The Proclaimer

Knowing God

How can we know God?  Many people in the religious world are under the impression that we can know God only as we “know Him in our heart.”  Consequently, they consider one’s inner feelings determine whether they know God.  While it’s true the blessed assurance of heaven can be ours, transcendental meditations and emotionalism are not evidence of pardon and salvation.  Physical experiences and feelings are not evidence of knowing God, for He cannot be “known” as one might know of material things.  The fact is, God can be known only as He has revealed Himself.

Clearly, “no man hath seen God at any time” (John 1:18).  But when Jesus came into the world, deity put on flesh and dwelt among men, “for in him dwelleth all the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9).  As God incarnate, Jesus showed us God’s love and power, His compassion and holiness.  Through His teachings and His example, Jesus revealed God, translating the very essence of deity in terms understandable by man.  Jesus said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:7).  And so we “know” God only to the extent we “see” (know, perceive) Christ.

It is not, therefore, necessary for man to ascend to heaven to know God, for God has come down to earth for that very purpose.  God is accessible to man through Jesus His Son.  He intends “that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27).  The means of seeking after God is through the “word of faith” which His messengers have proclaimed (Rom. 10:8).  Only as we receive Christ through obeying His word (Acts 2:41) can we know God.  Even as John wrote, “And hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.  He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoso keepeth his word, in him verily hath the love of God been perfected.  Hereby we know that we are in him: he that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk even as he walked” (1 John 2:3-6).

But knowing God does not come without a price.  Paul said, “Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ, and be found in him not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith: that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death: if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:8-11).

God loves us, and “commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).  Consequently, we are able to “ draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).  Only through Christ can we know God.  The “good news” is that anyone can know God in Christ, for the gospel is God’s power to save (Rom. 1:16), and the gospel calls all men to a knowledge of God (2 Thess. 2:14).  God has “spoken to us in his Son” (Heb. 1:2), and through that message has made Himself available to all who will prayerfully consider His inspired word.  Truly the Bible is man’s “window into heaven.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               -- Clark Dugger

The Proclaimer