What
does it mean to ‘Know God?’; 1 John 2:3
From
2:3-11 the theme is the importance of knowing and loving God to advance to
spiritual adulthood. We have to remember the background of 1 John. The problem was
an unsophisticated version of what later became known as Gnosticism. They
emphasised a secret knowledge: that you had to have a special insight, a
special intuitive revelation. There was a mystical element to Gnosticism in
which it was only those who had this special knowledge that were admitted into
the mystical fraternity. That it worked its way out in some
of the secret cults, and only if you had that knowledge could you really be
spiritual. The congregation John was addressing was basically being influenced
by the cultural, worldly, pagan ideas of the Hellenistic world around them. We
have seen in the book of Judges how a culture becomes influenced by paganism
and its destructive results. John is countering that and one of his messages is
how to avoid the influence of pagan thought and how destructive it can be to
the spiritual life. It is important to understand that this Gnostic background
was a serious assault on the spiritual life Jesus Christ pioneered in His
humanity for the believer today. Experiential righteousness wasn’t important so
they created a dichotomy between the spirit and the physical, the result of
which was that having to apply the Word of God was not longer that important.
To
correct that John first chooses as his theme in this epistle the challenge to
remain in fellowship, to enjoy fellowship with God, to live in the life and
consistently apply doctrine. The way he emphasises this in terms of the
structure is that in 1:5-2:2 he emphasises the negative, the three false
claims, to show the importance of maintaining fellowship, maintaining the
Christian life and living in fellowship with God. Then he is going to advance
beyond that, starting in 2:3, to show that it is not merely being in
fellowship, enjoying fellowship, but it is being in fellowship for the purpose
of knowing God and developing an intimate personal relationship with God which
is the basis for moving into that advance adult spiritual life. It is not just
being in fellowship, it is staying in fellowship.
1
John 2:3 NASB “By this we know that we have come to know Him,
if we keep His commandments.” The principle is given in this verse. Then the
flip side is given [4] NASB “The one who says, ‘I have come to know
Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in
him. [5] but whoever keeps His word, in him the love
of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him.”
Verse
3 begins with the conjunction kai,
“And,” which is a simple connective in this passage, used to simply add an
additional element to a discussion or as an additional idea to the train of
thought. “… by this” is en touto, instrumental dative, which should be translated
“by means of this.” touto is the
near demonstrative of the pronoun houtos
which suggests something nearby: “And by means of this principle or test” we
are going to know something. The principle comes at the end of the verse: “if
we keep His commandments.” Then we have the main verb and we see that it is
used twice in the passage; the word “know”—ginosko. If we look at that in the
English it looks as if both of the “knows” are the same word, the same tense.
They are different tenses. The grammar makes a tremendous difference in
interpreting this particular passage. The first use of “know” is a present
active indicative—by this we can have a continual knowledge or
understanding. It is up to our volition to understand and recognise the
principle. We can know something with certainty. Then the verb is a third
person plural and we have seen that the third person plural has run down
through the entire first chapter and to this point, and it primarily emphasises
John plus the apostles. But it can also refer in a much more derivative sense
all believers. All believers can know something. So: “And by means of this
principle we can know…” This is introduced by the word “that” in English, but
it should really not be translated. The Greek word here is hoti which can mean because, but
it is also used to introduce either a direct quotation, an indirect quotation,
or a principle. “… we have come to know Him.” This is
the verb ginosko (present tense,
continuous action), but there is
the second use of ginosko and it
is the perfect active indicative. The perfect tense indicates action that was
completed in past time but the results go on. The intensive perfect, which this
is, is going to emphasise the present results of a completed past action. So it
should be translated: “And by this principle we know we have come to know Him
[have a relationship with Him], if we keep His commandments.”
What
does John mean by knowing God? This is the important interpretive problem in
this passage. What are the options? The first option is that knowing God might
mean to know about God, i.e. know certain academic truths about God, certain facts
about God, to ascertain certain theological information about God or to know
what the Bible teaches about God. This is nothing more than knowing something
about someone but it doesn’t involve any kind of personal or intimate knowledge
or having a relationship with that person. That doesn’t seem to mean what John
is talking about here. He is talking about a more intimate relationship because
the context is fellowship. The second option is one that is more often chosen
by people and it equates knowing God to salvation, that to know God is to have
saving faith and to be actually a member of the royal family of God. We could
paraphrase this perhaps by saying: “We know that we are saved if we keep His
commandments.” So that this becomes a test of salvation, and this is the
position of Lordship salvation. If you are a believer over a period of time,
according to Lordship salvation, you will manifest an obedience to the
commandments of God; if you claim to be a believer at one point in life but
then fail to keep His commandments they will say, well the faith that you had
was not a genuine saving faith, it was a false faith. But the Bible never
really categorises that kind of faith and there is no biblical basis for it.
This is part of what Calvinists call the perseverance of the saints. John 11:25
NASB “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who
believes in Me will live even if he
dies’”—notice He doesn’t say he who believes in Me and keeps my
commandments—[26] “and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never
die. Do you believe this?” The key word here is "believe". Martha’s
response: “She said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord; I have believed,’” imperfect active
indicative to express the fact that imperfect is past action with results that
go on forever. Salvation is not lost. The third option for understanding this
is that to know God is to advance in the spiritual life where the believer has
enjoyed fellowship with God and come to know God in a more intimate way. John
would then be saying: “And by means of this principle we know that we have come
to have a more intimate, personal knowledge and relationship with God, if we
keep His commandments.” Having a more intimate knowledge of God and a
relationship with God is characteristic of an advancing believer who has gone
from spiritual childhood and is at least in spiritual adolescence. And what is
the sign of that? It is that we keep His commandments. One way we can tell
whether a believer is advancing or not is whether they are consistently obeying
the mandates and principles of the New Testament. The point is that a person
can clearly be saved and still not know God. Knowing God is beyond salvation.
John 14:15 NASB “If you love Me, you
will keep My commandments.” Jesus continually emphasises in that chapter that
knowing God is related to keeping His commandments. He is talking to the
disciples as saved believers; He is not talking to them about becoming saved.
John 14:21 NASB “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the
one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will
love him and will disclose Myself to him.” Notice that there is an additional
revelation—not apart from the Scriptures—of understanding of
spiritual truth that comes as a result of obeying and applying what we know and
apply in the spiritual life. God is not going to increase His fellowship until
we first begin to walk with Him and apply what we know. He doesn’t give us
everything at the beginning.
Then
we learn that the person who does not keep the commandments does not have the
truth in him and is deceived, 1 John 2:4.