Life Together

Last night in care group we were discussing the necessity of accepting mystery in our understanding of who God is, what God has done, and how He does it. As Spurgeon says, "I worship a God I never expect to comprehend. If I could grasp him in the hollow of mine hand, I could not call him my God ; and if I could understand his dealings so that I could read them as a child reads his spelling book, I could not worship him..."

Indeed! Accepting that there are things about God and His glorious works that I do not and cannot comprehend helps to promote humility. As one person put it last night, if we think we have God all figured out, we're just proud!

However, accepting that there is mystery is not the same as thinking that everything is mysterious and therefore we can't know anything for certain. God has revealed Truth in His word and that truth is to be treasured, declared and thought about. Systematic theology is important in that it helps us to think thoughts about God that are accurate according to the whole of scripture.

Often mystery comes in when two biblical declarations of truth appear to contradict each other, or at least, we can't understand how both can be true at the same time: is God sovereign over absolutely everything, including man's choices? Is man responsible and his choices real choices? The Bible declares both and if we argue one against the other we are either reducing God's sovereignty or reducing man's responsibility. Neither is a good option!

That's where allowing mystery is so helpful: we declare both to be true and how they work out is a mystery. What the Bible declares to be true, we are bold to declare is true, even when we can't understand it completely.

In the end, theology and mystery should lead us to worship our glorious, gracious, and infinitely incomprehensible God! That's where it takes Paul in Ephesians chapter one: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" he writes in verse 3, going on to say that all the spiritual blessings we have received in Christ (election, adoption, redemption, etc.) resound "to the praise of His glorious grace" (vs 6) and "to the praise of His glory" (vv. 12,14). God is so worthy of our praise and worship!

The book of Ephesians takes us to gloriously high altitudes of revelation about God and His plan of redeeming a people for Himself through Jesus Christ. And what it reveals about God (theology) and what it reveals about how incomprehensible God is (mystery) should lead us to heartfelt worship of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray it will have that effect upon all of us in Grace Community Church as we go through this incredible book together.