[This Study relates to Knowing Christ - Knowing God Worksheet 1 designed for use in group study situations. Some of the suggestions in the Study Tasks are specific for group study leaders; these can be adapted for personal study.]
Our world today, perhaps more than any other generation, and especially in the 'western world', powerfully and increasingly displays the meaning of the word 'lost'. People don't know who they are or why they are here or where they are going. Individually and corporately there is a massive disintegration going on:
Over the past two centuries three powerful influences have combined to produce the present state of our society:
1. Secular Humanism, which denies the existence of any supernatural entities - including God. 'Nature', the physical world, is all that there is. Man, the most developed part of nature, is responsible for and capable of fulfilling his own destiny. Our future and that of our planet is in our hands. In the absence of any 'god' there are obviously no absolute standards of right and wrong: we are not answerable to any 'out there' above us deity who has laid down the rules for living.
[Do not confuse with 'humanitarianism' which = expressing human kindness to other humans.]
2.The Theory of Evolution, which effectively eliminates the concept of a Creator God, as defined in the Bible. In eliminating the Biblical God evolution also eliminates the Biblical meaning of human life, robbing human life of its uniqueness, and goes hand in hand with Secular Humanism in eliminating absolute moral standards.
3. Liberal Theology, working hand in hand with the two above in their denial of the supernatural and of absolutes, denies that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and does not even consider that God, in his sovereign power, could have overruled its writing. Church-goers exposed to this mentality are left without any sure and absolute definition of God, without any belief in the deity of Christ, with no belief in miracles - including the virgin birth and the resurrection, and with little perception of the sinfulness of man or the meaning of salvation.
[Do not assume that all theology is bad. Some theology is very good: it all depends on how closely it represents Biblical teaching.]
The net result of all of this is
4. Postmodernism, in which there is no such thing as truth to be found, so one does not even look for it. One does not know, and cannot ever know, who one is - or even if one really is, what life is all about - or if it is about anything at all, what is right or wrong - or even if there is such a thing as right and wrong. In fact one lives with the assumption that there is no meaning, no purpose, no absolutes. [Note to study leader: for the sensitive thinking person this can quickly lead on to nihilism the despairing state of mind where nothing at all has any meaning or purpose. It is no wonder that people seek either identity or escape in addictions to drugs, sex, extreme sports and the like, or eventually to suicide.]
In the perceived absence of God, truth and meaning, we, that is we humans, find our significance in a number of ways.
We create our own 'gods' : either physical idols or 'philosophical', conceptual idols. Thus we find such ideologies as
[Notes to group leader [or for extra personal study]: [1] Scripture reference to use here if there is time: Romans 1:18-32, where the persistent corruption and distortion of the concept of 'god' is recorded. [2] Also, if there is time, draw attention to the fact that the whole of Scripture is pervaded by the contrast between the one true God and the 'gods' of man's creation. [3] If people want to pursue this refer them to Isaiah 40-46 where the awesome and incomparable majesty of God is contrasted to the puny insignificance of idols.]
We search for meaning, significance and purpose in
As Christians we must not assume that the quest for meaning, significance and purpose in these ways is limited to unbelievers. At every one of the points listed above Christians are involved, seeking in them to find personal fulfilment, completeness and contentment, and seeking by them to 'big-note' themselves in the presence of their fellow Christians, of the world, and of God.
Examples of how each, in their order listed above, have seduced Christians:
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Materialism |
Prosperity teaching and Word of Faith teaching promise us unlimited health and wealth, and consider Christians who do not have wealth and health to be failures; even non-charismatic Christians frequently view the presence or absence of God's blessing in material/physical terms. |
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Non-physical materialism |
All to frequently Christians take significance from their ministry or from their spirituality - the number of souls we have saved, the size of our church, the years, days or hours per week of our service, our spiritual gifting, our faithfulness in quiet time habits, our personal success/progress in striving for holiness, and so on. |
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Legalism |
The automatic inclination of the human heart, including the Christian heart, is to relate to God, ourselves and others in terms of the level of one's obedience to law . We rate ourselves and others on this basis. We rate God's relationship with us on this basis. We rate our identity of 'success' or 'failure' on this basis. We assume that we are close and more acceptable to God when we obey a command and removed and less acceptable when we disobey. We set aside the message of the Gospel of grace and relate to God as though we were still under the condemnation of law and sin. We also do the same to others, refusing to pass on to them the very grace of God that enables our existence as Christians. |
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Mysticism |
Christian 'experience' is the source of significance - visions, dreams, hearing God's voice, ecstatic experiences, getting supernatural guidance through inner impressions and feelings, communicating with angels, finding personal messages from God in coincidences and the like, looking for signs and wonders, hearing God's call, having a wonderful quiet time, participating in exhilarating corporate worship - all of these become the source of meaning and purpose and significance and fulfilment. |
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Subjectivism |
Christians leave aside the Bible as the source of absolute truth and define truth in terms of their personal experiences. Rather than the Bible being used to validate or invalidate and interpret an experience, the Christian's subjective, personal understanding of his/her experience is used to interpret and identify the meaning of the Bible, and the subjective meaning they, or others, have given to their experience is thus imposed on the Bible and, sometimes, made normative for everyone. The Bible is made to conform to subjective experience, rather than subjective experience being under the authority and judgement of the Bible. |
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Hedonism |
Christians assess reality from the hedonistic mindset: this is clearly evident, as an example, in attitudes to church services, which are assessed in terms of how exciting or moving they are or how good they made one feel, irrespective of whether or not the Lord was honoured and his truth proclaimed. |
In contrast to all of this the Bible is very clear in its answer to the question 'What are we here for?' It expresses its one answer in a number of ways:
The one answer expressed in all of these answers is: we are here for God.
In all of this God is wholly for us in order that we may be wholly for him.
It is God who gives meaning, significance and purpose to human existence. It is only in this relationship of knowing God that human life achieves its maximum potential. It is only in knowing God that we are truly human. It is only in knowing God that we can live the life for which we were created.
[Note to Study Leader : differentiate between 'knowing God' and 'knowing about' God. This distinction will become very obvious as these studies proceed.]
'What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever' (Westminster Confession of Faith: The Shorter Catechism).
'This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent' (John 17:3).
[1] From JI Packer: Knowing God: 'What are we made for? To know God. What aim should we set ourselves in life? To know God. What is the 'eternal life' that Jesus gives? Knowledge of God. ... What is the best thing in life, bringing more joy, delight, and contentment, than anything else? Knowledge of God. ... What, of all states God ever sees man in, give Him most pleasure? Knowledge of Himself ... ' (p31).
[2] From John Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion: ' ... it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself. ' (1.1.2)
[3] From Calvin's Commentary on Jeremiah 9:24: 'Today all sorts of subjects are eagerly pursued; but the knowledge of God is neglected ... Yet to know God is man's chief end, and justifies his existence. Even if a hundred lives were ours, this one aim would be sufficient for them all.'
[4] From Leon Morris: The Gospel According to John : ' ... to know God means more than knowing the way to life. It is life ... . To know Him transforms a man and introduces him to a different quality of living. Eternal life is simply the knowledge of God. ' (p 719,720).
[5] From G.C. Berkouwer: 'Man: The Image of God': 'Man cannot truly know himself if he ignores the light of God's revelation ... The Bible never speaks of man in himself, as isolated, but always in terms of his relationship to God ... ' (21,34).
[6] From Karl Barth: Dogmatics in Outline: 'Christian faith is the illumination of the reason in which men become free to live in the truth of Jesus Christ and thereby to become sure also of the meaning of their own existence and of the ground and goal of all that happens.' (p22)
'To know Him is to know all. To be touched and gripped by the Spirit in this realm means being led into all truth. If a man believes and knows God, he can no longer ask, What is the meaning of my life? But by believing he actually lives the meaning of his life ... The Christian Creed speaks of God as the ground and goal of all that exists. The ground and goal of the entire cosmos means Jesus Christ. And the unheard-of thing may and must be said, that where Christian faith exists, there also exists, through God's being trusted, inmost familiarity with the ground and goal of all that happens, of all things; there man lives, in spite of all that is said to the contrary, in the peace that passeth all understanding, and which for that very reason is the light that lightens our understanding.' (p26,27).
[7] From Francis Schaeffer: Whatever Happened to the Human Race?: 'If there is no personal God, nothing beyond what our eyes can see and our hands can touch, then Woody Allen is right: life is both meaningless and terrifying. As the famous artist Paul Guaguin wrote on his last painting shortly before he tried to commit suicide: "Whence come we? What are we? Whither do we go?" The answers are nowhere, nothing, and nowhere.'
Knowing God, JI Packer.
Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Francis Schaeffer