The Difficulties and Mysteries
of Scripture. William Bacon Stephens. Follow
me. The secret things belong to the
Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to
our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this
law." Deuteronomy 29, 28. For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. As
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher
than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. – Isaiah
55, 8, 9 The difficulties and mysteries
of Scripture necessarily result from the relations between God
and man. God the infinite, man the finite. God the holy, man the sinner. God a spirit, man a creature
of flesh and blood. God in heaven, man on earth. God inhabiting eternity, and
man the creature of a day. God the sovereign of the universe,
and man the tiny, puny rebel to his throne. Mark these contrasts,
measure their diversity. The very statement of them shows
how impossible it is for man to be able to fully comprehend
God or His dealings. The question was asked of old,
who by searching can find out God? Who can find out the Almighty? and Solomon, the wisest of men,
declared, It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, for
if man knew as much as God, he must have the mind of God and
the wisdom of God. For eighteen hundred years the
mind of man, with its measuring lines, has been endeavouring
to fully understand God and His ways, and compute the measurements
of His great truths And yet, they are no nearer the solution
now than when first revealed. There they stand in the firmament
of theology, the great unresolvable nebulae of revelation, and no
magnifying power of man's optics and no space-penetrating power
of man's devising can unfold those mysteries which at once
challenge and test the faith of man. There can be no revelation
of God which is free from mysteries, because human language cannot
embody celestial thoughts and modes of divine existence, and
the human mind could not comprehend terms and phrases which would
truly reflect the person, glory, and work of the Almighty. Divine
thoughts before they can be taken into our minds, have to be diluted
into human words, divine things have to be symbolized to us by
human or earthly types, and divine beings have to be described to
us by terms borrowed from human existences and of purely earthly
signification. Hence, in the process of translation,
dilution, and illustration, no one attribute of God, no one
truth of God, can be fully revealed and understood. We can only see
the earthly side and the earthly terminus. The heavenly side and
the heavenly starting point are all beyond our reach, far away
out of sight, and there we must be content to let it be, ever
standing with our eyes upturned to Jesus, holding in one hand
the great doctrines of revealed truth, and in the other the precious
assurances. What I am doing, you do not understand
now, but you shall know hereafter. John 13, 7. Now we see, but a
poor reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall
know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Corinthians 13.12