Moments with Emmanuel

One of the hardest things about the Christian faith is being okay with mystery. I would argue that the mystery has to make sense. Transubstantiation, for example, doesn’t add up to me. Can God do that? Yes. Why would we need to or want to be digesting the actual body and blood of Jesus? Not sure. Feels a little occult too. Some things we cannot understand: the transfiguration, the ascension, demon possession, the virgin birth, how Jesus was fully God and fully human, how the Trinity is three persons while remaining one God, and probably many more. The Bible tells us quite explicitly that demons are real. Still, depending on how you classify individual accounts, Scripture records about thirty distinct physical healings and ten resurrection events, compared with roughly seven distinct accounts of demonic exorcism. I would also propose the theory that demonic activity was increased in the Gospels to oppose Jesus. Satan needed to wage his war against God in the physical world because God became flesh. Now, this is just a theory, but what is clear is that God works a lot more often in ways that we notice in our lives to deal with physical ailments than with demonic interference—even overcoming death itself. So don’t forget to give yourself plenty of credit for your bad decisions instead of automatically attributing them to Satan and his demons actively attacking you. The Bible is also very explicit about humanity’s rebelliousness and foolishness.

Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It’s way over our heads. We’ll never figure it out. Is there anyone around who can explain God? Anyone smart enough to tell him what to do? Anyone who has done him such a huge favor that God has to ask his advice? Everything comes from him; Everything happens through him; Everything ends up in him. Always glory! Always praise! Yes. Yes. Yes.

Peterson, E. H. (2005). The Message: the Bible in contemporary language (Ro 11:33–36). NavPress.

Paul tells us in Romans that nobody can explain God, yet one of the most foolish human acts is trying to put God in a box. We think we can explain Him, so we set parameters for what God can do and try to set them in stone.

The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.

Christian Standard Bible (Dt 29:29). (2020). Holman Bible Publishers.

One of the hallmarks of the protestant reformation was sola scriptura. At the time, I do believe this was important. The Catholic church had allowed tradition to overrule the Lord. They made the Bride of Christ more infallible than Christ. This also creates a danger. God’s revelation cannot become more infallible than God. This danger is especially important for Christians because we know the God who provided this revelation to us! This is an ancient problem. Pantheism in most, if not all, cultures were about worshipping aspects of creation. Many even had myths that predate their current pantheon of deities, telling how older divine beings created the world and these gods and goddesses. They could even recognize that what they were worshipping wasn’t the source of creation! This rounds out one of the most important aspects of mystery: creation.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Ge 1:1–2). (2025). Crossway Bibles.

Many scholars agree that the first two chapters of Genesis offer parallel accounts of creation—scholars who attribute Genesis to an author credit Moses. Moses does not appear in Genesis. This, however, does not provide a contradiction. In “In the beginning, God…,” we know who was there and what He did: “created.” The rest is a mystery. We have two stories suggesting how it happened, but the how doesn’t change the fact that we worship the Creator of the Universe. The problem with mystery is that humans like to have answers to the six questions:

1. Who?
2. What?
3. When?
4. Where?
5. How?
6. Why?

Christian mystery will never provide a full answer to all six. We get left with questions, and in the gaps those unanswered questions leave, there is faith. The problem with sola scriptura being taken too far is that if we treat the Bible as eliminating mystery, we have a false concept of God. Where sola scriptura fails, we can rely on solus Deus—only God.