Know God

Scripture Reading: Galatians 4:9

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God…

Yesterday we took a brief look at Galatians 4:8 where Paul describes the pre-Christian life as one of not knowing God. He follows that line of thought into verse nine by saying that becoming a Christian can be described as having come to know God.

I can’t help but think of John 17:3 when I read that. There, in Jesus’ High Priestly prayer, He said, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ who you have sent.”

Paul follows Jesus’ thinking here in Galatians chapter four. Christianity is knowing the true God.

But what do Jesus and Paul mean by “know?” Yes, there is an informational aspect to what they mean. It does involve a degree of intellectual knowledge. One must assent to the monotheism of Christianity, the Trinitarianism of Christianity, and the doctrines of the gospel of grace.

But both Jesus and Paul are going beyond that because that kind of naked intellectualism is not sufficient for the kind of spiritual transformation that Christianity promises. The idea of knowledge here is more aligned with the Old Testament usage of “yada,” in Genesis 4:1 where we are told, “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain.”

To “know God” the way Paul is describing is to know Him with the total self. It is not merely an intellectual agreement, but the abandonment of the whole person in complete trust to God through faith in Jesus Christ that brings about the kind of transformation that Christianity promises and that leads to eternal life.