Christ of Faith

                                                               The division of 'Jesus' and 'Christ' into two sections is meant only for a better understanding of the reality of Jesus Christ in accordance with the historical quest of Jesus and theological investigations of Christ engaged in by the Rationalists and Theologians of the 19th century. Martin Koehler in 1892 was the first person to distinguish between the historical Jesus and the Christ whom the Church proclaimed through the Gospels, expressed by the title "The Jesus of History and Christ of Faith". It is essential for us to understand the connection between the historical Jesus and the Christ proclaimed in the New Testament for a genuine picture of Jesus Christ. Ultimately it is a question of his personality and relevance to the world today. The Church always looked at Jesus Christ as a whole who is both historical in virtue of his Incarnation and trans-historical in virtue of his Resurrection from the dead. Our intention in providing the two separate sections is only for a clearer understanding of the issues involved, especially after the controversies of the Enlightenment Period of the past centuries. In this spirit, we shall treat the issues involved under the topics of 'Faith and Reason' and 'The Language Problem' since these are the offshoots emanating from the enlightenment mentality causing a division between 'the historical Jesus' and 'the Christ of faith'. For this purpose we have to go deeper into the question of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, its difference from the raising of the dead by Jesus, experiences of various Gospel personalities who encountered Jesus etc. As for the language problem, a clear analysis of language to bring out the meaning of words, usages, expressions etc.would be attempted. This would be done by means of only a few cases as mere specimens after tackling the larger and irrational assumption that only scientific language is really meaningful in communicating any kind of knowledge. Language of science is useful and meaningful in scientific domain alone and the moment it steps out of its territory and tries to legislate conditions for meaningfulness in general, it has to be shown the way back to its proper field of study by Philosophy.
                                                              What we want to investigate at the moment is about the compatibility of faith and reason that may also be applied to religion and science and, in our study, to theology and history. The traditional method of doing it was to adduce reasons for the justification of our faith with the assistance of Philosophy, which did not mean Philosophy or Reason was the foundation of our faith. The foundation was and will always remain in the Word of God heard through its proclamation culminating in the announcement of the Good News that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His Gospel is not something different from himself and is proclaimed as the solid foundation for the solidarity among the humans producing the fruits of divine love, joy and peace.    
                                                             We shall not question the usefulness of Fundamental Theology that deals with the inter-relation between Reason and Faith, although our own method is different from it. Our method is in trying to understand the Word of God in the Bible as well as in other religious texts analyzing them to see how Faith and Reason can co-exist and be meaningful. By this method we shall, so to say, try to beard the lion in his own den by taking the battle into the enemy's camp. The enemy here, the Rationalists of the post-enlightenment era, who tried to divide the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith, shall be shown to have erred as the two are inseparably united in all available sources. If we bring up the question of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead again and again, it is not without good reasons for the same. The fundamental question that silently provokes the Rationalists and people of the same ilk to cast doubt on the Gospels themselves is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Hence, the same deserves to be studied from all possible angles as we try to do. This should make it easier for everyone to understand the profound problems involved in a simple manner and apply them to one's own life for a true and genuine spiritual life.      

The Meaning of History

                                                  It is important for us to have a clear idea of the meaning of history and its function in the formation of the Gospels in the context of the rationalistic vilification of their historical authenticity. As we have seen from the dates 6 B.C. to 37 A.D. given in the previous Post on 'The Real Jesus of History' , all of them do not have the same historical value and yet none of them can be rejected as unhistorical. This is because even those dates that may be doubted as to their historical accuracy are unreservedly supported by those that are clearly historical.
                                                  The crucial point we want to make here is that even genuinely historical events will be useless to us unless their interconnections, relevance, other events related to them etc., are presented to us by the historians themselves. The reason for this is that it is the historians alone, who had witnessed the events reported by them , who are able to see through those events and bring out their meaning for us. This means that some kind of interpretation of facts, supported by the self-understanding of the historian, is inevitable in every kind of historical narrative just as in our our everyday communication of ideas. In other words, there are no 'bare' or 'pure' facts to be scooped up by anyone! The biblical authors, especially the evangelists, had taken care to bring out the meaning of the facts they reported.. They expressed the significance of what happened in and through what happened using each one's peculiar views and style called their theology. In other words, they interpreted events to reveal their meaning that is of essential help in our own understanding of the same. Since this is the case even with secular history, how much more would it be applicable in the case of sacred history that does not restrict itself to time and space, but extends itself to the spheres of eternity too!
                                                We refer to three historical events mentioned in our last Post, namely, Pilate was appointed by Tiberius Caesar in A.D. 25 as Prefect of Palestine, Sejanus was executed by Tiberius in A.D. 31 and Pilate was deposed and exiled by Tiberius in A.D. 36. Though they are seemingly three separate events, some connections and clarifications will assist our understanding not only of these events, but also of the nervousness of Pilate in the judgement of Jesus for crucifixion. Pilate was a friend of Sejanus who himself was friendly with Tiberius Caesar. This fact throws light on how a mere equestrian captain, the position of Pontius Pilate at the time, was suddenly elevated to the exalted status of the Prefect of a Roman Province. Due to some reason when Sejanus was suddenly executed by the Caesar in A. D. 31, Pilate found himself helpless without his political godfather in Rome. A ruler who was unsympathetic to the Jews till then doing what he wanted with them , Pilate found himself suddenly under immense pressure to keep his position safe when the case of Jesus came up for hearing. This background helps us to understand the ambivalent posture of Pilate with regard to the guilt of Jesus, especially as reported in the Gospel of John. Under the circumstances, the last thing Pilate wanted to hear was the insinuation from anyone that he was no friend of Caesar. The Jews took full advantage of this weakness of Pilate and solemnly announced that he was no friend of Caesar if he let Jesus go free who made himself a king. Although Pilate found Jesus to be innocent , he was forced to accede to the wishes of his accusers in order to keep his position as well as his life safe. However, since Caesar was fed up with complaints from the Jews about Pilate he had to depose and exile him to Gaul (France) in A.D. 36.
                                                  Before we end this section on the 'Jesus of History', a word of caution about our understanding of the Bible is in order here.It makes a lot of difference whether one views the Bible as the Word of God or otherwise, considering it like any other written text. It does not mean that being the Word of God no scientific rigor in investigations should be applied to it; on the contrary, the strictest methods of sciences are applied to it in the following manner. When it is taken as the Word of God we have to deal with two authors of the Bible, the divine as well as the human. Yet, usually we get to the intent of the divine author through the human author whose work may be submitted to all available scientific apparatus and methods available and appropriate for the scrutiny of the texts. By this method the intention of the human author we arrive at is also the intention of the divine author. The only exception we have to make is in the case of a few texts with a fuller and deeper meaning as in the case of prophecies, where the fuller meaning may not be immediately apparent even to the prophet although it is implicit in the texts themselves. This kind of intention of God would be made known in the fullness of time when the earlier texts take on a new meaning so far hidden from our understanding. The main example for this kind of texts is to be seen in those dealing with the mystery of Jesus Christ both in the Old Testament and in the New.  
                                                 In this context,we must say that those who try to analyze the biblical texts purely as products of mere  human authors are bound to be off the mark. A prime example of this kind of understanding may be seen in "The Da Vinchi Code" of Dan Brown. Although it is not a commentary on the Bible, but a novel at the end of which in the epilogue the main protagonist is made to see the whole experience as a dream, the air of scholarship injected into the discovery of the "Holy Grail" is truly deceiving. The author seems to be incapable of understanding any human relationship without the tag of sexuality attached to it even in the case of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Here we see how one's own self-understanding , standing as the basic tenet one necessarily falls back on for the purpose of every other understanding , is operative in the case of Dan Brown in his views on human relationships. As for his presumption that the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. under the influence of emperor Constantine imposed the four Gospels on the Church rejecting all others, we have already seen in our previous Posts how the four Gospels were selected as authentic by the whole Church much before the council of Nicaea. In this connection, we may point out the importance of intellectual honesty of scholars if they have really taken the pains to scan through historical records. Although David Strauss in his book "The Life of Jesus Critically Examined" roots for a mythological understanding of the Gospels, he has the intellectual honesty to admit that they derived from the Apostles. He notes that Irenaeus, Clemens of Alexandria and Tertullian testify that by the end of the 2nd century the four Gospels wee recognized by the church as writings of the Apostles and their disciples. This is in addition to the testimony of even earlier authors both in their own works and in quotations by other authors.    
                                            Having completed this section on "The Jesus of History", we shall move on to the next section on "The Christ of Faith" in the coming Posts with the warning that the two should not be seen as divided, but only distinguished for the sole purpose of analysis and understanding! 

The Real Jesus of History

                                                   Some historians are adamant in demanding historical proofs of the existence of Jesus independently of the biblical references to him. It is worth noting that we have both Roman and Jewish sources mentioning the existence and activities of Jesus in Palestine. The Roman sources are: Pliny, Suetonius, Claudius, Nero and Tacitus. The Jewish sources: Flavius Josephus, Philo of Alexandria and the Talmudic literature. Let us add here that if the same method used by some authors to discredit the historicity of Jesus Christ is applied to others as well, one could prove that personalities like Julius Caesar or Alexander the great never existed!. Let us give approximate dates pertaining to the birth and life of Jesus:
6 B.C. Birth of Jesus. The Roman monk Dionysius Exiguus of the sixth century made a slight mistake in calculation working out Jesus' birth to 1 A.D. Certain details of the birth in the New Testament may not be historical. Mathew's Gospel makes use of the imageries from the Old Testament like the virgin birth, calling the son from Egypt, the massacre of the innocents etc., along with the arrival of the Magi from the East all of which are irretrievably mingled with what really happened. The use of imageries from  the Old Testament in the case of the virgin birth, for instance, does not mean that it is from one's imagination as the question of inspiration to the author cannot be ignored. On the other hand, the reference to king Herod has placed the event of the birth of Jesus in history. Similarly, Luke's Gospel refers to emperor Augustus and the census ordered by him, which we know is historical placing the birth of Jesus at a definite place and time.Mathew only mentions that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, whereas Luke gives us the reason why Joseph and Mary had to travel from Nazareth, where they lived, to Bethlehem. From Mathew's perspective, it was not important to indicate where Joseph and Mary came from that turned out to be crucial for Luke in the context of the census, which was really held under the orders of emperor Augustus when Quirinius was governor of Syria from 12 to 6 B.C.
5 to 4 B.C. Flight of the Holy Family to Egypt and slaughter of the innocents.
4 B.C. Death of Herod the Great. This date corroborates the historicity of the New Testament story involving Herod.
6 A. D. Jesus visits the Jerusalem Temple as a child in the company of his parents.
12 A. D. Augustus makes Tiberius co-regent.
14 A. D. Tiberius becomes Caesar.
25 A. D. Pilate and Caiaphas appointed to their respective offices.
29 A. D. The ministry of John the Baptist begins.
30 A. D. The ministry of Jesus begins when the ministry of John almost ended.
31 A. D. Tiberius executes Sejanus who was the political godfather of Pilate.
33 A. D. The crucifixion of Jesus.
36 A. D. Pilate dethroned and exiled and Caiaphas deposed.
37 A. D. Tiberius Caesar dies.
                                                   Some might wonder about how these details of secular history are connected to the real Jesus of history. The connection is that one who accepts these facts of history cannot at the same time deny the details about Jesus' life in the Gospels as they are intertwined! The main objection of those who deny the historicity of Jesus and the Gospels is that these are not historical records, but theological views based on faith. The objection derives from the notion that there can be 'pure history' without any perspectives, which we have countered in the previous posts. However, for further clarification, our next post 'The meaning of History' may be referred to.       

The Transformation of Jesus

                                                        People find it difficult to accept that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead could be part of history. It is true that by resurrection the dead body of Jesus was transformed into a spiritual body suffused with the Holy Spirit as a result of which it may seem that the transformed Jesus could not be part of history. This problem shall be dealt with extensively in our future posts about the Christ of faith and the interaction between faith and reason in the Gospel narratives. Here we just want to call attention to the fact that the risen body of Jesus is neither purely historical nor purely transcendental, but a harmonious blending of both in such a way that it is at home both on earth and in heaven  His appearances after the resurrection to the disciples and the modes of his interaction with them prove this point. Some biblical scholars like Rudolf Bultmann were ready to easily accommodate the Rationalists by keeping 'history' at a safe distance from 'faith' as is seen from their distinction between 'historie' (' the events of the past as they are' in German) and 'geschichte" ('the meaning and relevance of past events for our life' in German). As a result, Bultmann was willing to concede that the resurrection of Jesus was historical in the sense of "geschichte", but not of "historie" where it did not take place. We shall not be surprised by this kind of distinction given the rationalistic assumption that resurrection of Jesus meant a resuscitation of his body like in the case of Lazarus, for example. These two kinds of returning to life are qualitatively different as in the case of Jesus it was a permanent state, whereas for Lazarus it was only temporary as he was destined to die again. Not only that the risen Jesus is in a permanent state, but also his body was transformed from the physical to the spiritual plane, unlike in the cases of resuscitation of bodies. Bultmann arrived at such conclusions as he took over the concept of 'myth' propounded by D. F. Strauss a century earlier and applied it to interpret the New Testament without defining the concept of 'myth', thereby losing focus on the import of the Bible texts interpreted. We have already shown in our previous posts why history and meaning of history cannot be completely segregated  as they belong together, although they may be distinguished for the purpose of analysis.
                                                     Webster defines history as "acts, ideas or events that will or can shape the course of the future". Given this definition, it is clear that there are no better historical records with us than the New Testament and especially the four Gospels. However, the allergy shown by some scholars to those records arise from the fact that they are written from a perspective of faith in Jesus Christ that is their theology. We are of the view that there is no history worth its name without some perspective or other and a theological perspective in the Bible does not detract from its historical value. This is particularly true as we are aware of those perspectives, which helps us to pinpoint the truly historical elements in those texts. It does not mean that each time we may succeed in sifting through the texts of the Bible in order to locate the historical as distinct from the statements of faith. It is enough that we know those statements are rooted in, though not caused by, historical facts in their general outlines. Historical facts can only be an aid or an occasion for faith that always comes from God as a gift that is not based on merit but always as grace out of His mercy. An historical investigation cannot destroy faith as faith is about the meaning of history and not about the facts of history. This is true in reverse too in as far as faith cannot destroy historical facts since it neither adds nor takes away anything from history, but only supplies meaning to historical facts.
                                                   As for the method of verification of the fact of the risen body of Jesus, unlike that of Lazarus, for instance, we shall hold the view that it is restricted to the believers in the crucified Jesus  and not immediately open to the general public that refuses to follow the way of the cross. If the message is meant for all without any distinction of religion, caste, language, sex, culture etc. why is it restricted to believers only? Because all are welcome to follow Jesus by self-denial and carrying one's own cross to find fulfillment of one's own life(Mark, 8:34) and they are the true believers in Jesus Christ. The primary aim of verification is to establish the meaningfulness of the proposition that Jesus has risen from the dead after which alone the fact of resurrection can be approached. For meaningfulness of any proposition , including those of empirical sciences, the requirement is the possibility of verification and not actual verification of the propositions concerned.(See John Padinjarekutt,"Meaning and Verification in Wittgenstein", in BEIJDRAGEN, 1974). In this regard, the meaningfulness of a proposition of the type "Jesus rose from the dead" has the same verifiable value as that of  "Julius Caesar was a Roman emperor".
After a proposition is seen to be meaningful, one may proceed to its actual verification for establishing its genuineness as belonging to the body of knowledge we have constructed. (See John Padinjarekutt, "The Meaningfulness of Theological Statements", in BEIJDRAGEN, 1975).  

The Mind of Jesus

                                                        The apprehension that perhaps the Church has failed to transmit the mind of Jesus authentically to us in the process of proclaiming his message in writing after a gap of incubation at its beginning and later mutations in various forms for 2000 years is without foundation. We should read the Gospels in the spirit in which they were written. This means that we should not be intent on retrieving the history behind the Gospel narratives, as some Rationalists tried to do who were beaten back by Albert Schweitzer, ignoring the understanding in faith of Jesus' life , passion, death and resurrection manifested in them. The first Christians gathered together for remembering mainly the passion of Christ interpreting it in the light of Scripture (Old Testament), praying together the psalms and for breaking bread  with the experience of his resurrection fresh in their minds. When it was written down , each evangelist tells the story of Jesus' life in ways specific to each of them because they were written for different communities. Besides, each of them had a distinct style and a particular point of view or theology. Like true artists, each evangelist produced a masterpiece of the mind of Jesus Christ although the Gospels were bound to be diverse in outlook and character.
                                                      As regards the beginning of the Church, in spite of the fact that the Apostles and the disciples were fundamentally transformed into new persons through the resurrection and Pentecost experiences, they did not forget their life with Jesus before his death. That is why we have the events and teachings recorded in the Gospels where the face of Christ comes out in its original form. What had changed because of their transformation was the way they looked at those very events and teachings  as a result of which they were able to understand them just as Jesus understood them. In fact, one of the main concerns of Jesus was how far even his disciples, let alone the people in general, were able to correctly understand what he taught as well as the entire import of his whole life. His sole consolation was that they would properly understand them once they receive the Spirit after his death and resurrection. This is what really happened in the first christian communities when their human way of understanding things was changed into a divine way of understanding them. This means that what they projected through their preaching and teaching was exactly the mind of Jesus and not their own ideas about him. Even the 'form criticism' propounded by Rudolf Bultmann cannot contradict this view as the 'kerygma' of the believing communities was not meant to literally quote the words of Jesus ignoring their meaning and relevance to their current situations.
                                                    The second part of the apprehension about the failure of the Church in projecting the mind of Jesus always and everywhere down through the past 20 centuries is something which we have to attend to. We have the tools in our hands to redeem any such failures in as far as the Bible as the Word of God has to be the criterion of the renewal of the Church under the guidance of its teaching authority. The Church authority always seeks the guidance from the Church Fathers of the first centuries who were closer to the beginning of the Church. Besides, the biblical experts have an important role in correctly bringing out the intended meaning of the message conveyed through the Bible. The correct meaning is that which is intended by God Himself as well as the human author whereby the questions of inspiration and inerrancy  play a part here. The teaching authority in the Church too is under obligation to renew itself taking guidance from the Word of God in the Bible without which its own guidance may go astray. The Church has no business of existing in this world if it is not able to reveal the mind of Jesus without any flaw.   

The Universal Relevance of the Bible

                                                   The relevance of the Bible must be understood not as an imposition of one set of ideas against any other, but as an invitation to the fullness of life offered to everyone. The whole Bible is geared to this invitation to hear the Good News (Gospel) of God's benevolence over the human race. The Good News is encapsulated in the person of Jesus Christ who made it possible for us to enjoy the fruits ensuing therefrom for which the entire human race, on its own, was incapable. What are the fruits of the Good News? Life in its fullness (John 10:10) deriving from our freedom from everything that threatens our humanity like slavery to dehumanizing conditions of life, blindness to true light, deafness to Truth itself, oppression etc. Jesus announced this good news to the poor and the oppressed by allowing them to go free and declaring the year of the Lord's favor (Luke, 4:18). Why to the poor? The human race itself is poor as it is incapable of reaping these benefits by its own effort. Who is the rich excluded from enjoying the fruits of the good news? Those who feel self-sufficient and arrogant after accumulating ill-gotten wealth or misusing power over others whereby they cannot be poor enough by being truly humble before God and their neighbors. Jesus being God Himself took the human form not only to pay our dues through his own suffering and death on the cross, but also to invite us to follow in his footsteps and this message is addressed to the entire human race. Why and how the entire human race is included here? Because to follow in the footsteps of Jesus one has to only deny self, take up one's own cross and follow him till the end (Mark, 8:34). This is the present lot of humankind whether we like it or not. Why not transform the necessary evil of suffering and humiliation to sources of new and vigorous life? Jesus has gone before us and we only have to follow him. Some people do not like following anyone and they want to chart out their own path in order to be independent. It is alright unless it is uncharted territory where we are likely to get lost. Even in our ordinary life, don't we need coaches for swimming and driving lessons whom we have to follow if we want to continue to live in this world? All the more a model and leader is necessary when it is a question of gaining life in its fullness whom we have to follow without any reservation known as belief or faith in the person.
                                                More than an idea the Good News is concentrated in a person, Jesus Christ, whom we have to accept or reject freely. The importance of the Old Testament for Christians is that it is geared to the understanding of Jesus Christ in the context of God's revelation to the people of Israel that prepares for His entry into human history in a unique manner. The self-revelation of God in the New Testament does not negate that in the Old Testament, but rather qualitatively enhances the depth of His involvement in human history. The same may be said about other religions and their Scriptures as well as the cosmic revelation of God through nature encompassing the whole of humanity. What happened in a small corner of the world in Palestine is not meant to deny values that are ingrained in other kinds of manifestations of God from the very beginning of humankind. In fact, the Church Fathers are explicit in acknowledging the workings of the Word of God through His Spirit from the very beginning of the world.
                                               The problem about the universal relevance of the Bible and of Jesus Christ originates from a defective understanding of the Church about herself down through the centuries. It has to do with the expression of the nature of the Church both as visible and invisible where the visible element seems to have overshadowed the legitimate rights of the invisible element. This defect has permeated Christology as well resulting in a vision of the mission of the Church clearly unacceptable to the Church herself after the second Vatican Council. The feeling of superiority breeding contempt and intolerance of others is totally alien to the spirit of Christ whom the Church represents and who is the sole reason for her existence.

Why Only the Four Gospels?

                                                       Why did the Church accept only the four Gospels as canonical rejecting even the Gospels under the names of Peter and Thomas and other Apostles? Here we come across the need to locate the criterion used by the Church to accept some and reject the others. The Church did not have to look elsewhere for the criterion used as the Gospels were themselves products of its own life for about 40 years before they were written down. Any written material, therefore, should have reflected its own image as in a mirror. Any failure to do so would be a good criterion to reject such texts as spurious. This is what we have seen in a previous post in the case of Marcion and the Christian Community in Rome in the case of the Gospel of Luke. The community as a whole took the decision to reject Marcion's proposal to modify Luke's Gospel as it already knew the real Gospel. The final decision of the Church leaders about the canonical Gospels was arrived at as late as the Council of Carthage in 392 A.D. although a beginning was made in the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. It was but a natural outcome of the sense of the Church as a whole and not the result of manipulations by any section of the Church. On the other hand, even the Gospel of Thomas discovered in 1945 does not help us in any way in quest for the historical Jesus as we have there only the sayings of Jesus. Some of those sayings are not in conformity with the Canonical Gospels, a reason good enough for the Gospel of Thomas to be branded as apocryphal. Th same may be said about the Gospel of Judas Iscariot, recently upheld as genuine by some, that was already in 180 branded as apocryphal by no less an authority in these matters as Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in France.
                                                    Did we unwittingly play into the hands of those who oppose our views on the matter and assert that being the products of the first believing communities the Gospels were necessarily distorted versions of what really happened. According to this view, it would have to be admitted that any historical data get contaminated by the personal mode of thinking of the historians themselves and are thus distorted. The best remedy to avoid this pitfall is to dig out the data from the original witnesses whose very life forms are shaped by those historical events. This is what happened in the first Christian Communities where the believers heard the Gospel events directly from the Apostles and disciples who were constantly in the company of Jesus. They experienced them in hearing the Word of God, participating in the Eucharistic Liturgy and prayers that changed them into new persons. Thus they were at a vantage point to look back at the original events for the purpose of comparing their new state with the Gospel events. In this new perspective, the Evangelists recorded the events and sayings of Jesus after a period of 40 years. Was anything changed in this process? The change was only in better understanding the meaning and significance of events and sayings that were opaque to them earlier. This kind of understanding the meaning and significance of historical events in the context of revelation is called theology. Therefore, there was no distortion, but clarification that enhances the value of those historical events. Those who are uncomfortable with the involvement of the first  believing communities should be reminded that according to Linguistic Analysis, no language is meaningful without being rooted in some kind of forms of life that generate the appropriate language games giving meaning to language itself. The Gospels are, therefore, well placed as historical records even within the parameters of the strict modern criteria of meaning as use of words and sentences in language. This process had the advantage of checks and balances of the original facts by a group of people instead of an individual or two with their own prejudices as happens in usual history writings.
Therefore, the presence of theological perspectives in the Bible in no way diminishes its historical value.
                                                  Some people argue that writings other than the 4 Gospels were weeded out as they supposedly contained certain secrets revealed by Jesus to his close circle of disciples. The only secrets alluded to by Jesus were the "Messianic Secret", referring to his own person as the expected Messiah, and the secrets of the Kingdom of God. Although the parables about the Kingdom of God were addressed to everyone, the general public did not have the time or inclination to be attuned to listen to them. The Apostles themselves were instructed by Jesus by explaining the meaning of the parables. The only other group to whom these types of secrets are revealed are children and that too directly by the Father Himself. For this reason, children are best suited to enter the Kingdom of God. Paul in his Letters tells us about the mystery God had kept in His mind from eternity and revealed gradually to us in fullness of time. This mystery is Jesus Christ himself in us (Col.1:25-27). These are the types of secrets we have in the Bible, unlike any in Gnosticism or other secret cults.The Bible is meant for revelation of God Himself and not for hiding things from our view and understanding!