S4 E2: The Knowability of God

Season 4 of Spirit-Led Hope is covering the Doctrine of God, or theology, from a Spirit-led perspective. In this episode, Glenn discusses that we can know God, and not just know about him. Also discussed, are the limits of intellectualism when it comes to knowing God.

This episode has a transcript. If your podcast player does not support transcripts, please go to the Transcripts section of https://spiritledhope.com/ . These transcripts have been edited for accuracy and are typically of higher quality than those produced automatically by many podcast apps.

Season 4 is part of a long term goal to study systematic theology from a Spirit-led perspective. If you want to know more about systematic theology, or expand your study, Glenn is using the following text as a helpful framework to make sure the main topics are covered:  Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, by Guy P. Duffield and Nathaniel M. Van Cleave.  The book is published by Foursquare Media and Glenn is using the Second Edition published in 2016.      

Transcript

S4 E2 TRANSCRIPT 

THE KNOWABILITY OF GOD

INTRODUCTION

Hello everyone and welcome to Spirit-Led Hope. My name is Glenn Erichsen, and in this episode, we are looking at:

     THE KNOWABILITY OF GOD

In this episode, we are making the claim that we can personally know God. And this is vitally important because our very ability to know God is what enables a Spirit-led life. It is only because we know God that we trust him enough to follow where he leads.

Imagine that you are out shopping, and a stranger walks up to you carrying a black box with a hole in its side. You have no idea what is in the box. If this stranger asks you to put your hand in the hole, will you do it? I do not think so! Why? Because you do not know the man. You do not know if he is a friend, or an enemy. You do not know his intentions. You know nothing about him. In fact, wisdom dictates that without more knowledge you get away from him!

And yet, when we lead a Spirit-led life, God may ask us to do things where the whole picture is hidden from us. It may feel a lot like sticking our hand into that box. Except for one major difference. The more we know God, the more we trust him. If we have an intimate relationship with God, then we know we can reach into the unknown as we are led by the Holy Spirit.

GOD MUST REVEAL HIMSELF

When we talk about the knowability of God, we first need to face the fact that we can never fully understand God. We just cannot. God is our Creator, and we are the created. There is a simple verse in Psalm 147:5 which talks about how far God is beyond us. One translation says:

Our Lord is great, vast in power; his understanding is infinite.

Psalm 147:5 CSB

Another translation says:

…his understanding is beyond measure.

Psalm 147:5 ESV

There is no way for us to ever fully grasp the magnitude of God. There is not one single thing about God that we can ever fully understand because he is infinite. But just because we cannot fully understand him, does not mean that we can never know him. But there is a catch…of sorts.

The only way we can come to know God is if he reveals himself to us. God is so far beyond us, that if he wanted to hide, he could. It would be easy for him to allow us to be totally unaware of his existence. But that is not what he does.

Let us look at a few of the ways God reveals himself to us. One of the ways is through nature. This is often called “general revelation.” In the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul starts out by showing that everyone is guilty before God because God has revealed himself to everyone through nature. Let us read what Paul wrote.

For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.

Romans 1:18-20 CSB

So, through nature, God’s existence is revealed to everyone. Why? Because God chose to reveal himself in that way. God created us with a wonder and curiosity of the universe. Through nature we discern some of God’s attributes like his power and his intelligence. We discussed in Season 2 that nature points to God.

Now in addition to nature, God reveals himself in other ways that are called “special revelation.” It is through special revelation that God gives details about himself that we cannot discern though nature alone. In fact, special revelation gives us the way to interpret what we see in nature.

Now there are special revelations from God in the form of dreams and visions, but the most obvious example for us is the Bible. In Season 3, we talked extensively about how the writers of the Bible were inspired by God. It is through the written word of the Bible that God reveals many of his thoughts, his plans, his personality, how we became separated from him and most importantly, how our relationship with him can be restored.

And that brings us to Jesus who is the most important form of special revelation. God himself became one of us, so that he could identify with us, and we could see him in a way never before possible. Jesus, in human form, showed us God in a relatable way we could understand. This is what it says in the book of Hebrews about Jesus, the Son of God:

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways. In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word…

Hebrews 1:1-3 CSB.

It is through Jesus that we can most fully understand and know God. It is through Jesus that we can once again have relationship with God. When we believe in Jesus, trusting him to save us, the most remarkable thing happens…the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us. And now, because of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit, we can truly know God.

KNOWING GOD VERSUS KNOWING ABOUT GOD

Here I think it is important to look at the difference between knowing God and knowing about God. We can know a lot of facts about someone, but not really know them. For example, I can go online and learn that Tim Tebow was born in 1987 and won the Heisman trophy for his skills in college football. I also know that he is an outspoken Christian and became known for bowing on the football field. With a little bit of research, I can learn a lot of facts about Tim Tebow. But I do not really know him. And he certainly knows nothing about me…unless he listens to this podcast. Tim, if you are listening, send me an email so we can have a relationship and get to know each other.

Because that is what it takes to know someone. To really know someone requires a relationship. Just knowing a bunch of facts about someone does not mean that you really know them.

This is crucial for us to understand in our world of high technology and information overload. Our ability to gather facts and information can fool us into thinking that we know someone. Sometimes I get very irritated at how accurate the advertising engines are when I am online. Companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have done such a good job capturing the websites I browse, or tracking my purchases, that sometimes it feels like they know me.

I am convinced that sometimes a piece of software can make better recommendations for me than my family. I have even found myself thinking that a computer algorithm really understands me. But of course, it does not. It can only know facts about me. Now facts are a part of getting to know someone, but they only go so far.

While it might be possible for Amazon to make a better recommendation for me than my wife, I would always put her decisions first. This is because we have spent decades together. She knows my emotions, and the logic I use.  And she has proven that she has my best interests at heart. This goes way beyond only facts.

I am saying all of this because we need to be careful to not just become people who gather facts about God. We can intellectually read the Bible, study Christian materials, read the writings of the early Fathers, and gather tons of facts about God and still not know him.

And this is why it is vital that when we read the Bible, we must allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us and inspire us and illuminate Scripture. If we do that, we are not just collecting a bunch of facts about God, but we are having relationship with him. The Holy Spirit will take Scripture and allow it to become personal…that is relationship.

For example, I can intellectually read John 3:16 and know that God loves the world. But the Holy Spirit is the one who helps me to understand that God loves me. So that when I read that God gave his only Son to the world it becomes personal, and I am filled with gratitude and love for God. I begin to worship God and talk with him, and I am aware of his love for me.

THAT…is relationship with God. And that is one of the ways we get to know him, and not just know about him.

INTELLECT AND THE HOLY SPIRIT WORK TOGETHER

If you have listened to many of the prior episodes, you have heard me warn about overuse of the intellect. And I want to make sure that you do not take that to mean I am against the use of our minds. For sure, that is not the case. I believe everyone should pursue God at whatever their level of intellectual ability can take them.

But I do want us to keep our intellect in the proper perspective. If our relationship with God were solely based on our intelligence and ability to think, then the greater your intellect, the greater your relationship with God. And we know that is not true.

I want us to think for a minute about how we know that we are saved…how do we know that we have been adopted into God’s family. If someone asked me that question, I would probably quote some of the Bible verses that point to that…like “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved,” which is found in the book of Acts. And that would be a very proper thing to do because verses like that allow us to process the truth of Scripture and intellectually evaluate and accept what God has told us. 

But when we continue to look through Scripture, we find that God tells us there is something more. In the 8th chapter of Romans, Paul talks about a Spirit-led life. And there he says:

The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children…

Romans 8:16 CSB

So, it is the Holy Spirit who lets us know that we are adopted into God’s family. And this is good news for us, because this shows us the Holy Spirit meets us in just the way we need to be met. This verse applies to everyone, and it is independent of our mental faculties.

If you are someone who loves apologetics, or philosophy, or logic, then go deep when it comes to God. But do not ignore the voice of the Holy Spirit. If you do that, you risk becoming a collector of facts without ever knowing God. And if you struggle to think about Scripture, then I challenge you to keep trying. Because the Holy Spirit wants us to worship God with our mind, as well as our emotions. The Holy Spirit constantly works within us to renew our minds, and the study of God’s Word is a part of that.

HOW TO KNOW GOD

In the upcoming episodes we are going to be looking at a lot of facts about God. Because, again, knowing facts about someone is a part of getting to know them. But I want us to make sure that we know how to avoid learning only facts. So here I am going to list four things to do, that will help us get to know God while we are learning facts. Because these four things are ways we build a relationship with God.

I am not going to go into huge detail here, because I believe most of these will seem, to Christians, like common sense. Also, I believe over the course of this Season we may talk about these things in more detail. We will see…

The first way to know God is to read the Bible. We are going to use the Bible to learn about God, but in the process, we will get to know God. We know from Scripture itself that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.  As we learn about God through his Word, the Holy Spirit works in us to help our faith in God grow. This faith will help us relate to Jesus, the living Word. Because we can relate to Jesus, we come to know God better through him.

In fact, Jesus said:

“If you know me, you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

John 14:7 CSB

What we see, is that as we commit ourselves to reading the Bible, God reveals himself in a personal way so that we get to know him. The Holy Spirit works in us to make this happen.

The second way to avoid focusing only on facts, is to take time to worship God. When we learn more about God and his nature, there are times when it is appropriate to stop whatever we are doing and worship him. 

When we worship and exalt God, we are doing something pleasing to God. It is often, at moments like this, that we can better hear God’s heart towards us as we express our wonderment and love towards him. That is relationship.

In a very similar manner, praying can have the same effect. That is our third way. Through praying we can ask God questions, ask for things, or worship him. In fact, we can ask God in prayer to help us know him better, and to understand what we are learning. It is then God’s choice how he reveals himself and deepens our relationship.

The fourth way to know God better is a little different. It is through obedience. As we learn to know God and grow to love him, we find that we want to obey him. But as we obey him, our love for God grows because our relationship with him is so profound that Scripture says we remain in him. For sure, we will look more at this in a future episode. But here is a quick overview from 1 John:

This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commands. The one who says, “I have come to know him,” and yet doesn’t keep his commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete. This is how we know we are in him:The one who says he remains in him should walk just as he walked.

1 John 2:3-6 CSB

That verse describes an intimate relationship of knowing God. 

CLOSING

So those four things…reading the Bible, worshipping, praying, and obeying, will allow us to know God, have relationship with him, and not just know about him. Over the next several episodes, we will want to put all of those into practice.

 In our next episode we will begin looking at the nature of God.

As always, you can send me comments, suggestions, or questions, by email at glenn@spiritledhope.com, or simply use the Contact Form at spiritledhope.com. That is spiritLEDhope.com. You can also send me an anonymous text by going to the show notes and clicking on the link with your smart phone.

I look forward to hearing from you.

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As we grow in our relationship with God:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  

Until the next episode, take care.

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