27.1 KNOW
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The word “apocalypse” is the English form of the Greek apokalupsis, typically translated “revelation,” as in “the revelation of Jesus Christ.” The Greek word literally means to take off the cover that hides, thus “unveiling” is closer to the specific meaning of apokalupsis than “revelation.”
We will look at the actual meaning of the word “apocalypse,” the verses in which it occurs, and its impact on our lives in the later lessons. First, however, we want to expand on this thought, that the Christ child seized INTO God and John’s use of the word, “KNOW,” are the same thing.
Metaphors
Consider three different metaphors that God uses.
1. The fulfillment of the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, God filling His corporate House. 2. The firstfruits unto God following the Lamb. 3. The manchild, the Christ child, conceived out of the union of God and man, born into the dawning of a new day.
These three things are the same reality of God in our lives. And these three things ARE these words of Jesus: Know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you. – This is eternal life, that they may know You the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom You have sent.
Know the Father
Let me explain. God says to us, “KNOW that Jesus is IN the Father and you are IN Him and He is IN you.” Then He says, “Look at the fulfillment of the first day of Tabernacles, look at the firstfruits unto God, and look at the picture of a woman bringing forth a child seized into God. As you study those things, they will tell you what I mean by John 14:20 and when I say, ‘Know the Father.’”
I want to take this word “know” beyond all I have ever known. Seized into God and into His throne and KNOW the Father and Jesus Sent are the same thing. What is being unveiled is this very knowledge of God expressed among a people walking together in love, the interconnections of Father, that is, Christ.
Connected Together
Symmorphy I: Purpose ended with knowing God personally, each one of us. Symmorphy III: Kingdom will expand the knowledge of God operating among us into its outworking. Here I want to define, not our own personal knowledge of God, but rather that knowledge of God that connects us as individuals together into one body. For the revelation of Christ is the birthing and unveiling of that connection, that is, Church by Father.
We cannot KNOW God without direct and ongoing connections together, for Father Revealed IS those connections. I am speaking of Jesus as He IS, love among us.
Walking Together
No one on this planet will ever see Jesus until they see Christians walking together in love. Those who “see Jesus” as an isolated appearance in the heavens are NOT seeing Jesus as He IS. It is not enough for us to see Jesus in the mirror in the middle of the night. To know God, we must see Jesus in the mirror of one another’s faces and in our relating together.
There is no distinction or separation between Know God and Walk together in Love; they are one and the same. And in walking together IN love, we refer back to Lesson 13.2 How Did Jesus Walk – that Jesus walked every step KNOWING that the Love of God directed and kept that step.
Knowing Someone
Let me give an example of “knowing.” I really enjoy a number of the Food Network shows. Recently, I watched the first season of “Beat Bobby Flay.” As I watched Bobby Flay in operation, I learned a number of things about him. I saw that he was not an arrogant man, though he certainly knew his ability that usually won the contest. I saw a man who was content in what he was. Then I watched the first season of “All-Star Academy” in which Bobby Flay served as one of four mentors to help the contestants win. I saw Bobby Flay as he operated as a servant interacting with others. As a result, I “know” Bobby Flay far more, who he is, than I ever could watching him working alone.
God IN Relationships
God is known as He really IS only as we see Him through His own ones as they serve one another in love.
Now, using Bobby Flay as an illustration is limited, though it points us in the right direction. You see, you and I are not passive viewers, for God is making Himself known through us. Yet it is as we see God in our relationships with brethren sharing the same word of Christ our life, as we see how God bridges our interaction, drinking of the same Spirit, that is HOW we know God as He is. And we do not see God in that way by sitting in the same pew or by reading the same letters – but by walking together.
The Symmorphy of Father
It is this KNOWING of God among us, connecting heart with heart in the outward service of regular life, then, that I want to look at in the “Know God” verses.
The symmorphy of Jesus with us, you in Me and I in you, is with each one of us personally. But the symmorphy of Father with us cannot be found or known by ourselves, but only by real life walking together. That symmorphy of Father is certainly within each one of us personally, for we know God only by heart.
Nevertheless, it is only as we see God connecting us together in daily life that we can know the Father as He is. That connection is Christ: Church by Father.
Know
“Know” as we are speaking of is a John word. The word ginosko is used 222 times in the New Testament, in 56 different inflections or spellings of the word. Through the synoptic gospels, Acts, Peter, and James, it is used only for mental knowledge or perception, except that Matthew and Luke recorded Jesus’ connecting knowing with unveiling. But Paul used it three times at a far deeper level than mental knowledge, and the writer of Hebrews quoted Jeremiah regarding the New Covenant, that all shall know God.
Consider John. John was in his sixties when he traveled to the Roman province of Asia after fleeing from a Jerusalem surrounded by armies.
Reading Paul
There is no doubt that John was received with wide open arms; these were Paul’s strongest churches. Although they would have eagerly drawn from his knowledge of Jesus, yet John would also have received much from them, particularly the outworking of Paul’s gospel.
For two decades John lived inside of Paul’s churches, walking with Paul’s disciples, particularly Aquila and Priscila. There is no doubt in my mind that he read Paul’s letters as well as the letter to the Hebrews, over and over and over, in the Spirit of travail, just as I have done. Because we know what kind of a person John was by reading his words, we can surmise that Philippians 3:10 spoke the most to him.
To Know Jesus
I want to give here a definitional review of the primary “to know” verses, beginning with the Covenant and Paul.
1. Since knowing God is the point of the Covenant, it must be the whole point of everything (Hebrews 8:11).
2. Only the Spirit of God knows God (1 Corinthians 2:11).
3. It is knowing the love of Christ that causes us to know that we are filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19).
4. The earnest desire of the believer is to know Jesus in three specific ways: (a.) to know the power of His resurrection, (b.) to know the fellowship of His sufferings, (c.) to know our full symmorphy with His death – and all three so that we might seize hold of the resurrection of our bodies (Philippians 3:10).
A Word Fully Formed
John ate and drank of the Lord Jesus Christ through Paul’s words and together with Paul’s disciples for over two decades before he sat down to write. Yet at the same time, John shared his memories of walking closely with Jesus and his experiences in the birthing of the church over and over to eager hearers. Thus, when John began to write, the Word of Christ through him was already fully formed, whether he knew that or not. And know God was the center of that Word.
John began his gospel of knowing God and Jesus Sent with sorrow. 5. In the thesis of the universe, the world does NOT know God (John 1:10).
Knowing Person to Person
6. Full willingness of heart is the only way by which anyone will know the truth (John 7:17).
7. Living in the words of Jesus is how we know the truth (John 8:32).
8. The sheep KNOW and follow the shepherd because the shepherd knows them (John 10:14 & 27).
9. Knowing is always reciprocal, person to person, in a constant back and forth (John 10:15).
10. To know Jesus is to know the Father (John 14:7).
11. Seeing (by the unveiling) is a synonym of knowing (though it is lesser) (John 14:9).
To Know God
12. We know the Holy Spirit, the one who teaches us of Christ, because the Holy Spirit is inside of us (John 14:17).
13. The beginning of all knowing is to know that Jesus is in the Father, to know that we are in Jesus, and to know that Jesus is in us (John 14:20).
14. The first inkling of knowing that comes to the world is the knowing that Jesus LOVES the Father – as the world sees (but does not yet understand) the walk of the Atonement (John 14:31).
15. The whole point of everything, the very incorruptible life of Almighty God, is to know God, the Father, and we know God by knowing Jesus Sent (John 17:3).
The World Will Know
16. The world will truly know that God sent Jesus ONLY when they see a church walking together as one, walking together inside of John 14:20 (John 17:21-23).
17. We know that the Father sent Jesus because the Love with which the Father loves Jesus is inside of us and because Jesus is inside of us (John 17:25-26).
18. We keep His commandments because we know Jesus (1 John 2:3-4).
19. We walk just as He walked because we know that we are in Jesus (1 John 2:5-6).
20. We know all things by the anointing of the Holy One; we know the truth (1 John 2:20-21).
We Love One Another
21. We do not sin because we know Jesus (1 John 3:6).
22. We know love because Jesus laid down His life for us; we lay down our lives for one another because we know love (1 John 3:16).
23. We know the Spirit of God as the One who reveals Christ in human flesh (1 John 4:2).
24. We hear John and Paul because we know God (1 John 4:6).
25. We love one another because we know God (1 John 4:7).
26. Because we have received the Spirit of God we know that we abide in Jesus and in God and that Jesus and God abide in us (1 John 4:13 & 16).
God Revealed
27. Jesus coming into us has given us the capacity to KNOW God and to know that we are IN God, in His Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 5:20).
My purpose in this layout is simply to place before our eyes the contextual definitions of knowing God. We are looking at the apocalypse, at the cover being removed, at that which has been unseen until now becoming seen and known by all. The WHAT that is unveiled is the intimate and personal KNOWLEDGE of God, that is, God Revealed.
Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father.