XXXVIII. The Mystery of God At the present stage it will best serve the purpose which is set before the present writer to allude to the meaning of this term “mystery” in Paul’s letters. The word has been by some scholars defined as “something once hidden, but now revealed”; and it is regarded as being “always used in the New Testament in the sense of an ‘open secret’”. (I quote from Rev. G. Currie Martin (to whom I am much indebted: writing in Turkey in tents or in trains, one has in hand little except the text of Paul), in his edition of Ephesians, Philippians, etc., in the “Century Bible,” a tiny volume convenient for the traveller.) That definition and description is partially, but, as I think, not wholly accurate, and is therefore not quite satisfactory, though it is in practice useful. It has got hold of the truth, and it has got hold of the right end of the truth. But the deeper expression of the truth is that the mystery is “something once hidden, but now in process of being revealed”. In a sense, of course, the mystery is revealed once for all and finally in Christ. That thought is rightly in the mind of the writers who employ that definition. But who knows Christ? We are only in process of comprehending Him, and so comprehending the mystery of “the wealth of the glory of His inheritance among the saints”. Life is the process of acquiring this knowledge, which is forced on us, and which, so to say, seizes us and takes possession of us. The experience of life drives wisdom in some degree into the minds of all men, except in so far as obstinate resistance and determined prepossession by selfish desire or by over-conceit of knowledge, keeps out the knowledge. Now, in proportion as in the process of righteousness, which is true and real life, “the saints” acquired this knowledge, it became possible for Paul to them to declare more and more fully “the mystery”. This mystery of God’s purpose, of course, is declared, in a sense, and to some degree, in the first words that Paul addresses to an audience new to him: it is declared in every speech and in every letter more and more perfectly, as the hearers live themselves into a sympathy with and comprehension of the purpose of God, Yet there always remained something, nay much, of the mystery, “words unspeakable, which it is not lawful for a man to utter,” hidden in the heart of Paul. That is always the case with the great teacher, and the great writer. Who has ever had any deep power over the minds and life of men, that declared all he knew? There must always remain in the speaker’s or writer’s mind a large store of reserved knowledge. It is the force of that unspoken knowledge that gives driving and penetrating power to his words. In none of Paul’s letters is this knowledge and mystery so fully declared as in Ephesians. In prison, as he says in Ephesians 3 and Ephesians 4:1, he has no thought about his suffering, or his want of power, or about submission to the will of gaolers and guards. All that the law and all that the authority of officials imposes on him he accepts and does. That is right and just: they are placed in authority by the will of God for the time: they form a stage in the evolution of the Divine will, and for him the duty is to act in such matters according to the constituted law of the Empire. But they have no influence over him. His inheritance, his happiness, his knowledge of God’s purpose, his complete and unhesitating confidence that this purpose is fulfilling itself even in “these bonds,” all remain far outside of the competence of guards and officials. Whatever they may do, even to the infliction of flogging or death upon him, is his triumph and their failure. He is ready to depart: he is equally ready to continue his work, obeying the Imperial law and obeying the law of God. It may be regarded as quite certain that he would not have tried to escape from prison, except under direct Divine command. The slave or the prisoner should accept the lot and will of God. To the Corinthian philosophers and clever people he sets forth similar truth in a far more veiled fashion, (1 Corinthians 1-4.) but still he “speaks wisdom among the perfect. . . . God’s wisdom in mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory.” (Ibid., 2:6 f.) In that passage also he describes the glory, the power, the royal and imperial lot of the Christian; and he plays with the Stoic paradox of the philosopher-king, rising, however, through irony (as in ) to lofty and mystic expression almost perfectly on a level with the language of Ephesians: “let no one glory in men. For all things are yours: whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.” Ephesians does not condescend even to play with and to give new meaning to “persuasive words of philosophy . . . the wisdom of men”. It stands entirely on the level of the pure Christ-thought, embodied in the new Christian language, which Paul had already constructed to express this new and loftier thought, a language of the people, using few if any words that were not familiar to the fairly educated Graeco-Roman public, yet transforming all the worlds by the wealth of the thought which was shadowed forth in them. This thought as set forth in Ephesians was, as we have stated, Pauline from the beginning of his work among the Gentiles. It was this reserve of knowledge that gave force to his opening address to the people of Antioch, and penetrated the whole city before he had completed his second week there (Acts 13:12 ff.). The message that he then preached was not taught him by any Apostle or man, but was gained through revelation and meditation: (Galatians 1:12;Galatians 1:17;Galatians 3:7.) he placarded or blazoned it before them: (Galatians 3:1.) it gave them marvellous powers, and the inheritance of God: it called them to freedom, it clothed them with Christ. (Galatians 3:5;Galatians 3:29;Galatians 4:7;Galatians 5:13;Galatians 3:27.) The language of Galatians is simpler, i.e. expressed more in popular metaphor and familiar or common terms than that of Ephesians, but it is informed with the same knowledge and the same power: the knowledge is the power. The language of Ephesians is more poetic and ideal: it treats a philosophic subject, but one too transcendent and mystic to be susceptible of properly and strictly philosophic expression — especially to such a class of correspondents.
