Scripture without evasion or apology, states that Christian faith embraces mystery – an unfinished story. Further, the implication is that we will not find enough evidence in nature to solve that mystery. It is to be accepted, and personal faith is to proceed, finding proofs in that processes work for those with genuine faith. The most important factors in life, like love, are incapable of nature’s proofs, but we see the mystery of both the separate factors of physical and spiritual life, and the whole of life. Some of the understanding of the mystery is that love generates from the nature of God. Mankind does not manage it as well as we ought, but we sense affirmative possibilities for those who incorporate it. It serves best when not distorted by selfish forces that nag at the human race. Some conclude that there is more mystery in life than there is light – if everything is considered. We don’t know. To consider everything includes faith in God. That faith explains more in causation and conclusion than any other orientation. So it is that mystery becomes a part of the explanation. Even so, there are masses of persons who perceive mystery to be an excuse for faith. Whatever is not clear to them may be passed off as either non-existent, or doesn’t matter for daily experience. Whatever natural life offers, in course, is what there is for them. They feel better when they can feel self-strong to face whatever emerges. Death becomes reality in nature to conclude the transition of natural life for the individual – to nothingness (annihilation) that ends the personal mystery.
Part of the mystery of God is the Trinity. We return to discussion of the Trinity of God with a sense of awe, but also of a mammoth barrier of humanity’s inability to understand the differences of mortality and time, to essence, immortality and eternity. For mankind to deny the Trinity is like unto man trying to deny gender/generation distinctions. As once we may have defined mankind as both genders, in all races, in humanity, but have lost vital perceptions by trying to homogenize the human race, so we may feel that a concept of Trinity might compartmentalize God. We can appear to compartmentalize God so as to seem to make multiple Gods, as some religions presume Christians do, but to compartmentalize God is only in human imagination. God is one in his essence and he ought to be worshipped in that truth. There is one God, one faith, one baptism. God proves the nature of love by the character trait that love in God makes it perfect in the one Trinity. There is no possible way in which the three Persons of the God-head can be divided in the essence of God. Love is that immense in God. God is a unity of all he is, far above persons as we know in personality. We even need the designation, God-head, to touch the mystery of God. This is to say that God is the Trinity, but more. That More of God is a mystery to us. The Trinity raises personhood above gender, or race, or genetics. Every person is one in all the factors that form that person. God is one in all the factors that form God. The oneness of God relates to individuality in mankind.
Perhaps students, even scholars, of language have contributed to the problem in translation. For example, when the English translation asserts that God is love, the impression may be so abstract as to lead to some guesswork. The translation might have been better cast if the English rendering had been more complete. God’s nature includes love, and the text in the original language is clear enough on that point. God is not love, he is person. He is a person of love personified. He is a person of light. There is no darkness in God. And, he can’t deny himself. We will likely be helped in our understanding to contemplate God as the whole Person of the universe, who is the source of light, of love, of consciousness, of power, of all knowledge, even eternal in himself. It is from his nature that life is. No matter what the scientist may do to help us in the health of body life, life is and will remain a mystery. Life principle, whether in a flea, or in an elephant, or in a human person is a moving God factor. Because of its human place we not only look for its meaning (intellectual), but for its applications (social), its feelings (psychological), its range (immortal), its creativity (supernatural). It is mystery to be revealed at the end – to begin again. If we take the time, perceive the meaning of Scripture, and gain its faith identity, we discover that God is one, who includes three persons, but those persons are vital to a belief that God is larger than personhood only. Christian faith acknowledges God to be God as he is. Not easily unraveled, but true mystery. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020