A Great Mystery

A Great Mystery

I Tim.3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

There are many mysteries. But above all the rest is the mystery of the Incarnation. Just this one verse openly reveals who Jesus was and is. He was God revealed in the flesh. Doesn’t that just roll off the tongue ever so easily? And yet it is the greatest mystery for all eternity. Gaze into the heavens and experience the mystery of creation. No human mind can even imagine the expanse of creation, or the smallest particles that make up the material universe. It is unfathomable.

But that is just the material universe. And if that in and of itself is a colossal mystery, then what are we to say about its Creator? The Creator is infinitely more than His creation in power, knowledge, and in essence. There is nothing with which to compare. Nothing at all. Until we are regenerated we have no reference points except that which has been revealed to us generally. Creation itself speaks of His majestic power, but even they are clouded looking glasses.

He is separate from mankind. He is august. He is all powerful and unblemished. He is God Almighty, existing from eternity past to eternity future. It is difficult to explain the word “person” and apply it to this God. All human words are severely limited in their ability to be fully applicable to God, however they are all we have except some revelations that are without words given to individual believers. To force words upon those special gifts is to invite self righteousness and also invite error.

And such is the mystery of God Himself. Exciting, awesome, and fearful all at once. People who have been part of a large earthquake will tell you of the fear, and the same with those who stood in the path of a major tornado. The power of God revealed through His creation is mind boggling. And when a star of a certain mass reaches its final stage, it can become a supernova and explode. In the space of a few seconds it can give off more energy than our own Sun will expend in its entire lifetime, and it can for a few moments become brighter than our entire galaxy of several hundred billion stars!

But again, they were created through the Word of the Creator. But so often we have made God into a caricature that resembles man. And with that imagery we have completely misrepresented God. We have turned God into some divine talisman that exists for our pleasure and jumps to our commands. Nothing could be further from the truth. To grasp anything in the realm of the divine is quite beyond us, to say nothing of intellectually capturing the Divine Person Himself.

I hope my poor words can at least confront us with our limited powers of comprehension as it pertains to God. I hope we are awestruck and even overwhelmed at the scope and power of the Creator God. I hope we can pause and allow our minds to soar far above the hum-drum of everyday life. But given the mystery of God Himself, and given all the mysteries of His creation, we are confronted with the reality of a mystery that holds within it a glory that surpasses all others. This mystery is called the Incarnation, and in this mystery the exclusive power of redemption lives.

If you take the mass of many stars and compress them into a space no bigger than a fingernail, you have what is commonly referred to as a black hole. And the gravitational force is so great that the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light, therefore light cannot escape and this black hole remains invisible. Please let me draw some striking comparisons. If you take the Creator and compress Him into the form of a man you have the Incarnation. And from this Incarnation ALL light proceeds. How can the Creator be revealed in such a small thing? How can He who is holy be revealed in a form of that which resembles fallen man? How can He who is love be revealed in the form of one who lives only for himself?

Oh what a mystery! Stand back and take a deep spiritual breath and behold the pinnacle of all mysteries that defeats death and gives life. Allow God’s Spirit to infuse you with a more profound and astonishing truth that remains as fresh and mysterious as it did in the dim light of a Bethlehem stable. This is no religious story which warms the heart and gives earthly strength. This is the unfathomable mystery of grace given to the rebels of earth and with the power to change a sinner’s eternal destiny. This is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God revealed and living in all the fullness of God Almighty. Go ahead and shake your head just to think on such a thing. It takes the most elevated intellect and renders it as nothing. It makes Stephen Hawking’s profound theories of cosmology and renders them as a fool’s scratch.

Oh this is indeed THE mystery. That God can and would come in a man’s form disturbs our settled intellect and if given the requisite thought must release us from the self image we have created. But take a step further. The how of this mystery of Incarnation cannot be surrounded by any man’s mind. But as to “why” is quite another matter. So often the world views the Creator as some impersonal force, not unlike the Wizard of Oz. Aloof and unfeeling; self absorbed and always angry; or an ethereal architect ordering planets and stars.

But embedded in the mystery of Incarnation is the great revelation that the Creator loves us. We who exhibit love is such a self serving way have little knowledge of a love that emanates from the Creator of All Things. We see love as an emotion but rarely can we even imagine what true and everlasting love really is. We certainly would never see love as a Roman cross on our own. But this mystery pulsates with the love of God expressed and given to God’s very enemies. What kind of love reaches out to His enemies, and even comes in the form as one of them?

What kind of love speaks through blood and gore? What king of love invites spittle to its face? What kind of love bears its back to the excruciating lashes handed out by the objects of its love? What kind of love dies for those who hate it? That kind of love is a mystery. So the Incarnation is a compound mystery with all sorts of mysterious tributaries that run our from the Creator. And who is that Creator and what is His name? His name is Jesus, another deep and profound mystery.

But here I give us all an encouragement of grace. God has not demanded of us to understand and explain all these mysteries. Oh we may from time to time experience some of their glory. We may even come into new compartments of revelation through the teaching of the Spirit. But we can never come close to a complete understanding. But again, God does not exact that from us. What does God desire and even demand?

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.

And that, my friends, is also a great mystery.