| Two Mysteries Of The Bible | |
'Without controversy great is the mystery of Godliness.'I Timothy 2:16. Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley John gives us the name, 'Antichrist,' but Paul gives us his portrait. He so delineates him with such accuracy and definitive fullness that nothing in the intervening 19 centuries is needed to either supplement or amend file picture. Paul's portrait is not a riddle to baffle future ages but a plain picture so that with history in our hands there is not room for one moment's doubt. Remember, Prophecy is History written beforehand. As the photograph agrees in every detail with the living face of which it is taken, so clearly did the spirit of prophecy foresee the coming of Antichrist that Paul was able truthfully to depict him. The key to the prophecy is the expression in the seventh verse, 'the mystery of iniquity doth already work.' This phrase is a striking one. It occurs nowhere else in the Word of God. It is no simple iniquity but 'the mystery' of iniquity. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, iniquity has polluted this world. History sorrowfully recites its litany. But sin is to take a new dimension and iniquity a new satanic darkness. 'An unexampled and unthought of apparatus of iniquity is about to appear' says Paul. 'Mystery,' suggests a secrecy and a system so far unknown on the earth. Paul, as he moves in the light and towards the light, tells us what his enlightened eyes behold. 'The Mystery Of Iniquity' The range of this expression is vast. The depths of its pronouncement are profound. Perhaps even today, some nineteen hundred years after it was first spoken, its length and breadth have not yet been accurately measured or its meaning fully comprehended. The expression, brings to mind an opposite expression, 'the mystery of Godliness.' 'Without controversy great is the mystery of Godliness.' I Timothy 2:16. These two phrases stand alone in the whole Bible. We read but once of 'the mystery of iniquity' and but once of 'the mystery of Godliness.' What is the mystery of iniquity? Nothing less than the satanic imitation and devilish counterfeit of 'the mystery of Godliness.' What is 'the mystery of Godliness'? It is the revelation through symbols, prophecies and typical persons of the great Truth of God which had its full manifestation in the Person of the Christ of God. Hebrews 1:1-2. What is 'the mystery of iniquity'? It is none other than the parallel and counterfeit of 'the mystery of Godliness.' It is the revelation of the Great Lie which has its full manifestation in the Person of the Antichrist. It is the marshalling of all the principles of evil and their embodiment at the last in one organisation whose head is the incarnation of their fulness. He is the grand outcome of the great apostasy. He guides its counsels, inspires its policy, executes its decrees, and is the medium through which its terrible powers are put forth. As in Christ God and man are one, so in Antichrist, His counterfeit and rival, the human and superhuman -- earth-born man and archangel fallen, are one. |
