Obscure Scriptures by Gaussen

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 12, 1856

Obscure Scriptures.

By Gaussen

WITH what glory, as soon as they were comprehended, have we seen shine forth, so many passages, so many psalms, so many prophecies, so many types, so many descriptions, whose profound beauty had not before been perceived! What evangelical truth has come forth from them! what appeals to the conscience! what an unfolding of redeeming love! Let us then wait in regard to analogous passages, even more glorious, for that day when our Master shall again come down from heaven; for, says St. Irenæus, 'there are difficulties in the Scriptures, which, by the grace of God, we can now resolve, but there are others which we leave to him, not only for this age, but for the next, in order that God may perpetually be teaching, and that perpetually, man may thus be learning of God, the things which pertain to God.'

If the lights of grace have dimmed those of nature, how in their turn will the lights of glory throw paleness on those of grace! How many stars of the first magnitude, still invisible, will be enkindled at the approach of that great day, in the firmament of the Scriptures? And when, finally, it shall be fully revealed to the redeemed world without a veil, what harmonies, what celestial tints, what new glories, what unanticipated splendors, shall be manifested to the heirs of eternal life!

Then, we shall see the meaning of so many prophecies, of so many facts, and of so many instructions, whose divinity as yet is revealed only by detached features, but whose evangelical beauty will then shine on every side. Then we shall know all the meaning of those parables, already so impressive, of the Fig-tree, of the Master returning from a far country, of the Bride and Bridegroom, of the Net drawn on the shore of eternity, of Lazarus, of the Invited, of the Talents, of the Husbandman, of the Virgins, of the Marriage Feast.

Then too, shalt thou manifest thyself to our view in all thy glory, O, Jesus Christ, Saviour, consoler, friend of the miserable, our Lord and our God! thou that hast tasted death, but who art He that liveth for ever and ever! Then all the science of heaven will be thyself! Thou wast always all the science of the Holy Spirit, who descended from Heaven. Thou wast always that of the Scriptures; for 'the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.' Thou art already all the life of the saints; 'their life eternal is to know thee!' 'O, thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!'—Gaussen.