how to decode prophetic messages from body piercings and tattoos.
The Bible certainly does speak of the “mysteries” of God, His unexpected ways that differ radically from human wisdom. And Jesus declared that not everyone is able to understand the “mysteries of the kingdom” - It is God who reveals the deep and hidden things to whomever He chooses.
IN JESUS
However, the New Testament also teaches that what was once hidden has now been revealed in God’s Son, Jesus of Nazareth, especially in his death and resurrection.
God did not disclose the full understanding of His redemptive plan until the appropriate time. The “mystery kept silent in past ages has been manifested,” which is the “obedience of faith for all the nations” made known through the “proclamation of Jesus,” whom he sent “in the fullness of time” - (Romans 16:25-27, Galatians 4:4).
He certainly revealed truth in the Levitical system with its animal sacrifices and other elaborate rituals, as well as elsewhere in the Torah and “the prophets.” But that earlier word was partial and incomplete.
“In many parts and many ways of old” God spoke to Israel “in the prophets,” but now, “upon the last of these days,” He has spoken to us fully “in His Son.”
The full understanding of Who God is and how He works has been available to everyone ever since. He has not held this knowledge back until some future and final generation – (Hebrews 1:1).
The prophets foretold the coming salvation that would be revealed in the Messiah; but they did not possess or comprehend the details or ramifications of that promise since they were “not to themselves but to us were ministering them, which things have now been announced to you” - (1 Peter 1:10-12).
HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION
The “mystery” previously concealed has been revealed in Jesus, and at the appointed season. And above all, in his death and resurrection. The “law and the prophets” were vital parts of God’s revelation but in them, many of His “mysteries” remained hidden. However, they are now disclosed in His Son - And nowhere else.
With his coming, in the “word made flesh,” the rituals and ceremonies of the Mosaic legislation were relegated to the status of “shadows and types,” and Jesus is the one who cast those ancient “shadows.”
To now return to the outmoded rituals and incomplete understandings of the old system is regression to bondage under the “elemental things” of this fallen age, including the “powers, principalities, archons, angels, and world-rulers” - (Galatians 4:8-11, Ephesians 6:8-12, Colossians 2:16-17).
Neither is there any need to resort to mystical practices, scrutinizing astronomical signs, or decoding Hebrew letters and dates for deeper insight into divine “mysteries.”
His “mysteries” are revealed in Jesus, and they are available to anyone who hears the “word of the Son.” The mystery “not made known in other generations, has now been revealed” in him - (Romans 16:25, Ephesians 2:9-22, 3:3-11, Colossians 1:25-27).
Moses gave the Law, but “grace and truth came to be in Jesus.” In him, the knowledge of the Father has been revealed. No longer must men attempt to obtain a deeper understanding of God from secret knowledge or mystical experience.
By God’s grace forgiveness and salvation are made available to every man and woman. And by His Word and the inspiration of His Spirit, anyone may behold the glory and fullness of Yahweh in the “face of Jesus Christ.”
