My King James Only friend sent me three passages of scripture. He has sent them to me many times before and I guess he expects me to suddenly have an epiphany and agree with his interpretations. That would certainly make my life easier but would not make me anymore secure in my intellectual honesty, let alone my spiritual condition.
In looking at the verses he sent, having received them many times before, and knowing where he’s coming from, I focused on the word “mystery”. That was the key to what he was talking about. I took this as an opportunity to think and meditate on the concept of mystery in relation to God and what he has done for us and what he’s going to do for us. It promises to be an interesting journey, even if not the one which he thought he sent me a ticket for.
And thinking about mystery and God I thought about how terms that we think we know can be described as mysteries. For instance, in first Corinthians 15, we find Paul stating,
(1Co 15:51 KJV) Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,I thought I knew what the resurrection meant. Paul is saying there’s a mystery involved. He may have partially explained it there, but it set my mind to thinking about eternity and about being in the presence of God and how many things there will be to investigate and think about and meditate on. That of course turned me to thinking about God. Can we ever reach the edge of who God is, what He’s thinking, what He’s doing?
Since I believe that God is not a static substance, but is the living God, I think of our understanding of living is being something that is growing and changing and interacting with its environment. Those are ideas that don’t go along with our traditional ideas of God and who He is. We think of Him being immutable and unchanging, and yet if that’s the case, how can He have conversations with us in real time if we are free beings? You see my problem?
My mind just blows out thinking about infinity and how infinity times infinity equals infinity. It doesn’t make sense in our finite minds. Is there an edge to infinity? Is it continuing on or has it already reached an end? These are concepts that are impossible for us as human beings to even begin to grasp. I question whether we will even be able to deal with them in our glorified bodies, with our glorified minds, with eternity to contemplate on and God to answer our questions. We are simply limited to our vocabulary words and an eternity we will have the words of all vocabulary plus the language of angels. I’m wondering, if even then we will be able to explain who God is.
That is why terms like “glory” and “majesty” which are used in the Bible are indications, not descriptions. They are declarations of our limitations, not descriptions of His reality. I am good with that because it gives me an indication of how awesome, in the real sense of awesome, eternity is going to be.
Hope to see you there.
homo unius libri
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