I have often heard it said that the Bible is full of contradictions. But is God’s Word not Sacred? Is it for man to judge God?
“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies, probably because generally they are the same people.” Chesterton
A laughable observation, it somehow grasps the gist of Bible study. And that gist is that our attempts at reconciling two scripture passages invigorate our brains to think beyond the status quo. Yes, we must get this point — God is beyond us, a mystery surrounds His Words.
A mystery, yes, is hidden beneath the pages, between the lines, behind the obvious. This is God’s mystery, but not a mystery forever wanting. God’s mystery is there to be discovered. And when we discover that mystery we discover God himself. This is the point of our inquiry.
Deuteronomy 29:29 teaches the thought of secrets — secrets there for us to discover. However, some secrets we do not discover, conjuring great disturbance in our souls, but not to be discouraged, brothers and sisters. Beloved, if God is the ultimate end of our inquiry, we must see that he is a living God. When we find God, we find his person, character, nature, but also His immediacy and in this immediacy, we may find God has no specific input for the moment. However, His sensitivity to the specific moment elevates us to a discovery far greater –His actuality (for lack of a better term.)
We must, for actuality sake, set our meditation on death and dying. Indeed a mystery but nevertheless progressing toward an actuality. We must agree with Matthew Henry that, “There is no man that has power over his own spirit, to retain it,(Ecclesiastes 8:8), when it is summoned to return to God who gave it.” “It cannot fly any where out of the jurisdiction of death, nor find any place where its writs do not run. It cannot abscond so as to escape death’s eye, though it is hidden from the eyes of all living.” “A man has no power to adjourn the day of his death, nor can he by prayers or bribes obtain a reprieve; no bail will be taken.”
“We have not power over the spirit of a friend, to retain that; the prince, with all his authority, cannot prolong the life of the most valuable of his subjects, nor the physician with his medicines and methods, nor the soldier with his force, not the orator with his eloquence, nor the best saint with his intercessions.”
As death accompanies every interaction with “actuality,” (reality) — so also, we, by it’s means, discover mystery. Friends, not only are God’s thoughts higher, but His entire sphere of existence is also beyond my tiny sphere. When my sphere ends, His begins.
“Death is a battle that must be fought, There is no sending to that war (so some read it), no substituting another to muster for us, no champion admitted to fight for us; we must ourselves engage. Men’s wickedness, by which they often evade or outface the justice of the prince, cannot secure them from the arrest of death, nor can the most obstinate sinner harden his heart against those terrors. Though he strengthen himself ever so much in his wickedness (Psa_52:7), death will be too strong for him. The most subtle wickedness cannot outwit death, nor the most impudent wickedness outbrave death. Nay, the wickedness which men give themselves to will be so far from delivering them from death that it will deliver them up to death.” Henry
Oh, but a comfort from the Psalms:
“Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.
But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.
I will praise thee for ever, because thou hast done it: and I will wait on thy name; for it is good before thy saints. “Psalm 52:7 -9
Friends, we know of a Champion who has tasted death for every man, so says Hebrews 2:9
“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Hebrews 2:14-15
Jesus, opened the way, He died for us and also as us. When He died, we died. Access to the mysteries awaits every Saint in Christ. Appropriation with God by faith to this reality of my co-death (see Colossians 3:3), accesses His world.. Hallelujah ! Love ya
