The "juice" is just not "worth the squeeze" for most of your posts but when it pertains to interpretation/translation of scripture, I will give you someone else's squeeze... you might even just compare a few modern translations.dwight92070 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 4:17 pmBy the way, looking again at the NKJV Colossians 2:2-3: " ... and attaining ... to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ ..."
See the following explanation here from the Revised English Version Translation Notes:
https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Colossians/chapter2/2 wrote:Colossians 2:2 is occasionally used to show that “the mystery of God is Christ.” i.e., that Christ is part of the Trinity and both fully God and fully human, and thus a “mystery.” The verse was a subject of hot debate early in the Christian era, and there is ample evidence from the Greek manuscripts that scribes changed the text to fit their theology. Bruce Metzger writes, “The close of Colossians 2:2 presents what is, at first, a bewildering variety of readings; the manuscripts present fifteen different conclusions of the phrase.”a The first conclusion we should draw from this is that we should not establish a doctrine on a reading that has obviously been tampered with through the centuries. That being said, however, in almost all 15 of the endings, the possibility that Christ could be God is eliminated. The KJV represents a good example: “That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ.” In the KJV translation, there is a mystery of God but it is not “Christ.”
Also, due to the advancements made in textual research in the last two centuries, there is now wide agreement among scholars that the original Greek text read tou musteriou tou theou Christou, but the exact translation of that phrase is debated.
As it is used in the Greek New Testament, the word “mustērion” (#3466 μυστήριον) does not mean “mystery” in the sense of something that cannot be understood or comprehended by the mind of man. In the Greek culture, a mustērion was a “secret” in the religious or sacred realm that was hidden but then revealed by God on His timetable when He was ready for people to know and understand it. We can see this definition right in the context. Colossians 1:26-27 states that the mustērion had been hidden in ages past but now was revealed by God to His “holy ones,” the believers, because God wanted to “make known to them” what they had in Christ (for more on the definition of mustērion, see commentary on Eph. 3:9).
That the “sacred secret” in Colossians 2:2 was something that was hidden but is now revealed cannot be overemphasized if we are to correctly interpret the verse. For one thing, Christ, the Messiah, was not hidden in the Old Testament. The very first prophecy in the entire Bible, Genesis 3:15, speaks about him, and people like Abraham (c. 2000 BC) knew a lot about him—Abraham knew and rejoiced to see his day (John 8:58). So Christ was not a sacred secret hidden for ages and revealed in the lifetime of Paul. This becomes especially clear when we connect Colossians 2:2 and Ephesians 3, both of which were written in the short time that Paul was a prisoner in Rome. Paul wrote in Ephesians that the mustērion was revealed to him by revelation and he was entrusted to reveal it to others (Eph. 3:1-9).
Trinitarian doctrine asserts that Christ is a “mystery” because the Trinity itself is a mystery and the two natures of Christ—that he was fully man and fully God—are a mystery. But those are not mustērion in the biblical sense! A biblical mustērion (“sacred secret,” “mystery”) was hidden by God, but when He revealed it, it could be understood by those to whom it is revealed. In sharp contrast to that, the Trinitarian “mystery” is beyond comprehension; it cannot be understood. A quick study of the uses of mustērion in the Bible will show that once a “sacred secret” is revealed, it can be understood. But the things that Trinitarians claim are “mysteries” about Christ cannot be understood. Thus, Christ being God and his dual nature are not the mustērion that Paul is writing about.
It is much more accurate to translate Colossians 2:2 as, “the secret of the Christ of God.” There is a “secret” in the New Testament that is clearly set forth in the Church Epistles, the books written by Paul. The word “mustērion” is used to refer to the “administration of the grace of God” in which we are living now, and the secrets that were part of that grace. Ephesians 3:2-3 reads, “surely you have heard of the administration of the grace of God that was given to me for you, and that the sacred secret [mustērion] was made known to me by revelation, as I have already written about briefly.” When Colossians refers to “the sacred secret of the Christ of God,” it is referring to the sacred secrets that were part of the grace that was hidden before the foundation of the world but God has given and revealed to the Church today (cp. Eph. 3:2-9; Col. 1:27 and 1 Cor. 2:9). God revealed those secrets to Christ, who showed them by revelation to the apostle Paul (Gal. 1:12), so these sacred secrets were indeed “the sacred secret of the Christ of God.”
[For more information about the translation “sacred secret,” see commentary on Eph. 3:9. For more information on Colossians 2:2 not being a verse that supports the doctrine of the Trinity, see also Mary S. B. Dana, Letters Addressed to Relatives and Friends Chiefly in Reply to Arguments in Support of the Trinity, Thurston, Torry, and Company, 31 Devonshire Street, Boston, 1845. Reprinted by Christian Educational Services, 1994, pp. 167-168. Also, Frederick A. Farley, The Scripture Doctrine of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Boston, 1873. Reprinted by Christian Educational Services, 1994, pp. 12-18.]
