Essentials Lesson 1: Discussion - The Knowledge of God

Knowing God
The knowledge of God is above all things the most precious. A man may know many things, but all those things mean nothing if he does not know God. Man can live a full and happy life only when he has an intimate and spiritual knowledge of the Lord Who created him. For God created man to serve and glorify Him. We read in Rev. 4:11, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Therefore, there is in every man an emptiness without the knowledge of God. Life is vain. Life has no meaning and purpose without God. Solomon put it this way, Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. (Eccl. 1:2). If a man is to be truly happy, if he is to enjoy true life, he must know God. The Psalmist says, Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. (Ps. 146:5).

The necessity of knowing God is demonstrated by the fact that the knowledge of God is eternal life. Jesus Christ said,And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. (John 17:3). The intimate knowledge of God is the very essence of eternal life. Eternal life is knowing the Triune God and His Son, Jesus Christ. It is knowing certain facts about God and His Son. Thus it is important that a person learn about God and all of His wondrous works. It is also knowing God in a personal and intimate way as Lord and Savior. If a man is to have eternal life, he must know God spiritually. What, therefore, can be more precious than the knowledge of God?

The Incomprehensible God
Man, however, cannot know God of himself. God is the incomprehensible God. He is high and lifted up, a great and glorious God. The Psalmist says, Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite. (Ps. 147:5). God is the infinite, eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, sovereign God of heaven and earth. He is God. What are we in comparison to Him? The prophet, Isaiah said, Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. ...All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. (Isa. 40:15, 17). Man is so little in comparison to God that he is like a little drop of water on the rim of a bucket. He is as small as the unnoticeable dust on a balance. He is nothing. All of us added together are less than nothing. God is so great that man does not even equal zero before him.

How, then, is it possible for man to know God? Surely we cannot put Him into a test tube and examine Him. How can the finite examine the Infinite? Thus we read, Behold, God is great, and we know him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out. (Job 36:26). The apostle Paul exclaims, ...the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. (I Cor. 2:11). Because God is the infinite God, finite man of Himself cannot possibly know the glory and greatness of His Being. Thus we read, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa. 55:8-9). Only the Spirit of God knows God for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. (I Cor. 2:10).

God’s Self-Revelation
God, however, reveals Himself to His people. Of ourselves, we can never know God. But God, the incomprehensible God, shows himself to us so that we can know Him. He so reveals Himself that the finite creature is able to know about Him and know Him in a personal and intimate way. The infinite God imparts the knowledge of Himself to the creature in a form which the creature can receive and understand. He, as it were, comes down to our level and speaks our language. God reveals Himself objectively in three ways — in creation, in history, and in Holy Scripture.

The creation of the world is itself a manifestation of God and His greatness. The Psalmist says, The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. (Ps. 19:1-2). The things that God created speak, as it were, of God and His power. The stars of the sky tell us that there is a God and that He is a very great and glorious God, for all the stars of heaven are His handiwork. Every creature which God has made shows forth the knowledge of God. Thus we are instructed that God's name (God's revelation of Himself) is in the world. The Psalmist says, O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens (Ps. 8:1).

God also reveals Himself objectively in the history of the world. The Psalmist says, One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works. And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts: and I will declare thy greatness. (Ps. 145:4-6). All of history is but the display of the wondrous acts of God. Think, for instance, of the history of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. All of the plagues which God sent upon Egypt were grand displays of His majesty. God is behind all of history and working in all of history. Thus, all of history shows forth His greatness and glory. In the old dispensation, there were many times when God made Himself known in a very direct manner. He spoke to His people in dreams and visions. He even appeared unto many in the form of the Angel of Jehovah (Gen. 31:11-13). Moreover, God manifested Himself most directly when He sent Jesus Christ into the world. Christ is the revelation of God. We read, God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son... (Heb. 1:1-2).

The Sacred Scriptures
It is in the sacred Scriptures, however, that God objectively reveals Himself fully and completely. For the Scriptures are the written record of the revelation of God throughout history. God spoke His Word to the prophets and apostles and through Jesus Christ when He walked upon the earth. Under the inspiration of God that Word was recorded for us today. The Bible, God's written Word, is the objective revelation of the Infinite God whereby we come to know Him.

God's revelation in creation and history cannot be understood apart from the Scriptures. The Holy Scriptures are the eyeglasses through which we must look at creation and history if we are to properly see the knowledge of God in them. Without the Bible, man misinterprets creation and history. Furthermore, since the completion of the Bible, God reveals that which is essential for man to know for salvation only in the Scriptures. The apostle Paul says, And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (II Tim. 3:15). The Scriptures are essential for the knowledge of God.

Revelation And The Natural Man
Although God reveals Himself objectively in creation, history, and Scripture; man still does not come to know God apart from a subjective revelation of God. Man, by nature, does not know God spiritually. Even though he is a part of God's creation, lives in history, and reads the Bible; he does not and cannot know God as Savior and Lord. We read, But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (I Cor. 2:14). The true knowledge of God is a spiritual knowledge. The natural man, however, has no spiritual capacity whatsoever. He is not spiritual but he is natural.

However, intellectually he knows some things about God. In Rom. 1:20 we read, For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. The natural man, whether he admits it or not, knows from creation itself that there is a God and that God is an eternal and all-powerful God. He knows that He must serve, worship, and honor this God too and that he is therefore without excuse if he does not. When he does not worship and serve God, he feels the wrath of Almighty God upon him. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness. (Rom. 1:18).

Revelation And Faith
It is only the believer, taught and led by the Spirit of God, who can know God in a true spiritual way. The Spirit of God uses the objective Word of God to subjectively teach the believer the knowledge of God. The apostle Paul teaches us, But as it is written, Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. (I Cor. 2:9-10). All the things of God which man cannot see, does not hear, and cannot understand; God reveals to the hearts of believers by His Spirit. God takes the objective revelation of Himself and through that shows Himself to the believer as his loving heavenly Father and Savior in Jesus Christ.

Thus, it is only through faith in Jesus Christ that anyone comes to spiritually know the true God. Jesus Christ said, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. (John 8:12). Christ is the revelation of God. In Him is all the brightness of the light of God. One who knows Him by faith also knows God. One who knows Christ has the light of life — the intimate knowledge of eternal life. He partakes of the blessed covenant life of God Himself. He has fellowship and communion with God. Thus the apostle John writes, And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. (I John 5:20).