Recently Alistair Begg was preaching about the incarnation and the two natures of Jesus that are not mixed or combined. Jesus was both fully God and fully man. Both are total. This is mystery of the incarnation. It is a mystery because it is true yet almost impossible for us human beings to understand. How could Jesus be both fully God and fully man. We can grab at it. We can struggle with it and come to some understanding but in reality we will never understand it. It is beyond us.
There are other mysteries: The trinity, free will and foreknowledge, and eternal God who cares about individual people, salvation itself. That is okay. We don’t need to understand everything now. We will have eternity to work on it.
When Christians talk about mystery though, it does not mean the same as the pagan religions or elitist cults. We are not talking about secret knowledge that is only revealed to a special few of the initiated. We are not talking about nonsense that has nothing to do with anything but is still supposed to be of great importance to eternity. This is not the wisdom and mystery of fantasy novels that is made up late at night after a bull session. We are simply talking about things that are beyond us and may always be beyond us.
Even when we are resurrected it may be that we will never be able to understand the trinity. That’s okay because our view of God is that He is so far beyond us that we will never be able to totally comprehend Him. That is part of being God. That’s okay because it fits in with our understanding.
Mystery does not let us off the hook. It does not mean that we are not to seek knowledge or understanding, to grow in grace. It does not allow us to turn off our minds and coast. It tells us that while there are things beyond us, we can keep reaching and growing forever. God is the total, not us.
homo unius libri
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