Though God hides Himself, still there comes from heaven the voice--'I
have not spoken in secret,' Now these words contain these thoughts--
1. That whatever darkness there may be, there is none due to the manner
of the revelation.
God has not spoken in secret, in a corner. There are no arbitrary
difficulties made or unnecessary darkness left in His revelation. _We_
have no right to say that He has left difficulties to test our faith.
_He_ Himself has never said so. He deals with us in good faith, doing
all that can be done to enlighten, regard being had to still loftier
considerations, to the freedom of the human will, to the laws which He
has Himself imposed on our nature, and the purposes for which we are
here. It is very important to grasp this. We have been told as much as
_can_ be told. Contrast with such a revelation the cave-muttered
oracles of heathenism and their paltering double sense. Be sure that
when God speaks, He speaks clearly and to all, and that in Christianity
there is no esoteric teaching for a few initiated only, while the
multitude are put off with shows.
2. That whatever obscurity there may be, there is none which hides the
divine invitation or Him from those who obey it.
'I have never said ... seek ye Me in vain.' Much is obscure if
speculative completeness is looked for, but the moral relations of God
and man are not obscure.
All which the heart needs is made known. His revelation is clearly His
seeking us, and His revelation is His gracious call to us to seek Him.
He is ever found by those who seek. They have not to press through
obscurities to find Him, but the desire to possess must precede
possession in spiritual matters. He is no hidden God, lurking in
obscurity and only to be found by painful search. They who 'seek' Him
know where to find Him, and seek because they know.
3. That whatever may be obscure, the Revelation of righteousness is
clear.
We have to face speculative difficulties in plenty, but the great fact
remains that in Revelation steady light is focussed on the moral
qualities of the divine Nature and especially on His righteousness.
And the revelation of the divine righteousness reaches its greatest
brightness, as that of all the divine Nature does, in the Person and
work of Jesus. Very significantly the idea of God's righteousness is
fully developed in the immediately subsequent context. There we find
that attribute linked in close and harmonious conjunction with what
shallower thought is apt to regard as being in antagonism to it. He
declares Himself to be 'a just (righteous) God and a Saviour.' So then,
if we would rightly conceive of His righteousness, we must give it a
wider extension than that of retributive justice or cold, inflexible
aloofness from sinners. It impels God to be man's saviour. And with
similar enlarging of popular conceptions there follows: 'In the Lord is
righteousness and strength,' and therefore, 'In the Lord shall all the
seed of Israel be justified (declared and made righteous) and shall
glory'--then, the divine Righteousness is communicative.
All these thoughts, germinal in the prophet's words, are set in fullest
light, and certified by the most heart-moving facts, in the Person and
work of Jesus Christ. He 'declares at this time His righteousness, that
He might Himself be righteous and the maker righteous of them that have
faith in Jesus.' Whatever is dark, this is clear, that 'Jehovah our
Righteousness' has come to us in His Son, in whom seeking Him we shall
never seek in vain, but 'be found in Him, not having a righteousness of
our own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith
in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.'
If the great purpose of revelation is to make us know that God loves
us, and has given us His Son that in Him we may know Him and possess
His Righteousness, difficulties and obscurities in its form or in its
substance take a very different aspect. What need we more than that
knowledge and possession? Be not robbed of them.
Many things are not written in the book of the divine Revelation,
whether it be that of Nature, of human history, or of our own spirits,
or even of the Gospel, but these are written that we may believe that
Jesus is the Son of God, and believing, may have life in His name.