God’s Mystery

 

 

My hubby and I both enjoy mysteries. We are reading them and watching the best of them on television. While a good plot is important, we are glad that by the end of the story the mystery is revealed. And as we ponder the mysteries of life and compare them to the mystery that is God, it is good to know that someday we will “know even as we are known.” Someday, this current, puzzling, and even distressful history we experience will make sense. In the meantime, our lives are involved in the plot and we are often clueless as to the end of it.

In the NT, the MYSTERY of God uses a word that means “a divine secret whose concerned party is the Lord alone and those to whom He chooses to share the information; especially concerning the method and history of redemption or other supernatural information.” That is, the mystery of what God is doing is hidden to some but revealed to others.

This is illustrated in the story of Daniel. He was in captivity serving the king. Nebuchadnezzar had a dream and demanded it be interpreted or his servants would die. The catch? He refused to describe the dream. Daniel told his friends to pray, and “the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.”

The NT tells of other mysteries, not hidden to everyone but revealed to those who put their faith in Christ. A major one is what God is doing with Israel:

Romans 11:25–33. “Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob’; ‘and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.’ As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”

This mystery is further revealed in Ephesians 3:6. “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

Another revelation is in 1 Corinthians 15:51–52. “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.”

 One more mystery concerns marriage. In Ephesians 5:25ff, God says marriage depicts Christ and the church. The love of husbands toward their wives and their unity is to reflect that relationship:

Ephesians 5:31–33. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

The gospel itself is also a great mystery, not only that God should send His Son to die for us, but that the Son of God does even more. Paul writes that he was given the task of making this mystery known as Colossians 1:25–27 says:

“ . . . the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

He adds the reason for sharing the good news is “that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” We are to “hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience” as we confess its wonder: Christ “manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Other mysteries are revealed, such as the “mystery of lawlessness” and much of the book of Revelation, but for now, knowing what God says about redemption in Jesus Christ draws me closer to the climax of the wonder of what God is doing and gives the faith needed to trust Him for the mysteries that will be revealed at the end of His story.