"For now we see in a mirror dimly" 1 Corinthians 13:12
"Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you" Philippians 3:15
"Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own." Philippians 3:12
"This mystery is profound." Ephesians 5:32
The Gospel impacts a person's life throughout its entirety. We grow spiritually as we grow physically and this is brought about when we feed on God's word. In it are all the nutrients required to bring about the maturity God desire in us. Everything we will ever need has been supplied. But even though the mystery of the Gospel, in its may facets, has been revealed by God; and Paul expounds on these things throughout his letters; my immaturity gets in the way of my ability to understand them in a way that revolutionizes my mind. I am like the unmerciful servant who has been forgiven a massive debt but just hasn't gotten the picture when he fails to extend that same mercy to a fellow brother who owes him just a few bucks. Why is there such a disconnect? I think it has something to do with our inability to truly grasp the seriousness of our sin. We make light of our sin and make excuses for them by telling ourselves it really isn't that bad. When sin is taken seriously then God's Word becomes new revelation to me individually, even though it is written in clear English before my very eyes. It has been there all along but I did not grasp the weight of what was written. But from time to time it is as if a little light turns on in my head and I get a brief moment of comprehension. It is as if many thoughts, deeply submerged in the subconscious, jostle together while pressing forward in an effort to come to the surface. But only one at a time enters in through the narrow channel that breaks out into conscious thought. When I begin to grasp the seriousness of my sin, God seems to reward me with a little more of His truth revealed causing me to love and depend on Him more.
I like the Philippians 3:15 passage because even though God has revealed these things, he has not revealed them wholesale. they are known, but not necessarily by me...yet. It is part of the process of spiritual growth that Paul says we are to rejoice in. Now it may be a temptation to call this glimmer of comprehension or God's revelation to me individually as some sort of philosophic mystical experience. But I am not so sure we should understand God's personal revelation to us individually in this way. God's personal revelation to us individually has already been unfolded and put down in the pages of scripture. There is no new unexplainable mystery with which God is experienced. But it is new to us. For as we mature God unfolds what He has already revealed in times past, to us. It is new to us and a wonderful experience for sure, but it is explainable. It can be articulated and is meant to be once the revelation is brought home to us in full. Mysticism speaks of unexplainable spiritual experiences and these cannot be accounted for rationally or empirically. This explanation give mysticism an existential twist. For existentialism also relies heavily on experiential stimuli to validate our existence and this stimulus cannot really be explained or accounted for. Our faith in Christ is not validated because of some unexplained spiritual experience that proves God is real and personal. Nor are we identified and unified with God when we experience some euphoric contemplation such as mediation and reflection or some sign we take as "God" speaking to us. There must be content to our "experience" of God finding its basis or foci in God's word and His word alone. So if you choose to use the word "mystical" as applying to the process by which God reveals His truth to us personally, I have little to argue with. But using the term as it applies philosophically is not at all appropriate to the Christian faith because our faith is full of content and is explainable and the Christian is required to meditate on Him and His truth as is revealed to man in the Holy Scriptures. Anything less is human in origin and ought to be resisted.
My thought is presently on the Charismatic and Pentecostal churches who embrace Word of Faith doctrine. This doctrine and its proponents teach a form of Christianity that is steeped in philosophical mysticism and existential thought. Christianity has been emptied of all content and has been replaced by man's word instead of God's Word. God speaks directly to man's sin and offers a remedy but Word of Faith doctrine sets this aside and instead points to some experience or duty we must have or perform in order to believe our faith is real and valid. The existential element empties the content out (the reason) and focuses on the experience as validation of our faith; the mystical element draws the experience as validation, as proof, that our unity with "God" is real. This is as far from Christian teaching and doctrine, as taught in scripture, as the east is from the west. Christianity teaches that God is real and our faith is real because of the promises, found in scripture, which can be relied on. We rely on what the Word says not on what we feel, simply put. Experience has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with being authenticated in our faith in Christ or of being unified with Christ. So philosophical mysticism used as an explanation for our theological position is a heretical belief that the Christian has no business embracing. But to explain the process by which God unfolds His Word, which has already been revealed in the pages of scripture, to us personally, as mystical, is a valid, legitimate word that helps in aiding our understanding of the process by which God enables us to comprehend the mystery revealed in Jesus Christ. For it is one thing to succinctly explain what Christ has done for us on paper. We can read the words. But it is completely another thing to actually come to grips with those words. We know what the words mean independent of the context; part by part, piece by piece. But totally another thing altogether to comprehend their full meaning when put together and taken as a whole in its proper context. Someone once explained that the reason this is so is because language is a living organism. You can dissect it, piece by piece; but when all the parts are put together it behaves as a unified whole.
It is at this very point of comprehension, or the beginning of inspiration or realization of the full import of the words in context, that I would gladly refer as a mystical experience because experience comes from outside and does not originate from our own nature. But it is nevertheless true and real and its impact is true and real as well because it is founded on a sure, sold foundation - the finished work of Christ; not in some amorphous imperative that happens to be uttered by someone who speaks with a supposed authority. We are commanded in the scriptures to "test the spirits" (1 John 4:1) and elsewhere we are instructed that the basis of testing is on the written Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16). Surely if the Word of God was not reliable then the standard itself would crumble under this kind of rigorous use. But God's Word is mighty and powerful. It is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12). Mysticism is really an external superficiality incapable of making any real, positive, constructive change in a person. Christianity deals with man's constitution - i.e. what he has become on the inside because of sin. It deals with the heart problem of mankind, that is, his sin nature. This is dealt with in an uncomfortable manner by requiring us to come to terms with the fact that we are filthy and despicable creatures. It does not hide the fact that we are indefensible. All our "righteous" acts are nothing but polluted garments in the eyes of God (Isaiah 64:6). We are all a sorry lot indeed! We don't need an "authenticating" experience to validate our worth as human beings; Christians already know of their worth by a Savior who has revolutionized their lives by His transforming power. This is not empirical a posterior knowledge - it cannot be tested (manipulated) and proved to be true. Nor is it something we know a priori - deductively arriving at truth by a careful, logical analysis independent of any empirical evidence. It is simply out of the hands of humankind. Christian knowledge is given as a gift and in order to receive it God open our minds to comprehend it - not in an instant wholesale way, but in increments that are, in relation to our maturity, based on the experiences and trials God sees us through. These bring about wisdom and a sober mind able to discern truth from error. Mysticism must be differentiated from the word mystical. My identity is founded on the truth of what Christ has said of me after the cross. In mysticism my identity is based on vague amphoral experiences that I point to, to "authenticate", or serve as evidence of, my worth as a human being. This is all bas4ed in relativism which shows no standard by which we might make an empirical inquiry if we even wanted too. There is no basis to judge; no basis to compare; and no basis to determine the truth of anything we say or do whatsoever. Every man may go about his work freely lying to himself about the way things are while ignoring the blaring noise in his head that screams, in no uncertain terms, "It's all a lie! You've been duped!" Or rather, "You've duped yourself!"
Mysticism and existentialism works together to deceive a believer. Existential thought provides the underlying philosophical position and mysticism provides the basis by which a believer adheres to it. When we talk of so-called "Christian existentialism" or theological existentialism, introduced by the teachings of Soren Kierkegaard which liberal theologians embrace, we essentially inject a form of mysticism into it that gives it the flavor of Christian thought. Existentialism is a pessimistic outlook of the hope of man making sense of this mixed up world. God has become an undefined entity; practically deistic, where He is essentially uninvolved in human affairs. He created the world and set it in motion using natural laws that He created and then stepped out of it leaving man to find his own way. Existentialism deals with man's existence and the significance of it. Here he is searching for a reason for it and not finding it. But he will not look to the scriptures - for God does not care enough to be involved, or so he thinks. Man needs to find his own way. Salvation comes when man makes the right choices and by his own strength and the decision of his own will, chooses God who then rewards him with paradise. But the decisions are his alone which God does nothing to persuade him. Otherwise God's involvement would be seen as an unauthorized use of power; a violation of man's free will. You'll see, by this example, how the world culture has influenced and changed our theology and that is what I want you to see by it because it is true. The synthesis is real and complete in many of our churches and clearly manifests itself in Word of Faith theology and other forms of humanistic teachings passed off as "scriptural and biblical" but are in fact heretical - the Christian has no business pandering to them. Mysticism is the impetus; it is the idol if you will, by which Christian man attaches his "faith" to. It is the experience itself by which we point to that serves as evidence God is "real" that we trust. It is this "experience" that we trust; it is the experience that we tell ourselves God loves, accepts or approves of us. Our testimony usually speaks of some experience that communicates a point, in time, whereby God has "proven" himself to us. That point is usually the turning point that prompts us to make a careful analysis of the direction of our lives, and on the steam of that experience, we direct our lives anew. It is this experience, of which we rely or trust or have faith in, which is the well spring of mysticism. It is the experience itself that is relied upon to give us "immediate consciousness or knowledge of "God" as one dictionary definition defines mysticism(1). Mysticism short circuits the "process" and "progress" model that is inherently built into Christianity. Maturity is a process by which God intervenes in the lives of His people. But the mystical answer eliminates this aspect by offering its worshipers instantaneous results by giving "wisdom" through a mere personal experience fashionable and packaged according to the aspirations of each person individually. Religion based on experiential knowledge that is unique and exclusive to each and every individual has no forms by which man can find any real lasting value. There is no real fixed laws or forms by which all men are judged or measured by to determine right standing before a holy awesome God who has not left man to his own devises. In fact, some cults free themselves from offensive doctrine in order that members of all religions may become acolytes (2). This should say something to true believers.
As I mentioned earlier, the Christan faith is based on content. It is not based on experience. That is not to say we can experience the overwhelming knowledge of God's love for us through the pages of scripture. We certainly can. A mature believer, especially, ought to have such a renewed understanding of God's love for him that he falls down and weeps. The Gospel message ought to move us emotionally. But its power does not rest on a personal experience of God. Its foundation is firmly fixed on truth. Jesus said that the words he spoke were not his own but what he saw his Father doing. This is the truth Christ related to others. He was appealing to so much more than emotion. It was not an emotional pleas Christ beckoned his disciples to submit to regarding the truth, but one based on knowledge. He saw and he preached based on the things he saw and knew. These things are exceedingly wonderful and hard to wrap our heads around but they are true and real and thus absolutely reliable. But mysticism and existentialism are anti-Christian for they ignore the firm, reliable and absolute total non dependency upon man's want of experiential proofs, found in the truth of God's spoken Word; spoken with authority in the pages of the Holy Writ. Existentialism, in particular, is inherently pessimistic for it, as a human philosphy which Paul exhorts us to be wary of (Colossians 2:8), does not have in mind the things of God but the whims of man and those things that will make him feel good immediately. Existentialism seeks value in pleasure through which man grasps but a mere feeling of worth and significance but ignores the whole truth about himself and the hope that he has only in and through his acknowledgment of the truth and consequentially, his need for reconciliation. Existentialism and mysticism are hollow indeed and bad substitutes for true reality. Belief for the sake of belief will not change reality. For Christ will say that he never knew them though they lived decent lives as any human being can. But the fact is they relied on their own strength and so deceived themselves about he nature of Grace and the need for total dependence upon the person of Christ. These things are essential in order to live full, meaningful and complete lives having a true understanding of God's thoughts and about who he is in Christ. For without Christ we are truly wretched lot.
-Joe
1. Funk & Wagnalls Comprehensive Standard Dictionary, 1935.
2. Robertson, Irvine, What the Cults Believe, Moody Press, 1991, 5th Edition, p. 202.
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