When our Lord was upon earth he spent his entire life in an occupied country. Roman soldiers were garrisoned throughout Palestine, and were not always considerate of the feelings of the Jewish populace. Frequently unprovoked attacks were made upon their homes and anything of value was confiscated. Many of the country and village inhabitants had little use for the officials in Jerusalem, because they regarded them as collaborationists with the occupational forces.
For this reason many people hid their valuables in the earth, or in caves. Often the location was forgotten, or the individual who deposited the money, or other securities, was killed. It was not an uncommon thing for one to stumble rather casually upon a treasure trove, and this gave rise to one of the parables of Jesus. Our Lord told two stories of discovery which bear some relationship to each other.
The first is that of a gem merchant, possessed with an obsession that he must locate a flawless pearl. He traveled over the face of the known globe and finally found that for which he had diligently sought. The second is the story of a man who was walking through a field and inadvertently came upon a treasure that had been hidden. I am convinced that the point of these parables is the different way in which truth is discovered. Some men find it only after long and arduous sacrifice and effort. Others, almost without effort, seem to be kicking about, and there it is.
My purpose today is not to emphasize the methods involved in locating truth, but to draw attention to the fact that there is a hidden treasure available, and there is no greater adventure possible for the human mind, than to seek for it. I have long held that the Creator of the universe and the Author of truth, wrote two books called Nature and Revelation. Both of these have one feature in common--they release their knowledge constantly and on an ascending scale. Therefore, no generation will ever exhaust the possibilities of either.
I do not believe there is a single atom that has come into existence since God rested on the seventh day, but we are discovering new facts about atomic energy every day. Thousands of gleaming laboratories all over the earth furnish testing grounds for every conceivable kind of research into natural phenomena, and yet it is the universal opinion of scientists that we have just scratched the surface. I am persuaded that when our Lord descends from heaven with a shout, when the heavens shall be rolled back as a scroll, and the elements melt with fervent heat, there will still be unsolved problems in the physical universe.
In the same way I hold that there has not been a single truth added to the revelation of God since the lonely seer upon crescent-shaped Patmos, penned the words, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all," wiped the ink from the quill, and rolled up the scroll. Since that day tens of thousands of books have been written on Biblical themes, and never a day goes by that the whirring presses do not turn out hundreds more in all of the recorded languages of mankind. Yet there are depths not yet probed, and veins not yet mined.
It is one of the tragedies of the ages that each generation thinks it has exhausted the possibilities of Biblical research and, instead of seeking for regions beyond, concludes there are none, and girds itself to defend the status quo. Almost every great breakthrough has come because of efforts of intrepid and courageous individuals, and almost every one has been violently opposed by the church. The fact is that history will show that we owe all of our spiritual progress to men who were branded as "heretics" and hounded out by their contemporaries.
Almost all of us are at least possessed of a passing knowledge of the troubles incurred by Galileo. When I read of his remarkable discoveries in the fields of mathematics, science, and medicine, and realize how each bit of modern research serves but to confirm what he taught, I am amazed that he could encompass within one mind all that he learned. But the institutional church of his day had declared the earth to be fixed, and the center around which the rest of the universe revolved, and when Galileo adopted the Copernican theory he was summoned to appear before Pope Paul V and admonished to relinquish immediately the heretical proposition that this is a solar system, and that the sun is the center.
Our position with reference to this is that it is exactly what you might expect from Catholics, and that popes are handy about plastering the label of heretic upon anyone who does not agree with them. But I suggest that we continue to assail Rome and not examine our own history too closely. We have had our share of Galileos also. It is abundantly evident that every religious movement eventually gravitates into the control of the priestly class, and when it does, the prophets are killed. Priests are interested in maintaining things as they are. Prophets are concerned with having things as God wants them. The first tells it like it is, the other like it ought to be. One wants to continue turning the cider mill; the other often upsets the apple-cart!
There has never been a reformation that was not sparked by heretics. The heroes of today are the heretics of yesterday. A heretic is one who has not yet waited long enough. One generation stones the prophets to death, the next gathers the stones and piles them up as a monument so their memory will live. In view of the unpopularity of original thinking, and the dangers incurred in Biblical exploration, precious little of it has been done in the realm of the Spirit. Thus, while we have made great strides in bringing the physical universe closer together we have accomplished relatively little toward uniting the whole family of God.
To some extent we have discouraged original thought and held a threat over the heads of those who engaged in it. This always results in three things. First, it produces sterility. Inbred thinking is like inbred social structure. It perpetuates and proliferates weaknesses until eventually virility disappears. In the spiritual realm it produces a generation of parrots who proclaim over and over the same inherited sermon outlines whether relevant to cultural needs or not. And anything which produces parrots is for the birds.
Second, it creates an atmosphere of unhealthful fright. Men whose inner beings throb and pulsate with the urge to speak forth the whole truth are held back, perhaps because of one elder, or an organized clique or claque, whose theme song is "I Will Not Be, I Will Not Be Moved!" It is hard to chase the devil while looking over your left shoulder to keep an eye cocked on your brethren. Most preachers are never allowed to get up steam of their own. They are kept hot under the collar from the warm breath of a posse of vigilantes blowing down the necks of their Drip-Dry Arrow shirts.
Third, it stifles the spirit of adventure. The word of God is loaded with hidden treasure never yet brought to light. But much of it will not be found by those who get a vicarious thrill from reading "The Gold Bug" by Poe, or "Treasure Island" by Stevenson. All of us have the longing for adventure when we are young. I used to lie in the hay-loft on a rainy day trying to decide whether I would be a lion-tamer, an Arctic explorer, or something useful, like a pirate. But when I really met Jesus Christ the problem was settled, and the greatest adventure possible began.
I am aware of all of the implications of the statement of Jesus about accepting his teachings as a little child, but I personally wonder if he may not have included in it the wide-eyed wonder with which a tow-headed kid accepts the challenge of that which lifts him in imagination out of his everyday world. As some of you know, a few years ago I did a series of articles entitled, "Adventures in Religion," and I confess that it was an exhilarating experience in my life.
It seems too bad that the church has to get old, and grow senile, and its members become sedentary, and want to doze in the rocking-chairs on God's front porch, and growl at the "Jesus Folk" who can walk barefoot on the rough sidewalk or pebbly driveway. The church was never intended to be a retirement center or a vacation retreat. It should be a research center, a truth laboratory, the headquarters of a divine exploration society. Certainly it should not have the atmosphere of a morgue.
Of course there are no truths new to God, but there are truths which can be new to us. They are old when measured by time, but new when judged by our understanding. And some which were once known, have since been lost, and need to be rescued from the ocean floor and brought to the surface again. We are indebted to every person in the world who shares a truth with us, but we must ourselves become explorers of God's rich domain and bring to light those concepts which will brighten the world.
The great Pennsylvania oil deposits were discovered by an astute observer. A farmer noticed that his cows would not drink from the waters of a creek which flowed through his pasture. He found an oily scum on the surface of the water. He decided to sell the place as soon as he could find a buyer, and he did so. The new owner also found the scum, but he had it analyzed and found it to be oil of a high quality seeping up from a subterranean depth. The original developer continued to pump until his wells began to slack off a bit. Then he sold out, congratulating himself upon his cleverness. But the next investors drilled deeper and discovered a pool which made the first one seem like a puddle.
Those who think they have already discovered all there is to find are always upset when I talk like this. They write me blistering letters and accuse me of encouraging people to "go beyond" the doctrine of Christ. They ask me to name one thing in God's plan they have not restored. Most of the time I just write "Humility" on the bottom of their letters and mail them back. But the trouble with such brethren is that they suffer from delusions of grandeur and fantasies of infallibility. No one will go beyond the doctrine of Christ as long as he delves deeper into it. His tunnel may bring him up outside of our party walls, but he will not be the first person to escape from prison unexpectedly.
I am quite convinced that there are depths we have not yet explored, and when we get more fully into them we will find ourselves increasing in appreciation for God's grace. For example, a few years ago, while I was in Scotland, I became interested in studying the relationship of the synagogue and ekklesia, or synagogue and church, as we would say. When I returned to the United States I haunted the libraries of great seminaries, reading assiduously and following every new lead as far as I could go.
Repeatedly I found reference to Vitringa, the Dutch scholar of many years ago. I wrote for information to the librarian at Yale, who informed me they had an ancient copy of his work, but it was in Latin. He doubted that it had ever been translated into English since theological studies several centuries ago were all conducted in Latin. But, from the librarian at Princeton, I learned that an English translation had been made by a Gilbert Fellowes. I put four book-finders from the "Antiquarian Book Society" in Great Britain on the trail. One of them wrote that there was a copy in the shelves of the library of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. I arranged an inter-library loan and was able to have this old leather-bound volume for thirty days inspection and study.
The result of my research changed many of my concepts about the ekklesia of God. I could see why James would write about a gathering of the saints and say, "My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come into your synagogue a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, etc." (James 2:1, 2). I received a wholly different impression about the perennial argument over the name the church should wear. The nature and structure of the primitive community of the saints was suddenly clearer in my mind. I came to understand why the destruction of Jerusalem, by Titus, in A. D. 70, was essential to the preservation and purity of the Good News.
Of the greatest importance was the insight and incentive that I received for work with the Jews of our day, and the many visits I made to their modern temples and synagogues stemmed from the almost accidental resolution made one day in Scotland to study the relationship of two institutions existing side by side, but sometimes in direct conjunction in the first century. And while I never have developed the theme in class or in print, my book The Royal Priesthood is a by-product. A great deal of the research for it was done in the library of Temple Israel.
I must not bore you with this type of thing but I should like to mention that, among other things, I was forced to change my mind about the Pharisees. When I came to understand their purpose and aim I knew why Jesus told the multitudes, "All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do." I also knew what he meant when he said, "But do not ye after their works: for they say and do not." My respect for the Pharisees was increased by a knowledge of their goal, and this was good, because, while I am quite convinced that we have failed thus far in restoring the first-century church, I do think we have succeeded beyond our dreams in restoring the first-century Pharisees.
There are hidden treasures in many of the words which the Spirit employed. We tend, because of familiarity with them, to run over them, as one would drive a car over gold-bearing rock. Occasionally there is a glint in the sunlight, but we are too busy to stop and investigate. Fortunately, we have better tools with which to labor in our generation. The spades of the archaeologists have uncovered all sorts of meaningful records which are flashlights to illuminate words and passages in the divine record. Each new find corroborates the authenticity and validity of God's revelation. In doing so, it provides us with additional information as a foundation for study.
I think, for instance, that we have not exhausted the possibilities involved in such expressions as "the glory of God." We ought to be deeply concerned about it, because we hope to share in it. I find myself being drawn more and more into a study of "the glory." This is because of my deep interest in the prayer of Jesus for oneness of the believers, as a condition of universal acceptance of the supreme fact of the ages. Many of our brethren who can quote John 17:20, 21, have never stopped to underline the words "glorify," and "glory," in the chapter in which these verses occur.
But the prayer of Jesus is not only for a sharing of oneness in the faith, but of sharing in the glory of God. "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was" (verse 5). "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee" (verses 20, 21).
What connection is there between the glory of God and oneness in Christ? There must be some relationship because Jesus goes right on to say, "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one." Does this teach that our oneness is a given unity, and that it is not related to sharing intellectual concepts, ideas, opinions, and doctrinal interpretations? If the glory which God bestowed upon Jesus, is in turn bestowed upon his disciples that they might be one, what is this glory, and how does it produce this oneness?
Our Lord continues in these words: "I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." To be one as God and Christ are one is made contingent upon receiving the glory. The glory existed before the world was made. It was shared with Jesus and now he shares it with the new creation, and he does so that they may be one as he and the Father are one. The divine unity is a sharing of glory, and to possess this unity we must possess this glory.
This means that the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the saints. "I in them, and thou in me." By sharing the divine glory we become one, not only with one another, but with God and the Living Word. "That they may be made perfect in one." And when this marvelous, transcendent relationship exists two things will result. The world will know that God has sent Jesus, that is, that heaven invaded the earth. And it will know that God loves all of his sons as he loved his only begotten Son.
Now I must confess that I have never yet seen an exhaustive treatise on the nature of the glory of God. There are some excellent word studies, and many precious gems have been mined, but I suspect that there is a great deal more to be discovered. Since Paul declares that one of the things belonging to his kinsmen in the flesh, the Israelites, was the glory (Romans 9:4), perhaps we must await the conversion and commitment of some of these to the Messiah, in order to increase our fund of knowledge.
Not long ago I was thinking about this aspect of it, when I discovered that the Hebrew root word for glory is one which literally means "weight," that which is heavy. Immediately I recalled the words of Paul, given in comfort to the harassed and tormented in this life. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Since that time I have not been able to eliminate either the thought or phrase from my mind. Glory is not an evanescent, fleeting quality. It is not as light as a feather but as solid as faith in the eternal values.
But this is enough about one word and the great unexplored vistas which lie ahead to challenge us. We have not yet scaled all of the snow-capped peaks of revelation. We must enlist mountain-climbers who will toil upward, risking prestige and reputation with the party, to survey distant ranges. There must be "spelunkers" in the church, brethren who cannot rest easy until they have explored the deepest recesses of the cavern of truth. And when they have gone more deeply into God's word they may learn that we should have been emphasizing "the unity of glory" rather than thinking so much of "the glory of unity." For there is no glory in simply being united. The power is present when we are united in and for the glory of the Lord.
The blessing of recovering hidden treasure from the word of God lies in the fact that it helps to consecrate life and sanctify death. And frequently a word or phrase which seems inconsequential will prove to be of inestimable value. A deep-sea diver who specializes in the exploration of wrecks on the ocean floor, recently told how he brought up a small encrusted object which, when carefully pried apart consisted of a handful of antique Spanish silver coins. I felt almost as much pleasure as he did when I discovered what lay beneath the surface of the little word "depart," in the statement of Paul: "For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which for me is far better."
The Greeks used the word for "loosing the hawser" of a ship moored to the dock, and allowing the vessel to drift out to the unknown sea. Nothing is more majestic to me than the sight of a huge liner slowly backing out into the harbor in preparation for a voyage to far-away lands beyond the horizon. In life I am bound to the dock. I am not free. Though I may strain at the ropes I am still held captive. But death is the harbor-master who lifts the ropes and casts them off and frees me to sail into the sunset. Tennyson caught the picture in "Crossing The Bar," when he wrote, "And may there be no moaning of the bar, when I put out to sea."
But the Greeks used the word in another sense. It was their term for "striking a tent," that is, taking down a tent and rolling it up, at the end of a campaign. When a weary battle was over, and the sound of fighting had died away, the order was given to take down the tents, and prepare to go home. That is the way Paul regarded death. He had fought a good fight, and he was now ready to move out of the tent in which he had been living under great hardship. The earthly tabernacle was to be folded up and deposited in the container made for it, while the soldier, mustered out, stacked his arms and prepared for the journey back home. When the Christian dies, he does not leave home, he goes home!
There was also a third way in which the word was used. It was employed to describe the removal of a load from the back of a pack animal at the close of day. Picture, if you can, a long train of camels or donkeys, each carrying a heavy burden, plodding along through the heat of the day. The animals grow ever more footsore and weary. Then as the sun turns the western sky to red and gold, and the cool breeze of the dusk fans the desert, a halt is called, and the loads are lifted and thrown to the ground. The welcome rest has come at last.
Death is the lifting of the load. No more sorrow, pain and grief can cause heaviness. There shall be no more pain, or sorrow, or weeping. All of this is caught up in the word "depart" as used by Paul, and it makes death more tolerable, more welcome and friendly. And there are hundreds of words such as this, flecked with the precious ore which, once released will brighten our lives, kindle our hope afresh and give meaning to the frail existence which is ours in this world.
It is for this reason that I trust that none of you will be content to simply camp upon the slopes to which our fathers have attained. There are higher mountains yet ahead, and more noble peaks to be ascended. Do not be content with a mere holding action. We were not called to hold the fort but to storm it. Our task is to climb walls and not build them. If you make of yourselves divine researchers in the fields of God, you may yet recover for us some glowing bloom of truth, and there will be one less flower "born to blush unseen and waste its fragrance on the desert air."
We must use our Bible classes as launching pads to put us into orbit, and not allow them to become simply feeding stations where we come to fill ourselves on the food which others have processed, and grow lazy and torpid because of the ease of picking up that which others have scattered. The mind must be exercised if it is to become strong, and this means that it must be taught the art of meditation, a word which, in the Hebrew, means "chewing the cud."
Just as a cow regurgitates the food she has collected in her first stomach and chews it over and over to derive every particle of nourishment from it, so we must recall the things which we have studied to mull them over in a serious fashion and extract from them every bit of precious meaning. The sheep of God, like all other sheep, were intended to be ruminants, and only as we ruminate upon truth can we survive.