The Mystery and Mystical Gospel

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 3, 1908

The Mystery and Mystical Gospel

THERE is a great difference between the mystery of the gospel and a mystical gospel. The mystery of the gospel, which is “Christ in you the hope of glory,” can never be solved by human reason, or explained by human philosophy; but the fact can be realized in human experience. This union of divinity and humanity will ever remain an inexplicable mystery; but it is a revealed mystery, the glorious results of which may be known by every sincere believer. A mystical gospel is an altogether different thing. It is the product of human philosophy, an unsuccessful effort to counterfeit the genuine gospel by claiming for humanity divine qualities and attributes while denying that Jesus was in any unique sense the Son of God, and thus cutting off the only channel of connection between God and sinful men. With great swelling words and sonorous phrases, which no one can clearly define, the advocates of this mystical gospel confuse the minds, and bewilder the imaginations, of those whose self-assertion leads them to seek some other way of salvation than the way of the cross. A careful analysis of this mystical gospel in all its varied forms of manifestation leads to this verdict: it is only the reappearance in a modern and pleasing dress of the old assertion, “Ye shall not surely die,” coupled with the flattering teaching that man is able by his inherent power to overcome all opposing forces, and even to demonstrate over death. The only antidote for this mystical gospel is the proclamation of the mystery of the gospel.