+II. Was wrapped in mystery for ages.+--"Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men" (ver. 5). The mystery all centres in Christ. The revelation of Messiah as the hope and salvation of the race was dimly and slowly unveiled in progressive stages. "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing." Some of His grandest movements are veiled in mystery till the right moment comes, when the obscurity vanishes and the vastness and beauty of the completed work elicit our admiration and praise. We are familiar with this process in the natural world and in the progress of human history. The fruits of the earth do not reach maturity at a bound. Slowly and in secret the bud is rounded, then comes the delicately tinted blossom, and afterwards the tempting, mellow fruit. The same may be said of the growth of human character. It reaches the higher grades of mental and moral excellence by slow and silent stages, and advances in the ratio of the fidelity and energy with which the man carries out the great plan of his life-career. So the revelation of the Gospel mystery has been gradual and progressive. The purpose itself is incapable of progress--it has been fixed from eternity; but it has been made known to the world in portions suited to each succeeding period of its history. The law shadowed forth that purpose with more fulness than any previous dispensation, and the prophets went beyond the law, occupying a middle place between it and the Gospel, while the Gospel in its fuller revelation has gone as far beyond the prophets as they went beyond the law. Thus we see that God "who appears deliberate in all His operations" has unfolded His great purpose to save the race by slow and successive stages. The mystery of yesterday is the sunlit epiphany of to-day. +III. Was specially revealed by the Spirit.+--"How that by revelation He made known unto me the mystery" (ver. 3). "As it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit" (ver. 5). Notwithstanding the gradual disclosure of the mystery of the Gospel, its full significance could not have been caught without supernatural help. Mere flux of time adds nothing to our knowledge; nor can the most active intelligence decipher the spiritual meaning of truth. The Spirit of God, operating on the alert and awakened mind of the apostle, revealed to him the glory and power of Christ--the hidden mystery of ages--and opened to him the far-reaching provisions of the enlarged Gospel of which Christ is the inexhaustible theme. There is still much mystery in the Gospel that remains to be fathomed--the problem of the atonement, the origin of sin, the future destiny and eternal state of human souls, and the revelation of Christ and His Church to present-day social and economic questions in their bearing on human development and the future prosperity of the kingdom of God on earth. We are in daily need of the light and teaching of the Holy Spirit.