Through a glass darkly

S. SEKOU ABODUNRIN

The Lord Jesus said, “…He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” [John 15:9]

The Father wants you to know him. It is true that he dwells outside the realm of time, that he is the mighty monarch of this vast expanse called the universe, yet he has given us a glimpse into his very nature and person in his Son.

There are so many things that the world holds against God that have been fuelled by religious thinking and traditions of men through the ages. The Father has been painted as some tyrant in heaven playing a big “ego” game with the lives of men on earth. He has been presented as sometimes “good” and sometimes “bad”. You need to realise that he has answered the yearning of the human – he has given us a revelation of himself in his Son. Now we can see more clearly what God is like.

6And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.
7My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house.
8With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? [Numbers 12: 6,7]

All lovers of God’s word at one time or the other come face to face with what at first will be perceived as seeming contradictions in the Old testament presentation of God and the way he is presented in the New. In many minds it is not spoken but you can sense it is there somewhere in their minds “God is no longer what he used to be, he was harsh, but now he is..”

The beautiful thing is that these seeming contradictions do not exist in God’s word, but in our understanding of what the word conveys.

The Lord shows that there was a marked difference between the prophetic ministry of Moses and all other Old Testament prophets. You will notice that the difference is in the fact that the Lord affirms that there are “dark speeches” recorded in the bible.

You can conceive of these dark speeches as “hard sayings”. These are portions of scripture that we find hard to reconcile with the fuller message of scripture. You would be doing yourself a world of disservice taking a “dark saying” literally or at face value without understanding its true intent. Since it is a dark speech, you would need further light in other portions of scripture to gain a full understanding of what is at first a “dark speech”.

In the day of the New Testament, the apostle Paul tells us “For now we see through a glass, darkly”. That’s amazing – the implication of this is that with the tremendous degree of light that has been poured out in the New Testament, we largely still see through a glass darkly. If you are looking through a dark glass, you realise that a lot of what you see will be distorted and unclear. The “darkness” in our seeing will ultimately affect the very thing we are looking at. The problem is not with the thing we are looking at, but the fact that we see darkly. If I want to see more accurately, I’d have to expose myself to more light.

The New Birth has birthed in you a capacity to comprehend facts that the Old Testament saints could not handle, for the Life of God within you is actually light. Yet, even with the new birth, we actually mostly see darkly. I leave it to you to imagine how they must have seen things in the Old Testament!

Moses, giving instruction concerning divorce in Deuteronomy 24, says “When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.”

Reading through Deuteronomy you’d think the problem was with the woman – her husband has found some “uncleanness” in her. It all seems so clear doesn’t it? The Lord Jesus shed some light on this “dark speech” he shows that the reason for the giving of that instruction was not so Husbands could do away with wives in whom they had found “uncleanness” but to deliver women from men who were hard-hearted! [See Mk 10]

In effect the Lord Jesus admitted that Moses gave the instruction because of the hardness of their hearts. They were so hard-hearted they couldn’t even see it! You recognise that nothing about hardness of heart was stated in Deuteronomy 24.

The Lord Jesus helped us see with greater light. He is the Light that dispels all our dark conceptions. This is the case with every “hard saying” or dark speech of the Old Testament. You can only know the heart of the Father by observing that which he has revealed of himself in his Son.

God’s plan from the beginning was one man with one woman dwelling together in love. There was another spirit upon the scene that was highly interested in destroying this plan. All through Deuteronomy he is not mentioned. The Lord Jesus has thrown open the door of revelation – He has given us information about the thief!

The thief gives man enough ammunition to harden his heart, and then operating through the hardness of man’s heart makes man a despot where he was meant to be a covering for his wife. The point is the Lord Jesus shows that the issue of divorce involves men allowing the operation of the thief. There is a thief who wants to steal your marriage and he operates through a hardened heart. There are so many customs, traditions, persuasions and thought patterns that contribute towards hardening a man’s heart.

The Pharisees thought of divorce as a “commandment” hence implicating God. Jesus shows that the Father’s plan was marriage in the union of love and that the adversary was the wicked one. In order words, God is protecting the woman from the tyranny of the man within the context of that day. They would have said “oh! My wife has an uncleanness”, Jesus would have countered “No! You are hard-hearted”

Take another example – Cain.

This is given full treatment in Genesis 4. You notice that this murder occurred after the fall of man. The discussion of Abel’s murder in the hands of Cain was spoken of in terms that imply that there were only two parties – Cain & Abel. In reality there were 4!

God had warned Cain [Gen 4:6 – 7]. Cain yielded to sin and murdered his brother. The Lord gave us further insight in the New Testament that there is a spirit that works in the children of disobedience! Genesis concentrated on the disobedience, but in the epistles we see behind the scenes. Men are often acting under the influence of the prince of the power of the air! The Apostle John also tells us “Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.” [1 John 3:12]

It is a fact then, that though the devil was not directly mentioned in the murder of Abel by Cain, Cain was actually acting out the “will” of the devil. Cain was of the wicked one. You can better understand the events in Genesis between these brothers when you consider the light of revelation given in the New Testament.

Now, consider that Eve did not have the epistle of john when she left the garden. She would not understand that her own princely Cain was actually of the wicked one. She’d be baffled by many things that he will do and often would interprete events wrongly. Can you conceive of Eve wailing bitterly saying, “The Lord has taken my honourable Abel” “The Lord gave me Abel, and the Lord has taken him”? You’d understand that she is seeing through a very dark glass. We know that it was the wicked one, operating through Cain who actually murdered Abel. No! It wasn’t the Lord that took Abel; it was the devil – the thief and destroyer who did.

Why wasn’t the thief mentioned in Deuteronomy, in Genesis and in fact most of the Old Testament? The answer is key – There was little revelation given concerning the adversary of man in the Old Testament. His judgement was expressed in Genesis in the presence of Adam and Eve, but man was not given instructions about how to handle the adversary directly. The reason is man had committed high treason in Adam and the god of this world was now the thief who steals, kills and destroys.

The Lord Jesus gives us this insight in John 10.

10The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
11I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

Jesus, by his own personal admission says he gives life – his own life. He shows that the taking of life is largely a thing of the operation of the thief! Jesus basically reverses that commonly held belief “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh” and states in clear terms “The Lord giveth and the thief taketh!”

In the Old Testament, because of the minimal direct reference to the devil, they assumed that all that they could see was from one source – God. Evil spirits were in active operation on earth before the Lord Jesus came, but you don’t find any Old Testament prophet directly addressing and exercising mastery over them. The reason is until Jesus came all men were sold under sin!

In the ministry of Jesus we see that there is an adversary who is the enemy of our souls. The Father God is not our problem, but the one who sent his Son as the deliverer.

Now we understand – our struggle is not against the Father, but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness. We have a mighty redemption in Christ Jesus and in his name we can enforce the victory!!

God is not harming you and has never harmed you. He is not against you, but for you, with you and in you! He has taken this a step further; by his Spirit he now dwells in you.

Remain submerged in glory!