God Hides the Truth

Paradox is a statement seemingly absurd or self-contradictory, but really found in truth. It is God’s way of hiding the truth on a purpose and Jesus glorified God the father for having that way.

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. Luke 10:21 NIV

There are many paradox in the bible we can find that the Lord Jesus used to convey the truth to the hearers of the Word of God. Actually, there are two ways Jesus used to convey his message which contains hidden truth.

• Parables – Jesus narrates things and events to illustrate moral or spiritual lesson, so the hearers could easily understand the truth.

Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet:

"I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world." Matt 13:34-35NIV

• Paradox – Jesus speaks a very contradicting statements which many hearers becomes so perplex, it becomes so hard and difficult to understand.

Example:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:26-27 NIV. But in Matt 10:34-35, Jesus said, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you... On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. John 6:53-66NIV (Jesus is God and Man which is a paradox thing)

Through the parables, the hearers heard plainly the truth but regarding about the paradox, God is hiding the truth which makes the hearers to misunderstood and misinterpret the scriptures. The truth is, God hides the truth for the sole purpose of making the wise in the standard of this world to become fools in his sight, to frustrate the intelligent and to destroy the wisdom of the wise (1 Cor 1:19). While the so called ‘’foolishness of God’’ makes wise those who are being saved.

Two kinds of hearers:

• The Wise (by the standard of the world) – A kind of hearer who are proud of themselves.

• The ‘’Little Children’’ – A child-like kind of learning attitude who have a humble and teachable spirit.

God hides the truth, and this was for his own good pleasure. Therefore, let us all become like of those little children because Jesus loves the little children (those who change and become like them Mat.18:3). He loves to show to them hidden things, unsearchable things, great and mighty things, and difficult things which are hard to understand.