Читать книгу St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians: A Practical Exposition - Gore Charles - Страница 14

The divine secret disclosed

This universal reconciliation through a catholic church was God's eternal purpose, but it was kept secret from the ages and the generations, only at last to be disclosed to His apostles and prophets. The word 'mystery' in the New Testament means mostly a divine secret which has now been disclosed. Just as the secret of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, i.e. the purpose of God in the then order of the world, was imparted to Daniel, so now the great disclosure of the divine mystery or secret has been made, primarily indeed to apostles and prophets, but through them to the whole body of the faithful. The faithful must of course begin by receiving that simplest spiritual nourishment which is milk for babes. They are to welcome the divine forgiveness of their sins in Christ, and the gift of new life through Him in their baptism and the laying-on of hands. They are to be taught the rudimentary truths and moral lessons which are the first principles of the oracles of Christ. But they are not to stop with this. They are, and they are all of them without exception[86], intended to grow up to the full apprehension of the wisdom of the 'perfect' or perfectly initiated. They are to dwell upon the divine secret, now revealed, of God's purpose for the universe through the church till their whole heart and intellect and imagination is enlightened and enriched by it.