The Lord spoke to the people of Israel through Moses when they were on the threshold of the land they were about to inherit. He told them, as part of a series of exhortations to remain faithful to the covenant, that the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but that the things revealed belong to us and to our children (Dt. 29:29). The phrase “secret things” refers to God’s secret decrees, the way He is ordering all the events of history, not to mention the number of His elect. The “revealed things” as a phrase refers to the covenant, and contextually to the blessings and curses of the covenant.
Now this is the meal of the new covenant, and in this regard the covenants have not changed. In other respects, the new covenant is more glorious, internalized in more people, and not susceptible to an idolatrous and calamitous end as the old covenant was. Nevertheless, the secret things still belong to God, and the blessings and curses belong to us.
As finite beings, we cannot know absolutely. But we can know the Absolute, for that is what the triune God is. And He has given us warrant for interpreting history and biography and autobiography a certain way. We come to this Table to be reinforced, reestablished and sustained in our enjoyment of all God’s blessings and benefits. But if we retain rebellion in the stubbornness of our hearts as we come, and God chastises us publicly, this is one of the revealed things. It is not arrogance to operate on the basis of the things revealed.