Resisting "the Mystery of God"

[Malachi]

Ever since the virus of rationalism infected Christian seminaries, Bible schools, denominations, and churches, men have been trying to "figure out" God and Christ with their limited, finite human minds. This has led to resistance to the "mystery of God", and generated multiple false teachings and false cults.

The following phrases are found in the NT, and they all pertain to God and Christ, and indirectly to the Church:
1. The mystery of God
2. The mysteries of God
3. The mystery of Christ
4. The mystery of godliness

Col 2:2 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;
Rev 10:7 But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
1 Cor 4:1 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Eph 3:4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ
Col 4:3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds:
1 Tim 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

Everything about Bible Christianity is supernatural, and the essence of God will remain a mystery to human beings. Yet we find people constantly resisting the Deity of Christ and the unity of the triune Godhead. We are to receive all things revealed by God in the attitude of faith and trust -- not rationalism and rationalization.

 

[Mike S]

Ever since the virus of rationalism infected Christian seminaries, Bible schools, denominations, and churches, men have been trying to "figure out" God and Christ with their limited, finite human minds. This has led to resistance to the "mystery of God", and generated multiple false teachings and false cults.

The following phrases are found in the NT, and they all pertain to God and Christ, and indirectly to the Church:
1. The mystery of God
2. The mysteries of God
3. The mystery of Christ
4. The mystery of godliness

Col 2:2 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;
Rev 10:7 But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
1 Cor 4:1 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Eph 3:4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ
Col 4:3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds:
1 Tim 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

Everything about Bible Christianity is supernatural, and the essence of God will remain a mystery to human beings. Yet we find people constantly resisting the Deity of Christ and the unity of the triune Godhead. We are to receive all things revealed by God in the attitude of faith and trust -- not rationalism and rationalization.

Yep, there's a word for that: ineffable. God's true name is not to be spoken, and His nature unknowable.

 

[Sinthesis]

Rationalism is not a virus.

Isa 1:18 - Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.​

While it is true that ultimately we can't fully comprehend God and His ways, and thus inevitably must accept our reasonable limitations and surrender in faith, exactly where the line between rationality and faith lies is dependent on the individual. We should not be condemning those who have chosen a different line than we have.

 

[turnorburn]

Job had a reasoning session with God..

Job 38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,

2 Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?

3 Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;

7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

8 Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?

9 When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it,

10 And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,

11 And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?

12 Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place;

13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?

14 It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment.

15 And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken.

16 Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?

17 Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?

18 Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all.

19 Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,

20 That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the house thereof?

21 Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy days is great?

22 Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,

23 Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?

24 By what way is the light parted, which scattereth the east wind upon the earth?

25 Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder;

26 To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man;

27 To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth?

28 Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew?

29 Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?

30 The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.

31 Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?

32 Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?

33 Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?

34 Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee?

35 Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?

36 Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart?

37 Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven,

38 When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together?

39 Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions,

40 When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait?

41 Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.

then continues in..

http://av1611.com/kjbp/kjv-bible-text/Job-39.html

tob

 

[Malachi]

Rationalism is not a virus.

It is a virus when dealing with the supernatural and with Divine revelation:

In epistemology, rationalism is the view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge"

Since Christianity regards REVELATION as the chief source and test of knowledge, rationalism is the enemy of revelation. Thus a virus meant to destroy faith and enthrone human reason above God.

Isa 1:18 - Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

This speaks of the reasonableness of the Gospel. Not rationalism and led to theological liberalism and unbelief.

We should not be condemning those who have chosen a different line than we have.

Why not? It is rationalism that attacked the inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of the Bible. Indeed the authority of the Bible as the Word of God was attacked by rationalism.

 

[smaller]

It is not rational for any carnal mind to believe that the head of an axe would float in water. In the Spiritual reasoning it is entirely rational.

They are entirely different forms of reasoning.

I agree with the posters here that Only God can know the entirety of Who He Is and What He consists of.

For me in my acknowledged state of subjectivity, that will forever remain An Endless Mystery of Divine Nature.

We all know only in part by virtue of being a subject of The Creator, not The Creator.

We should know our place in the arrangement easy enough.

 

[LovethroughDove]

full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;

In last days the mystery of God will be replaced with full assurance of understanding.

 

[LovethroughDove]

The apocalypse is the unveiling of what "is".

 

[Jesse]

Ever since the virus of rationalism infected Christian seminaries, Bible schools, denominations, and churches, men have been trying to "figure out" God and Christ with their limited, finite human minds. This has led to resistance to the "mystery of God", and generated multiple false teachings and false cults.

The following phrases are found in the NT, and they all pertain to God and Christ, and indirectly to the Church:
1. The mystery of God
2. The mysteries of God
3. The mystery of Christ
4. The mystery of godliness

Col 2:2 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;
Rev 10:7 But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
1 Cor 4:1 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Eph 3:4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ
Col 4:3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds:
1 Tim 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

Everything about Bible Christianity is supernatural, and the essence of God will remain a mystery to human beings. Yet we find people constantly resisting the Deity of Christ and the unity of the triune Godhead. We are to receive all things revealed by God in the attitude of faith and trust -- not rationalism and rationalization.

Hi Malachi,
Would you agree this has been going on for a lot longer than the existence of seminaries?

We already know churches are doing a poor job at teaching discipleship and perhaps this is why they lack the knowledge of what exactly is the new nature and the power that it holds. What if, because we have easy believeism in the churches, this is where all of this is coming from, so people aren't taught to study the Bible for themselves and see what it actually says. People never get to see the supernatural power of the Lord they really don't know it's still there.

 

[Malachi]

Hi Malachi,
Would you agree this has been going on for a lot longer than the existence of seminaries?

Correct. Here is a quote from Encyclopedia Britannica that shows that rationalism began attacking revelation some time before it entered the seminaries. But it was the seminaries (first in Germany and then in North America and Europe) which spread the virus of rationalism into the denominations:

Four waves of religious rationalism

The rationalist attitude quickly spread, its advance forming several waves of general interest and influence.

The first wave occurred in England in the form of Deism. Deists accepted the existence of God but spurned supernatural revelation. ...The Deistic philosopher John Toland (1670–1722), in his Christianity Not Mysterious (1696), sought to show that “there is nothing in the Gospels contrary to reason, nor above it”; any doctrine that is really above reason would be meaningless to humans. Attacking revelation, the freethinking polemicist Anthony Collins (1676–1729) maintained that the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) failed of fulfillment;... Thus the Deists, professing for the most part to be religious men themselves, did much to reconcile their public to the free play of ideas in religion.

The second wave of religious rationalism, less moderate in tone and consequences, was French... The rationalism of these men and their followers, directed against both the religious and the political traditions of their time, did much to prepare the ground for the explosive French Revolution...

The next wave of religious rationalism occurred in Germany under the influence of Hegel, who held that a religious creed is a halfway house on the road to a mature philosophy, the product of a reason that is still under the sway of feeling and imagination. This idea was taken up and applied with learning and acuteness to the origins of Christianity by David Friedrich Strauss (1808–74),...Strauss undertook to prove these books to be unacceptable as revelation and unsatisfactory as history. ...Strauss’s thought as it affected religion was continued by the philosophical historian Ernest Renan (1823–92) and as it affected philosophy by the humanist Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–72) of the Hegelian left. Renan’s Vie de Jésus (1863; Life of Jesus) did for France what Strauss’s book had done for Germany, though the two differed greatly in character.... Renan’s was an attempt to reconstruct the mind of Jesus as a wholly human person—a feat of imagination, performed with a disarming admiration and even reverence for its subject and with a felicity of style that gave it a large and lasting audience....

The fourth wave occurred in Victorian England, following the publication in 1859 of Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1809–82). This book was taken as a challenge to the authority of Scripture because there was a clear inconsistency between the Genesis account of creation and the biological account of humans’ slow emergence from lower forms of life....

People never get to see the supernatural power of the Lord they really don't know it's still there.

That's right. There is little or no teaching on the superlative excellency of God and of Christ, and all there infinite attributes. In fact, there is little or no systematic teaching of Bible doctrine directly from Scripture within the churches.

 

[Malachi]

The apocalypse is the unveiling of what "is".

"And the things which shall be hereafter" (Rev 1:19).

 

[Jesse]

Correct. Here is a quote from Encyclopedia Britannica that shows that rationalism began attacking revelation some time before it entered the seminaries. But it was the seminaries (first in Germany and then in North America and Europe) which spread the virus of rationalism into the denominations:




That's right. There is little or no teaching on the superlative excellency of God and of Christ, and all there infinite attributes. In fact, there is little or no systematic teaching of Bible doctrine directly from Scripture within the churches.

I'm not sure I would go that far to make the claim there is absolutely no Biblical doctrine being taught, there is, but doctrine doesn't always make disciples, does it? Doesn't there need to be mentors for the young in Christ to be examples for them? Don't people need to see what they need to become and see how God works?

 

[Willie T]

I'm not sure I would go that far to make the claim there is absolutely no Biblical doctrine being taught, there is, but doctrine doesn't always make disciples, does it? Doesn't there need to be mentors for the young in Christ to be examples for them? Don't people need to see what they need to become and see how God works?

Are you sure you're only 18? That was wise beyond the years of most of us here.

 

[Jesse]

Are you sure you're only 18? That was wise beyond the years of most of us here.

I had a really smart mentor, but those are hard to find......

until of course I came here...I think there are some here.

 

[Willie T]

I had a really smart mentor, but those are hard to find......

until of course I came here...I think there are some here.

I'll keep my eye out for them.

 

[Jesse]

I'll keep my eye out for them.

Look in a mirror.......

 

[Willie T]

Look in a mirror.......

Well, that goes without saying, but I'm so modest and humble.......

 

[jasonc]

Well, that goes without saying, but I'm so modest and humble.......

lol.

 

[Willie T]

Truthfully, I am fairly certain I'm almost as smart as a bar of soap.

 

[jasonc]

Truthfully, I am fairly certain I'm almost as smart as a bar of soap.

lol.