CHRISTIANITY – A HIDDEN MYSTERY
Christianity is the corporate spiritual presence and activity of saints gathered to the name of the Lord; it was that at its beginning as recorded in the book of the Acts, viz. local gatherings of believers, and it is so today.
A mystery in New Testament terms denotes that which can be made known only by divine revelation and in a manner and at a time appointed by God and only to faith (W.E.Vine, Expository Dictionary of N.T. Words).
The Lord Jesus said to the disciples, “To you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God” (Mark 4:11), whilst to Nicodemus He indicated that the kingdom was hidden, a mystery that could neither be seen nor entered by natural means (John 3).
The apostle Paul referred to the church as a hidden mystery when writing to the Colossian saints (Col.1:26) and to the church at Corinth he wrote, “.… the things which are unseen (hidden) are eternal (spiritual)” (2 Cor.4:18). It was to the apostle that the revelation of the mystery, the divine system of Christianity, was given (Rom.16:25).
The inspired writer of the Proverbs tells us that “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing” (Prov.25:2). In the sense that the spiritual cannot be discerned by the natural (I Cor.2:9&14), it is clear that the spiritual system of Christianity is concealed from the natural faculties of men. The local New Testament church or assembly may be recognised by the world as a religious gathering, perhaps a Christian sect in the sense that Christendom is considered to be Christianity, but natural man has no means by which to recognise its true divine identity – the Kingdom of God in present spiritual guise.
If the local New Testament church, a gathering of believers, is in reality a hidden entity, then its constituents too are hidden in terms of their spiritual identity, the new man. The world can only identify the outward form of the Christian, no different to many of his fellows but with apparent religious inclinations, seen and known as children of men but concealed as children of God. Similarly with the Son of God veiled in flesh, known as Jesus of Nazareth but unknown as the Divine Son except to faith, God manifest IN flesh but not TO flesh, a mystery (Col. 2:2).
It is clear therefore that Christianity, the spiritual Kingdom of God, represented by local gatherings of believers, is unseen and unknown by the world of natural man as to its true identity; the world cannot see it or know it but can benefit spiritually from it. Only faith can discern the (spiritual) new man in the Christian and the divine nature of the local New Testament church. As the Lord said to Nicodemus, the onlyway to see the Kingdom of God is to be born-again. Unregenerate man says seeing is believing but the opposite is true in divine things, viz. believing is seeing. He has not the slightest idea what constitutes either a Christian or Christianity – it is a complete mystery, by design, for God would be unrighteous to reveal divine things to the unrighteous apart from faith.
It is the glory of God to conceal heavenly, spiritual things (from the eyes of unregenerate mankind), in type and shadow and in spiritual language. In terms of spiritual revelation He is dealing with the new man. Christianity, the hidden mystery, has been and continues to be revealed only to faith, whereas the religious systems of men are manifestly part and parcel of unregenerate man’s world.
The divine system of Christianity has always been for the eye of God and His saints, whereas counterfeit Christendom has always been for the eye of man.