CONTROLLED REVELATION

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what You were pleased to do.”

"All things have been committed to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.”
Matthew 11:25-27

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.”

“All things have been committed to Me by My Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.”

Luke 10:21-22
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
How do you know what you know about being a Christian?

I’m sure there would be a variety of answers to this question.

Some people may say they learned from parents who not only lived a Christian life but intentionally helped their children know how to live one as well. Those parents modeled a Christian lifestyle, provided instruction that was grounded in Christian principles, and made sure their children were involved in the life of a church as they grew up.

Still other people may attribute what they know to a pastor or Sunday School teacher who week after week provided solid preaching and teaching as to living as Jesus did.

A larger group may say that they received much of what they know by reading their Bible, especially the four Gospels where the focal point is on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They would say being a Christian is to live Christ-like and they learned how to live like Christ by reading the accounts of His life and how He handled the life situations He encountered.

Any or all of these ways could be mentioned among others but the secondary question, which in turn becomes the primary, is:

How did all these people receive the direction and instruction they shared, whether talking about the writers of the scriptures or the people who may have influenced us in our Christian walk?

For the answer, we turn to the words of Jesus Himself and our two passages, one from the Gospel of Matthew, the other Luke. Note that both are mirror images of one another despite coming from two separate authors, something we don’t always see when we do synoptic study. To avoid redundancy, we’ll use Matthew’s passage again here:

At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what You were pleased to do.”

"All things have been committed to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.”  Matthew 11:25-27

  

How did people get to know what they knew about living in a way that God expected?

They learned it from Jesus, His Son, the One who God had committed all things to. Jesus said no one would know the Father except “those to whom the Son choose to reveal Him.” It was a controlled revelation of the Father by and through the Son. Jesus would reinforce this truth when He said this in the 14th chapter of John’s Gospel:

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (verse 6)

If you want to come to the Father, you have to go through His Son, the One who God gave “all authority in heaven and earth” (Matthew 28:18) to include everything and everyone. And Jesus became the fount of knowledge and instruction for all of God’s people from His arrival in New Testament times through today and He will be forever more.

Yes, Jesus controlled revelation of His Father to others but we read where God was controlling revelation as well, particularly in regard to the truths Jesus was teaching. We know this because Jesus praised His Father for hiding “things from the wise and learned” yet revealing “them to little children” because this was what He was “pleased to do”.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were counted in the number of the wise and learned. They were so well versed and anchored in the Mosaic law that they stubbornly rejected the possibility that God was sending them new revelations and teachings through His Son. And it wasn’t as if Jesus just showed up without any prior indication. The prophets had written again and again about a coming Messiah and Jesus was the fulfillment of those prophecies but the Jewish religious establishment was unwilling to embrace the notion. They turned away from Jesus and so God turned away from revealing His truths to them.

Conversely, those truths were fully revealed and received by those who were called “little children”. This isn’t to be taken literally, although Jesus did come for little children and held a special place in His heart for them. Rather, what Jesus is getting at is that all who would humbly come before Him and God the Father, hungering and thirsting to know the ways and will of the Lord, would be given the gift of revelation. Their open hearts and minds would be filled with truth straight from the Father through the Son because God was pleased to give them what they desired, to enter into a closer relationship with Him, to know Him better in their lives.

Today, we still come to God the Father the same way, through His Son Jesus, and when we do so as “little children”, the children of the living God, then He is pleased to impart direction and guidance on us through His word and the Holy Spirit. I love how this happens every day I sit down to commune with the Father through this ministry, affirming the scriptures we looked at today.

I pray you will receive the same gift of revelation yourself as you come before God through Jesus in modesty and meekness, seeking His continuing revelation and guidance toward becoming more like Jesus in the way you live and, in doing so, better carry out and accomplish His kingdom work here on earth.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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