Dr. Barclay with Something to Think About - MYSTERIES

 MYSTERIES

Mystery is defined in the dictionary as “anything that is kept secret or remains unexplained or unknown.”* Most people are interested, at least to some extent, in a mystery; which explains to a large extent why so many books involving a mystery are sold each year. Some people will even join certain societies or organizations in order to be part of the mystery or mysteries which that body claims to hold. 

Mysteries in the Bible have a bit of a different meaning in that they refer to “any truth that is unknowable except by divine revelation.”* In other words, it refers to a purpose of God which remains unknown until He reveals it to us. And to that effect, the Bible reports 7 mysteries of God for us to consider.

1. In spite of all we can read and study in the Bible there remains, in part, a mystery of the gospel. Paul referred to this in Ephesians 6:18-19: “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints - …that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.” It is evident that for a more complete understanding, continued prayer with requests for that understanding is required.
   
2. When Jesus was speaking one day, the disciples came and asked Him: “Why do you speak to them [the people] in parables?” (Matthew 13:10) Jesus replied: “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.” (Matthew 13:11) It must have been through their relationship with Christ on an ongoing basis that enabled them to be aware of these mysteries.
   
3. Paul said, in the book of Ephesians, that God revealed to him the mystery by which “you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ” (3:4). And that which “has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel”(3:5-6). That the Jews should accept and understand how the Gentiles, whom they reviled with a passion, could be recipients of the same benefits as they themselves were, was indeed, at that time, a true mystery.
   

4. The mystery of the body at resurrection.

…The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. 

It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. 

It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 

It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. 

There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body…

However, the spiritual is not first, 

but the natural, and afterward the spiritual…

As we have borne the image of the man of dust, 

we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man. 

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

(1 Corinthians 15:42-46; 49,51)

5. The mystery of evil and our reaction to it. Paul referred to the next coming of Christ and our gathering together to Him this way:

…we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled…

Let no one deceive you by any means

for that Day will not come 

unless the falling away comes first 

and the man of sin is revealed…

who opposes and exalts himself above all 

that is called God or that is worshiped…

and now you know what is restraining…

 for the mystery of lawlessness(evil) is already at work; 

only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.

(2 Thessalonians 2:2-4;6-7)

6. The mystery of the conversion of Israel. The Jewish people believed that they were the chosen people of God and, therefore, destined for heaven due to this one fact. But because they rejected Jesus as the Messiah, they fell.

…through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, 

salvation has come to the Gentiles…

because of unbelief they were broken off [separated from God] 

if they do not continue in unbelief,

[they] will be grafted in [reunited with God] 

for God is able to graft them in again…

And so all Israel will be saved. 

(Romans 11:11,20,23,26)

7. The mystery of the Completion of God. “[But] in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets.”(Revelation 10:7) From this verse, it is evident that the answers to many of these mysteries have already been revealed to the prophets of old and would likely be available to us, if we really studied their teachings as we should. 

Mysteries in the Bible: those truths made known by divine revelation and something we should all more often think about.

*Dictionary.com