Poul Madsen
"Where there is no vision the people perish;
but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."
Proverbs 29:18
THERE are visions and visions. We must not be carried away by ideas or intrusions into the unseen (Colossians 2:18) but should seek the revelation which God will give us through His Word. It is true that without vision the people are led astray but the vision which rescues God's people from such perils must come from Him, and that is why the verse continues by stressing the importance of knowing and keeping the law. It is usually through the Word that God reveals His mysteries for, as the psalmist explains: "The unfolding (revelation) of thy word gives light" (Psalm 119:130). The greatest need of God's people, therefore, is not visions which provide sensations for men but that the Scriptures should be expounded with the Spirit of wisdom and revelation.
When the Bible deals with the transcendent, it often uses the word "mystery". That which men can never find out for themselves is a mystery which must be revealed to them if ever they are to establish contact with it.
Christ is the fixed centre of existence, its Alpha and Omega, beginning and ending, and yet He is a mystery. He has created everything and everything is held together by Him, and yet He is a mystery to His creation. He is the goal of life, one day everything is to be summed up in Him and subjected to Him; and yet He continues to be a mystery, so that His creation does not know, and never can by its own efforts learn to know, what its goal is.
There were many who saw Him when He walked the earth, and they thought that they knew who He was, but they were mistaken. Even His disciples could not understand who He was by their own efforts. But when it finally dawned upon Simon Peter that Christ is the Son of the living God, Jesus commented that it had been revealed to him by the Father in heaven. The same is true today, and it will always be like this. All human efforts to 'explain', 'prove' or 'define' Christ are in vain, for He simply does not belong to the realm of mere human understanding. It takes revelation from the Father -- usually through the preaching of the Word in the power of the Spirit -- for a man really to meet the Saviour and to know Him as Lord.
Paul tells us that "Christ in you" is a glorious mystery (Colossians 1:27). That the exalted Lord and Saviour should dwell in every born-again believer is entirely beyond our understanding. We can perhaps accept that He dwells in the high and holy places, but that He also dwells in the least of His children -- that they are in Him and He in them -- this exceeds anything that man can imagine or discover. Yet it is one of the greatest realities of the Christian life.
Without revelation, that is, unless God makes us see this reality, none of us can conceive of it. It is absolutely beyond the thoughts of natural man. It is not a question of mysticism, for mysticism can never bring anyone into the transcendent. What people experience in mysticism is no more than their own visions or ideas, whereas revelation embraces that which no man can discover or produce for himself; it lies entirely beyond man's reach and comes from God alone. So when a man claims that by meditation or introspection he has gained contact with God in an extraordinary way, he must be mistaken, for the knowledge of God comes by revelation.
It is characteristic that the Word emphasises that God wishes to reveal His mystery to the Gentiles. The Gentiles are those who were regarded religiously as being despised outsiders. It was to such that God chose to reveal His mystery, for Christ in you is an unmerited gift, an aspect of divine grace. It is not an advanced stage of experience for those who have shown themselves worthy of it, as some who are specially striving after holiness may think, for the moment a Gentile humbles himself in shame and confession to his Lord and Saviour, he is given a share in this mystery of "Christ in you". He is entirely unworthy of it, but is there any feature of the gospel of which any of us is worthy? [21/22]
Paul was also particularly entrusted with the work of giving light on the mystery of the Church (see Ephesians 3). The Church belongs to the transcendent, that is to say it is unattainable for the natural man and far exceeds all human thoughts or ideas. Societies and organisations are not like this. Men can start them and run them; for them no special revelation is needed, for they can be devised and understood by men. The Church, on the other hand, is incomprehensible; it lies quite beyond anything which men can devise or create. When Paul says that there is neither Jew nor Greek, man nor woman, slave nor free, but we are all one in Christ Jesus; when he says that Christ is given to the Church as Head over all things and that it is His body which fills all things -- when he reveals the true nature of the Church -- we are gripped by something which exceeds all our understanding.
We might think that once secrets have been revealed to us, then they cease to be mysteries, but this is not so. It was once a mystery that the sun, and not the earth, was the centre of the universe, and that the earth revolves around the sun. Once the mystery was revealed, it ceased to be a mystery. The theory of relativity was a mystery hidden from everyone until Einstein revealed it. Now it is no longer a mystery but familiar to every high school pupil. It is quite different, however, with God's mysteries. They remain mysteries even after they have been revealed, for those who have the revelation never accept them as truisms but find that they are ever unfolding in new ways. A Christian never feels that he has mastered God's mysteries; he always knows himself to be one who has not yet fully apprehended the truth but rather has been apprehended by it.
Christ, the mystery of God, remains too great, too incomprehensible, too glorious, even for those who have lived with Him longest and know Him best. A Christian will never stop learning to know Christ. The love of Christ will never become a matter of course to him, nor His work of salvation a commonplace.
The great mystery "Christ in you" will never cease to be a mystery; it remains an incomprehensible and inexplicable mystery even though it is an enjoyed reality. The same is true of the Church. He who has had his eyes opened to see something of God's secret counsels in His plan of salvation will never cease to wonder at the Church as the body of Christ, even though his whole procedure will be governed by that revelation so that he continually asks himself whether, on the foundation of Christ, he is building the house of God with gold, silver and precious stones or with the world's materials which are cheaper and inflammable.
That two plus two are four is a reality which any man can find out for himself. That God has revealed Himself in Christ is a truth which belongs to another realm altogether and is something which man can never understand by his own reasoning. Nowadays people speak of transcendental meditation. It is a deception, for man can never reach beyond the immanent by meditation. He meditates in his own religious world -- his own inner feelings and raptures. This has nothing at all to do with the really transcendental truths of God which He alone can reveal in Christ. Such meditation can, of course, open the door to spiritual powers of darkness, whereas light can only come through God's Word.
God's mysteries can only be received by faith, and they can only be held by a living faith which is renewed day by day. The transcendent, reality of Christ must be apprehended by faith, and faith involves a firm conviction that the things seen are passing away while the unseen are the real lasting things which endure for eternity. On this basis faith does not seek to support eternal realities by means of what is seen and passing. For instance, in the matter of the 'mystery' of Christ, why should people spend their time seeking to prove that He really is the Son of God? They do not seem to realise that in this way they are allowing people to sit in judgement upon the Lord, offering them 'proofs' in the hope that they will condescend to approve of Him. This makes Christ to fit into human thinking and to conform with human ideas; it has the effect of giving undue importance to the people who are asked to decide whether they will accept the fact, and of reducing Christ to be one who is forced to await their verdict. If faith must be dependent upon what 'proofs' it can find in the realm of human ideas, it is a very poor kind of faith. If faith is so to be watered down and made acceptable to human reasoning [22/23] it would be more honest not to call it faith, but rather common sense.
True preaching brings revelation: it opens a world which would otherwise be closed to every man. It cannot be effective if it operates by arguments with "persuasive words of man's wisdom" (1 Corinthians 2:1-4). In proclaiming Him who "had no comeliness" it does not have to use aesthetic aids to make Him more attractive and acceptable to man's understanding. Revelation does not come in a manner chosen by men -- it comes with the conviction and power of the Holy Spirit, with the overwhelming touch of the truth on man's conscience.
Nor does the preacher seek to make an impression on his hearers by using the attractiveness of his own personality. He does not aim to display how clever, well-spoken and pious he is, but wants to reveal Christ in a way which leaves the speaker hidden as much as possible. Preaching is not just saying something that is biblically correct and true. A man who speaks about eternal things as though dealing with a subject on which he can lecture and perhaps lecture well and eloquently is not preaching in the Biblical sense. He will kill revelation if he drags it down to the level of a theme among others to be fitted into a lecture syllabus. It is true that preaching is sometimes called 'teaching', but this does not alter the fact that it is teaching about things which lie beyond man's ability to grasp by natural reasoning -- it is a teaching which makes men's hearts burn, unless they harden their hearts against Christ. Only the quickening power of God's Spirit can convey such a message, and therefore he who is teaching must himself be anointed by the Holy Spirit. Any other kind of teaching is liable to make people even more deaf, although objectively it may be correct according to the letter.
It is characteristic of Him who is the truth and who revealed God, that when He was on earth He did not engage in 'dialogues' with people. He did not need men to tell him their opinions, for He knew what they were and how far they were from the truth. He made it His business to tell them what He had heard from His heavenly Father; He spoke out from a world that by nature they knew nothing of. Those who had ears to hear were blessed. The same applies today.
This great mystery (Ephesians 5:32) is by no means revealed to all those who know Christ as their Saviour, though it should be. Many Christians seem to think in terms of man-made traditions or institutions which could go on indefinitely even without the Holy Spirit. Although the Church is in this world, it does not belong to it. Its nature and work lies quite outside of what man can appreciate. In the Church God's thoughts, not man's, apply and God's methods, not man's, govern.
Because the Church is thus like its Saviour and Lord, every individual member is made responsible for its existence and testimony. The term 'Members of His body' reminds us that we are each limbs which have a vital part to play in the life of the whole. Our responsibility can never be discharged by occasional attendance at meetings and making some financial contribution. That sort of help is all right in connection with earthly causes or societies, but it is quite another matter to be a member of the Church. That means that we live for the Church, being ready to fill up that which is lacking of the sufferings of Christ for it and willing to make sacrifices of any and every kind, spiritual, financial, time and effort, so that the Church can grow up to maturity and rescue as many as possible from their lost condition. If the Lord has really revealed to you His thoughts concerning His blood-bought Church, then you must give yourself to it with all your might, regarding it not as an occasional filling-station but as your spiritual home, your spiritual responsibility and joy. This should be clear to all who observe you.
Paul tells us that the plan of the mystery was "from all ages" hidden in God (Ephesians 3:9). The Danish version reads: "from eternity". This shows that God's mystery is not only a reality which lies outside of man's discovery but also that it lies outside of time. It is a reality without a beginning or end in time, for it is from eternity. By faith -- which is not to say that we understand it -- we accept that Christ is eternal. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). That the Church is also without beginning or end in time, is such a great mystery that even faith can hardly grasp it. We are assured, though, that "He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him ..." (Ephesians 1:4). The Church was not [23/24] inaugurated by man and can never be established by man's hands or according to man's thoughts; it is the body of Christ and as such is the pivot which is central to God's plan of salvation. So great is the honour of being called in our generation (which only lasts for a time) to serve God's plan of salvation which is from eternity, that he who receives this revelation of the divine mystery, cannot do less than commit himself to it with all his heart and soul.
To see light in His light is a Biblical expression for seeing God's mystery and then preserving it by the Spirit. The mystery is so great that we must pray for grace to see it in His light and not in our own. There is always a danger of our seeing God's light (that is, His thought and purposes) and then drawing that truth into our human light of understanding or opinion. That has happened time and again through the centuries. Christ and His Church have been accommodated to human thought and the gospel has become man's enterprise for God instead of God's work through man.
What did the risen Lord do when He went and joined the two on the way to Emmaus? He did not say: 'Here I am -- you can see for yourselves that I am risen from the dead. What more do you want?' No, "He interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27). That was when their hearts began to burn. He gave them insight through the Word, true spiritual vision. It is surely our job to do as He did.
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