God's Word For You is a free Bible Study site committed to bringing you studies firmly grounded in the Bible – the Word of God. Holding a reformed, conservative, evangelical perspective this site affirms that God has provided in Jesus Christ his eternal Son, a way of salvation in which we can live in his presence guilt free, acquitted and at peace.

 
 

ALL THINGS NEW

A NEW KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

The Bible makes it quite clear that, left to ourselves, we do not and cannot know God.

“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them …” [1Corinthians 2:14]

“… there is no one who understands …” [Romans 3:11]

“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” [2Corinthians 4:4]

“You do not know me or my Father … “ [John 8:19]

There is ample evidence of this universal ignorance of the one true God. All around the world humans reach out to gods of their own creation - physical idols fashioned either by human hands or concepts of ‘god’ fashioned by human minds. Definitions of ‘god’ are many and varied and contradictory.

This multiplicity and variety of ‘gods’ raises many questions, including:

Is there such a thing as a real God who is the one true God?
If there is, is it possible to really know who and what this real God is?

Secular humanism, evolution, and the resultant post-modernism would have us believe that there is no such thing as a real God, and, although giving us liberty to personally believe in whatever ‘god’ we choose, affirm that no such belief has any claim to be the ‘right’ belief because all ‘gods’, including the biblical God, are mere human inventions with no actual reality or existence.

But the question remains: why do we find a ‘god concept’ in people groups all around the world? It is illogical to believe that the existence of god-concepts is a part of a supposed evolutionary process since it makes no apparent contribution to that supposed physical process.

The other explanation of the existence of god-concepts is that they arise from a residual human memory that there is actually a real God, and that these multiple concepts of ‘god’ are counterfeits created and defined by humans at various points in human history and human geography and resulting from our original human rejection of this real God in Genesis 3. A counterfeit exists only because of the existence of the real. One does not make counterfeits of something that does not exist. The existence of a counterfeit actually affirms the prior existence of the real.

But who and what is the real God, of whom the plethora of ‘gods’ are man-made counterfeits? Having rejected him, having discarded him, can we ever again actually know him?

Yes. We can.

Jesus Christ said:

“If you know me you would know my Father also” [John 8:19]

“When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me” [John 12:44,45]

“If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on you do know him and have seen him. … Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ “ [John 14:7,9]

The apostle John taught:

“We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true – even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life” [1John 5:20]

Those who know, really know, Jesus Christ, know the one true God. Jesus Christ, ‘the Light of the world’ has dispersed our darkness. Jesus Christ, ‘the Truth’, has removed our ignorance. Jesus Christ, ‘the Bread of life’, has permanently satisfied our craving for ‘god’.

“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” [2Corinthians 4:6].

John concluded his first letter with the extremely pointed words “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols” [1John 5:21]. In knowing God by knowing Christ we now know the one true God. In knowing God by knowing Christ we have been rescued and redeemed from all man-made counterfeit god-concepts.

Let us rejoice that in Christ we now know the real God and be thankful!

© Rosemary Bardsley 2012, 2019