Tag Archives: made Him known

JOHN’S GOSPEL…KNOWING GOD – 4b

Bible Study, ,

“No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.”

‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭18‬ ‭NLT‬‬

In essence, as we have learned, knowing God is eternal life. What does knowing God mean? 

The Hebrew word for knowing in the context of knowing God is “yada”.  Among many uses in its context, “yada” means knowing as in sexual intimacy. 

“Now Adam had sexual relations (yada) with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When she gave birth to Cain, she said, “With the Lord’s help, I have produced a man!”

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭4‬:‭1‬ ‭NLT‬‬

To know God, then, is to be in spiritually intimate union with Him.  Love is the core of this union.  

How can we know the love of God?

I have expanded the answer to this question in a longer meditation to be posted. 

Let me summarise here. Both Paul, in Ephesians 3 and John in 1 John 4, have thrown some light on knowing God  through experiencing God’s love. Paul explains both the role of faith and the work of the Holy Spirit in enabling us to know and experience God’s love which is  revealed in Jesus. 

John shows us how God’s love,  made known to us through Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, is the root from which the fruit, our love in response to His love, grows. 

However, the real fruit of knowing God in Christ is about loving one another. We cannot show our love to God in any way because we cannot add anything to who He is, not even by loving Him. Jesus said that the only way we can love Him is by obeying His commandments. 

“Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”

‭‭John‬ ‭14‬:‭21‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Jesus gave His disciples only one new commandment. 

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

‭‭John‬ ‭13‬:‭34‬-‭35‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Throughout the New Testament, this commandment to love one another is repeated and fleshed out in detail and included in the greatest commandments of the New Covenant. 

 “And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭3‬:‭23‬ ‭NLT‬‬

So, John concludes…!

“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God….Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭7‬, ‭11‬-‭12‬ ‭NLT‬‬

God made knowing Him simple…Love His children, and He will continue to reveal His love to you.  

Jesus prayed…

“I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me…I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.”

‭‭John‬ ‭17‬:‭23‬, ‭26‬ ‭NLT‬‬

JOHN’S GOSPEL…KNOWING GOD – 4a

Bible Study, ,

“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.”

‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭18‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The incarnation is a both a marvel and a mystery. God the Son left heaven for a season, became a man, lived among His people and was crucified for being who He said He was, the Son of God. 

He came for various reasons, all melted into one purpose, to reunite heaven and earth to be God’s dwelling place with His people. 

Why did Jesus come to earth? 

First, He came to reveal the nature of the Father. Over time, and through the sin of God’s people and, consequently, God’s discipline, the children of Israel had lost the sense of God’s love. They had become slaves to a strict disciplinarian rather than sons of a loving Father.  

“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.”

‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭18‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Second, Jesus came to reconcile God’s children, estranged through rebellion, to the Father, through His death as an atoning sacrifice for sin. 

“…God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them…”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭5‬:‭19‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Third, Jesus came to destroy the enmity between Jew and Gentile, creating a new race…

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭2‬:‭14‬-‭16‬ NIV

with a new identity…children of God. 

“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭2‬:‭19‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Fourth, Jesus came to restore all of creation to God’s original plan. 

“For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭19‬-‭21‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Fifth, Jesus came to unmask and destroy the devil’s work. 

“The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭3‬:‭8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Sixth, Jesus came to restore God’s nature in us. 

“Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?…They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness.”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭12‬:‭7‬, ‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Seventh, Jesus came to restore the kingdom of God on earth. 

“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

‭‭Mark‬ ‭1‬:‭14‬-‭15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.””

‭‭Luke‬ ‭17‬:‭20‬-‭21‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Eighth, Jesus came to give eternal life to all who believe in Him. 

“And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭5‬:‭11‬-‭12‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Everything Jesus came from heaven to do can be summed up in this one great truth…eternal life. 

What is eternal life? In His prayer recorded in John 17, Jesus gave us the essence of eternal life…  

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

‭‭John‬ ‭17‬:‭3‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“Knowing” in the Bible is about union, in the deepest and most intimate sense of the word. This union is expressed in the intimacy of a husband and wife united in body to symbolise their union in heart and purpose. 

““My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me…I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.””

‭‭John‬ ‭17‬:‭20‬-‭21‬, ‭26‬ ‭NIV‬‬

For this union Jesus prayed and for this union we, God’s children,  must yearn and desire because this life, eternal life, has already begun in us and will be perfected in glory.  

To be continued…