What does it mean that the secret things belong to the Lord (Deuteronomy 29:29)?

We must now, ere closing this section, briefly direct the reader's attention to the last verse of our chapter. It is one of those passages of scripture sadly misunderstood and misapplied. "The secret things belong to the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong to us, and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law." This verse is constantly used to hinder the progress of souls in the knowledge of "the deep things of God;" but its simple meaning is this; the things "revealed" are what we have had before us in the preceding chapter of this book; the things "secret," on the other hand, refer to those resources of grace which God had in store to be unfolded when the people should have utterly failed to "do all the words of this law." The revealed things are what Israel ought to have done, but did not do; the secret things are what God would do, spite of Israel's sad and shameful failure, and they are most blessedly presented in the following chapters — the counsels of divine grace, the provisions of sovereign mercy to be displayed when Israel shall have thoroughly learnt the lesson of their utter failure under both the Moab and the Horeb covenants.

Thus this passage, when rightly understood, so far from affording any warrant for the use so constantly made of it, encourages the heart to search into these things which, though "secret" to Israel, in the plains of Moab, are fully and clearly "revealed" to us for our profit, comfort and edification. The Holy Spirit came down, on the day of Pentecost to lead the disciples into all truth. The canon of scripture is complete; all the purposes and counsels of God are fully revealed. The mystery of the church completes the entire circle of divine truth. The apostle John could say to all God's children, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things."

Verse 29 requires to be noticed. We find in it the contrast between the consequences thus revealed of obedience and disobedience, and the purposes of God in behalf of the people, notwithstanding their disobedience — purposes which evidently could not be a rule for their conduct. The rule was found in the ordinance of the law. The meaning of this verse has been so twisted, that it is worth while thus to point out its force. The secret things are the purposes of God with regard to the people, though they should have been disobedient and driven out of the land; but, although they are not the rule of conduct, they are revealed and are of deep interest. In what follows, God begins already to present them to our attention, and surely it becomes us to consider them.

If, in the discourse of Moses, you remark these words and those which precede them, you will see that before expressing what belongs to the righteousness of faith, Moses has done with the law as a thing revealed. What the law could produce, alas! has been produced: Israel have shown themselves transgressors, and the wrath of the Lord weighs down upon them for their transgressions. It is all over. They are under chastisement. There is nothing more to expect on the side of the law. "The Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land." (Deut. 29:28.) But is there an end without hope of return? Ah, says Moses, "the secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law." (Deut. 29:29). The things revealed were their rules of action and are summed up in this: "Obey, and you shall abide in the land; if not, you shall be driven out." They did not obey all the words of the law and were rooted out. But what are those secret things? Grace which remained with God for the time in which Israel should find themselves under chastisement. This subject is the theme of the prophets.

The end of the chapter gives us even more. When the people had altogether and publicly failed, grace can bring out from God Himself the only suited remedy. Now Israel take their place before God. They are called to keep the words of the covenant; the very children are brought in and put before Jehovah, with solemn warning against idolatry, as well as other acts of rebellion. But the point lies here: "The secret things belong to Jehovah our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law." The character of this has been often noticed before; but it cannot be too much insisted on always; that grace, though in a distant and enigmatic manner, alludes to an unrevealed secret, whereby, when the people have utterly failed, as we have seen, on the ground of law, God will not fail to find ways and means of justifying them by faith. It is not merely words by which He can bring them all provisionally into the land, but means as yet secret by which He can justify them in the face of all their faults, and work in their hearts according to what is in His heart — in short, His secrets of grace.

Moreover, God revealed these things through Moses that Israel might be forewarned, and “do all the words of this law.” Still, in spite of all that Israel was, and would be, God had His secrets regarding them, and of this Moses also spoke, saying, “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God” (verse 29), and these secret things are made known in the first ten verses of the following chapter. God would not only punish His people for their idolatry, but when they returned unto the Lord their God, he would turn their captivity, having compassion on them, and father them “from all the nations” whither He had scattered them. This was partially accomplished when the remnant returned under Zerubbabel, but what is spoken of in verse 6, their loving the Lord their God with all their heart, and with all their soul must await the writing of the law in their heart under the new covenant.

Verse 29 at this point declares a significant fact for Israel. There were secret things that belong to the Lord alone, but things God had revealed belonged to Israel and their children. God was not revealing to them, for instance, what He would do when they were in a state of rebellion. But now it is revealed that God is taking out of the Gentile nations a special people called "the Church of God." This was a mystery "hid in God" (Eph.3:9) and only revealed through Paul after the death and resurrection of Christ. But Israel was responsible only for the revelation God had then given them, therefore to obey the law.

The day of manifestation is coming, and God is not in haste to justify Himself. The darkness is the discipline of faith, but in the face of Christ is glory without a vail. If the question put to Himself, "Lord, are there few that be saved" brought no direct reply, can we force an answer to a very similar question? "Secret things belong unto the Lord our God:" we may not rob the future of what is to be revealed by it, when at last every eye shall see what faith unseeing knows and rejoices in, that "the Lord is righteous in all His ways." Where agnosticism means, not unbelief, but faith, — where it is the confession of nothingness, and the refusal to be wise above what is written, is it a reproach to be thus far agnostics?

In the treasury of the Father's house the deep and precious things of eternity are stored, unseen by human eye and unknown to man's heart. All “the secret things belong unto the Lord our God” (Deut. 29:29), Who reveals at His pleasure what He will to whomsoever He will.

At the moment we are not concerned with the revelation of Jehovah's ways with men in the government of the earth. Above and beyond all these plans are the truths relating to the Essential Being of God, concealed of necessity from the eyes and heart of the creature. What God is must be even more private and profound than what He will do; “Is not this laid up in store with Me, and sealed up among My treasures?” (Deut. 32:34).

Moses truly was commissioned to declare much, but yet he knew he had not declared all, there were secrets in the divine mind which himself and others of the worthies, holy men of old, "desired to see and saw not, and to hear and heard not"; but it was the prophet like unto Moses that was to be received, as he into whose mouth God would put His words, that he might speak unto them all that He should command. He alone was able to declare God (John 1:18). Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Hence the difference of the language of Moses and Paul. The former, led to look into a long vista in the fortunes of His people, lost in the contemplation of the fearful judgment coming upon them, says, "the secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed, belong unto us and to our children" (Deut. 29:29). But that which He had kept secret from Moses, He had revealed by His Spirit unto Paul, "for the Spirit searcheth all things, even the deep things of God." "I would not brethren that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part is happened unto Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved" (Rom. 11:25-26). Moses was indeed taught that His people which had corrupted themselves, would be brought into a condition of such estrangement from God, "that He would move them to jealousy with those which are not a people, that He would provoke them to anger with a foolish nation" (Deut. 32:21). The Holy Ghost, by Paul, shows the purpose of God in their temporary rejection; even that by their fall might be "the riches of the world"; by their diminishing "the riches of the Gentiles"; by their casting away "the reconciling of the world"; in other words, the introduction of that dispensation of marvellous grace under which we are. True it is that both its grace and glory are little considered by us "sinners of the Gentiles." In order to see either distinctly, we must place ourselves in the situation of the favoured people of God; we must judge through their reasonable prejudices instead of our own fearful high-mindedness and self-complacency. The introduction of "the eternal purpose of God," even the making known unto principalities and powers in heavenly places, by the church, the manifold wisdom of God, was an event for which the minds of God's people were not prepared. It was a something entirely new as to revelation, although first of all in the mind of God: it had been figured in Eden, in the giving to Adam, for a help meet for him, the woman taken from his side whilst he slept; "this is a (or the) great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and His church." This great mystery was very gradually unfolded indeed. The personal ministry of the Lord was with very few exceptions confined to Israel, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But His ministry to them was chiefly in testimony against evil, and, all the while He was testifying unto them as the sent of God and last witness to them, He treated the nation as apostate, and frequently intimated the change in dispensation which was about to be introduced.

In Ephesians 3 the Apostle Paul speaks of a great secret "which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God." It was not revealed, nor was it hidden, in the Old Testament Scriptures. God made known to Abraham, the friend of God, His intentions regarding Sodom, and also gave him to know something of what He would do in the future, but He did not tell him of this wonderful mystery. Moses, who wrote the first five books of the Old Testament learned much from God, for we read, "He made known His ways unto Moses;" and God showed him that "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God," but these secret things were not disclosed even to Moses. This mystery was hidden in the heart of God; it was precious to Him; and how surpassing wonderful that He has made it known for us. Paul had a special revelation of this divine secret because of the administration of the grace of God that the Lord communicated to him to make known to His saints. Paul's ministry was to preach the Gospel of the unsearchable riches of Christ, which brought out His heavenly glory as God's anointed, exalted to His right hand, and the centre of all His counsels; and to make known the administration of the mystery that had been so long hidden from ages and generations, in the heart of God.