Secret

The vocabulary of secrecy in Scripture moves along two opposite axes. Yahweh keeps things secret because they belong to him by right, and he reveals them because he is gracious; men keep things secret either to honor a confidence or to hide from the very eye that already sees them. The single verse that fixes the whole topic in place is Mosaic: "The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Deut 29:29). The hidden remains his property; the revealed becomes the duty laid on his people.

The Secret Things Belong to Yahweh

What God conceals he conceals as a sovereign right, not as a defect. "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; But the glory of kings is to search out a matter" (Prov 25:2). The hiding is itself an attribute: "Truly you are a God who hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior" (Isa 45:15). Job's friends ask the question that the whole book answers in the negative: "Can you by searching find out God? Can you find out the Almighty to perfection?" (Job 11:7). Paul takes up the same line — "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!" (Rom 11:33).

The wisdom tradition holds the line tightly. Ecclesiastes notes that God "has set eternity in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end" (Eccl 3:11). Sir counsels the same restraint as a moral disposition: "Do not seek out things which are too wonderful for you, And do not search for that which is hidden from you" (Sir 3:21); "Many things, greater than these, are hidden, I have only seen a few of his works" (Sir 43:32); "No man can take [from them] nor add [to them], Nor can any trace out the marvellous acts of the Lord" (Sir 18:6). What lies on the other side of the boundary in Deut 29:29 is real, not empty — but it is not for us.

Nature's Hidden Workings

Even within the visible creation the seam where the divine work disappears from human view is part of the design. The way of the wind, the formation of bones in the womb, the springing of the seed, the hidden shaping of the psalmist's frame in "the lowest parts of the earth" — all are listed precisely as opaque to us though transparent to God (Eccl 11:5; Ps 139:15). Jesus uses this same opacity as the analogy for the new birth: "The wind blows where it will, and you hear its voice, but do not know from where it comes, and where it goes: so is everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). The seed in Mark's parable grows "night and day" while "he doesn't know how" (Mark 4:27). Created secrecy is a teacher.

The Secret Disclosed to His Friends

The same God who hides is the God who tells. The covenant relation is itself described in this idiom: "The friendship of Yahweh is with those who fear him; And he will show them his covenant" (Ps 25:14). Disclosure is the very business of prophecy — "Surely the Sovereign Yahweh will do nothing, except he reveals his secret to his slaves the prophets" (Amos 3:7). To Daniel it is said of God that "he reveals the deep and secret things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him" (Dan 2:22).

Sir extends the same intimacy to the meek and the wise. "For many are the mercies of God, And to the meek he reveals his secret" (Sir 3:20). The personified Wisdom says of her disciple, "Then at the time his heart is filled with me, I will lead him again, and reveal to him my secrets" (Sir 4:18). The scribe of Sir 39 "seeks out the hidden things of proverbs, And is conversant with the obscure things of parables" (Sir 39:3); the Lord himself is the one "Declaring the things that are past and the things that will be, And revealing the traces of hidden things" (Sir 42:19).

The Mystery Now Made Known

The New Testament inherits this structure but anchors it in a single content. The "mystery" — the apostolic word for what was hidden in God and is now spoken — is Christ. Paul says of the gospel that it is "the revelation of the mystery which has been kept in silence through eternal times, but now is manifested" (Rom 16:25-26). To the Corinthians: "we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, [even] the [wisdom] that has been hidden, which God predetermined before the ages to our glory ... But to us God revealed [them] through the Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God" (1 Cor 2:7, 10).

Colossians and Ephesians press this into the open. The mystery "has been hid since the ages and since the generations: but now it has been manifested to his saints, to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you⁺, the hope of glory" (Col 1:26-27). What the prior generations did not have, "now ... has been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit" (Eph 3:5). And then the doxology: "And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness; He who was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the spirit, Seen of angels, Preached among the nations, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory" (1 Tim 3:16). The hidden things have not become trivial; they have become preachable.

Gr presses exactly the same point in his apology. God "had conceived a great and ineffable thought, [and] he communicated it to his Child alone. For so long a time, therefore, as he retained in mystery and reserved his wise counsel, he seemed to us to neglect us, and to be indifferent; but after he revealed by his beloved Child, and manifested the things prepared from the beginning, he at one and the same time bestowed on us all things, both to take part in his benefits, and to see and understand" (Gr 8:9-11). What looked like absence was withheld revelation; the manifestation in the Son is the gift.

God Sees the Secret Heart

The reverse direction — the human's secrets opened to God — is just as firmly established. "For [it is] not [a matter of] what man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks on the heart" (1 Sam 16:7). David: "And what more can David say to you? For you know your slave, O Sovereign Yahweh" (2 Sam 7:20). The psalmist: "Will not God search this out? For he knows the secrets of the heart" (Ps 44:21); "You have set our iniquities before you, Our secret sins in the light of your countenance" (Ps 90:8). Through Jeremiah Yahweh says, "For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity concealed from my eyes" (Jer 16:17). The Preacher pronounces the eschatological form of the same truth: "For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil" (Eccl 12:14).

The New Testament repeats it in the courtroom register. "in the day when God judges the secrets of men, according to my good news, by Christ Jesus" (Rom 2:16). "Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then each will have his praise from God" (1 Cor 4:5). Hebrews supplies the theological premise: "And there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do" (Heb 4:13). Sir poses the same conviction in a wisdom proverb: "He searches out the deep, and the heart [of man], And discerns all their secrets; For the Lord knows all knowledge" (Sir 42:18).

The Self-Deception of the Hidden Sinner

Against this transparency, sinners imagine that walls and darkness will serve as cover. The first instance is the first sin: "the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden" (Gen 3:8). Israel's idolaters carry the delusion through: "Woe to those who hide deep their counsel from Yahweh, and whose works are in the dark, and who say, Who sees us? And who knows us?" (Isa 29:15). Ezekiel sees the elders inside their secret rooms saying the same thing — "Yahweh does not see us; Yahweh has forsaken the land" (Ezek 8:12). Sir gives the textbook portrait of the adulterer's self-talk: "[There is] a man who goes astray from his own bed, And says in his soul: 'Who sees me? Darkness is around me, and the walls hide me, And no man sees me, of what shall I be afraid? The Most High does not remember my sins.'" (Sir 23:18). Jesus diagnoses the same instinct: "For everyone who participates in evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his works should be reproved" (John 3:20). Paul draws the practical consequence — Christians "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, and even better, reprove them as well; for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of" (Eph 5:11-12).

A Friend's Secret Kept

Within human relations, the topic flips polarity. Where God's hiddenness is honor and the sinner's hiddenness is shame, the keeping of another person's secret is loyalty, and divulging it is treachery. Proverbs sets the type: "Debate your cause with your fellow man [himself], And don't disclose the secret of another" (Prov 25:9); "He who goes about as double-tongued reveals secrets; But he who is of a faithful spirit conceals a matter" (Prov 11:13); "He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets; Therefore don't company with him who opens his lips wide" (Prov 20:19).

Sir devotes a remarkable amount of space to exactly this discipline. "Let the men who greet you [saying], Peace, be many; But the owner of your secret, one among a thousand" (Sir 6:6). "Do not reveal a secret in the congregation of princes; And do not repeat what you heard from interceding in a dispute" (Sir 7:14). "Do not reveal yourself with one who is silly; For he will not be able to hide your secret. Do no secret thing before a stranger; For you do not know to what end he will bring it. Do not reveal your heart to all flesh; And you will not drive away the good from you" (Sir 8:17-19). When you have heard a thing, "Have you heard anything? Let it die with you; Be of good courage it will not burst you" (Sir 19:10). And the most pointed of all: "He who reveals secrets destroys trust, And will find no friend to his soul ... For a wound may be bound up, and for slander there is reconciliation, But he who reveals secrets has no hope" (Sir 27:16, 21). Even toward an enemy there is a calculation of prudence: "Do not take counsel with one who dislikes you, And hide your secret from one who is jealous of you" (Sir 37:10). Disclosure of a friend's secret stands in Sir 22:22 alongside reproach, arrogance, and a deceitful blow as one of the four offenses that drive every friend away.

The Practical Posture

The four directions of the topic compose a single posture. Toward God's hidden things, restraint and trust — what is his is his, and what he has revealed in his law and in his Christ is enough to do all the words of this law (Deut 29:29). Toward God's revealed mystery, glad publication — the gospel of Christ now made known to all the nations to obedience of faith (Rom 16:26). Toward one's own hidden life, candor before the eye that already sees — "He who covers his transgressions will not prosper: But whoever confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy" (Prov 28:13). Toward another's secret, faithful silence — the spirit which "conceals a matter" (Prov 11:13). The whole field belongs to the God who hides and reveals, and disposes of secrets according to his glory.