Fully Known
My daughter has a beautiful singing voice and recently
attended a concert by Tauren Wells, former lead singer of the band Royal
Tailor. He’s a dynamite vocalist and can
float through scales effortlessly. In
one of his songs “Known” he writes the following lyrics,
“It's so unusual it's
frightening - You see right through the mess inside me - And you call me out to
pull me in - You tell me I can start again - And I don't need to keep on hiding
- I'm fully known and
loved by You.”
I love the song and the words. Without sounding like a dictionary, Wells
defines what being known means – and that is something far more significant
than knowing things about someone.
Celebrities and pro athletes have relayed the challenges of being
famous, having millions of adoring fans, but feeling entirely alone. This is evidenced further by the suicides of
famous people like Heath Ledger, Chester Bennington, Chris Cornell, and many
others who are surrounded by people yet felt entirely desperate and alone. It
is terribly sad.
I bet you’ve felt like that too to a degree. You stand in a
hallway or room of hundreds of people but feel entirely alone. You may have even voiced the words, “These
people may know who I am but do they really know
me?” Recent studies have revealed that our younger generation are so
impersonally connected through technology that it has largely replaced real
relationships. Workplaces are struggling to cope with the influx of new younger
employees who exhibit great difficultly simply talking to one another and even
worse, coping with conflict between each other.
As I was preparing a message on the gospel to some teenagers
I ran across a verse in Galatians 4:9 where
Paul says, ‘But now that you have come to
know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back
again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world?’
I was struck by the change in the wording. It is as if Paul
wants to draw attention to being known
by God over an individual knowing God. What a strange way of speaking. I immediately
recalled the terrifying words of Jesus telling the false-convert “Depart from
me you worker of iniquity, I never knew
you.”
I began researching the ways in which we are known in scripture and after consulting
scholarly works on the subject, was overwhelmed by the insight that this word
possesses in scripture. It’s amazing how
often it occurs and how I’ve literally never heard a sermon preached on it or
read a book on the subject.
It certainly seems like a worthy area to investigate.
Basic word information:
The occurrences of the verb ‘to know’ refer to either knowing
something in advance or knowing someone. Those contexts result in significant
differences for our understanding of the verses.
In my studies I couldn’t find too much value in delving too
deeply into the original languages.
Their tense, mood, and voices don’t appear to play a significant role in
this study so I’ll just inform the reader that the Hebrew verb is ‘yada’ – to know. The Greek verb is ‘Ginosko’
and its immediate relative to foreknow is
‘proginosko’.
So, let’s look at the ways in which the verb to know is used in the Old Testament and
see if we can’t make some sense out of what God wants us to understand about it.
To help you as you read, ask yourself these three questions.
Is the word referring to:
1) Physical
intimacy, 2) Knowing something,
or 3) Knowing someone.
Physical Intimacy:
In Genesis 4:1 we
read the following text, “Now Adam knew
Eve his wife, and she conceived…”
This
means that Adam had an intimate physical union with his wife Eve. It is a sexual intimacy resulting in the two
becoming one flesh. There are several
places in scripture where this is the direct meaning but won’t be a focus of this
investigation. It does have significance in that it denotes intimacy much like
the word means in other contexts.
Knowing something:
Throughout the Old Testament when the verb is used in a
non-relational sense it means data or information retention. For instance, in Leviticus 5:1, Moses uses the word to mean information that a
witness possesses pertaining to someone breaking the law.
“If anyone sins in
that he hears a public adjuration to testify, and though he is a witness,
whether he has seen or come to know the matter, yet does not speak, he
shall bear his iniquity;”
A purely informational sense of the word will not be the
subject of this inquiry either. However, it is useful to understand because the
context always gives you clarity on what the intended meaning is. Here’s an example:
The duality of meaning is represented in the same verse as
Hebrew poetry is prone to do. One of
those occurs in Psalm 139:23 where
David says, “Search me Oh God and know my
heart, try me and know my anxious thoughts.”
The first half is God knowing David’s heart (Prov 23:7). You might rephrase it
“Search me Oh God, and intimately know all of me.” It is not the modern use
where someone might say, “Please hear my heart on this issue.” In that case they’re
saying “Please understand my intentions” not, “Please intimately know who I am.”
The heart in scripture is the combination of a person’s will,
emotions, mind, and soul – all clustered together; in short it represents the
totality of who that person was/is [a].
The second half of the verse now flips the meaning and says,
“…try me and know my anxious thoughts.” David
is no longer referring to God knowing who
he is, but what God knows of his sin. This
is a deep understanding of sin because it is God who is in view. However,
knowing one’s anxious thoughts is different than knowing someone down into
their heart.
Same word,
two different uses.
Knowing Someone:
The
relational use of the word is replete in the Old and New Testament.
Jeremiah 12:3 uses
this word stating, “But you, O Lord, know
me; you see me, and test my heart toward you.”
Exodus 1:8 begins
with these fateful words, “Now there
arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph.”
Joseph was famous in the land having saved Egypt from the
effects of widespread famine and desolation.
His name was carved into the histories of Egypt so it is impossible that
the new Egyptian King had never heard of Joseph or was unfamiliar with
him. Rather, it is helping the reader
understand that the new king did not have a relationship with Joseph and thus
he had no respect for the earlier arrangements.
There was no intimacy, or ‘yada’
between them.
In Exodus 23:9
Moses teaches the law for Israel stating, “You
shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for
you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”
So then what kind of ‘knowing
the heart’ is Moses talking about? He’s referring to the experiential and
intimate type of knowing that the Israelites had because they had walked in
those shoes before.
In John 14:4 the
disciples said, “Lord, we do not know
where you are going.”
They are questioning Jesus about a geographic location but
Jesus was referring to (heaven). Three verses later the same word is used but in
a different way than before.
John 14:7 “If you had known me, you would have known
my Father also.” Different indeed!
Jesus, in no way, is saying if they had known information
about Him, then they would know information about the Father. While that may be true, because all three
members of the Trinity share the same attributes, it was not the intent of His
message to them. He’s speaking of
relational intimacy. This relates to
when Jesus said, “I and the Father are One.”
In other words, Jesus is saying that if they truly knew Him,
then they wouldn’t need to ask about the Father because to know Jesus is to
know the Father; the person, not the attributes.
When a relationship
is in view, there are some truly powerful conclusions we can draw. As I have
studied the manner in which ‘being known’
is used and they appear to fall into three categories:
1) Belonging to God 2)
Being chosen by God, and 3) Being a child
of God
Being Known is
equal to belonging to God:
Korah’s rebellion with his followers is good example. In a literal
translation of the Greek Septuagint, Moses says, “God knows those who belong to Him.” (Num 16:5).
2 Timothy 2:19
echoes this stating, “The Lord know those
who are His.”
Many read the 2
Timothy 2:19 passage and immediately conclude that out of a group of
people, the Lord knows which ones are going to fall into His camp. Like a
cosmic game of kickball where the captain sees the available players and know
who he wants to choose.
But of course, we have to ask if the text is really taking
the time to inform us of something that is already plainly obvious, or if it
telling us something significant about how God knows those who are His. The
sense of us belonging to Him should leap off the page.
This same sense is used when Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own
[sheep] and my own know me,
just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down
my life for the sheep.”
Clearly there is a sense of mutual belonging here. The
Father and Son belong to one another as the Son and the believer belong to one
another. There is no connotation of information-transfer here; it is purely a
relational form of knowing.
God knows His sheep, and they belong to Him like one who shepherds
their flock.
Being Known is Being
Chosen:
Genesis 18:18
depicts this special relationship as God regards His servant Abraham. He talks
about how all the nations of the earth will be blessed through Abraham and then
says, “for I have known him.”
Surely the Lord knows all of the peoples of the earth. After
all, there’s not a sparrow that falls from the sky that He is not intimately
aware of (Matt 10:29). But that is
not what is in view here. God had selected Abraham to be His chosen vessel
through whom He would one day bring His Messiah.
Abraham was selected out of all the peoples of the earth and
out of all his relatives in the land of Ur to have a special relationship with and
to God.
Continuing from the same example in Numbers 16:5 God declares, “The
man he chooses he will cause to come near him.” So, we have a clear connection
between God choosing and God knowing
an elect people. Korah and his followers
were not known by God in this way.
One of the more controversial subjects in scripture rests in
the notion of God predestining believers to salvation. But the connection between God’s foreknowing us
and predestining us is interlinked.
In Romans 8:28-30
Paul captivates his readers with what has been termed as the Golden Chain of
Salvation. It enumerates the Ordo Salutis (the order of salvation)
beginning with this relational concept of God’s foreknowledge. The text states,
“For those whom He
foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so
that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;”
This foreknowing is specific to the believer, for the first
step in their salvation, that they may ultimately be conformed to the image of
Christ. It carries a heavy weight of
relational intimacy. The fore-ordaining aspect of it equates His foreknowledge with
God’s electing love set upon us in advance.
As Dr. Brian Rosner says in his book, “Both the eternal
purpose of God and mutual love relations are apparent in the broader context of
Romans 8, with the love of God for His people appearing climactically in verse
39 as the complement to the description of believers in verse 28 as ‘those who
love God’. Both the love of God and predestination are crystallised in the notion
of being ‘foreknown’ by God.” [f]
F.F. Bruce said it this way, “For Paul there is no
difference between being known by God and being chosen by Him (Rom 8:29).”
The word foreknow
appears a few other places in a relational sense.
1 Peter 1:20 “He [Jesus] was foreknown before the
foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of
you…”
Notice that this is not referring to information that is
foreknown, or events that are foreknown, but Jesus who was
foreknown. This relationship of the
Father to His Son, who would be Messiah, was not accidental it was a foreordained
relationship and plan. His being foreknown is the emphasis, not His future actions.
Ephesians 1:11
tells us that God purposes “…all things
according to the counsel of His will.” That counsel is within the
Trinitarian relationship which none of us are privy to. Within that counsel,
God foreknew the Son and His relationship to mankind as their Savior.
In Acts 2:22-23
Peter preaches in the open-air fashion of the day. He says, “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of
Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs
that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus,
delivered up according to the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of
lawless men.”
Jesus was delivered up according to what? The definite plan and foreknowledge of God. Again,
this comports with the Lamb who was foreknown, and the counsel of God who
ordained all things. It combines these
concepts of predestination and foreknowing.
Jesus fulfilling the role and relationship of Messiah was
not something that God discovered by looking ahead, but something that God
ordained from before the world began within the context of the Father and the
Son’s relationship (1 Pet 1:20).
Having looked briefly at the concept of being chosen by God we
will now see how it is also inextricably linked to being adopted by Him.
Being Known is Being
Adopted:
While references to being adopted by God are numerous in scripture,
I’ll present a few for brevity’s sake.
Amos 3:2 is a
great passage to demonstrate this wonderful truth. The prophet says, “You only have I chosen among all the
families of the earth;” Literally the Hebrew word is yada which is the same word we’ve been looking at: ‘known’. Translators of the NIV and NASB
prefer the word ‘chosen’ but the ESV translates it literally as ‘known’.
Hosea reminds Ephraim of their deliverance in the exodus. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out
of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no Savior. It
was I who knew you in the wilderness.” Hosea 13:4-5
Out of all the nations of the earth, God adopted this people
who had nothing to give Him in return (Deut
7:7). That is very much the way we should
feel as we reflect on the Lord’s adoption of us as sons and daughters.
2 Samuel also
gives us insight into this reality. David has been rejected as the one whom God
would use to build His temple but He promises that David’s son will be the heir
to establish the temple. David is
overjoyed and humbled in 7:20 and says
this, “Again what more can David say to
You? For You know Your servant, O Lord GOD!”
In the New Testament we read Paul’s epistles which also give
this same familial knowing action.
Brian Rosner again picks up on this connectedness in Romans 8. “First, Israel’s ‘adoption as sons’ appears at the head of Paul’s
list of the nation’s privileges in 9:4.
Secondly, the adoption of believers
in Christ, who receive ‘the Spirit of sonship’ and cry ‘Abba, Father,’ is noted
in 8:15. But most importantly for our purposes, the goal of the predestination
to which those whom God foreknew are bound in 8:29 is ‘to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might
be the firstborn among many brothers.’ Here we see both Old Testament moments
of adoption coalesce in their New Testament fulfilment; the sonship of the new
people of God is by virtue of God’s unique Son. As Ephesians 1:5 puts it, ‘he destined us for adoption as his children
through Jesus Christ.’ Of interest here is the fact that Romans 8:29 juxtaposes being known by God with being adopted by
God.” [f]
So then this verb can be equated to incredible intimacy. Not
only does God know all about me but he adopted me, chose me, causes me to
belong to Him. No place in the Christian
ethic should we be proud of ourselves. We have nothing to offer and literally
did nothing to gain His favor.
Paul helps us understand this order in the following
passage.
1 Corinthians 8:3,
“But if anyone loves God, he is known by
God.”
The breakdown of the word is valuable here because if we
love (present tense) God, then we are known
(perfect/passive/indicative) by God. The word’s breakdown means that it is an
action that happened at a definite point in time (not ongoing). This is famously the tense used when Jesus
says, “It is finished” on the cross. The second part of the word is in the
passive voice which is used when the subject (us) is being acted upon by another
object (God). The last part is the indicative mood.
This ‘mood’ is used to
convey a sense of certainty and an action for which there is no doubt.
To summarize, it means that believers are recipients of this
action of ‘being known’ by God, with
certainty at a definite point in time. Those recipients are identified by the
fact that they love God after having received His intimate knowing.
While we don’t make dogmatic conclusions based on a single
verse, the preceding verses certainly convey that God’s ‘knowing’ us occurred before we ever loved Him. This would comport with Paul’s assertion that we are
naturally dead in our sin (Col 2:13)
and refuse to accept the things of God apart from Him making us alive first (1 Cor 2:14).
The next verse appears in Galatians 4:9 when Paul says, ‘But
now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you
turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world?’
Being known by God
is emphasized. The focus is not upon us
knowing God, as the thousands of books in circulation would suggest. Obviously, we must know God with an intimacy
of relationship at some point. However, I
would humbly submit that the action of God knowing
us, is the intimate relationship set upon us before creation, and which
results in His sheep inevitably knowing Him.
Romans 8:29
refers to it as God foreknowing us or
establishing intimacy with us beforehand. Practically Jesus says of the
unbelievers, “…you do not believe because
you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they
follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish…” John 10:26-28
A reversal of the Ordo
Salutis results in the proposal that a spiritually dead person (who is
unable to discern the things of God nor to even desire them) somehow comes back
to spiritual life, pursues and discerns the truth, then desires to know the God
he is simultaneously in rebellion to, repents of sin he is not actually
sorrowful over, and then God takes saving action on the individual. That is the opposite reality of what book of
Romans thoroughly establishes. Namely
that the sinner is dead and requires resuscitation by a life-giving Savior
before he can do anything (Eph 2:1, 1
Cor 2:14, Rom 3:11-12, 6:20, 8:7-8).
If you’re not familiar with the doctrines of grace, or the
concept of election and predestination, then that previous paragraph may have
thrown you. I’m not going into the
doctrines of grace here though, maybe in the future. If you’re interested, I’ve left a few links
at the bottom to guide some learning in that direction [c, d, e].
The Christian
Ethic:
There is a very practical element to this study and it is
this: It is possible to be known and loved deeply by God. Being known by God
produces humility, comfort, and a holy reverence for His discipline. If you are
not one of His sheep then you don’t care but those who are His sheep, hear His
voice and respond – all of them (2 Peter
3:9). All around the world and from
every tribe and tongue and nation.
Much of the Evangelical church today is made up of people
who know something about God but who lack a relationship with Him that is both
real and intimate. Still others believe
in a god of their invention but it makes no eternal difference if they are not
known by the one true God.
Still others believe in a god of
their invention but it makes no eternal difference if they are not known by the
one true God.
Why does Paul draw these distinctions? Because we must be
known by God. Apart from God’s gifts of faith and repentance we cannot conceive
of Who God rightly is. We will always create an image of what we want God to be
and worship that. But if God knows us it means He has set His intimate favor
upon us in advance that we may be brought to a capacity in which we can love
Him. Something we are incapable of apart from his work in our hearts.
John Piper said it this way, “What defines us as Christians is not most profoundly that we have come
to know him but that he took note of us and made us his own.”
Consider the newborn, the infirm, the mentally disabled, or
the physically disabled child. It is much more important to be known by the
parent than to know the parent. The
infant cannot even survive without being known
by the mother. She must feed, care, clean up after, and comfort the baby. The baby
cannot even conceive of who his mother is and yet being known by her provides
everything to that child.
Jesus uses language that immediately reminds us of our
standing with Him. We must be ‘born
again’ (John 3:3). We must be as children (Matt 19:14). We must be innocent as doves (Matt 10:16). We entirely and
completely depend upon Him for every form and source of nourishment, protection,
and sustenance (Matt 6:9-13). But now that we are known by Him, we belong to Him and can rejoice in His salvation.
Conclusion:
Those who love God are fully known by Him and as we delight
in and draw near to Him, He continually reveals more to us about who we are and
Whose we are. We derive strength, value,
joy, love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control from being known by God and loving Him.
It is that relationship that has the power make a coward
become a bold proclaimer of the gospel. It is that intimacy that causes a
person to give up worldly success in order to pursue direction from God that
produces no earthly acclaim. But more relatable is in our normal life. It is
being known by God that allows us to receive our daily bread and go to work
each day, making small choices to be obedient, and live in the ordinary while
deriving all the privileges that come with being known by Almighty God.
The Apostle Paul to the Corinthians makes note of this
comforting truth. “We are treated as
impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as
dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet
always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet
possessing everything.” 2 Corinthians 6:9-10
JI Packer writes this in his book “Knowing God.”
What matters
supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God,
but the larger fact which underlies it—the fact that He knows me. I am graven
on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him
depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him because He first knew
me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and
there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me,
and no moment, therefore, when his care falters.
God is our Savior but He is also our judge. Jesus divided the earth into two parts: those
who are His sheep (saved) and those who are goats (unsaved). Jesus did not mince words in his sermon on
the mount. He warned us that there will
be those on the day of judgement that had all the outward characteristics of
looking like a follower of Christ. But
those people were ultimately false converts.
“Then I will tell them plainly, “I
never knew you. Away from me you evil-doers!”” Matt 7:23
Those words terrify me and they should put a holy dread
within your bones as well. It helps us
understand why Paul emphasizes being known by God, over us knowing Him.
This word had piqued my interest and I hope it has yours as
well. I’m certain that I’ll be writing
papers on the subject in the near future.
Eph 1:3-6 “3 Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even
as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he
predestined us for adoption to himself
as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he
has blessed us in the Beloved.”
--------------------------------------
[b] Mounce, W. D.
(2006). Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament
Words (p. 265). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
[f] Rosner, B. S.
(2017). Known by God: A Biblical Theology of Personal Identity (Biblical
Theology for Life) (p. 217). Zondervan Academic
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