Let Me Correct Myself

Scripture Reading: Galatians 4:9

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

The previous two days we thought through Paul’s way of describing Christianity as coming to know God. But in verse nine we see that Paul self-corrects. At first, he says that the Galatian believers had come to know God, but then he inverts that statement by saying it would be better to say that they are known by God.

I don’t think he is saying that the first statement is incorrect. It is not wrong for a Christian to say, “I have come to know God.” That is a true statement. It is a true statement that can be misconstrued by the Christians themselves or by others who hear it.

When it is considered in isolation from Paul’s second statement, the gospel loses grace and is no gospel at all. When Christianity is thought to be someone’s accomplishment whereby they, by diligent effort, searched out and found God, it becomes another works-based religion.

God initiates the knowing. We know Him because He knew us.

We love God, because He first loved us.

Jesus’ three parables in Luke 15 brilliantly illustrate this principle. In the first two, the things that are lost (a sheep and a coin) contribute nothing to being found. They are sought for and found by the Shepherd and the woman. But in the third story, the Prodigal Son comes to his senses and returns to the Father on his own.

Which is it then? Do we find God or does He find us? Do we come to know God, or are we known by God?

As a matter of our perspective, it may seem as though we were the ones seeking and finding. Further, it isn’t necessarily wrong to say we came to know God. But it is important, so as not to turn the gospel of grace into a religion of works, that we realize and acknowledge that our knowing Him was dependent on His knowing us. We sought Him because He was seeking us.

We prodigals came home because we were the lost sheep the shepherd went and sought, and we were the lost coin the woman swept the house to find.

His seeking proceeded and produced ours.