To Know God is to Love Him

By Matthew Barrett

When the Bible speaks of “knowing” God, is it merely cognitive? Or is there something much more, namely, not just knowledge but love for God? I believe if we look at the texts throughout Scripture we will see that when it speaks of knowing God, it is not mere knowledge in view (though not less than knowledge of course), but a love and trust in God. Geerhardus Vos explains this point well:
“It is true, the gospel teaches that to know God is life eternal. But the concept of “knowledge” here is not to be understood in its Hellenic [Greek] sense, but in the Shemitic [Hebrew] sense. According to the former, “to know” means to mirror the reality of a thing in one’s consciousness. The Shemitic and biblical idea is to have the reality of something practically interwoven with the inner experience of life. Hence “to know” can stand in the biblical idiom for “to love,” “to single out in love.” Because God desires to be known after this fashion, he has caused his revelation to take place in the milieu of the historical life of a people. The circle of revelation is not a school, but a “covenant.” To speak of revelation as an “education” of humanity is a rationalistic and utterly unscriptural way of speaking. All that God disclosed of himself has come in response to the practical religious needs of his people as these emerged in the course of history” (Biblical Theology, 8-9).

“To know” God cannot be divorced from loving God (“to love”). If it is then we are left with a Christianity that is rationalistic, an education rather than a covenant. How crucial this point is to the new covenant. Those who are believers personally know God, thanks to what Christ has done for us on the cross. We love him because he first loved us (1 John 4:9). What a joy it is to know God, to be in a covenant relationship with him for all eternity!

Matthew Barrett is executive editor of Credo magazine. He also writes at Blogmatics.

[Picture: “Daniel’s Prayer” (1865) by Sir Edward Poynter, from illustrations for Dalziel’s Bible Gallery, in the Tate.]