Knowing God

Do you know God? Do you have the assurance that you have eternal life? Knowing that we know God is paramount because salvation ultimately can be boiled down to this one thing: knowing God.

In John 17, Jesus, before going to the cross, was praying to the Father for His disciples – both those present at that time and those who would believe in future generations through the preaching of the apostolic word of the gospel. In verse 3, Jesus defines eternal life for us, praying, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

“Eternal life” is a phrase used forty-one times in the New Testament. And in John 17, we see what it means: to know God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Eternal life is not merely to live forever and never die. It includes that, of course, by definition. But eternal life is not simply an eternal existence of isolation or independence. It is eternal life in a relationship with God. It is a life that is not only unending but unlimited in its joy because it is a life lived in the very presence of God and His light and His love.

Eternal life is what Paul called life in 1 Timothy 6:19. It is the life we were created to enjoy in unhindered and uninterrupted fellowship with our loving and good Creator. Knowing God is the essence of eternal life, which means it is the essence of the Christian life.

When God promised a new covenant, the essence of the new covenant was that His people would know Him – as described by the Lord in Jeremiah 31:31-34. A new covenant was necessary because Israel broke the old covenant. They did not know the Lord, although they had His Word, Law, and promises.

It is no surprise that mere hours before Jesus would suffer and die on the cross for His people’s sins, he would describe the eternal life He would win for us on the cross as proper knowledge of God. All of history has been driven to this point, with the climax of God’s covenant program in the new covenant being an appropriate knowledge of God.

In Philippians 3:8, Paul looked at everything the world had to offer – all goods, all status, all prestige, all religious piety, all riches, all success, all power, and position–and concluded that next to knowing Christ, it was all rubbish. The word translated trash is crude in Greek and often used for human excrement. When Paul compared the most important things, the world has to offer with the surpassing value of knowing Christ, everything in the world was, by comparison, human waste.

Paul went on to outline the goal of his existence in Philippians 3:10: 

“That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” 

Nothing mattered in life to Paul, ultimately, besides knowing Christ. And so, knowing God in Christ, knowing the Father and the Son, is the goal of our salvation; it is what eternal life is all about.

If knowing God in Christ is the essence of our salvation, we face a most essential question: How do we know if we know Him? How do we know if we have fellowship with the true and living God through His Son when this God is invisible?

Countless Christians have wrestled with this question throughout history, wondering how they could ever have assurance on this side of eternity that they truly know God. Many other professing Christians throughout history had foolishly taken for granted that they know God based on experience or feelings when they were deceived and did not know Him. And when we consider the enormous consequences of this question – eternal life or eternal condemnation – there is no more important question to answer for ourselves than this: do we know that we know God?

Thankfully, John gives us a way to answer this question in 1 John 2, showing us three tests of how we can have a true certainty whether we know God or are deceiving ourselves.

The first characteristic of those who know God is trusting in Christ’s righteousness. If we truly know God in Christ, we will be marked by reliance upon the character of Jesus Christ for our standing before God.

The second characteristic is that they obey Christ’s commandments. John doesn’t tell us to keep a list of rules and dos and don’ts, but that we have a special relationship with the Word of God that is marked by being conformed to what it says.

And the last characteristic of John is that those who know God love Christ’s people. If we claim to be in the light and holy, but if we do not love others, we are in the darkness and self-deceived.

Our relationship to God is discerned by our relationship to Christ’s righteousness, commands, and people. By these, we can have complete certainty of our eternal life found only in knowing Him.

Author: Robb Brunansky