4. A Lesson from Church History
Church history appears to support the point about certain encounters being unique to certain eras. A survey of that general history shows significant highlights in each age. For example,
- the Holy Ghost and missionary prominence of the early 1st century, with Peter and Paul championing it;
- the Apostolic Age of the early 2nd century with emphasis on the Holy Spirit’s empowerment and apostolic authority;
- the Reformation Movement of the 16th and 17th centuries, emphasizing justification by faith – casting passages like Galatians 3:11 in such fresh light as never seen until then, with leading figures such as Martin Luther;
- the Evangelical Revivals of the 18th and 19th centuries, with such names as George Whitefield and John Wesley;
- the Missions Movement of the 19th and 20th centuries, with frontline characters like David Livingstone and Hudson Taylor;
- the Pentecostal/Charismatic Movements of the early 20th century, for example, the Azuza Street revival, with preachers like William Seymour;
- the contemporary Church with its faith and prosperity fad as never before, and all that cries for revival again.
To each age, a verse seemed to open up in a way that it never had, as if a first or second or third seal had been taken off of it. To each opening of such ‘seals,’ the Church and that age cried in wonderous amazement, “Come and see!” (Revelation 6:1-7): Pentecost, missions, justification by faith, baptism by immersion, New Pentecost, the faith movement, etc.
Every dispensation, its revelation. For instance, what did the fathers know (or thought that they knew) about Nebuchadnezzar/Daniel’s image, the antichrist, the mark of the beast, the false prophet, etc.? How many more seals has this generation opened to those revelations than the fathers did? For those who follow end-time prophecies and global news, those ancient ‘mysteries’ are being made clearer in this age than the famed wise and prudent fathers knew, although they provided the foundation – the first seals opened – out of which our later openings have grown. Everybody has been reading the Bible, but everybody could not see everything (or those things) “UNTIL … the time appointed” when some Peter at a Pentecost took off one more seal, and said, “This is that which was spoken …” (Acts 2:16).
5. Unsealed by Fulfilment
Sometimes it takes the fulfilment of a prophecy to bring the understanding of it that hitherto has been ‘sealed.’ For instance, Peter had a trance about a basket of food, and wondered what it might mean. God did not address his worries with an immediate decoding of the experience. It was not until he was in the house of Cornelius, at the place of fulfilment, that he understood the meaning of the vision he had had in his house (Acts 10:19; 11:16-18). Delayed interpretation, for good reasons.
Joel prophesied the Pentecost experience. I am not sure that even that prophet had the full grasp of what he prophesied about. As part of the limitations of their humanity, prophets do not always understand the full implications of the ‘part’ of a prophecy that they are allowed to deliver (1 Corinthians 13:9). It was on the day of fulfilment that Peter said, “this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16). I am not sure that before that day even Peter had that much understanding of Joel’s prophecy. On the day of fulfilment, however, with the document unsealed by the Melting Fire from on high, the revelation of the mystery hit him instantly, without premeditation. That prophecy was for that generation, and an insight into it was provided by one inspired preacher who ‘projected’ that scripture in a light that none had seen it until then. Today, we all preach Joel according to the version of Peter’s revelation; we generally approach that scripture with the peculiar understanding as opened to us through Peter.
During one church service when Jesus was asked to read the Bible lesson for the day, He read from Isaiah 61:1-3. At the end of the reading, while still “the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him,” He said, “THIS DAY is THIS SCRIPTURE fulfilled in your ears.” Their eyes were opened in a fresh way to a passage that they had always read but never understood in the way that Jesus presented it that day – “this scripture … this day.” After His unveiling of that scripture that day of its ‘fulfilment,’ “all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of HIS mouth” (Luke 4:20-22).
From other lips, those same gracious words did not proceed, as from “his mouth.” He was the Source of that fresh insight from an old scripture apparently ‘sealed’ in certain respects until that generation.
Only God knows how many mysteries and messages (for healing, salvation, intercession, consecration, prosperity, missions, etc.) for how many ages He has encoded into every scripture. Only He knows how deep any verse is, even such apparently simple verses as “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). The Bible is no mere book. Its Writer calls it a “mystery” (Colossians 1:26), and contemporary science, for instance, on the “Bible Codes” and other details, confirms no less.
6. The Opening of the Understanding
David prayed a prayer that we have often recited at Sunday school: “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law” (Psalm 119:18). The implication is that spiritual understanding is not entirely a function of natural study, even though we are encouraged to “search the scriptures” and to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God” (John 5:39; 2 Timothy 2:15). In Psalm 119:18, the Psalmist identifies the place of divine intervention in the understanding of spiritual texts. In other words, it is possible to read the scriptures from cover to cover and never behold the “wonderous things” therein, until there is a merciful opening of the eyes by the Sender of the Document.
After His resurrection, Jesus was on a walk with two disciples who did not recognize Him immediately. They heard from Him such a great sermon and ‘mysteries’ that merely burned their hearts but left them still going in the same direction, away from Jerusalem. They had been discouraged that what they had seen in the past three days had been the collapse of what they had believed in the past three years of following a man they had received as a prophet. The walk with the Unknown Man went on until the breaking of bread when “their eyes were opened”; and later with the other disciples at another breaking of bread when He “Then opened … their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures” (Luke 24:45).
That encounter says much. Those disciples had been hearing and reading the scriptures, but their understanding was not ‘opened’ to comprehend the scriptures in the new light that the New Preacher had cast those same ‘old’ scriptures. We may make the following further deductions from that verse:
- We only open something that is locked, not something that is already open. If it was “then” that their understanding was “opened” to what they had been hearing or reading in the past three years and more, it means that their understanding had been locked until “then” (by whatever force, human or spiritual).
- The word “then” means “at that time,” suggesting that the time came “then” for the seal to be removed from that message, or from their minds. Until “then,” it apparently didn’t matter how much anyone heard or read those scriptures, or which great rabbi taught it at what great seminar in what synagogue. Before ‘the time’ came for that revelation, it could not be fully received, like the Pentecost prophecy of Joel which everyone had read but never saw in the new light that Peter presented it that day.
- The impact of that encounter was that it turned those disciples around 90’s, back in a hurry to Jerusalem, where they became declarers of that new message to other disciples. Every true encounter will lead towards God rather than away from Him; it will find its place with other disciples rather than divide them; it will encourage rather than distress them. Those disciples became one of the first preachers of that new encounter, which was not a new message but merely a fresh insight, significantly supported by other witnesses who had been at the tomb; supported also by recollections of what Jesus had since said. It was insight now unsealed, but founded no less on the scriptures since received.
- That He opened “their” understanding puts the focus on them rather than on every follower of Jesus. Every revelation is not given to every disciple. Those two disciples were the privileged initial receivers of a fresh message to wavering disciples shut up in their frightened room because of recent apparent contradictions between what they had believed and what they had seen.
- That it was “he” that opened “their understanding” meant that that insight needed more than Bible commentaries and seminaries and great Sunday school rabbis. It needed a divine agency working on the human receivers, like “the Spirit of truth” who “when” He is come would “guide you into all truth” (John 16:12-13). The Ethiopian eunuch, for example, was a devoted worshipper who had made a long and tedious international religious (not business) trip “to Jerusalem for to worship.” He was also an avid reader of the scriptures, but he lacked the depth of what he read, until … There was something he was looking at but couldn’t see in the open book that he had in his very hands, until … He knew that there had to be something more than he was getting, until Philip, sent by the Holy Spirit, joined his chariot to expound those same scriptures in a light that he had never seen. In other words, sometimes the divine intervention might be through a human agency. The eunuch was therefore correct when he confessed that he could not understand what he had been reading, “except some man should guide me” (Acts 8:27-31).
Jesus’ intervention on the reverse journey of those two wavering disciples, going away from Jerusalem while other disciples remained steadfast in Jerusalem, as well as His subsequent appearance to the rest of the disciples, enabled them to understand in a better way the same scriptures that they had always known, or thought that they knew. When “then” the seal was removed by divine intervention, they saw in brighter light what the scriptures had meant, or meant in addition to their previous understanding of the scriptures.
Of Lydia the purple dealer from Thyatira, we are told that she “worshipped God” and “heard” the preaching of Paul, yet her heart was closed, although her head and her eyes were open. Like the Ethiopian eunuch, she was a devout worshipper but with limited access to the mysteries of God, no matter how much she heard them, until her “heart” (not her head) “the Lord opened” (Acts 16:14). Her Gentile heart had apparently been closed by Greek philosophy and other traditions. The impact of the opening of her heart was that “she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.” Until then, whatever she heard made little impact on her hands and feet; it never compelled her participatory attention to the things of God.
God still opens hearts. May He open mine, and yours. Amen.
From The Preacher’s diary,
March 26, 2025.
