Secret from the foundation of the world

Matthew chapter 13 verse 35 reads, ‘I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world’, cp. Ps. 78. 2. The Old Testament prophets foretold a literal kingdom - the millennial reign of Christ - but they did not anticipate developments leading to a spiritual kingdom being established, following the rejection of the King, nor did they anticipate the hiatus in the prophetic programme that would be filled by the church.

In the parables of Matthew chapter 13 the Lord Jesus describes the progress of the spiritual kingdom on earth during His absence. In them the Lord refers to ‘the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven’, v. 11. In the New Testament, a ‘mystery’ is a truth which human reason could never discover, but is revealed by God; once revealed it is an ‘open secret’ and thus for the edification of all of God’s people. To avoid confusion it must be said that the mysteries of this chapter are not related to the ‘mystery’ that the apostle Paul refers to when he wrote, ‘What is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God’, Eph. 3. 9. The former relate to the kingdom, the latter relates to the church. Whilst there are some commonalities between them, as to their constitution and destiny, they are quite different. In the kingdom parables of Matthew chapter 13 we find wheat and tares, good and bad, false and true, profession and reality, whereas in the church which is His body, there are only true believers. Also in the kingdom, dealing with evil is to be postponed until the Lord returns to earth. By contrast, the local church is expected to take action against such now, 1 Cor. 5. Again, prophecy anticipates a visible kingdom in the world when the Lord returns to earth in power and glory. However, this is not the hope of the saints. They look forward to the Lord’s return to the air, to take them to be with Him for eternity. The kingdom has Christ as its King, but for the church He is her Lord, her beloved, her bridegroom. These then are two of the many ‘mysteries’ found in scripture: the mystery of the kingdom, and the mystery of the church - both once hidden, but now made manifest.