p. 3 | Treasures of Wisdom by L. A. Reed

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 21, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 41.

Treasures of Wisdom

By L. A. Reed

By L. A. Reed

The word of God is the highest and most perfect educational book in our world. It is like a towering rock that fronts the sea, forever receiving on its granite wall the onslaught of the waves. One moment, the waters strike and break in forceless spray upon its fending sides; the next, the sunbeams touch and transfigure the old water-washed gray rock with diamond gleams of light. Thus, with radiant and unbroken front, the Word has stood the attacks of ages, and to-day this mighty citadel of truth remains impregnable as ever.

The Word is God’s verbal revelation of truth to man. Although it is a complete revelation, the Creator has filled the world about us with object lessons to teach us all the more surely and perfectly the same great truths. The truth of science and the truth of the Word is one truth. Truth is a unit. The manifold and many-sided, it is but one truth. And this one truth, revealed in Holy Writ, “is reflected, as from a mirror, in the face of nature.”

We must know, if we think carefully, that there is no truth revealed to man except through Christ Jesus, the Word. True, many wicked men, and even the devil, have seen some of these truths; but they hold them down in unrighteousness. Rom. 1:18, R.V. Yet, notwithstanding the fact that evil men and the devil have misappropriated and distorted truths, the fact still remains that all truth is of God, and its principles are given through and in the Word.

In Him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Col. 2:3. “He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom.” Eph. 1:8. “He [the Spirit representing Jesus Christ, John 16:14; 14:18] will guide you into all truth.” John 16:13. “That ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” Col. 1:9. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.” Col. 3:16. “That now . . . might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.” Eph. 3:10.

These scriptures are the eternal words of God. We do not know how much is included in the expression “all wisdom,” further than that it is the unsearchable and unfathomable wisdom of God. Inspiration, catching in one glimpse what was meant, cries out in wonder at the sight, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” O, what depths!

All the knowledge there is, all the wisdom there is, is revealed in Jesus Christ.

“All things that the Father hath are Mine.” And these “all things” the Spirit receives to show to the followers of Christ. All things that the Father has are Christ’s, the Word’s, and are revealed to us by the Spirit.

“Truth, revealed in Holy Writ, is reflected, as from a mirror, in the face of nature”

What a wonderful sweep is revealed in that expression, “All things that the Father hath”! How much has God? Look yonder into the heavens, and behold a thousand suns rolling in the infinitude of space—worlds upon worlds, but they are only a fraction of what He has. Take a five-inch telescope and look at yonder spot in the heavens. Wonder of wonders! It is transformed into hundreds of suns, so closely studded that we can not number them.

Get a stronger glass. Still other suns appear—suns upon suns, and worlds upon worlds, like the sands of the seashore, innumerable. “All things that the Father hath”! Is it enough? Are the “all things” of God sufficient for you, or do you long for something else? Does it take more than this to satisfy? Is it possible to be dissatisfied with the infinite?

God has given us in Christ all that He has, and there is nothing outside. If we are not satisfied with all the fulness of God, and must seek elsewhere, only nothingness awaits us. If we seek, as did Lucifer, for that something else, we can find, as he did, only that which lies outside of God, and that is nothing—the silence of nothing—death. Shall we seek that? And yet all who hate God love death. Prov. 8:36.

We are therefore sure that God has made, in the Word, a complete revelation of the principles of all truth. We dare make no exceptions. That word “all” bars all exceptions. We dare not except the truths of mathematics or science, or any other study whatsoever, and say, “The Bible does not speak of that.” The Spirit is given us to guide us into all truth, and this it does by means of the Word; and therefore, all truth, in principle, is in the Word.

Christ’s life on earth was a complete manifestation of all truth to men. Speaking of His life, one has said, “He who came forth from God to our world gave instruction on every subject about which it is essential that man should know in order to find the pathway to heaven.” That the Bible contains all knowledge in principle is readily seen from the fact that whenever science essays any false philosophy, it at once clashes somewhere with the Word.

God has not been illiberal with us. He gave us all truth in the life of His Son. In that life is contained all possible human experience. But in the written Word, He has given us a repetition and explanation of these same truths—that is, of truth itself.

But all this is not saying that the Word records every possible phrasing or expression of truth. Any one truth may be stated in many ways, for it has many relations. We are told that if all Jesus did were written—and His deeds were truth exemplified, for He is truth—it is supposed that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. John 21:25.

But we are sure, nevertheless, that the

Word contains every truth which His life exemplified. And that the world could not contain the books which might be written, is due to the fact that the truths represented are infinite truths. An infinite truth, to be fully expressed, requires infinite expression. But these truths infinitely expressed would more than fill the world.

We may take for an example the passage, “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” In that one infinite truth of the formation of man are all the truths and facts that man can gather in his study of the anatomy, physiology, hygiene, histology, physics, chemistry, mechanics, and all the rest of the “ies” and “ologies,” of the human frame. If all that men know of these things were written, how many books would be required to tell all that we, even now, see is meant in that passage, “The Lord God formed man”?

Man’s expressions, like all else of his, are finite. The only way he can conceive of approaching the infinite is by multiplying expressions. Thus he hopes, in time or eternity, ultimately to tell something of these infinite truths.

It was a task for God Himself to make the finite comprehend the infinite. But through Jesus Christ, and by His unspeakable love, He has done it. Looking down the ages from eternity, God saw all that men need know, all that men could know. Then He purposed that they should know all this. Eph. 3:10, 11. One has said, “That which, in the counsels of heaven, the Father and the Son deemed essential for the salvation of man, was defined from eternity by infinite truths, which finite beings can not fail to comprehend.” Also, “From God, the fountain of wisdom, proceeds all the knowledge that is of value to man, all that the intellect can grasp or retain.”

All that is of God is in the Word. It is locked in infinite truths, which we can not fail to understand, and which we can not exhaust until we have exhausted eternity and God. And all that is not of God is utterly valueless, is utter sin, is not in the Word, and should never be in our minds. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 2:5. That mind takes in God, and with Him, the universe.

It is too early now, therefore, no matter how long we have lived, for any of us to attempt to say that any special truth is not in the Word. God says all truth is in the Word. With an experience of even a hundred years of study of that Word, it would be folly for one to attempt to question God’s statement. And when we have lived and studied it for ages, we shall see that it can not be questioned.

And thus all that we need know, “all the knowledge that is of value to man, all that the intellect can grasp or retain,” is given to us in principle in these infinite truths; yea, in Him who is both the Infinite and the Truth.

These infinite truths God has committed to man. True, they are locked in His great storehouse, the Word; but He has given us the key. They are hidden; but He has told us to seek, and we shall find. The door is closed; but if we knock, it shall be opened to us.

Let us study that Word as never before. Let us search it as for hid treasures. May it be our wisdom and our knowledge. Thus only can we gain understanding. And God Himself will be our teacher, eternity the term of our pupilage, and His everlasting habitation our schoolroom. And there our vision will forever widen with the process of the suns.