Dealing with Mystery

The famous Christian author John Bunyon once wrote the following:

“The mysteries and contradictions which the Christian revelation leaves unsolved are made tolerable by hope.”

No one who has read the Bible with an open mind can honestly say that they have never been perplexed by it. While some might condemn the author of The Pilgrim’s Progress for using the term “contradictions” rather than something like “paradoxes” honest believers will admit that certain things in Scripture do at least appear contradictory.

The thinking Christian must wrestle with these seeming contradictions. Some might say that the problem is intellectual conceit, that the Word of God is completely understandable to anyone who has the simple, childlike faith which Jesus commended in the Gospels. Such a statement may be partially true but it must be remembered that He also re-enforced the first and greatest commandment telling us to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with ALL YOUR MIND and with all your strength” (Mk. 12:30). Checking our intellect at the church door is not an option. Bunyan knew this.

Yet, despite this, it could be suggested that even a great saint like Bunyan might just as well have spoken of “mysteries” and left it at that. The word “mystery” is a lot softer than “contradiction” and perhaps more accurate as well. It implies that some Scripture speaks of realities which are absolutely true but also absolutely beyond the realm of human intellect. All knowledge of God is limited by our current condition and is seen, as the apostle Paul put it, “through a glass darkly” (1st Co. 13:12). It is impossible to tie up every seemingly loose end in the Bible, at least with the fallen minds we currently possess. Some things are simply too great for us to know, at least for now.

One key to balancing our questionings with the inerrant nature of God’s Word is humility, a conscious trust that the God of the Universe knows what He is doing. Becoming humble means we no longer presume to place Him, as C.S. Lewis put it, “in the dock”, meaning in the role of a defendant in court. Those who write off the Bible as untrue usually do so more out of personal arrogance than because of honest inquiry. If someone is offended by the message of the cross one of the easiest ways to respond is by using that old stand-by, ‘The Bible contradicts itself’.

The other key truly is, as Bunyan states, hope. Throughout the life of a believer God sends what someone once described as “postcards from Heaven”. These are sublime glimpses of how all reality is ultimately summed up in the Person of Jesus Christ. Such epiphanies give us the precious hope that everything will make sense in the end on all levels, including the intellectual.

Such hope, indeed, makes everything “tolerable” and sometimes, blessedly, does far more than that.