The KNOWLEDGE of God.
Geoffrey R. Kirkland
*This is part 4 of the ongoing summer series on the ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.
God is knowable. The highest study that man can pursue is the knowledge of God. It is the queen of all the sciences. All studies of all topics of all areas of life and existence should lead to the worship of God and the greater knowledge of God! God is the knowable God. We cannot know everything there is to know about God (for He is exhaustive and infinite) but we can really and truly know this God. He cannot be exhaustively known but He can be genuinely known.
The knowledge of God begins with the self-revelation of God. No one can possibly know God unless God first reveals Himself. And this He has done in three ways: (1) in creation as He reveals His power, glory, order, stability and attributes; (2) in special revelation of Scripture as we learn of this God sufficiently and perfect through the pages of the Bible; and (3) in the Person of Jesus Christ the Son as He is the exact radiance of the Father and the perfect representation of His nature. Thus, it is possible and dutiful to study and know God.
It must be that we derive of our knowledge of God accurately — from the Scriptures. No one can contrive His own way to learn of God. No one can add to or fabricate his own idea of God independently of Scripture. We must go to the all-sufficient revelation of God, the Scriptures alone, to reveal who God is truly, gloriously, majestically, and sovereignly.
God declares of His people: “they will all know me” (Jeremiah 31:34). Jesus the Good Shepherd says: “I know my own and my own know me” (John 10:14). All believers are to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18). And we must pray for ourselves and for one another that we would increase in the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:10). And, true believers who have been known by God savingly can say with Paul: “I want to know Him…” (Philippians 3:10).
The fact that God, this perfect and infinite God, is knowable compels all of us to study Him daily, to contemplate Him deeply, to ponder and mediate on Him humbly, to obey Him unquestionably, to proclaim and declare Him happily, and to thank and praise Him consistently. Oh let the knowledge of this great God take you deeper into the infinite glories of divine beauty so that you will go deeper in knowledge of Him which will fuel your lofty worship of Him and your heartfelt fear and obedience to him!
