The Mystery Revealed
- Strength For Life
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
There is an infinite gap between God and His creation. Isaiah 57:15 calls Him “the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy.” God inhabits eternity; we humans inhabit time. His understanding is infinite, according to Psalms 147:5. Ours is limited. God has no counselor, and His counsels and plans are beyond the human capacity to know, anticipate, or even guess.
In contrast to the Lord, our human tools for understanding are limited to our senses, both physical and spiritual. Even those senses are incomplete. We do not know our own hearts’ sinfulness (Jer. 17:9) or our own way (Pr. 20:24). Our first parents, Adam and Eve, did not know good and evil the way God did, and the temptation to achieve that knowledge drew them to their downfall.
One implication of this knowledge gap between God and His creatures is that we cannot understand or know the world fully unless God reveals it to us. We live in an age that has deceived itself into thinking that the scientific method, with the aid of technology, is the universal key of understanding. By supposedly unbiased research and experimentation, there is nothing hidden from the human race.
Scripture says differently. There are many things about the world that we do not know. Even some of the questions the Lord asked Job are still unknown to the experts today. “Hast thou entered the springs of the sea? Or hast thou walked in search of the depth” (Job 38:16)? We have not been that deep.
The earth is full of mysteries. As the experts dig deeper, they uncover more marvelous things, not fewer. Simplistic explanations for things like the origin of the cell are farther away than they were 200 years ago.
Additionally, the Bible’s commentary on the mysteries of the physical is limited. Commentary on the mysteries of the spiritual world is even more limited. Theological arguments are made against the existence of aliens and fairies, secular arguments are made against haunted houses, and historical arguments about whether the stories about ancient giants are literal. But no one knows, because we humans come by knowledge slowly, and we do not have the objective view of the universe that God does. If God doesn’t reveal it, we may be only one major discovery away from admitting we were wrong, forced to change our theories entirely.
However, there is one area of knowledge that has been revealed to humans in as much detail as finite creatures are able to grasp. The mystery God has revealed to us, and the subject of the Scriptures, is our redemption. Paul says in Ephesians 3 that “in other ages” the mystery of salvation “was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Eph. 3:5).
The plan of redemption “from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God” (Eph. 3:9). In the age of the gospel of Christ, however, the “manifold wisdom of God” is revealed to both earthly and heavenly powers (Eph. 3:10). The writings of the prophets have revealed it, and the person of the Lord Jesus has displayed it. When He rose from the dead, Jesus shot across the bow of all nations and their gods. The mystery of the gospel, “according to the commandment of God,” is to be “made known to all nations for the obedience of faith” (Rom. 16:26).
The fact that God has revealed the gospel to humans does not mean that everyone understands it. God specifically says that unbelievers do not understand. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). The lost are in the double predicament of being limited in their understanding of the physical world as creatures, and being unable to understand the spiritual truth of redemption because of the darkness of their spiritual eyes.
If you are a believer, you are not in darkness, but in light. The most important aspect of your life—your own salvation—has been laid out in Scripture as clearly as we are capable of understanding this side of heaven. There are many things about the world we have to guess. We don’t know how close we are to the end. We don’t know why the major events of history took place. We don’t understand the subatomic world, and gravity, and where heaven is, and where lightning will strike next. We don’t even know when we will have rain. But we do know the gospel, and God’s work of redemption. It is all laid out in the pages of Scripture, in the Old Testament sacrifices and saints, in the prophet’s promises and judgments from God. It is in the New Testament, in the gospels that record the years Jesus walked the earth. It is in the letters from Paul and Peter and Luke and James. Your salvation is on full display in the pages of Scripture. Push your human understanding to its limits. The Spirit will reveal it to you, child of God. Go find it, think on it, and rejoice in it. It's all there. God wants you to understand, and He will help you. The greatest mystery in the universe revealed to human beings. What a privilege, and what a glory. Praise the Lord.
The above article was written by Jonathan Kyser. He is a pastoral assistant at NorthStone Baptist Church in Pensacola, FL. To offer him your feedback, comment below or email us at strengthforlife461@gmail.com.
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