Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 94:376 (Oct 1937)
Article: The History of Israel’s Blindness: The Mystery of It
Author: Herbert Kann

BSac 94:376 (Oct 37) p. 442

The History of Israel’s Blindness:
The Mystery of It

Herbert Kann

The mystery of Israel’s blindness is stated in Paul’s letter to the Romans, Chapter 11, verses 25 to 27 : “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.”

Dr. H. A. Ironside defines the word mystery as follows: “As used in the New Testament, the mysteries are those truths which in Old Testament days were kept in silence, but which are now the common property of all believers. They are not special truths for a special class, but every Christian is privileged to enter into the knowledge of these mysteries.... They are simple truths of tremendous importance, some of which, at least, have been ignored by the vast majority of theologians ancient and modern.”1 Yet, we read that Paul

BSac 94:376 (Oct 37) p. 443

would not have us to be ignorant concerning these things!

Dr. C. M. Cobern also discusses the Greek term, [μυστήριον, translated mystery. He points out that the full meaning of this expression “can hardly be understood unless we bear in mind that the best religious force in the first century was found in the mystery cults, which sought to bring the ancient world out of its materialism and debauchery into a serious consideration of these ‘mysteries’ of God-the unity of the worshiper with deity, salvation and the future life. These were absolutely dark to the pagan world in general; but they were supposed to be revealed to the ‘initiated.’ Paul again and again uses the symbols and terms connected with these mystic rites. He does not, of course, accept the doctrine of these heathen fraternities; but he represents the Christian Church as being also a mystery-fraternity in which the profoundest secrets of God are made plain to the initiated through the revelation of the head master, Jesus; and the terminology which he uses was a mystic terminology which the new discoveries have found in the contemporary mystery documents, the meaning of which would be easily grasped, therefore, by his hearers and readers, most of whom were accustomed to them.”2

“Notwi...