adjective: `He shall hide me (krupto) in His pavilion; in the secret

(apokruphos) of His tabernacle'.  In 1 Maccabees 1:23 we have a parallel with

Colossians 2:3 which cannot be ignored: `He took the hidden treasures which

he found' (tous thesaurous tous apokruphous).  Therefore instead of reading

as in the A.V., we must read: `In Whom are all the secret treasures of wisdom

and knowledge'.  These treasures are priceless.  They include `all riches of

the full assurance of understanding'.  They involve the `knowledge of the

Mystery of God' which is manifested only to those who know Christ in the

light of the revelation of the Mystery.  Often men talk of God as though it

were a simple matter to comprehend Him.  They argue about His person as

though He were subject to the same laws and limitations as themselves.  To

such philosophers and expositors God might well say, as He said to the wicked

in Psalm 50:21: `thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as

Yet God is spirit, and, apart from revelation, what do we know of that

realm of being?  Even angels, who are spirits, take upon themselves the forms

of men before man can perceive them.  The Saviour declared, in the days of

His early ministry concerning the Father, `Ye have neither heard His voice at

any time, nor seen His shape' (John 5:37).  God Himself must ever remain a

mystery, indeed the greatest of all mysteries, unless He manifests Himself in

such a way that His creatures can apprehend and understand.  In general, our

knowledge of the outside world is derived through the medium of the senses of

sight, hearing and touch, supplemented by taste and smell.  In that other

sphere where the answer to the Mystery of God is Christ, we can understand

what may be known of God only by the manifestation of it in His Person.  The

works of His hands reveal `His eternal power and Godhead' so that the nations

of the earth are without excuse (Rom. 1:19 -23).  Yet that is but a step, for

it is only in the face of Jesus Christ that we see the glory of God.  He came

to `declare' the invisible God; He came and said, `He that hath seen Me hath

seen the Father'.  He was looked upon, and handled, and the conclusion of

those thus privileged is written: the confession of Thomas, `My Lord and my

God' (John 20:28), the record of John, `This is the true God, and eternal

life' (1 John 1:2; 5:20).  Whatever glimpses we may have obtained through

other aspects of truth, we must all agree that, `In Him are all the secret

treasures of wisdom and knowledge' (Col. 2:3).  When one's completeness is

found to be in Him, in Whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, the

folly of turning aside to vain, deceitful philosophy or of being shackled by

tradition, or loaded with ceremonial ordinances, is apparent.

The Mystery of God is Christ.  That Mystery has been manifested.  We

thank God that we have seen not only the `eternal power and Godhead' that is

witnessed to by creation, but we have seen in Him and by Him `The Father, and

it sufficeth us'.

One further passage dealing with the manifestation of the Mystery of

God must be examined, and that is 1 Timothy 3:16, and we propose to examine

this passage under the following headings:

To write a set of studies on the subject of `The Mystery Manifested'

and to omit 1 Timothy 3:16 would be remiss in the extreme, yet, if the

subject is to be dealt with at all, the problem of compressing what is

essential to be said into a limited space, is somewhat perplexing.  While, as

we have said, our problem is partly due to limitations of space, it is also

due to the fact that not all our readers will easily follow the subject, and