| John's Index | Greater Emmanuel | Email John |
The Mystery of the Gospel
By John R. Gavazzoni
Among the several things described in the New Testament as mysteries, such as the mystery of God, of Christ, of the kingdom of God, of the faith, of godliness, of His (God's) will, etc. [check out mystery in any good concordance for a full list], is the mystery of the gospel. Mystery in scripture is a secret meant to be revealed according to, and in the due time of, God's choosing. It is not mystery meant to be kept a secret, in fact, the factor of secrecy for a time serves the final God-glorying, man-benefitting effect of its unveiling.
Something quite mysterious appears in Paul's explanation of the gospel that he received and which he preached, i.e., "that Christ died..." I've stopped short of Paul's description, that goes on with, "...for our sins," because death itself would seem to be out of place as integral to the gospel, meaning, good news/glad tidings. "Hey, Charley, I've got good news, our good friend, Joe, died." The reader might protest that it's as part of the whole statement that makes death integral to the good news. But don't you find that death-factor, in itself, mysteriously strange?
Jesus declared that He came "to give life, and that more abundantly." So how does death...that Paul described as "the last enemy which shall be defeated...." fit into giving abundance of life? I won't even bother to explain how the penal substitutionary theory of atonement does not provide any good for the good news of the gospel. There's nothing gospel-explanatory about such a horrid misrepresentation of the nature of God. The mystery of how death can be intrinsic to the gospel, is the mystery of how such a problem, i.e., death as the last enemy, can be intrinsic to the success of the purpose of the gospel.
To bring back to mind the point of this article, the reader might just remember: PROGRAM and PROBLEM go hand in hand inseparably toward the goal of the good news. That relationship is truly mysterious. Imagine the CEO of a corporation announcing to the board of directors, "I've got good news: our ultimate enemy has unleashed a barrage of attack against the very existence of our corporation, and its benefits for ourselves, our stockholders, our customers, and our employees. Isn't that great!?"
Conventional Christian theology resorts to contortionist rationalizing in its attempt to avoid the mysteriousness of the gospel, as in, Adam created a problem that God never intended to occur, and so He had to come up with Plan B to rescue His program from the problem. We won't think seriously about the fact that God must have known what Adam would do, and what damage would result, but went ahead somehow hoping Adam wouldn't do what He knew Adam would do.
Dear brethren, none of us protest against the truth that God sent His Son into the world to die, but to consider that God sent Adam into the world, placed him in a garden with a crafty, seductive snake, and a forbidden, but attractive fruit, so that Adam would die...."no, no, don't make me go there, it makes my head hurt just to think so for even a moment." What did God's valuation include re: His creation as good, in fact, upon creating man, that it was very good? I'll tell you what that good included. It included being good for dying.
Do you think that the, now, over 500,000 Ukrainian military dead, with that number growing almost daily, constitute nothing, and nothing other than, a waste of life? Do you think those being murdered by the genocide being carried out in Gaza against civilians, at least half being women and children, a purposeless tragedy? Is there not a divine perspective within which we can find ultimate good? Goodness, from the divine perspective, goes far beyond good as merely benign. The problem-part of the program is about submitting the benign to hateful violence, so that out of the bowels of the good might emerge "what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love Him."
That, by the way, has no exclusionary factor in it, for since, "we love God because He first loved us," and since "God so loved the world," all the world will end up loving Him and be qualified for that which is so glorious ahead that it is beyond all imagination.
As God has permitted more unveiling of this mystery to my heart of late, I've come to the deep conviction that the working of the death of Christ is at work in every man's, every woman's, every child's death, even, or possibly even especially so, in proportion to the violence involved.
Every person's death is the death Christ died, and in each death is the death of Christ, so that no one can die without that PROBLEM being intrinsic to the PROGRAM. The principle: ascent comes by first descent. The heights are reached by first descending into the depths. Except we lose our life (Greek, "psyche"/soul-life) we cannot find it. "Lose" there in that statement by our Lord has in the Greek the force of to destroy. We must have our eyes opened to the mystery-factor in what scripture declares as imperatives. I've come to understand, for instance, that the way to the strait gate and narrow way that leads to life, is first through the wide gate and broad way that leads to destruction.
I no longer see the two gates side by side awaiting our choice. I see the gate and the way of destruction leading the way to the gate and way of life. Think about it: haven't we all, since the death that was passed onto us by Adam's death; haven't we all gone through the wide gate and down the broad way to destruction before we were brought to, and drawn through, the narrow gate and on to the Way of life? Mystery is hidden within the enigmatic dimension of scripture, especially I would say, within so many of our Lord's own words.
Paul is bold: "for where sin abounds, grace doth much more abound." Knowing how his readers might reason from that statement that should they sin that grace may abound. Paul's answer, "God forbid; how shall we who are dead to sin, live any longer therein." Now THAT'S enigmatic.
| John's Index | Greater Emmanuel | Email John |
