You Need Mystery, Not Ignorance

It seems that most people will tell you that ignorance is bad and you should do all you can to remedy it.  That is, except theological ignorance.  Many people are just fine with copious amounts of ignorance in this department.  They don’t seem to need it to drive a car or pay taxes, and so all is well.  But A.W. Tozer sets us straight by saying that what you think when you think about God is the most important thing about you.  

So let’s say a person hears that and realizes this need; if all of life is from God, for God, and to God, then that person had better know God.  And so, he begins reading his Bible in earnest, as well as picking up some works on theology.  Soon into this endeavor, something disturbing happens.  He begins to see that there are things about God and God’s work that are…inexplicable.  They seem to defy rationality.  

Is this alright?  It is more than alright, it is essential. 

Herman Bavinch, a theologian of old, once said that mystery is the lifeblood of theology.  I have been thinking about that word picture, and the more I do, the more I like it.  Blood is essential for life.  If something has lost its blood, you can still hold it and look at it, but it is dead.  Blood is the animating principle in a creature.  

If our life depends upon God, and if the theology of God depends upon mystery as though it is lifeblood, then we need to see and embrace the mysteries of God being and doing what only God can be and do. 

Let’s look at each of them.  

Theology Proper

The very nature of God is packed with mystery.  Many theologians categorize the attributes of God into two groups: communicable and incommunicable.  The incommunicable attributes are those with which we have no experience with, being creatures.  Or to say it another way, these attributes are complete mysteries.  We cannot understand how these things can be, though Scripture plainly says that they are.  These include God not having a beginning (his eternality), God’s infinitude, God’s power to create out of nothing, God’s total knowledge of all things including all possibilities (omniscience), God’s total power to do all his will and hold all things together (omnipotence), God’s presence everywhere at once (omnipresence), God’s self-existence, God’s immutability (unchangeableness).  

These are all mysteries, but without them you do not have the true God.  To lessen any one of them would be to make a God that couldn’t handle all that it means to be God.  The lifeblood of the nature of God is drained if he is not mysterious.  

Trinitarian

While this does fall into theology proper, being an attribute of God, it is of such importance that we want to give a special attention to it.  God is one in essence, but three in person.  God is Father, Son, and Spirit.  Yet, each person is distinct from the other.  God is necessarily one God and necessarily distinct persons.  We can write this out because we see it clearly throughout Scripture.  But you cannot think that we actually understand what this is.  Most analogies used to picture this are just greasing the track for the heresy train.  But there are a few that can help.  I like the analogy of space (height, length, depth are distinct but each necessary for space).  However, all of them break down eventually.  Nothing truly matches it.  

The gospel depends upon a Trinitarian God, but the very nature of the trinity is mystery.  A non-triune God becomes a loveless entity that depends upon creation for relationship.  That kind of God is no true God.  Mystery is the lifeblood of Trinitarian theology.  

The Incarnation

The incarnation is a two-for-one mystery.  A twofer.  In the Lord Jesus Christ you have the mysterious nature of the trinity, while at the same time you have the mystery of Jesus being both 100% God and 100% man.  Concerning the nature of Christ, we have very helpful and precise statements from church history, like the Chalcedon creed.  There it states that Jesus is one person, not two people or a divided person.  He is one substance with the Father in deity, and also one substance with us in his manhood.  He has two natures that are without confusion, without change, without division, and without separation.  The creed goes on like this and helps articulate what we see in scripture.  But be sure of this, we cannot grasp this in fullness.  

Yet, while we cannot grasp it, it is necessary.  He must be both God and man for there to be any hope in the gospel.  And the mystery is the lifeblood of this necessary doctrine.  

Inspiration of the Bible

The Bible is a divine book, but it is also a human book.  It is written by God and it is written by man.  God has somehow mysteriously been able to so perfectly and so totally control the history and circumstances of every one of the writers of Scripture that they would bring all of their personality and experiences to bear upon the Scripture they wrote.  They Holy Spirit then guided each moment so that every word was the very word God without one instance of error.  This is a glorious mystery. 

This mystery is also tied very closely with the following mystery of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. 

Sovereignty and Responsibility

Perhaps this is the one that gets the most attention.  Partly because it bleeds over into other areas of theology (as mentioned above and below) and partly because we are treading at the very closest part of who we are and what will bring us the most glory.  As the sinners we are, we selfishly want glory so badly we will fall short of the glory of God in order to have it for ourselves.  Additionally, those that still want to acknowledge God realize there is nothing so seemingly damaging to God than to ascribe to him a world that is so sinful, painful, and out of control.  

So we have the convergence of two great desires.  We want to be responsible for our own successes and we don’t want God to get into trouble for sin and pain.  But by embracing and acting on these impulses, we have drained the lifeblood out of God’s involvement in the world.  The glory is gone, and with it goes our worship.  God is just another manager trying to do the best in can on a cosmic scale.  

But this is not what the Scripture teaches.  There is a grand mystery at play and we must embrace it.  God is sovereign over all actions, and we are responsible.  God gets all the glory, and people are justly punished for their sin.  God ordains sinful actions and remains perfectly holy and righteous, while people carry out sinful actions and bear the full culpability for them.  We cannot reconcile these things in our mind…just like we can’t reconcile all the other features mentioned above.  But we shouldn’t be surprised by this.  God is God.  He is not a creature.  He can do things we will never understand.  This is fuel for worship and firm foundation for trust. 

Sanctification

This is one more outworking of the sovereignty of God and responsibility of man.  The Scripture calls us to strenuous action, diligent effort, and vigilant perseverance.  Yet, it is God who works in us “to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:13).  Additionally, we will press on to maturity “if God permits.” (Heb. 6:1-2)

Another doctrine, another mystery.  And yet this mystery is the lifeblood of theology, giving it the glory that we must expect if this is the work of a truly incomprehensible and infinite God.  

If we could put this God under a microscope and understand everything about him, he simply wouldn’t be God.  He would be a part of creation over which we are called to hold dominion.  That is what we do with creation.  We name it, categorize it, study it, and rule over it.  But God is not a part of creation.  This means we can know him only up to a point.  Therefore we worship him for revealing himself to us, and we worship him even more because there is more than we will ever know.