Wrought in the Silence of God

But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him. HABAKKUK 2:20

Ignatius was a man of many words, poured out in haste. Yet one of the most arresting themes in his letters is silence. He speaks of the silence of God, out of which the Word came. He speaks of the silence of Jesus, which is as full of meaning as His speech. He praises bishops for their silence. And he tells the Ephesians that it is better to be silent and to be a Christian than to talk and not be one. It is a theme easily missed, and it is one of the most searching things he left us.

Three mysteries in silence

In the letter to the Ephesians, after speaking of Christ’s birth from Mary, Ignatius writes a passage unlike anything else in his letters. “Hidden from the prince of this world were the virginity of Mary and her child-bearing and likewise also the death of the Lord — three mysteries to be cried aloud — the which were wrought in the silence of God.”

The thought is that God worked the great acts of salvation quietly, without announcement, so that even the devil did not understand what was happening. A girl in Nazareth conceived. A child was born in obscurity. A man died on a cross outside a city wall. None of it looked like the defeat of evil. Yet in these hidden acts God was doing His greatest work. Paul says something close to this.

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 1 CORINTHIANS 2:7–8

What was wrought in silence was then to be “cried aloud”. The hidden things become the gospel proclaimed to the nations. Ignatius goes on in a burst of wonder to describe a star shining above all the stars, and the old powers of sorcery and wickedness crumbling, “when God appeared in the likeness of man unto newness of everlasting life.” The silence of God ends in the loudest announcement the world has ever heard.

The Word from silence

To the Magnesians Ignatius put the same thought in another form. He speaks of “one God who manifested Himself through Jesus Christ His Son, who is His Word that proceeded from silence.” The phrase is a meditation on the opening of John’s Gospel. Before creation, before anything was spoken, there was God. And out of the depth of God came the Word, the Son, who makes the Father known.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. JOHN 1:1

Ignatius does not work this out as a theologian would; he gives it to us as a flash of vision. But it tells us something true. The Word of God is not chatter. He comes from the deep, unspoken life of God, and He speaks what He has heard. To know Christ as the Word is to be brought, through Him, into the presence of a God whose depths no words can exhaust.

No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. JOHN 1:18

Hearing the silence of Jesus

The most searching lines come a little earlier in the letter to the Ephesians. “It is better to keep silence and to be, than to talk and not to be,” Ignatius writes. “It is a fine thing to teach, if the speaker practice.” He then says that there is one Teacher, “who spake and it came to pass”, and that “even the things which He hath done in silence are worthy of the Father.” And then this: “He that truly possesseth the word of Jesus is able also to hearken unto His silence, that he may be perfect.”

What might it mean to listen to the silence of Jesus? Ignatius does not explain, but the Gospels show us. Jesus was silent before His accusers, and His silence spoke more than any defence.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. ISAIAH 53:7

He was silent through the thirty hidden years at Nazareth. He withdrew to silent places to pray. He stooped and wrote on the ground while the accusers of a woman waited. A Christian who knows only the words of Jesus, and not His silences, knows Him only in part. To hear His silence is to learn His humility, His patience, His prayer and His trust in the Father, which often said more than any sermon.

The silent bishop

This helps to explain one of Ignatius’s odder remarks. He tells the Ephesians that “in proportion as a man seeth that his bishop is silent, let him fear him the more.” He says of the bishop of Philadelphia that his “silence is more powerful than others speech.” It seems that some in these churches thought little of bishops who were not eloquent, and preferred the confident talkers who came through the churches with new teaching. Ignatius will not have it. The quiet man who lives what he believes is worth more than the fluent man who does not.

Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? there is more hope of a fool than of him. PROVERBS 29:20

Being rather than talking

Ignatius’s theme of silence is finally about the difference between saying and being. He himself, writing to Rome, said that if the Romans would be silent and let him go, “I am a word of God; but if ye desire my flesh, then shall I be again a mere cry.” His death would speak more than all his letters. His life, offered to God, would be a word.

We live in a world full of words, and many of them are Christian words. Churches produce talks, books, songs and posts in abundance. Ignatius’s counsel is not to stop speaking; the three mysteries are to be “cried aloud”. But our words must come out of a life that is real, and a silence that has listened to God. Otherwise we are only talking.

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. PSALM 46:10

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Set aside ten minutes of silence before God each day this week, without asking or saying anything, simply to be in His presence.

2. Read the accounts of Jesus before Pilate and Herod (Matthew 27:11–14; Luke 23:8–9). What does His silence say to you?

3. Ask yourself where your words run ahead of your life. Choose one subject on which you will speak less until your life has caught up.

4. Think of a quiet Christian whose faithfulness you have undervalued because they are not eloquent. Thank God for them, and tell them.

5. Meditate on the birth, hidden life and death of Christ as works done in the silence of God, and thank Him for the quiet ways He is at work in your own life.

A PRAYER

Eternal God, before any word was spoken You were, and out of Your silence came Your Word, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thank You for the mysteries You wrought in silence — His birth, His hidden life, His death — and for making them known to the world.

Quiet the noise of my heart, that I may hear not only the words of Jesus but His silence, and learn from it.

Let me be a Christian and not only speak like one, and let my life be a word that speaks of You. Amen.