28.1 Knowing God
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 17:3).
- KNOW. Ginosko: to come to know, recognize, perceive. I am taking in knowledge, I come to know, I learn; I ascertained, I realized.
How Do We Know?
If our life now and through all the ages to come is to KNOW God, then the question, how do we know, becomes critical.
The serpent claimed that God existed as One who KNOWS good and evil. The translators have all believed that the serpent was speaking the truth, and thus have inserted two words into Genesis 3:22, two words that do not belong. Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil (of Us does not belong). The Hebrew reads: the man has become like one who knows good and evil.
How did the serpent “know” anything about God?
NOT!
The serpent did not and could not know God. Yes, all angels were aware of a Creator; that is, they knew of God and undoubtedly felt His presence and heard His voice. But no angel has ever “seen” God as He is because God has no boundaries, no end point by which He can be identified.
Peter said of the gospel of Christ, “things which angels desire to look into” (1 Peter 1:12b). Paul said: “to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph. 3:10). It is evident that we humans right now know God in a way that Michael and Gabriel do not.
God Is NOT Known
Yet, it is also evident that, as you and I are just beginning to know Him, as we then look across the expression of our brethren, we see that even in the church, God is not known.
The idea that the serpent had some knowledge about God, who and what He is, is based on the assumption that God is a visible heavenly Thing, that heavenly creatures are the ones who are like God. But it was in seeing man that the serpent first knew anything about God and in that moment, despised Him. Now, Paul said that Adam and Eve knew God. That's extraordinary, that these two newly created humans knew God, but the serpent, "old" and wise, did not.
We Know Only Ourselves
For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received . . . the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God (1 Cor. 2:11-12).
We know only ourselves. Each one of us, our knowledge of reality extends no further than our own bubble. Every other person, being, or object in the universe, even our family, we know ONLY by our own perspective of ourselves. Thus when we judge, we are actually judging only ourselves and then projecting our own faults or abilities or perspectives onto other people.
Likeness and Image
Adam and Eve could know God ONLY by knowing themselves. And the same with the serpent. Adam and Eve were accurate in their knowledge of God BECAUSE they were His likeness and image. The serpent was wildly inaccurate in his definition of God because he was not like God at all.
Consider these lines. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
God-Man Circle
The only knowledge of what is inside any human is their own spirit inside. Same with God. In other words, it is impossible to know God outside of ourselves. The only way we could possibly know God for real is if we share the same Spirit with Him.
But even that's not enough; we know God only as we know ourselves and we know ourselves only as we know God. It's that God-Man definition circle. What is God? Look at a Man. What is Man? The express image of God's Person.
Self-Knowledge
In other words, when we know that our spirit is God's Spirit and God's Spirit is our spirit, AND, when we know that we are just like Him, including the fact that God likes us the way He made us, only then could we ever know God. Knowing God includes fully knowing our own selves.
The serpent had no such knowledge. In fact, he knew almost nothing about God. So when he said, "like God, knowing good and evil," he could be referring only to himself. And thus this reasoning underscores my claim, that the serpent in his construction provides the framework for how almost all humans define "God," including most Christians.
Person Inside of Person
We see the depths (and the blasphemy) of Jesus' words, "This is age-abiding, incorruptible life, that they may know You, the only true God." This word could never be fulfilled if we were not the visible appearance of God as He really is, Person inside of person.
I always say it that way because we always distinguish between God and us as far as communion inside of us goes. There is no "God is everything; everything is God." Yet God as Person shows Himself as He is only through those who are His appearance. That's us.
And that makes casting down the accuser to be the single most revolutionary act in all the history of man on this earth.
Know God by Heart
Here is where we must begin.We can know God only by heart, only inside our own person. Just as no two snowflakes are the same, so each one of us knows God a little differently than the next. God becomes Personal in and as us, in and as created persons.
Thus, in a sense, a sense that we keep HOLY by Blood, we form our own version of “God,” that is, God becomes who He is in us through our own makeup and knowledge. And this happens entirely because of the immersion of our spirit into God’s Spirit – He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17).
God Within
Knowing God CANNOT be an outward venture. God fills the tree in my backyard. Do I know God by “communing” with the tree? Yet everyone defines God as “out there somewhere.” There is no difference between worshipping “heaven” as if it is God and worshipping a tree as if it is God.
None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them (Heb. 8:11). God is not known out there; God is known ONLY inside the perception of self within every human being.
Self-Perception
How, then, do we perceive ourselves? Most Christians perceive themselves by accusation and falling short, thus the “God” they “know” must fit that perception of self. The “God” they “know” must judge them false, thus their need for the incorrect definition of “grace” – a “free” ticket.
Do you see, then, how critical it is that we perceive ourselves ONLY by the good speaking of Christ. By the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus (Philemon 1:6). We will never know God except through Jesus Sent – into us.
One Place Only
Age abiding life, knowing God, then, exists in one place only, inside of each individual human’s perception of themselves.
And this is the testimony: that God has given us age-abiding life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life (1 John 5:11-12). – And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an under-standing, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and age-abiding life (1 John 5:20).
In other words, those who believe that “eternal life” is “going to” heaven cannot know God.
Jesus Has Come
Little children, keep yourselves from idols (1 John 5:21). Keep yourselves from worshipping some THING outside of your own heart as if that is “God.”
And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us a through-mind, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. We know God only as we know ourselves and we know ourselves only as we know Jesus Sent.
John claims that we KNOW that Jesus HAS COME.
- Heko: I have come, I am present, I have arrived. The word includes the sense of having reached the final goal.
The word “understanding” is a poor choice for this dianoia that Jesus, having come in fullness in us, has given us. Dia-noia is a particular kind of mind, a through-mind, an across-to-the-other-side mind.
Jesus was speaking of the Father when He said, “Know You, the only true God”; John uses the same word to refer to the Father here. We KNOW Him who is True because we are IN Him who is True. And we are IN Him who is true because we are inside of Jesus Sent and Jesus Sent, age-abiding LIFE, is inside of us.
About Knowing
This lesson is not about “God,” but about knowing. We must know how we know God.
Most of our brethren hold the image of the serpent as their picture of God BECAUSE they perceive themselves inside BY accusation and falling short. Then they tack the Godly qualities of God onto that perceived form as additions, but never as essence.
More than that, this is something I have pondered much. Each one of us “knows” God according to our own person. Thus we can legitimately ask, “What kind of a God do you want?” In a sense, we create our own “God.”
What Do You Want?
Now, God is God, regardless of people’s imaginations, but He is vast and hugely complex in His makeup. The Bible, also, is a huge book and filled with seemingly contradictory stuff – and in fact, God meant the Bible to be the clearing in the center of the garden to all, each individual’s choice between Life and Control.
What kind of a God do we draw for ourselves out from the Bible? I’m not talking about a “new” way of knowing God, but of how everyone already “knows” Him, only by themselves. The God you and I will worship is very much answered by the question – What do you want?
The Model of DNAHow do we know God? Each individual person knows God ONLY by themselves.
How do you and I want to know God? Jesus Sent, the only life we are.
And so we come back to what is the most important truth I received from the Lord while writing this course. The model of the DNA; let’s look at it again.
The Same Heart
One strand is Father; the other strand is you or me. The connecting bars are the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ BY every Word that He is.
We live by every Word coming out from the mouth of God; we draw all that God speaks into our own consciousness through and as the Person of the Lord Jesus becoming the only life we are. We know that every Word that is Jesus, is already the heart of God, coming out from His invisibility as the becoming known of God. Our job is to look at that same Jesus in us and SEE with all rest that He IS that same Heart in us.
A New Self
You can see, now, how the verses we choose as our ruling verses and the manner by which we hear the Lord Jesus rule our knowledge of God and all of our life and our future.
This is age-abiding life, to know God. We know God only inside and by our own selves, one spirit with Him. This is why we need another Self, a vastly different self from the one in which we once lived. We need Jesus as our only Self; we know Father by knowing Jesus Sent.
Let us then know Jesus Sent first by the ten most important verses in the Bible and then all the other wonderful words of Christ that find their place by them.