God, a mystery?
- Tony Vance
- Jul 14, 2016
- 7 min read
Is God ‘mysterious’? Karl Barth said, “God is ultimate mystery” (‘The Mystery of God: Karl Barth and the Postmodern Foundation of Theology’ William Stacy Johnson). “A mystery goes beyond reason but not against reason. There is no contradiction, yet we lack total comprehension.” (‘Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics’ Norman L. Geisler). The idea of mystery and theology may best be shown in Paul’s letter to a young seminarian (of sorts), 1 Timothy 3:16 (NLT) “Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith: Christ was revealed in a human body and vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels and announced to the nations. He was believed in throughout the world and taken to heaven in glory.” The Greek word Paul used, μυστήριον, transliterated as mystērion, is where we get our word mystery. It can be translated, “from a derivative of muo (to shut the mouth); a secret or “mystery” (through the idea of silence imposed by initiation into religious rites)” (‘Strong's Talking Greek & Hebrew Dictionary’).
Often, evangelicals will talk of ‘mystery’ as that which was hidden, for example the idea of the church in the Old Testament, but is now revealed. That is one sense of the word, and a biblical usage, to be sure. Paul says as much, Ephesians 1:8-9 (KJV) “Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; 9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself.” I am not dealing with this aspect of ‘mystery’ but the aspect of it that relates to God, His nature, as an attribute. We could define an attribute as that which describes God, by definition qualities that are His nature, qualities we cannot possess, such as; omnipresence, omniscience, or omnipotence. Charles Hodge rightly said, “In this sense God cannot be defined. No creature, much less man, can know all that is proper to God; and, therefore, no creature can give a exhaustive statement of all that God is.” (‘Systematic Theology’ Charles Hodge).
I have taken the word ‘mystery’ with my word processing program and asked for synonyms. Words like; unknown, hidden, secret, and enigmatic are given as replacements/synonyms to mystery. Looking at the list, God could classify in the sense of this as mystery. Yet, there is also the sense that He doesn’t. Notice one of the synonyms was ‘unknown’. Of course your run-of-the-mill atheistic/agnostic/skeptic would say, “why does God hide, why doesn’t He just makes Himself ‘known’?” To which I would reply, “He did!” Then I would start with the coming of God’s revelation to Abraham, speaking to Moses, and the coming of Jesus. It is not a modern concept of ‘mystery’ or the definition often used for crime novels and suspenseful movies, to which I am pointing. No, God as mystery has more to do with the classical sense of the word, as it is meant by something unexplainable, inexplicable, and incomprehensible, at least in a complete sense.
There are other things we could define as ‘mysterious’ as we are using it for our purposes here. Yet, nothing is as mysterious as God, again in the sense we are using it here. God’s transcendence is rooted in mystery. How can anything be ‘outside’ all that we know (and there are others that ‘know’ more than I, and yet God is outside their understanding, too)? The Trinity and the Incarnation are two aspects of God’s mystery that I want to concentrate on for the rest of this article. I believe in these we are given a glimpse into the mystery of God and they reveal more to us than any other aspects/attributes of God. We learn more about God and how He IS, WAS, and ever SHALL BE. We could delve into many of the classical attributes, and in each we explore an aspect of God and they reveal a part of the mystery. Great theological works have been built around the attributes of God, and this is not the forum for such an exercise. We will concentrate on the two mysterious notions we just mentioned; the Trinity and the Incarnation.
THE TRINITY
The Trinity is a foundational doctrine of orthodoxy. The problem with explaining it always ends up in some mysterious analogy. Every ‘explanation’ of how the Trinity is falls miserable short. “Trinity simply means "triunity." God is not a simple unity; there is plurality in his unity. The Trinity is one of the great mysteries of the Christian Faith. Unlike an antinomy (see Kant) or paradox, which is a logical contradiction, the Trinity goes beyond reason but not against reason. It is known only by divine revelation, so the Trinity is not the subject of natural theology but of revelation.” (‘Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics’ Geisler). As stated, the Trinity is, “one of the great mysteries of the Christian Faith.” Yet, even with that, it is to be believed, as part of our faith (personal) and Faith (the system). I think the Trinity teaches us some things about God. The Trinity shows us God is; relational, personal, and loving. Let me explain.
Relational: for a God to be relatable there must be a concept of relation. His creation could not be the first instance of relations, in my estimation. Jesus said in John 17:5 (NLT), “Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.” This illustrates God could know relationship because it has existed eternally in the Trinity. The Father and the Son (as well as the Spirit) were relatable to one another, since eternity past.
Personal: God is personal, not a thing. Very early in scripture we see this truth exposed, Genesis 1:26 (KJV) “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” He had to have ‘someone’ to be personal to and with, they had to exist from the eternal past. There is a clear correlation between God’s personal and relational aspects.
Loving: in my estimation this is the greatest truth of the Trinity. 1 John 4:8 (KJV) “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” This passage makes no sense outside of a triune godhead. God had to have an object of love, for Him to know (or better, to be) love. If God only loved ‘himself’ before the creation, we would think it was rather ‘selfish’. Yet, in the interpersonal, relational aspect of the Trinity we are shown how God could love, before the Universe even existed.
THE INCARNATION
The God-Man, a concept that baffles us, mysterious in its implications and gravity is God saying, “see, I’m here!” John’s Gospel, probably the last written of the four, choose to start his at a unique point in the past, John 1:1 (KJV) “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The place, John calls “the beginning” is apparently the past eternal, for God has eternally been, the “Word” described here, was too. To make no mistake who John means, we find this, John 1:14 (KJV) “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” This ‘mysterious’ statement, “the Word was made flesh” would be less problematic (as a mystery that is) except in the first verse John said, “the Word was God.” Putting two and two together, we find God became flesh. There are various ways the early church argued how this concept worked, from one extreme to another. C. S. Lewis said, “If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about" (‘Mere Christianity’ C. S. Lewis). The fact that the Incarnation is, is enough to know. The how, well…not so much. With that, there are some things that the Incarnation helps us understand. Three things seem the most important; atonement, redemption, and revelation.
Atonement: the great doctrine of the Christian faith, 1 Timothy 2:6 (KJV) “Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” Becoming our propitiation, He satisfied all the requirements of the sacrifice needed for all to obtain salvation. The Incarnation was necessary for the act on the cross to be effective. His becoming flesh, has now eternally accomplished all that is needed for us, 1 Timothy 2:5 (KJV) “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” He eternally is the ‘Incarnate-One’.
Redemption: this is the idea of buying back or setting free, like a slave. Galatians 3:13 (KJV) “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” While the atonement satisfied the issues that were over our ‘heads’, redemption has bought us off the slave block, no longer bound to the master we once was.
Revelation: this is maybe the most ‘practical’ aspect of the Incarnation. The writer said, Hebrews 1:3 (KJV) “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” Jesus said to Phillip, after Phillip asked to see the Father, John 14:9 (HCSB) “Jesus said to him, “Have I been among you all this time without your knowing Me, Philip? The one who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” The Incarnation helps us ‘understand’ God, Jesus is the revelation of God in a form we can better relate to.
CONCLUSION
We will never understand God’s mysteries or the mystery that is God, Psalm 97:9 (KJV) “For thou, LORD, art high above all the earth: thou art exalted far above all gods.” God is knowable, because He allows us to. The revelation of God thru the scriptures is a glimpse into Him. In the Trinity and Incarnation, we are shown aspects of God that help us to better understand Him. I am certain that this article has barely scratched the truths and mysteries that are/is our Lord. Paul rightly said, Romans 11:33 (KJV) “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”