- The Increasing Knowledge of God

Without doubt the greatest need of the human personality is to experience God Himself. This is because of who God is and who and what man is.
God is the essence of intelligent, self-conscious life and man is created in His image. God is love, and man is made for God. God and man exist for each other and neither is satisfied without the other. Though God is self-sufficient He has sovereignly willed to have communion with the being He made in honor next to Himself, and He takes every means to secure this communion short of coercion, which would be a violation of man’s free will. Were God to override our wills He would be forcing Himself upon us and by so doing would make us a little less than human and so a little less than the being He made for Himself.
That first picture of God and man at the time of the creation shows them in close and openhearted communion. Adam listens while God explains how it is to be with him in his Eden home and lays down a few easy rules for his life on the earth. The whole scene is restful, relaxed and altogether beautiful.
But the communion did not last. Adam’s very likeness to God, viz., his freedom to choose, permitted him, though it did not compel him, to make a choice contrary to the will of God. So sin entered and the wondrous fellowship was broken.
Seen from our human standpoint redemption must rank first among all the acts of God. No other achievement of the Godhead required such vast and precise knowledge, such perfection of wisdom or such fullness of moral power. To bring man into communion with Himself God must deal effectively with the whole matter of justice and righteousness; He must dispose of sin, reconcile an enemy and make a rebel willingly obedient. And this He must do without compromising His holiness or coercing the race He would save.
How two wills set in opposition to each other, and both free, could be harmonized was God’s problem and His alone; and with infinite wisdom and power He solved it through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ our Lord. Because Christ is God and man He can properly represent each before the other. He is the Daysman who can stand between the alienated man and the offended God and lay His hand upon them both. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5) .
All this is such a familiar part of evangelical theology that it may safely be assumed that the majority of my readers know it already. That is, they know it theoretically, but the experiential aspect of the truth is not so well known. Indeed large numbers of supposedly sound Christian believers know nothing at all about personal communion with God; and there lies one of the greatest weaknesses of present-day Christianity.
The experiential knowledge of God is eternal life (John 17:3), and increased knowledge results in a correspondingly larger and fuller life. So rich a treasure is this inward knowledge of God that every other treasure is as nothing compared with it. We may count all things of no value and sacrifice them freely if we may thereby gain a more perfect knowledge of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. This was Paul’s testimony (Philippians 3:7-14) and it has been the testimony of all great Christian souls who have followed Christ from Paul’s day to ours.
To know God it is necessary that we be like God to some degree, for things wholly dissimilar cannot agree and beings wholly unlike can never have communion with each other. It is necessary therefore that we use every means of grace to bring our souls into harmony with the character of God.
“Thou art to know that thy soul is the center, habitation, and kingdom of God,” says Molinos. “That therefore, to the end the sovereign King may rest on that throne, thou oughtest to take pains to keep thy soul pure, quiet, void and peaceable; pure from guilt and defects; quiet from fears; void of affections, desires and thoughts; and peaceable in temptation and tribulation. Thou oughtest always then to keep thine heart in peace, that thou mayest keep pure that temple of God, and with a right and pure intention thou art to work, pray, obey, and suffer, without being in the least disturbed, whatever it pleases the Lord to send unto thee.”
To enjoy this growing knowledge of God will require that we go beyond the goals so casually set by modern evangelicals. We must fix our hearts on God and purposefully aim to rise above the dead level and average of current Christianity.
If we do this Satan will surely tempt us by accusing us of spiritual pride and our friends will warn us to beware of being “holier than thou.” But as the land of promise had to be taken by storm against the determined opposition of the enemy, so we must capture new spiritual heights over the sour and violent protests of the devil.
As we move farther up into the knowledge of Christ we open new areas of our beings to attack, but what of it? Remember that spiritual complacency is more deadly than any thing the devil can bring against us in our upward struggle. If we sit still to escape temptation, then we are being tempted worse than before and gaining nothing by it.
“Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount:… Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land” (Deuteronomy 1:6, Deuteronomy 1:8).