Hebrew Hellenism
Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, Romans 16:25 NASB
Mystery – Did you know that there are technically no mysteries in the Hebrew Scriptures? “Wait a minute,” you’ll say. “What about all those secrets revealed? What about the prophecies come true? What about Paul’s own words?” Amazingly, the Greek word mysterion does not appear in sacred literature until the Hellenistic period in books like Tobit, Judith, Sirach and 2 Maccabees. Mysterion is a word from the Greek view of life, not from the Hebraic view. In Greek thinking, a mystery is often associated with a hidden religious formula, a bit of knowledge about the universe revealed only to the “enlightened” of the faith. The Greek mystery religions are filled with secrets for controlling destiny. But the Bible has nothing to do with this view of life. In fact, the only place where anything even close to this appears is in the Aramaic term raz in the book of Daniel. There this word means “a concealed intimation of divinely ordained future events whose disclosure and interpretation is reserved for God alone and for those inspired by His Spirit.”[1] In the very few other uses of mysterion in the LXX outside the Hellenistic books, mysterion means nothing more than private conversation. In general, the Bible is not a book of secrets. God’s desire, plan and purpose are clearly revealed. No one has to first believe in order to understand (but they do have to first obey).
This fact leads to two crucial lessons. First, everyone can know the truth about God right where they are. God does not hide in the far reaches of space. He does not conceal His thoughts about life on this planet. He tells us as plainly as possible what He desires, what He has done and what the consequence of our actions will be. No one can offer the excuse “I wasn’t initiated into the faith” as a reason for disobedience. This is particularly important as a rebuttal to the theological camp claiming the total depravity of Man’s intellect as well as Man’s will. If my mind is fallen along with my choices, then I cannot know the truth until after God redeems me and, consequently, if God doesn’t redeem me, it is very difficult to imagine He can hold me accountable for not doing what I didn’t know. Since the Bible does not contain mysteries, there is no excuse.
Second, Paul’s Hebrew orientation leads us to conclude that he uses the Greek mysterion in the same sense as the Hebrew raz, not in the way it is used in the mystery religions. Paul thinks of mystery as something initiated and controlled entirely by God, revealed only to those whom God chooses to illumine. That’s what the word means in Daniel. But once we see this, we are confronted by an enormously important fact. Paul is not writing to the select few. He is writing to everyone who reads his letter. And that means that the secret is out. Anyone can know what God knows about this because everyone is included in the mysterion. Therefore, there is no longer any mystery. You and I can know, right now, what God wants us to know. God has pulled back the curtain and let all of us take a look. And that’s why knowing the mystery is so important because now we are all accountable. You and I no longer have the excuse, “Oh, God. I didn’t know.” Yes, we did. The only mystery left is what we are going to do about it.
Topical Index: mystery, mysterion, raz, secret, Romans 16:25
[1] G. Bornkamm, mysterion in TDNT, Vol 4., p. 815.
Good morning all, and shabbat shalom! Yes, I agree brother Skip..- “the Word is out, and Jesus (Yeshua) is the Word! He is, (after all) the Word made flesh. G-d incarnate. G-d became the Son of man that we (you and I) might become the sons (and daughters!) of G-d! Mystery? -How can these things be? -other than “amazing grace,” I just don’t know..
Do I understand the mystery of how a brown cow can eat green grass and give white milk and yellow butter? Do I need this “explained” to me in scientific detail? or may I enjoy the “end result” of savory butter and nutritous milk? Do I understand (at all) the mystery of what goes on within one square inch of soil? -not a chance.. When I look at my beautiful children or my lovely wife, what can I say but “G-d did that?” (yes-G-d did that!..-amen!)
Hallelujah for the mystery of the gospel of Christ (the Anointed ONE). And yes, it is a beautiful thing our Elohim is revealed to His chosen ones- (us!), but we are still enjoined to “search the Scripture” for we have yet to fully uncover the inheritance that is ours and the incredible pardon, provision, protection and peace our Elohim and Adonai has given unto us! “Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.” (1 Timothy 3.16)
Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne.
Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity.
Crown Him the Lord of love, behold His hands and side,
Those wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye at mysteries so bright.
Crown Him the Lord of life, who triumphed over the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife for those He came to save.
His glories now we sing, who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring, and lives that death may die.
Crown Him the Lord of heaven: One with the Father known,
One with the Spirit Through Him given From yonder glorious throne.
All hail, Redeemer, hail! For Thou hast died for me;
Thy praise and glory shall not fail Throughout eternity.
Crown Him the Lord of lords, who over all doth reign,
Who once on earth, the incarnate Word, for ransomed sinners slain,
Now lives in realms of light, where saints with angels sing
Their songs before Him day and night, their God, Redeemer, King.
Crown Him the Lord of years, the Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime.
All hail, Redeemer, hail! For Thou has died for me;
Thy praise and glory shall not fail throughout eternity.
“..and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the glory of G-d the Father.” (Philippians 2:11)
He is LORD!!- Amein!
I, for one, would like to hear a whole lot more about your views of rebutting “the theological camp claiming the total depravity of Man’s intellect as well as Man’s will.” Before the initiation of God’s salvation toward us (Father draws, the Son receives those the Father draws) through the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit – don’t we love darkness, suppress truth, are we not blind, deaf, unable to understand (futile in our thinking), oblivious to the Spirit Himself (Jn 14:17) and perhaps more specifically, dead in our sins. Does “dead” mean dead or are you of the view that we all have some sort of “inclination” or “spark of the divine” inside of us that merely we need to fan – such that in understanding (which I read from TDW, we can all simply choose to understand and obey for ourselves), we can then choose the “right” path for obedience? Not sure I follow your statement as I measure it against not just this verse or that verse but rather the entire body of Scriptures and the appearance here that the necessity for the Holy Spirit to be involved in our “understanding” and also “obedience” of Scripture seems to be largely minimized (Romans 8). Mind you, I do not read Scriptures to hold that man is still not held accountable for what He does know and therefore, does not bow to (Romans 1:18-21). Please explain or direct me to the fuller understanding of your position in making this statement, please?
This very word is how I found your site Skip. I wanted the know the Hebrew word for ‘mystery’ in regard to Ephesians 5:32 This mystery is very great, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. I never got an answer so was glad to see this today. Would ‘raz’ be what is used here ?
Mr David Salyer,
I believe you can find it here. Brevard S. Childs was perhaps the most influential thinker in the development of canonical theology in the last several decades. His work, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, presents a thorough analysis of the forces that led to the formulation of a canonical theological position. In this series of lectures and comments of […]
Just go into the search box and type in Brevard Childs, and you will have three audio lectures to listen to. I believe you may find some answers there. I am in no way answering for Skip, but this should help. Shabbat Shalom!
“Paul thinks of mystery as something initiated and controlled entirely by God, revealed only to those whom God chooses to illumine.”
Hi Skip,
Don’t mean to be argumentative, but seems to me that Paul’s mystery is still a mystery 🙂
My sense is that there is no mystery regarding how God wants us to act; nothing hidden there.
What is “hidden” is often the meaning discovered on our own personal path (Nativ in Hebrew).
Or even more often on our daily intellectual adventure with Hebrew Word Study.
As a matter of fact, over the years, many mysteries have been revealed to me right here 🙂
This is weird. I was just reading about this very thing in the Ellul book, The Subversion of Christianity on Sunday. I was most struck by the fact that the Hebrew biblical world view pushes against the idea of sacred spaces and objects and things and saw this as pagan. It is a remarkable thing that God, the Wholly Other is in a sense transparent in the way we currently use the word. However, I agree that God can blind our understanding of some things so that they continue to remain hidden. Keep the word study going…
Isn’t this what Paul is trying to tell us throughout the book of Romans? He starts off in Chapter 1:18-22 testifying that God has been revealed from the “beginning” and has always provided what was necessary to know Him, yet we have made the unfortunate choice(s) to skip this and move onto something other than the life-giving Word of the Creator. Man continues, through the ages, to choose the FORM of godliness over heart surrendered obedience to the ONE who gives.
Hi.
Notices that verse 25 gives a explanation of how this
mystery was reveal.
Which take us back to Torah the Prophets and the commandments.
very interesting, The very thing that some Christians organizations proclaim
has been done and away with, It was nailed on the cross.