Mystery in the Bible

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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Supernatural truths are divinely introduced via revelation from God, and so are referred to as ‘mysteries’ – as they are not “self-evident” (natural) truths (Rom 1:20; 2:14-15). Here is a collection of Zondervan NASB Study Bible notes on verses which contain the word “mystery” or “mysteries”. A nice supplement to this thread is the faith thread I will post in a minute.

Matthew 13:10-17 (read it) NASB note: Jesus speaks in parables because of the spiritual dullness of the people.

Mark 4:11-12 (read it) NASB note: In the NT “mystery” refers to something God has revealed to His people. The mystery (that which was previously unknown) is proclaimed to all, but only those who have faith understand. In this context the mystery seems to be that the kingdom of God had drawn near in the coming of Jesus Christ. / Jesus likens His preaching in parables to the ministry of Isaiah, which, while it gained some disciples (Is. 8:16), was also to expose the hardhearted resistance of the many to God’s warning and appeal.

Luke 8:10 (read it) NASB note: “mysteries of the kingdom of God.” Truths that can only be known by revelation from God (Eph 3:2-5; 1 Pet 1:10-12). “that seeing they may not see.” This quotation from Isaiah (6:9) does not express a desire that some would not understand, but simply states the sad truth that those who are not willing to receive Jesus’ message will find the truth hidden from them. Their ultimate fate is implied in the fuller quotation in Matt 13:14-15.

Romans 11:25 (read it) NASB note: “mystery.” The so-called mystery religions of Paul’s day used the Greek word (mysterion) in the sense of something that was to be revealed only to the initiated. Paul himself, however, used it to refer to something formerly hidden or obscure but no revealed by God for all to know and understand (see 16:25; 1 Cor. 2:7; 4:1; 13:2; 14:2; 15:51; Eph 1:9; 3:3-4, 9; 5:32; 6:19; Col. 1:26-27; 2:2; 4:3; 2 Thess 2:7; 1 Tim 3:9,16). The word is used of (1) the incarnation (1 Tim 3:16; see note there), (2) the death of Christ (1 Cor 2:7, “God’s wisdom is a mystery”), (3) God’s purpose to sum up all things in Christ (Eph 1:9) and especially to include both Jews and Gentiles in the NT church (Eph 3:3-6), (4) the change that will take place at the resurrection (1 Cor 15:51), and (5) the plan of God by which both Jew and Gentile, after a period of disobedience by both, will by His mercy be included in His kingdom (v. 25).

Ephesians 3:3 (read it) NASB note: Here the word “mystery” has the special meaning of the private, wise plan of God, which in Ephesians relates primarily to the unification of believing Jews and Gentiles in the new body, the church (see v.6). It may be thought of as a secret that is temporarily hidden, but more than that, it is a plan God is actively working out and revealing stage by stage (cf. 1:9-10; Rev. 10:7).

Colossians 1:26 (read it) NASB note: This word (mystery) was a popular, pagan religious term, used in the mystery religions to refer to secret information available only to an exclusive group of people. Paul changes that meaning radically by always combining it with words such as “manifested” (here), “made known” (Eph 1:9), “bring to light” (Eph 3:9) and “revelation” (Rom 16:25). The Christian mystery is not secret knowledge for a few. It is a revelation of divine truths—once hidden but now openly proclaimed.

1 Corinthians 2:14 is apparently ued to support the idea that unregenerate persons cannot even understand the Gospel or any spiritual truths of Scripture. Geisler responds:

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I think that there are a couple of things that need to be addressed here.

First, you state at the end of your post:

I disagree. Jesus spoke many times and stated that only an elect few would understand his teachings. The Gnostics are the only ones, at least in my opinion, who have ever came close to truly understanding the teachings of Christ. The “church” defiled the truth with the council of Nicea in 325 A.D.

Secondly, you state:

Exactly what “mystery” is being revealed. Not any at all. The bible does state that “all things will be revealed,” but makes no reference to all things being revealed. It is in a state of being revealed, but not yet revealed.

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Why is understanding necessary? The whole world could be followers of Christ, with only a few truly understanding the words of Jesus, and that would be fine with me.
To give a sense of what I mean, we do philosophy. Can what we do be useful to only those individuals who understand it? If so, why are we bothering?

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Uccisore, I understand what you are saying and I don’t necessarliy disagree. However, if one is going to claim that he/she understands, as most Christians declare, there should be no doubt.

The “mysteries” that the bible speaks of is not in reference to anything that has been revealed, like the OP posted. There is a continuous line throughout the NT that states that “all things will be revealed,” not a reference to them already have being revealed. You see the difference there?

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I cant help but think if someone cannot articulate an idea in their own words without some scripture of man to lean on then that person does not fully understand what they are saying.

I would trade the word faith as a necessary ingredient to understand the “mysteries” for the words “submission to truth”. God’s Truth is available to all hearts that are open to it and the only thing that will open your heart is to basically give up on you own intellect and submit fully to Truth. Doing this usually requires a complete loss of hope or such a traumatic experience that you don’t have any will of your own any more, that’s why it is so few that get the mysteries, because most are still trying to manipulate the truth to their desires. Changing the truth to fit your own needs is the first thing we do as children and the fight is usually life long, this is the actual definition of a lie and its intent is steeped in self like all sin, this is what isolates you from God and his Truth and Love.

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I dunno, I'm starting to become elitist in my adulthood. If a Christian (or Hindu, or whomever) wants to say they 'understand', and all they mean is, they get the jist of what their priest tells them every week, I don't see any harm in that.  I think a big mistake we do in studying religion is assume that since religious study is like philosophical study, that all religious believers ought to be philosophical. They obviously aren't, and I think that's ok.

Yeah, that’s a good point, and while I quoted you, I’m not really sure which of you I disagree with more. I think the main point of things like prophecy is to make us understand the context of events after the fact, not to give us a tool to predict what will happen in the future. All I really want to say is that even if Christianity is the one true religion (which I believe), that doesn’t entail that all or even many Christians have some level of spiritual understanding that people in some other faith don’t.

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Actually,I think a big problem is that most people do take their pastors word at face value. We only find truth if we search for it. It’s not boxed in some pastors ideology.

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SpeakerOfTruth

Problem for who? I do agree that we need to go beyond what the pastor says to get at the truth of it- not because there's anything necessarily false with what he's saying, but because his job isn't to present the really nitty-gritty truth in the first place. But I would disagree if you're saying that society would benefit in some important way from more people questioning their pastors, or that society is being hurt in some important way from the current number of people who don't. Not everybody is supposed to be a thinker.
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MMMMM, I’m going to refrain from getting to deep into this here because this is not really the forum for it, but let me just say that I think there has been some manipulations done to God’s word throughout the centuries and the pastors play right into it. I think that should suffice for this forum, Uccisore.

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That’s fine. Let me just say in closing that even if you’re totally right about that, it wouldn’t change my stand- I think followers of false religions should listen to what their priests say for the most part, too. In other words, order, discipline and good faith are more important to the common man than truth, if that common man has not chosen to be a philosopher. A thread on this at some time might be interesting.

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So explain 1) the difference between a “true” or a “false” religion and 2) by what criterion we can discern the two.

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Well, the easy answer is that a true or false religion is defined and discerned in the same was as a true or false history, or a true or false philosophy.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you won't find that answer satisfactory.  I might be able to do better, but you'd have to tell me first why religion out to be treated differently than philosophy or history.

Pragmatically, in the statement I made that you’re responding to, you could read ‘false religion’ as ‘a religion that Uccisore thinks is false’, and it wouldn’t do injury to my point.

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I am glad to see this sparked discussion, but I hope you folks’ll understand if I stay strictly on topic.

– Speakerof"Truth"

Just wanted to clarify that I was quoting (as I did mention in the original post – wasn’t trying to plagiarize… sp?) from my Zondervan NASB Study Bible notes.

I didn’t take a position 'cause I agreed w/ the notes and was posting the thread merely because I find the topic interesting and it was relevant to another thread (I linked to this thread inside the other thread).

There’s also reference to “mystery” in the OT (just got done reading Daniel). Fascinating stuff. Important. Some prophecy predicts future and some prophecy just explains the truth – some does both at the same time. Either way it lets us know God is involved with the goings-on.

– Speakerof"Truth"

I really am not a scholar of early church history, though that may not remain a fact. As far as I know, gnosticism is heretical. I do plan to look into it. I have run across it in the NASB notes now and then… I’ll include them here within a week.

– Speakerof"Truth"

Did you read Romans 11:25? A few revealed mysteries (quoting from the NASB notes again, in case you missed 'em the first time): The word (“mystery”) is used of (1) the incarnation (1 Tim 3:16; see note there), (2) the death of Christ (1 Cor 2:7, “God’s wisdom is a mystery”), (3) God’s purpose to sum up all things in Christ (Eph 1:9) and especially to include both Jews and Gentiles in the NT church (Eph 3:3-6), (4) the change that will take place at the resurrection (1 Cor 15:51), and (5) the plan of God by which both Jew and Gentile, after a period of disobedience by both, will by His mercy be included in His kingdom (v. 25).

Take care.

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“Heretic” is a word that I cringe at. It states that if you actually think for yourself, rather than taking the word of the “church” :unamused: , you are somehow wrong. Yeah, Gnosticism has been labeled “heretic,” that to me, just implies to me how correct they really are.

Something most people don’t realize is that the church, particularly the church of Rome, did everything within its power to suppress the truth.

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Mystery in the Bible?

Well, I would prefer mystery in seeing the Truth as the Bible if severely flawed in that it is written by man in a perverted language that can be far too easy to take out of context or simply not properly translated.

So the “Mystery in the Bible” would be in its flaws and misrepresentation of the Truth IMO. Mystery in seeing the Truth is another matter all together and far more interesting to me, although I don’t believe it’s any real mystery.

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Mystery in the bible…

I think there are mysteries in the bible that are not meant for everyone. That Jesus taught and practiced divine laws that he did not reveal to all the world is necessary because:

not all of mankind is prepared or ready or worthy to receive the truths.
even if some had preparations, some are doubters, or use the special powers or laws for selfish purposes
or they become

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Justly – were you in the middle of a thought? I think it got cut off…

speaker of “truth” – earlier you said:

“The ‘church’ defiled the truth with the council of Nicea in 325 A.D.”

now you say:

“‘Heretic’ is a word that I cringe at.”

Which one would you say best describes your position?

I have completed my study of Gnosticism – ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … 77#1839177

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speaker, I agree with you, and hence I am not christian… the truth is no mystery.

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Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened…either my cat played with the mouse or I got a very imporatnt call. I should edit my post all the time. But anyways, I was trying to say that not all mysteries are revealed to the world for selfish reasons, no preparation, not worthy of the truths and lastly, and most of us know how Jesus was persecuted and prosecuted for his cause and if the truths were revealed to the wrong people, they can become traitors to the cause or become spies. isn’t that the work of spies to know your secrets. Look at North Korea, Iran, Al Qaeda, they want to know our secrets so they can build nuclear weapons and destroy the “very hand that feeds them”? Jesus helped and healed the sick and the poor. Where were they when he needed them the most? Probably screaming, “crucify him!”

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I’m tired of hearing this nonsense from Gnostics that “mystery” in the bible refers to some kind of “secret wisdom” that should be hunted out. The beginning of 1Corinthians deals with this very issue. Paul’s point is that there is a “mystery” for sure, but that mystery is no longer hidden but is revealed for those who follow Christ. The mystery has now been revealed by God through the foolishness of the cross. Those who contend that there is some deeper esoteric meaning to biblical passages or spiritual experiences are simply barking up the wrong tree. God’s mystery has been revealed IN CHRIST. It only remains hidden to those who choose not to follow him.

1Corinthians
26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

2:1When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

6We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"— 10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

Trawling through the bible looking for “secret wisdom” is completely pointless. The “secret wisdom” has already been revealed, and that wisdom IS CHRIST.