17 - What Does it Mean to Know God?

What does it mean to 'Know God?'; 1 John 2:3

From 2:3-11 the theme is the importance of knowing and loving God to advance to spiritual adulthood. We have to remember the background of 1 John. The problem was an unsophisticated version of what later became known as Gnosticism. They emphasised a secret knowledge: that you had to have a special insight, a special intuitive revelation. There was a mystical element to Gnosticism in which it was only those who had this special knowledge that were admitted into the mystical fraternity. That it worked its way out in some of the secret cults, and only if you had that knowledge could you really be spiritual. The congregation John was addressing was basically being influenced by the cultural, worldly, pagan ideas of the Hellenistic world around them. We have seen in the book of Judges how a culture becomes influenced by paganism and its destructive results. John is countering that and one of his messages is how to avoid the influence of pagan thought and how destructive it can be to the spiritual life. It is important to understand that this Gnostic background was a serious assault on the spiritual life Jesus Christ pioneered in His humanity for the believer today. Experiential righteousness wasn't important so they created a dichotomy between the spirit and the physical, the result of which was that having to apply the Word of God was not longer that important.

To correct that John first chooses as his theme in this epistle the challenge to remain in fellowship, to enjoy fellowship with God, to live in the life and consistently apply doctrine. The way he emphasises this in terms of the structure is that in 1:5-2:2 he emphasises the negative, the three false claims, to show the importance of maintaining fellowship, maintaining the Christian life and living in fellowship with God. Then he is going to advance beyond that, starting in 2:3, to show that it is not merely being in fellowship, enjoying fellowship, but it is being in fellowship for the purpose of knowing God and developing an intimate personal relationship with God which is the basis for moving into that advance adult spiritual life. It is not just being in fellowship, it is staying in fellowship. 

1 John 2:3 ^NASB "By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments." The principle is given in this verse. Then the flip side is given [4] ^NASB "The one who says, 'I have come to know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. [5] but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him."

Verse 3 begins with the conjunction kai [kai], "And," which is a simple connective in this passage, used to simply add an additional element to a discussion or as an additional idea to the train of thought. "… by this" is en touto [e)n touto], instrumental dative, which should be translated "by means of this." touto is the near demonstrative of the pronoun houtos [o(utoj] which suggests something nearby: "And by means of this principle or test" we are going to know something. The principle comes at the end of the verse: "if we keep His commandments." Then we have the main verb and we see that it is used twice in the passage; the word "know"—ginosko [ginwskw]. If we look at that in the English it looks as if both of the "knows" are the same word, the same tense. They are different tenses. The grammar makes a tremendous difference in interpreting this particular passage. The first use of "know" is a present active indicative—by this we can have a continual knowledge or understanding. It is up to our volition to understand and recognise the principle. We can know something with certainty. Then the verb is a third person plural and we have seen that the third person plural has run down through the entire first chapter and to this point, and it primarily emphasises John plus the apostles. But it can also refer in a much more derivative sense all believers. All believers can know something. So: "And by means of this principle we can know…" This is introduced by the word "that" in English, but it should really not be translated. The Greek word here is hoti [o(ti] which can mean because, but it is also used to introduce either a direct quotation, an indirect quotation, or a principle. "… we have come to know Him." This is the verb ginosko (present tense, continuous action), but there is the second use of ginosko and it is the perfect active indicative. The perfect tense indicates action that was completed in past time but the results go on. The intensive perfect, which this is, is going to emphasise the present results of a completed past action. So it should be translated: "And by this principle we know we have come to know Him [have a relationship with Him], if we keep His commandments."

What does John mean by knowing God? This is the important interpretive problem in this passage. What are the options? The first option is that knowing God might mean to know about God, i.e. know certain academic truths about God, certain facts about God, to ascertain certain theological information about God or to know what the Bible teaches about God. This is nothing more than knowing something about someone but it doesn't involve any kind of personal or intimate knowledge or having a relationship with that person. That doesn't seem to mean what John is talking about here. He is talking about a more intimate relationship because the context is fellowship. The second option is one that is more often chosen by people and it equates knowing God to salvation, that to know God is to have saving faith and to be actually a member of the royal family of God. We could paraphrase this perhaps by saying: "We know that we are saved if we keep His commandments." So that this becomes a test of salvation, and this is the position of Lordship salvation. If you are a believer over a period of time, according to Lordship salvation, you will manifest an obedience to the commandments of God; if you claim to be a believer at one point in life but then fail to keep His commandments they will say, well the faith that you had was not a genuine saving faith, it was a false faith. But the Bible never really categorises that kind of faith and there is no biblical basis for it. This is part of what Calvinists call the perseverance of the saints. John 11:25 ^NASB "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies'"—notice He doesn't say he who believes in Me and keeps my commandments—[26] "and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?" The key word here is believe. Martha's response: "She said to Him, 'Yes, Lord; I have believed,'" imperfect active indicative to express the fact that imperfect is past action with results that go on forever. Salvation is not lost. The third option for understanding this is that to know God is to advance in the spiritual life where the believer has enjoyed fellowship with God and come to know God in a more intimate way. John would then be saying: "And by means of this principle we know that we have come to have a more intimate, personal knowledge and relationship with God, if we keep His commandments." Having a more intimate knowledge of God and a relationship with God is characteristic of an advancing believer who has gone from spiritual childhood and is at least in spiritual adolescence. And what is the sign of that? It is that we keep His commandments. One way we can tell whether a believer is advancing or not is whether they are consistently obeying the mandates and principles of the New Testament. The point is that a person can clearly be saved and still not know God. Knowing God is beyond salvation. John 14:15 ^NASB "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." Jesus continually emphasises in that chapter that knowing God is related to keeping His commandments. He is talking to the disciples as saved believers; He is not talking to them about becoming saved. John 14:21 ^NASB "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him." Notice that there is an additional revelation—not apart from the Scriptures—of understanding of spiritual truth that comes as a result of obeying and applying what we know and apply in the spiritual life. God is not going to increase His fellowship until we first begin to walk with Him and apply what we know. He doesn't give us everything at the beginning.

Then we learn that the person who does not keep the commandments does not have the truth in him and is deceived, 1 John 2:4.