The word "mystery" in Scripture does not speak of any thing in itself impossible or even difficult to be understood, but of what is secret except to those to whom it is revealed. Thus the apostle says of the gospel, " But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:which none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."

Again, in Revelation 1:20, John is told to " write the mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in My right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches."

Even to believers, the New-Testament truths,- those proper to it-were thus mysteries; and so the apostle again and again applies the word. " According to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by prophetic scriptures , made manifest to all nations for the obedience of faith." " The mystery which from the beginning of the world has been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ." " The mystery which hath been hid from ages and generations, and now is made manifest to the saints." And so, speaking generally of the New-Testament mystery, he says, " So let a man think of us as ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." (i Cor. 4:1:)

It is evident, then, that the New Testament as a whole gets its character from these mysteries, which are its own proper and distinct truths. The apprehension of these, and of these as distinct, must be of the very greatest importance to every one who desires the knowledge of the Word of God. The apostle does not even scruple to say of the " mystery of God,"-the sum of these various mysteries,-that therein " are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.*"*Colossians 2:2, 3. The words that follow " the mystery of God" are greatly in question, and the editors differ. Some add, as in our version, "and of the Father and of Christ;" some, "even Christ;" some, "which is Christ;" some, "the Father of Christ." The probability is, these are different versions of an attempt to explain what the mystery of God is, and that they ought really to be left out.* For it is what is distinctively Christian truth which is required to make us in knowledge and in practice Christians. Alas! the extension of the term backward to include all believers from Abel down shows how what is distinctive has been well-nigh lost, to the great injury of souls. Let us, then, with the more care, consider what this mystery of God is.

The first time the word occurs in the New Testament is in Matthew 13:11. Already rejected of Israel in fact, spite of the mighty works which showed conclusively who He was, the Lord has declared that spiritual relationships were those which now He could alone acknowledge. " But He answered and said unto him that told Him, 'Who is My mother, and My brethren?' And He stretched forth His hand toward His disciples, and said, ' Behold My mother and My brethren! for whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is my mother and sister and brother."

Now this is what Christianity affirms-a relationship purely spiritual, which Judaism never was. Accordingly the Lord now leaves the house and sits by the seaside; and there He begins to speak of that saying of the Word of God broadcast among men which was to introduce and characterize the gospel dispensation. The parabolic form is significant of the rejection of Israel. "Therefore speak I unto them in parables, because they seeing see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." And to His disciples He says, "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given."

Israel rejected, the word goes out addressed to faith any where, and the kingdom in the meanwhile taken from them, assumes another aspect from that announced by the Old-Testament prophets. It is a kingdom with a king absent; set up, not in power, but in patience; in a scene in which Satan, flesh, and world are leagued against it:this is closed by the coming of the Son of Man in person, and the casting out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity,-a coming which introduces the form in which Daniel sees it. Here, therefore, the New-Testament mystery of it ends.

If Daniel be referred to, and connected with the book of Revelation, it will be found how thoroughly this explains a difficulty which has long perplexed the interpreters of prophecy. The seventh of Daniel shows us four great empires, and only four, stretching from the prophet's own day, until the setting up of Messiah's kingdom. These four empires, it is almost universally agreed, are Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. The empire of Rome, then, exists when the Son of Man comes in I the clouds of heaven. But here is the obvious difficulty, that the Roman empire has in fact already passed away, and the Son of Man is not yet come. Various efforts have been made to surmount this. Some would fain make the spiritual power of the pope the continuation of the civil imperial power; some would make the coming of the Son of Man a spiritual coming only, and the kingdom of course a spiritual one also. It is not needful for us here to argue as to either of these theories, for theories alone they are. The book of Revelation gives a wholly different and a complete solution. There we find, once more, Daniel's fourth beast, and in connection with the Lord's personal pre-millennial coming (ch. 19:19). But in what shape does this Roman beast appear? As one whom he sees rising up afresh out of the sea, expressly as one revived out of death (ch. 13:3, 12, 14). Beast and woman-civil and ecclesiastical power-are here distinct (ch. 17:), and the announcement angelic illumines with divine light the Old-Testament prophecy:"The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition; and they that dwell upon the earth shall wonder, whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and shall be present" So, and not "and yet is," should the last words be read.

Here we see that the whole time of the national existence of the Roman empire is omitted from the Old-Testament prophecy, and that this gap of omitted time corresponds with the development of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven of which our Lord speaks. The ecclesiastical power which has so long ruled Rome finds its place in connection with these in the New-Testament prophecy; while for the same reason the kingdom of Christ spoken of by Daniel cannot be the spiritual kingdom of the Christian mysteries, which were then unrevealed. Concerning all these parables of the kingdom, the evangelist quotes and applies the prophet's words:" I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world."

These two phases of the kingdom, the present and the millennial forms, should not for a moment be confounded by any attentive reader of Scripture. The parables of the thirteenth of Matthew show us clearly the one ending with the other beginning; and the Lord distinguishes them in His address to the church at Laodicea as the times of His sitting on the Father's throne, and of His taking as Son of Man His own. So we are translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son (Col. 1:13); while Daniel speaks of the coming of the Son of Man, and similarly the Lord in the parables-"The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity." (13:41.)

This, then, is the first of the New-Testament mysteries, and with this it is easy to see how their ends, named as such, coincide:thus the apostle speaks of the " mystery " of the partial blinding of Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in; so too of " the mystery of the gospel" (Eph. 6:19), as concerning which they are enemies for the Gentiles' sakes (Rom, 11:28).

Basis of this gospel is the " mystery of godliness, He who was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory." The actual coming of the Lord in fulfillment of prophecy takes its place thus in the front rank of Christian mysteries. Christ come in flesh; justified in Spirit, personally at His baptism, in testimony to the acceptance of His work when raised from the dead; a spectacle to angels; proclaimed beyond the range of Judaism, to those without claim or promise-those in grace; a testimony believed in the world; received up in glory, and abiding there:this is indeed the mystery by which men's hearts are won to God, and their lives changed to some reflection of His life which is itself light. In this way the Church becomes the " epistle of Christ, written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart."

"The riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles is Christ among you, the hope of glory." (Col. 1:27, marg.) Christ among Gentiles no Old-Testament prophet ever spoke of, and the glory here is another than that which pertained to Israel. Heaven, which is opened to receive Christ, has received in Him the Forerunner of a heavenly people. For men on earth, it is a. hope,-not an attainment yet, but a hope how bright!

In Ephesians he develops more distinctly this mystery of Christ among the Gentiles:"Which in other ages was not revealed unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel" (Eph. 3:5, 6). Three things are now declared, which are all outside the older revelation:-

1. The Gentiles fellow-heirs :on equal terms with Israelites in a heavenly inheritance.

2. Gentiles and Jews made members together of the body of Christ.

3. Gentiles and Jews partakers together of His promise in Abraham's seed, by real identification with that seed, which is Christ.

These three wonderful blessings are all unknown to the Old Testament; they are divine mysteries which the "ministers of Christ" alone can speak of.

1. Of Gentiles being fellow-heirs with Jews no Old-Testament prophet ever spoke. It implies necessarily the setting aside of all such distinctions ; whereas the promise in the Old Testament to Israel is, that "as the new heavens and new earth which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain" (Isaiah 66:22). The apostle has already assured us that to Israel, his kindred after the flesh, these promises belong. So, again, Micah declares, "The law shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. . . . And I will make her that halteth a remnant, and her that was cast afar off a strong nation; and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth, even forever. And thou, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, to thee shall it come, even the first dominion; .the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem" (4:2, 7, 8). Many more passages might be quoted, but it needs not. Any one can turn to almost any of the prophets, and read them for himself.

2. But the Church itself, the body of Christ, exists also as yet neither in fact nor in promise. In fact, for "we are all baptized by one Spirit into one body" (i Cor. 12:13); and this baptism of the Spirit, prophesied of by the Baptist as the future work of Christ, was announced by the Lord before His ascension as to take place "not many days hence." Not yet had He taken His place as Head in heaven, for it was then, when God " set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places," that He " gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:20, 22, 23). At Pentecost, this wonderful relationship was first established, and to the saints of the present dispensation it entirely belongs. The distinctive promises to Israel which we have just been looking at are absolutely inconsistent with membership in the body of Christ.

3. Our place in Christ is another thing. .It is only as in Christ that we are accepted before God at all. But God's way of blessing us thus, by a new Adam in a new creation, was hid in God until the time that God made it known by Paul. Thus he alone speaks of justification even as before God; for of course James gives us not this, but that before men, by fruit which man can see.

To follow this out would lead us into too large a field; but it is easy to understand that by this truth of new creation is explained what the first chapter of Ephesians gives us:"The mystery of God's will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself for the dispensation of the fullness of times to gather together in one [more literally, "to head up,"] all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth." We see fully in all this how the mysteries are but the out beaming glory of Christ, "the Father of Eternity;" "for Him," as well as "by Him, all things were created."

But the epistle to the Ephesians gives us yet another mystery–the relationship of the Church to Christ, as the Eve of that new creation of which He is the last Adam. This is based upon that of the body to the head; but it is a different thing, as we may easily see by reference to the type in question:" Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but loveth it and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church; for we are members of His body."

Here the Lord is said to present the Church to Himself. Eve was presented to Adam by God; but the divine glories of the last Adam shine out every where; so also in this, that He gave Himself for His Church. " God caused," we read, "a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man made He a woman, and brought her unto the man." Who can fail to see in Adam's significant sleep that sleep of death, deeper and more mysterious, of Him upon whom it could never have fallen had He not " loved the Church, and given Himself for it"? In this way only could the Church come into being; and as Eve was the very flesh of Adam, so is the Church the body of Christ. But Eve, by being Adam's flesh, was only thus prepared for being his wife; and so with the Church. We are already His body, but only by anticipation His bride,-"espoused," as yet not married. These, then, are two things, very closely connected, not to be confounded.

There is one more mystery, so called in the Word:"Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall" not all sleep, but we shall all be changed; in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." (i Cor. 15:51,52.) This plainly and closely connects itself with what the apostle, if he does not use the same term, gives distinctly as a new revelation "by the word of the Lord (i Thess. 4:15-17), that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep; for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we be ever with the Lord."

This is what closes, not indeed the mystery of the kingdom, (which goes on until the Lord appears and sets it up in power; and there is a most important interval, although a short one, between these two things;) but it closes the Christian dispensation, and introduces the "end of the age,"- that is, of the Jewish age,-the preparatory of discipline and judgment for Israel and the earth, the fruits of which will be found in a remnant ready to inherit the blessing when He that shall come comes, and the times of restitution begin "from the presence of the Lord."

These, then, are the Christian mysteries; not one of them foretold or known in the Old Testament:although when known from the New, the types of the past dispensation catch and reflect back brightly many a gleam of the new glory. It is the same blessed God all through, with the precious grace in His heart from the beginning of those ways which lead steadily on to their full and glad accomplishment. These things, fully at last revealed, characterize, even more than do new-covenant blessings, the "new-covenant" books.