by Rev. Mark Creech
RevMarkCreech.org
When I was a boy, there was a long, winding creek not far from our home where boys from our little community often swam in the summer. Most of the creek was shallow enough to wade through without difficulty, but there was one place unlike all the others.
A natural embankment rose above dark waters that looked almost black in the shade of overhanging trees. We would climb the bank and dive into the cool depths below. To us boys, it was both thrilling and mysterious because no one could ever touch the bottom.
Many tried.
Strong swimmers would fill their lungs, disappear beneath the surface, and kick downward as far as they could. For a few moments, the water would grow still while the rest of us waited above. But every one of them eventually surfaced, shaking his head. No one had touched bottom.
As boys, we concluded the place was bottomless.
It was perfectly safe to swim there, and it was a great joy, too. We laughed there. We played there. We dove there countless times. But if you tossed a nickel into those dark waters and watched it disappear beneath the surface, you knew instantly it was gone forever. No one ever retrieved one.
Recently, while reading Matthew chapter 2, I found myself thinking of that old swimming hole again.
Matthew writes about the child Jesus:
“And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.” (Matthew 2:15)
At first glance, the verse seems rather simple. Matthew quotes Hosea 11:1:
“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.”
But this is where the depths begin.
In Hosea’s original context, the prophet is clearly referring to Israel’s Exodus from Egypt under Moses. Hosea looks backward into Israel’s history, not forward toward Bethlehem. He recalls God’s covenant love for Israel and Israel’s repeated failures afterward.
Yet, under divine inspiration, Matthew applies those words directly to Jesus Christ.
Why?
Because Matthew sees beneath the surface of Israel’s history itself.
He sees Jesus as the true and faithful Israel.
Israel was called God’s son corporately, yet repeatedly failed under testing and temptation. Christ succeeds where Israel failed.
Suddenly, the parallels begin to emerge everywhere.
- Israel went down into Egypt. Jesus went down into Egypt.
- Israel passed through the waters. Jesus passed through baptism.
- Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years and failed. Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for forty days and prevailed.
- Israel failed under testing. Christ overcame perfectly.
The deeper one descends into Matthew’s Gospel, the more astonishing the picture becomes. Matthew is not merely saying that Hosea predicted an isolated event in Christ’s childhood. He is showing that Israel’s history itself reaches its true meaning and fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
Christ is the true Son.
The faithful Israel.
The obedient representative man.
Once a believer begins to see such depths in Scripture, he notices them again and again throughout the Word of God. Passages once thought simple suddenly open into vast landscapes of meaning. Familiar texts reveal hidden glories that have lain quietly beneath the surface for years, unnoticed.
This is why no man ever truly reaches the bottom of Scripture.
A person may study the Bible for decades and still surprisingly discover truths he had never seen before in passages he thought he knew well.
The novice often imagines that he will someday master the Bible.
The mature believer eventually discovers that the Bible is mastering him.
But perhaps the deepest mystery of all is this: Did Matthew himself fully grasp the depths of what he was writing?
Surely, he understood the truth he proclaimed. Matthew was no unconscious instrument. Under divine inspiration, he intentionally presents Jesus as the true and faithful Israel, carefully drawing astonishing parallels between Israel’s history and Christ’s life.
Yet one cannot help but wonder whether even Matthew himself saw all the depths beneath the surface of his own words.
The apostle Peter tells us that the prophets themselves “enquired and searched diligently” about the revelations God gave them:
“Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify…” (1 Peter 1:11).
Think of that.
The prophets themselves searched into the meaning of the truths they had written under divine inspiration.
They truly understood, but not exhaustively. There was much about what they had written that they understood well, but there was also much about it that they didn’t understand.
The Spirit of God was carrying them into realities beyond themselves.
No doubt, this is why Scripture possesses such inexhaustible richness. Its ultimate Author is not merely human but God Himself.
This may also explain why believers can spend entire lifetimes studying passages they thought they knew only to suddenly discover new depths they had never seen before. The Bible is unlike any other book because no merely human mind could fully construct such a tapestry of truth stretched across centuries of revelation.
Even its inspired writers stood beside the same deep waters.
Perhaps that is why the Scriptures continue to humble both the scholar and the child.
Charles Spurgeon once observed, “Scripture is shallow enough for a child to wade in, yet deep enough for an elephant to swim.”
How true that is.
A child may open the Bible and discover the simple and saving truths of God’s love and Christ’s redemption. Yet the greatest minds who have ever studied the Scriptures still find themselves standing in awe before depths they cannot fully fathom.
Generation after generation has dived into these waters — prophets, apostles, theologians, pastors, and ordinary believers alike — and all have surfaced, confessing the same thing: they have not yet touched bottom.
Perhaps that old creek from my childhood was not truly bottomless after all. It only seemed so because we were small boys with limited breath and finite strength. But the Word of God is truly inexhaustible because its Author is infinite.
That realization should not discourage us. Instead, it should fill us with wonder.
And perhaps these depths are most often discovered not by those who merely glance at the Scriptures, but by those who return to them again and again — lingering long enough in the waters to uncover treasures hidden beneath the surface.
