Last updated on April 25, 2012

“For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name great among the heathen, saith the LORD of hosts. ” (Malachi 1:11)

ISAIAH 45:15

God is beyond the wisdom of man. Christ crucified is unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness. Though men may speak of gods many and lords many, yet the world by wisdom knows not God. When “the God of Israel” was manifest in the flesh, he took upon him the seed of Abraham. “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” Yet how precious is the testimony of the apostle: “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Hidden from the natural sight and wisdom of men, yet by the unspeakable mercy and power of the Holy Ghost revealed to the faith of the elect, so that they endure as seeing him who is invisible (Heb. 11:27). But cannot man, by diligent study, by concentration of the powers of the natural mind upon the Scriptures, find out God? Never! The thoughts of the wise are vain. When every possible investigation has been made, the natural man can conceive of nothing but an idol, which in his vain imagination he thinks is the only true and living God (Rom. 3:11). In types and shadows, in all “the ordinances of divine service” in which typical Israel worshipped God under the first covenant, how hidden was the way of the Lord. The natural Jew might observe all these things in the letter, and yet utterly fail to know the mercy, the grace and the salvation of God, and even the one who was “a Jew inwardly” how were all the things of the Lord, veiled in types and shadows. The things that are made, the marvelous works of God which men behold. Oh what power, what majesty, what handiwork we see! Our thoughts are lost when we try to think of the infinite greatness of the invisible God. Are there not times when, in our meditations in spirit we exclaim, “Lo, these are parts of his ways; but how little a portion is heard of him; but the thunder of his power who can understand” (Job 26:14).

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Elder Frederick Keene

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