Hidden (852) aphanes by Greek Word Studies

Hidden (852) (aphanes from a = without + phaíno = to appear) means literally not appearing and so not manifest or non-apparent, concealed, invisible. Unable to be known about. God's microscope can lay bare the smallest microbe of doubt and sin. As Jesus taught His disciples... there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. (Mt 10:26) His...Him - Note the transition from the Word of God to the God of the Word as indicated by the writer's use of these personal pronouns. The living Word transitions to the living God. Sight (1799) (enopion from en = in + ops = ace, eye, countenance) means in the face of, in front of, before, in the sight of. Enopion - 94x in 86v - 5" class="scriptRef">Luke 1:15, 17, 19" class="scriptRef">19" class="scriptRef">19, 75f; 4:7; 18" class="scriptRef">5:18, 25; 8:47; 12:6, 9; 13:26; 10" class="scriptRef">10" class="scriptRef">10" class="scriptRef">14:10; 15:10, 18, 21; 16.15" class="scriptRef">16:15; 23:14; 11" class="scriptRef">24:11, 43; John 20:30; Acts 2:25; 4:10, 19; 6:5f; 7:46; 9:15; 10:30f, 33; 19:9, 19; 27:35; Rom 3:20; 12:17; 14:22; 1 Cor 1:29; 2 Cor 4:2; 7:12; 8:21; Gal 1:20; 1 Tim 2:3; 5:4, 20f; 6:12f; 2 Tim 2:14; 4:1; Heb 4:13; 13:21; Jas 4:10; 1 Pet 3:4; 1 John 3:22; 3 John 1:6; Rev 1:4; 2:14; 3:2, 5, 8f; 4:5f, 10; 5:8; 7:9, 11, 15; 8:2ff; 9:13; 11:4, 16; 12:4, 10; 13:12ff; 14:3, 10; 15:4; 16:19; 19:20; 20:12. NAS = before(46), front(1), presence(20), sight(22). Hughes writes that... There is a natural transition from "the word of God" in the previous verse to "God" Himself here, for the word of God is not only the activity of God but also His revelation of Himself, whether it be in judgment or in salvation. As God is its source so also He is its fulfilment, and there is therefore the closest association between God and the word by which he effectively acts and reveals himself. "The author passes insensibly," says Spicq, "from the notion of the word of God to God himself, and finally identifies them, since the word was truly in the place of the omniscient and omnipresent God, and received its power and its qualities only from him." Clearly, as God is by his word the Creator and Sustainer of the whole order of creation, all, that is, all things which includes all men, are open and laid bare to Him. There is not and cannot be any part of reality which is unknown or incomprehensible to Him Who is the source of all being and the fount of all knowledge. Every creaturely covering and pretext is stripped away. There is no recess, no dark depth, that is not wide open before Him (cf. 1Co 4:5).This profound and solemn truth is one that man in his fallenness does not like to face. In Genesis we read... Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty (El Shaddai). Walk (a command - Interesting that the Lxx instead of using a verb for "walk" substitutes the verb "be pleasing" in the present imperative = command calling for continual obedience) before Me, and be blameless. (Genesis 17:1) God's charge to Abraham was to walk before Him, in God's sight, indeed living in the consciousness and knowledge that the eyes of God were always upon him. What difference beloved would it make in our walk if we conducted ourselves continually with a conscious sense of God's presence? Would it not serve as a holy impediment to sin on one hand (cp Job 1:1, Ge 39:9) and a desire to walk worthy of our calling to please Him on the other hand (cp Ep 4:1-note, 1Th 2:12-note, Acts 24:16)? BE SURE YOUR SIN WILL FIND YOU OUT! Nu 32:23 Achan experienced the truth of this passage when he took some of the the banned spoil from defeated Jericho (the spoil was to be for God) and then hid it in his tent (hidden from man but not from God!) Joshua 7:15-21'It shall be that the one who is taken with the things under the ban shall be burned with fire, he and all that belongs to him, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he has committed a disgraceful thing in Israel.' " So Joshua arose early in the morning and brought Israel near by tribes, and the tribe of Judah was taken. He brought the family of Judah near, and he took the family of the Zerahites; and he brought the family of the Zerahites near man by man, and Zabdi was taken. He brought his household near man by man; and Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, from the tribe of Judah, was taken. Then Joshua said to Achan, "My son, I implore you, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and give praise to Him; and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me." So Achan answered Joshua and said, "Truly, I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel, and this is what I did: when I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar and two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, then I coveted them and took them; and behold, they are concealed in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath it." ...Josh 7:25 Joshua said, "Why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day." And all Israel stoned them with stones; and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. (Compare the similar sad saga of Elisha's servant Gehazi whose greed prompted him to sin by taking booty from Naaman - read 2Ki 5:15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27) BUT ALL THINGS ARE OPEN AND LAID BARE: panta de gumna kai tetrachlismena (RPPNPN): (Job 26:6; 34:21; 38:17) EXPOSED! See also: God's Omniscience Proverbs 5:21 For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He watches all his paths. But - Always observe what is being contrasted (See contrasts) or what change of direction the writer is making. Here the contrast is dramatic - NO...hidden...BUT...ALL...open...laid bare! All (pas) means all without exception and amplifies "no" exceptions mentioned in the first part of this verse. The all knowing God knows our actions, our locations, our thoughts, our words, our ways, and our even our motives (1Co 4:5). Remember that the context is the Word of God, which penetrates like a sharp sword the innermost part of our being which leaves no detail or aspect of our light hidden from His inexorable gaze! We see the effects of this divine exposure in the book of beginnings where Moses writes that before the fall... the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (Ge 2:25) After the fall we read... Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" He said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself." (Ge 3:7-10) Richard Hughes remarks that... Anyone with any spiritual awareness is made very uneasy by the thought of God's searching gaze. Remember the scene in the garden after Adam and Eve had first sinned. In their original state, before they fell into sin, they were "naked and were not ashamed" (Ge 2:25). With no sin to condemn them, they delighted in the gaze of their loving Creator. But after the fall, they hid their shame even from one another, pathetically sewing on fig leaves for garments. Even more, they dreaded the presence of God, fleeing and hiding from him as he approached. This is how many Christians feel in their relationship with God. The thought of His gaze chills their bones. They are willing to do anything but deal with God Himself, skulking around the edges of his light rather than drawing near to Him. They struggle to pray and seldom do unless forced by circumstances. It is this paralyzing fear that the writer of Hebrews now addresses. As Philip Hughes explains: "Sinners are no longer commanded to keep their distance in fear and trembling, but on the contrary are now invited to draw near, and to do so with confidence." (Reformed Expository Commentary – Hebrews) A W Tozer writes... God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all creatures, every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every unuttered secret, all thrones, and dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible in heaven and in earth, motion, space, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven, and hell. (From Tozer, A. W., & Verploegh, H. The Quotable Tozer I: Wise Words with a Prophetic Edge. Includes index. Camp Hill, PA.: WingSpread annotated as from The Knowledge Of The Holy) The prophet Daniel founded his prayer (the answer to which formed the very basis for God's plan for the ages!) on the truth that all things are open to the eyes of God affirming that... It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him. (Daniel 2:22) Open - Stark naked! Stripped down! Without clothing! We can hide from others. We can even do a good job of hiding from ourselves. But how do we hide from the One before Whom all hearts are open and all desires known? We cannot -- We cannot hide from God. Given that we are naked before Him, there is nothing to hide in or behind. Jamieson rightly exhorts based on the truth in this passage... "Show, O man, shame and fear towards thy God, for no veil, no twisting, bending, coloring, or disguise, can cover unbelief" Open (1131) (gumnos cp our English "gym") means not covered, nude or naked but not necessarily descriptive of absolute nakedness as it was used of a person wearing only an under-tunic (descriptive of the mode of dress in the ancient gymnasiums in Greece and Rome). As such it could mean one who was comparatively naked or scantily dressed. It was used of one poorly dressed (Jas 2:15). Figuratively in this verse gumnos means uncovered, manifest, disclosed, exposed, not hidden and easy to be known. Gumnos - 15x in 15v - Matt 25:36, 38, 43f; Mark 14:51f; John 21:7; Acts 19:16; 1 Cor 15:37; 2 Cor 5:3; Heb 4:13; Jas 2:15; Rev 3:17; 16:15; 17:16. NAS = bare(1), naked(11), open(1), stripped(1), without clothing(1). Both soul and body are effectively "naked" to the eyes of God. Remember that truth the next time you commit a willful, premeditated sin beloved. You are sinning against great grace, great light, a great God! (Ge 39:9) As it is the same sun that melts the wax which hardens the clay, so it is the same Word of God that leads some on to salvation, and turns others who will have none of it away into outer darkness (contrast these two reactions to truth - Jn 3:19, 20 versus Jn 3:21) Dear believer, are you in the Word daily that your thoughts, words and deeds might be exposed and shown for what they truly are? If not you need to be, for as Jesus said He who has bathed (Gk = louo = wash all over, the whole body, picturing the once for all bath of "regeneration") needs (literally "has need" where "has" = present tense expressing this as a continual necessity = the Word of God that first made us holy positionally, must be "washed in" so that it might continue to daily make us holy in practice, i.e., progressive sanctification, the walk of holiness, growth in Christ-likeness - Jn 17:17) only to wash (Not louo but nipto = wash a part of the body) his feet (cp "washing of water with the word" Ep 5:26-note), but is completely clean (positionally clean equating with the once for all "cleansing" that occurs when by grace through faith we are justified or declared righteous in standing before God - Ro 3:24-note; Ro 5:1-note, Ro 5:2-note); and you are clean, but not all of you. (Jn 13:10) Barclay explains that... What he is saying is that as far as men are concerned we may be able to wear our outward trappings and disguises; but in the presence of God these things are stripped away and we have to meet Him as we are. (Barclay, W: The Daily Study Bible Series. The Westminster Press or Logos) Guzik writes that open or... Naked reminds us of the way God saw through Adam’s feeble hiding (Ge 3:7, 8, 9). God sees through our hiding the same way. (The Enduring Word Commentary Series) Even the pagan mind understood this concept of inability to hide from God, Seneca writing that... We ought always to so conduct ourselves as if we lived in public; we ought to think as if someone could see what is passing in our inmost breast; and there is one who does thus behold us. Of what avail is it, then, that any deed is concealed from man? Nothing can be hidden from God. He is present with our very souls, and penetrates our inmost thoughts, and, indeed, is never absent from us. (Seneca, Epistle 83)

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Hidden (852) aphanes

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