When Paul made that declaration to Timothy in his first epistle to his “son in the faith,” he was not thinking of the type of mystery the “whodunit” novelists write about, where clues are unraveled to conclude with a solution that identifies the allusive culprit. It is the type of mystery that still baffles the mind with how it could happen even after it has happened conclusively.

In the passage of Scripture he wrote this:

“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, Received up in glory” (1 Timothy 3:16).

He even erases any argument of that fact by saying it is “without controversy,” no question about it! But to mortals on this side of eternity, it is difficult for to visualize people suddenly disappearing before our eyes, including ourselves if we are believers; and leaving those physical attributes behind—clothing, eye glasses, hearing aids, rings and watches.

Perhaps the main point of this mystery is how Jesus was able to live as a mortal man and not exercise His deity when tough times came upon Him. Paul writes of this in Philippians 2:6-8 when he tells us of Jesus Christ making that transition:

“…who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”

Look ahead to His struggle in the garden the night of His arrest, when He shed drops of blood like perspiration, struggling to say, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 24:42).

In reality, it may be more of a mystery that God would do what Paul says, outright—“God was manifested in the flesh.” Two reasons for that come to mind—one, that God would care to do it at all and why, and two, that He would, knowing the all-out rejection he would receive from the greater part of mankind.

We are reminded often of the rejection of Jesus by the Jews with their cry of“His blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25), and God turned to the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. But don’t fault the Jews over the Gentiles, for there are multitudes of Gentiles who clearly reject Him, as well. Their track record is obvious for all to see.

The spirit of Cain found its nexus in the Tower of Babel syndrome and continues to this day in the New World Order format. They are proponents of the impossible—a vision of a “world of law and order, not the law of the jungle,” but they carefully avoid telling us that their “end justifies the means,” and the means is that of the jungle, murder and mayhem, as necessary.             But that should be expected when “there is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:18).

In that one verse to Timothy, Paul summarized the span of the life of Christ on earth. But why did He not come in on a great white horse as a sovereign King? He could have, you know, but in that way there would have been no redemption for sinners like you and me. He identified with the human race He was going to offer Himself for their redemption. In Hebrews 2:10-11 and 14-18:

“For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren….

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham.

“Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people, for in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.”

Then we see in Hebrews 4:15:

“For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

It was John who wrote of Jesus as having come from eternity as the physical expression of God to a world of sinful people, saying, “In the beginning was the Word; the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1). In verse 14 of that first chapter of John, he writes, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”

It is interesting how God has become more and more revealing of Himself and His message and purpose in these latter years since that first advent of Christ into the world. Notice how that stands out in Hebrews 1:1-4:

“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.”

Then in his first epistle, John tells us more:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life— the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us— that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full” (1 John 1:1-4).

John was a great witness and wanted others to share in that fellowship he had with the Lord. He also gives us a peep into that life out yonder beyond the veil by writing in 1 John 3:1-3, this:

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

When Stephen was being stoned to death (Acts 7:56), Luke writes that Stephen cried out, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

And as we read from John above, “We shall see Him as He is.”

John sums up his gospel with this, in John 20:30-31:

“And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book;  but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”

In that seemingly never-ending discussion with His disciples about who He really was, Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” And Jesus responded, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father…” (John 14:8-9).

And He baffled and infuriated the Jewish leaders when He declared to them, “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58).

It would appear, then, that those who insist that there must be more ways to heaven than just through Jesus Christ are not honestly considering the true identity of who Christ is—God in the likeness of mortal man. The One they deny is the very One whom they will be appealing to for entry into heaven!

After all of this analysis, we still have a mysterious situation, but we do have a “whodunuit” after all! You see, Jesus was not born of Adam, so He had no sin nature. All of the above Scriptures testify to that. Also, John 5:26 tells us plainly the source of His life: “For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself….”

So, how could He die as mortal men of Adam do? Yet, He did do so. And it was not an accomplishment of mankind, for Jesus said of His own life, “No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:18). He was—IS—both God and man, and the mystery is solved in this quotation from 2 Corinthians 5:21:

“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

The man, Jesus, died because of our sins laid upon Him by God, the Father.

Truth is eternal. It springs out of the very nature of God. It is true whether or not I believe it. Therefore, it is imperative that one finds the truth among all of the choices out there. The question is, how do we find it?

Pilate, the final Roman authority at the trial of Jesus, cried out, “What is truth?” Paul wrote this to Timothy:

“If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13-KJV).

It gives us a turning point on our belief—that is, if our beliefs deviate from the truth of Jesus Christ, they fall away into oblivion or nothingness. They are of no eternal value and are, in that sense, meaningless.

So we come to Jesus’ own claim: “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by Me” (John 14:6). He also spoke of two avenues of life, a narrow one and a broad one:

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow isthe gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

He follows that with comments of how we can know them by their fruits.

It is apparent that the above claim Jesus made of himself directly contradicts any claim that there are more ways to heaven than just by Jesus Christ. The second quotation suggests a limited pathway to find everlasting life. The more narrow something is, the sharper it becomes. A knife blade, for example, is made sharper the more narrow its edge becomes.

And the sharper it is, the more cleanly it cuts. And when it cuts, it hurts. And sometimes the truth hurts. Out in Idaho there is found a substance called “obsidian,” which came from the eruptions of ancient volcanoes that were in the area. It is molten glass and has such sharp edges that it is said to have been used to make surgical instruments.

Truth is very narrow, and it cuts and hurts when it refutes falsehood. A standard of truth permeates the whole of our society—a sailor must learn what “true north” means; a carpenter has in his tool box an instrument he calls a level.

When I was a kid and listened to local farmers recount their experiences in farming with their teams of mules or horses, they would often tell how they managed to plow a furrow through a field that ran in a straight line so that other parallel rows also would be straight. (A first straight row was viewed as a real accomplishment!)

Over my sixty years as a Christian I have learned to search out the truth of a passage of Scripture that was troubling to me by first, visiting again the character traits of the Lord. Is He truthful, unchanging, consistent, not contradictory to himself, such as Numbers 23:19 describes Him:

“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

The Scriptures often disclose truths in such a casual way that a truth can be easily missed, almost like the writer assumed that common knowledge or even common sense would recognize the truth. One such situation comes to mind in regard to the invention by Augustine (A.D. 354-430) and claimed by Catholics that Mary was a perpetual virgin, that she had only one child, Jesus.

The old adage that says, “If you want to know what kind of person someone is, just check with his neighbors,” comes into play here. In Matthew 13:54-56 we can see this revelation by Mary’s neighbors, not degrading her but merely recognizing the truth of her family situation:

“When He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, ‘Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works?Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers, James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Manget all these things?’”

This is the more complete reference with details and names than any of the several others in the New Testament that decry the claim of Mary’s continual virginity.

What kind of person was Jesus according to those who were His constant companions during those last years? That abrupt old fisherman named Simon Peter echoed the claim Jesus made in John 14:6 when he declared:

“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

When he wrote his first epistle, he also made this observation without hesitation, that Jesus “committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22).

And Paul, that killer of Christians when he was known as Saul of Tarsus, was compelled by the power of a transformed life to pen these words of Jesus: “For He [God] made Him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21), and the writer of Hebrews 4:15 makes this declaration:

“For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

If your belief is that of the proponents of amillennialism and the Preterist theology, who say that we are now in the millennium period and Satan was bound in the bottomless pit when Christ was crucified, that Jesus is ruling the earth from His throne in heaven, and all remaining prophecies were fulfilled in the first century, then, be aware that your belief does not make it so!

Those events that you say will never happen are actually happening before your eyes—beginning with the return of the Jews to their promised land and the subtle formation of the New World Order with its one-world government. It should be obvious that Satan is not bound and Jesus is not ruling the earth with a rod of iron, as it is said He will be in the actual millennium, from His place on the throne of David in Jerusalem.

If your prophet is the courier of a gospel that does not identify a blood sacrifice of a person who is without sin by inheritance or practice (that is, He is deity) as the One who provides redemption without the aid of mankind, then you must revisit your beliefs.

In my recent four-part series titled, “Devious Doctrines of Diabolic Deception,” posted at Rapture Ready.com, I wrote of the subtle entwining of truth and fiction, facts and falsehoods that are hidden in many belief systems, and how “any old god will do” as long as you are signed up with something religious—because you are told there are more ways to heaven than just “believing in Jesus.” Remember this—heaven is where God is. Do you want to be with Him, having that attitude?

I am reminded of a phrase in a popular song of a few decades ago that went like this: “…how could it be wrong when it feels so right?” And this brings us to Paul’s warning in 2 Corinthians 11:1-4 and 13-15:

“Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly—and indeed you do bear with me. For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!”

“…For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.”

Solomon’s wisdom is often acclaimed, even by the world. One certain kernel of truth was so important to him that he recorded it twice–Proverbs 14:12 and 16:25: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end isthe way of death.”

The opening Scripture reference bears repeating: “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13-KJV).