Knowing God According to the Bible (with a Little Help from J. I. Packer)

Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God. (1 Cor 8:1–3 NIV)

What does it mean to know God? I find myself thinking about this quite a bit these days. What follows is the result of a study I did several years back on the biblical teaching on knowing God. I have included a number of significant quotes from J. I. Packer’s classic work, Knowing God, which remains one of the best topics on the work.

Knowing God: Introductory Comments

The main word for “knowing” in the OT is ידע. The two main words for “knowing” in the NT are γινώσκω and οἶδα. These words cover much of the same semantic range and are in many ways synonymous. They can have numerous senses, from simply recognizing someone or something to knowing how to do something, to having sexual relations. The sense that we are interested in is the personal knowledge of another person that can be indicated by each of these terms.

In terms of our relationship with God, it seems to be the case that God’s knowledge of us precedes and causes our knowledge of him (1 Pet 1:2; Jer 1:5). In this sense, it is almost synonymous with (or at least overlaps with) the idea of God’s election and choosing of his people, both corporately (Amos 3:2) as well as individually (Gen 18:19). Thus those who have been converted are said to have been “known” by God (1 Cor 8:3; Gal 4:9), or by Christ (Matt 7:23). According to BDAG, in passages such as 1 Cor 8:3 and Gal 4:9, “the [knowledge] of God directed toward human beings is conceived of as the basis of and condition for their coming to know God.” This helps us understand that in our relationship with God, God takes the initiative. Here’s how J. I Packer puts it:

“…knowing God is a matter of grace. It is a relationship in which the initiative throughout is with God–as it must be since God is so completely above us and we have so completely forfeited all claim on His favor by our sins.” (p. 36)

This is a great comfort as it reveals that the Christian life is not a matter of us hanging on to God with all our strength with the danger of falling off, but rather resting in the palm of his hand.

So while we want to know what it looks like to know God, it is important to realize that the fundamental question is whether we are known by God. Our relationship with God rises out of this spring. If we reflect on our lives and believe that we have not been known by God, we can reflect upon the various invitations that God extends to us and know that he is inviting us into a relationship with himself through Jesus Christ this very day.

This knowledge of God on our part is in some ways the sum total of what it means to be a Christian. Jesus, in John’s Gospel, says that eternal life can be defined as knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ, the one God sent (17:3).

Knowing God: A Biblical-Theological Outline

Here’s an outline of how the Bible talks about the topic of knowing God:

1. God’s redemptive purposes in the world have always been about establishing a relationship with a people, both corporately and individually. This is why one of the major themes in the Bible is God’s promise that “I will be your God and you will be my people” (Gen 17:7; Ex 6:7; Jer 7:23; 11:4; 30:22; Ezek 36:28; 37:23, 27 [= Rev 21:3]; 2 Cor 6:16; Heb 11:6).
2. When we talk about salvation, or eternal life, we are talking about the effect that knowing God has on us. This is also connected to forgiveness of sins in Jeremiah 31 (Jer 31:34; John 17:3; 1 Cor 1:21)
3. What does the OT say about knowing God?
   1. Knowing God in the Pentateuch:
      1. Gen 18:19: God’s knowledge of Abraham seems to be equivalent to his choosing of Abraham. It is significant that this follows the covenant that God makes with Abraham.
      2. Ex 33:12–13, 17: Moses ask God to show him his ways so that Moses might know him and find favor with him. This request is based on the fact that God has known him, and he has already found favor with God.
   2. Knowing God in Jeremiah:
      1. Jer 1:5: Jeremiah was known by God before he was formed in the womb, and “consecrated” to be a prophet from before he was born. In Jer 12:3, Jeremiah pleads with the Lord against the wicked on the basis that the Lord knows him.
      2. In Jer 2:8; 4:22; 9:3, 6, the LORD complains that his people don’t know him. In 10:25, Jeremiah prays against the wicked nations that “do not know” God.
      3. Jer 9:23: We are to glory in knowing God—who God is and what he is like. This is based on God’s revelation of his character and deeds, and includes a personal appropriation of God’s covenant and implies that we orient ourselves toward who God says he is by faith. In Jer 22:15–16, God speaks to the kings and reminds them that to do righteousness and care for the needy is what it means to know God. Presumably, it is because this is what God commands. Packer says it this way: “Godliness means responding to God’s revelation in trust and obedience, faith and worship, prayer and praise, submission and service. Life must be seen and lived in the light of God’s Word. This, and nothing else, is true religion.” (p. 16)
      4. Jer 24:5–7: Jeremiah connects knowing God to the promise of the New Covenant and the covenantal formula “I will be their God and they will be my people. In 31:31–34, the New Covenant is said to consist of (1) an unbreakable covenant, (2) God’s law internalized, (3) he will be their God and they will be his people, (4) all will know God, (5) he will forgive their sins.
   3. See also Isa 1:3; Amos 3:2; Other verses: “know me” (Ps 87:4; Ezek 38:16); “know God” (Job 18:21); “know him [i.e., God]” (Job 24:1); “know you” (Ex 33: 13, 17; Ps 36:10; 79:6; Is 55:5; Jer 10:25; Hos 8:2); “knowledge of God (Prov 2:5; Hos 4:1; 6:6)
4. What does Jesus say about knowing God?
   1. John 10:14ff, 27: Jesus’ sheep know him, and he knows them.
   2. John 10:15: Jesus and the Father are in a mutual relationship where they both “know” each other and make each other known to the world (Matt 11:27; John 7:29; 8:55). Thus, knowing the Son is the one way to know the Father (John 14:6)
   3. John 17:3: to know God is eternal life, and this knowledge of God is tied up with knowing his one and only Son.
   4. Jesus will reject some in the final judgment because he has not known them (Matt 7:23; 25:12).
   5. See also John 14:7, 9, 17, 17:25–26.
5. What does the rest of the NT say about knowing God?
   1. Gal 4:9; 1 Cor 8:3: Knowing God is dependent upon being known by God.
   2. Phil 3:8, 10: Knowing God changes everything. It means that everything else in life, both good and bad, is relativized. Knowing God and knowing Christ are roughly synonymous.
   3. 1 Thess 4:5: unbelievers are said to “not know God” (cf. John 1:10 [re: Jesus]; 8:55; 14:17; Gal 4:8; 1 Cor 15:34; 2 Cor 10:5; Col 1:10; 2:2; 2 Thess 1:8; Titus 1:16; 2 Pet 1:2, 8; 3:18; 1 John 3:1, 6). Note that wicked works are what characterizes those who do not know God.
   4. 1 John 2:3, 4: assurance of knowing Christ is found in whether we keep his commandments; if we do not keep his commandments we have not known him (1 John 3:6).
   5. See also 1 Cor 1:21; 2 Cor 5:16; 2 Tim 2:19; Heb 8:11 (quoting Jer 31); 10:30; 1 John 4:6–7; 5:20.
6. Note: Not every time someone “knows God” is it in a saving way (Ezek 38:16; Rom 1:21). These verses indicate that sometimes the Bible refers to someone as “knowing God,” but the context indicates that it is not a salvific relationship. Packer has some insightful comments about the wrong way to think about knowing God: “We need to ask ourselves: what is my ultimate aim and object in occupying my mind with these things? What do I intend to do with my knowledge about God, once I have got it? For the fact that we have to face is this: that if we pursue theological knowledge for its own sake, it is bound to go bad on us. It will make us proud and conceited. The very greatness of the subject matter will intoxicate us, and we shall come to think of ourselves as a cut above other Christians because of our interest in it and grasp of it; and we shall look down on those whose theological ideas seem to us crude and inadequate, and dismiss them as very poor specimens. For, as Paul told the conceited Corinthians, ‘knowledge puffeth up … if any man thinketh that he knoweth anything, he knoweth not yet as he ought to know’ (1 Cor. 8:1ff.). To be preoccupied with getting theological knowledge as an end in itself, to approach Bible study with no higher a motive than a desire to know all the answers, is the direct route to a state of self-satisfied self-deception. We need to guard our hearts against such an attitude, and pray to be kept from it. As we saw earlier there can be no spiritual health without doctrinal knowledge; but it is equally true that there can be no spiritual health with it, if it is sought for the wrong purpose and valued by the wrong standard. In this way, doctrinal study really can become a danger to spiritual life. And we today, no less than the Corinthians of old, need to be on our guard here. . . [T]he psalmist’s concern to get knowledge about God was not a theoretical, but a practical concern. His supreme desire was to know and enjoy God Himself, and he valued knowledge about God simply as a means to this end. He wanted to understand God’s truth in order that his heart might respond to it and his life be conformed to it.” (p. 17–18).

Based on the various passages above, we can now summarize some of the main lines of the Biblical witness to the idea of knowing God.

1. When we know God, we can say that God is our God and we are his people. The effect that knowing God has on us is salvation. We are saved by knowing God and entering into covenant with him. Some related concepts are “abiding” in Christ, being “in Christ,” “having fellowship” with God and “loving God” (Scobie, 727–8).
2. Knowing God depends on God making known to us his character and what he has done (Ex 33:13). God’s revelation comes in various forms (nature, God’s acts in the world, the Bible), but he has revealed himself fully in Christ (John 1:14, 18; Heb 1:1–4). Knowing God is dependent upon knowing Christ through faith.
3. We must respond rightly to God’s revelation. Knowing God consists of orienting ourselves to who God says that he is. It is a relationship: God make himself known to us, and we respond to his revelation of himself. This is not just collecting facts about God but living in light of those facts. It means repentance, faith, submission to God’s word, obedience, and worship.
4. Those who know God can be distinguished from those who do not know God based on their works.
5. We come to know God because God knows us and chooses us (Jer 1:5). We love him because he first loved us (Scobie, 728).

Knowing God: Some Applicational Comments from J. I. Packer

As we turn from what we might call a Biblical Theology of the Knowledge of God to something more devotional, I don’t think I can improve on the classic work by J. I. Packer, Knowing God. He does a marvelous job of taking the teaching of the biblical witness and bringing it to life. Here are a series of passages that I have found helpful in meditating on this topic:

• “The more complex the object, the more complex is the knowing of it. Knowledge of something abstract, like a language, is acquired by learning; knowledge of something inanimate, like Ben Nevis or the British Museum, comes by inspection and exploration. These activities, though demanding in terms of concentrated effort, are relatively simple to describe. But when one gets to living things, knowing them becomes a good deal more complicated. One does not know a living thing till one knows, not merely its past history, but how it is likely to react and behave under specific circumstances. A person who says ‘I know this horse’ normally means, not just ‘I have seen it before’ (though, the way we use words, he might only mean that); more probably, however, he means ‘I know how it behaves, and can tell you how it ought to be handled.’ Such knowledge only comes through some prior acquaintance with the horse, seeing it in action, and trying to handle it oneself. In the case of human beings, the position is further complicated by the fact that, unlike horses, people cover up, and do not show everybody all that is in their hearts. A few days are enough to get to know a horse as well as you will ever know it, but you may spend months and years doing things in company with another person and still have to say at the end of that time, ‘I don’t really know him at all.’ . . . Thus, the quality and extent of our knowledge of them depends more on them than on us. Our knowing them is more directly the result of their allowing us to know them than of our attempting to get to know them. When we meet, our part is to give them our attention and interest, to show them good-will and to open up in a friendly way from our side. From that point, however, it is they, not we, who decide whether we are going to know them or not.” (pp. 30–31).
• “What, then, does the activity of knowing God involve? Holding together the various elements involved in this relationship, as we have sketched it out, we must say that knowing God involves, first, listening to God’s word and receiving it as the Holy Spirit interprets it, in application to oneself; second, noting God’s nature and character, as His word and works reveal it; third, accepting His invitations, and doing what He commands; fourth, recognizing, and rejoicing in, the love that He has shown in thus approaching one and drawing one into this divine fellowship.” (p. 32)
• “The Bible puts flesh on these bare bones of ideas by using pictures and analogies, and telling us that we know God in the manner of a son knowing his father, a wife knowing her husband, a subject knowing his king, and a sheep knowing its shepherd (these are the four main analogies employed). All four analogies point to a relation in which the knower ‘looks up’ to the one known, and the latter takes responsibility for the welfare of the former. This is part of the biblical concept of knowing God, that those who know Him—that is, those by whom He allows Himself to be known—are loved and cared for by Him. . . . Then the Bible adds the further point that we know God in this way only through knowing Jesus Christ, who is Himself God manifest in the flesh. . . . Now, when the New Testament tells us that Jesus Christ is risen, one of the things it means is that the victim of Calvary is now, so to speak, loose and at large, so that any man anywhere can enjoy the same kind of relationship with Him as the disciples had in the days of His flesh. The only differences are that, first, His presence with the Christian is spiritual, not bodily, and so invisible to our physical eyes; second, the Christian, building on the New Testament witness, knows from the start those truths about the deity and atoning sacrifice of Jesus which the original disciples only grasped gradually, over a period of years; and, third, that Jesus’s way of speaking to us now is not by uttering fresh words. But rather by applying to our consciences those words of His that are recorded in the gospels, together with the rest of the biblical testimony to Himself. But knowing Jesus Christ still remains as definite a relation of personal discipleship as it was for the twelve when He was on earth. The Jesus who walks through the gospel story walks with Christians now, and knowing Him involves going with Him, now as then.” (pp. 32–34)
• “First, knowing God is a matter of personal dealing, as is all direct acquaintance with personal beings. Knowing God is more than knowing about Him; it is a matter of dealing with Him as He opens up to you, and being dealt with by Him as He takes knowledge of you. Knowing about Him is a necessary precondition of trusting in Him (‘how could they have faith in one they had never heard of?’ [Rom. 10:14, NEB]), but the width of our knowledge about Him is no gauge of the depth of our knowledge of him. . . . If the decisive factor was notional correctness, then obviously the most learned biblical scholars would know God better than anyone else. But it is not; you can have all the right notions in your head without ever tasting in your heart the realities to which they refer; and a simple Bible-reader and sermon-hearer who is full of the Holy Ghost will develop a far deeper acquaintance with his God and Savior than more learned men who are content with being theologically correct. He reason is that the former will deal with God regarding the practical application of truth to his life, whereas the latter will not. Second, knowing God is a matter of personal involvement in mind, will, and feeling. It would not, indeed, be a fully personal relationship otherwise. To get to know another person, you have to commit yourself to his company and interests, and be ready to identify yourself with his concerns. Without this, your relationship with him can only be superficial and flavorless. . . . Friends are, so to speak, communicating flavors to each other all the time, by sharing their attitudes both towards each other (think of people in love) and towards everything else that is of common concern. As they thus open their hearts to each other by what they say and do, each ‘tastes’ the quality of the other, for sorrow or for joy. They have identified themselves with, and so are personally and emotionally involved in, each other’s concerns. They feel for each other, as well as thinking of each other. This is an essential as the same applies to the Christian’s knowledge of God, which, as we have seen, is itself a relationship between friends.” (pp. 34–36)

Knowing God: Conclusion

Knowing God is what we were made for. If you are reading this today, I am assuming that you have some interest in the God who reveals himself in Jesus Christ. I hope that this post has helped clarify for you how we ought to think about knowing him and having a relationship with him. But more than that, I hope you are challenged to respond to him with true faith, love, and obedience. Only he is worthy of our complete devotion.