The knowledge of God; its meaning and its power

Front matter

t

I

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Preface To Second Edition

MONG the many kindly criticisms of the first edition, one that deserves special notice is with regard to there being no notice of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in the book, or it being named as a means of knowing God. I cannot see my way to insert what I would wish in the text ; but should like to say here how much I am indebted for the suggestion ; for in St. Luke xxiv. 31, 35, the very word 7 lvu<TK(jj is used, and there can be no doubt that in the feast of remembrance the soul meets God in a very special way, and the true “ knowledge of God ” is learned.

A. T. SCHOFIELD.

Harley Street, W.

Preface

T HIS short treatise is an attempt to show that the personal knowledge of God is the true secret of happiness; and that a real trust in and acquaintance with the Heavenly Father, transforms both spirit and life for him who possesses it. The book, therefore, is necessarily concerned with Christian life rather than with Christian work ; with the character rather than with the career.

The personal knowledge of God of which it speaks is, however, but a means to an end ; and so far from leading to selfishness must, in proportion as it is enjoyed, fill the soul with that Divine

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PREFACE xii

love and compassion that ever seeks the good of others and the glory of God.

It is obvious how unworthy the language must be of such a theme ; but it is hoped that the reader, who may begin as a critic of defects which are human, will end as a worshipper of a perfection which is Divine.

PAGE

INTRODUCTORY . . . I

Christians and Christianity — Cure for faith in China — Whole-hearted and half-hearted — Lukewarm faith — Cause of half-hearted practice — God is not personally known.

Chapter I

Meaning of words — Verbal inspiration — Two words for “knowing” — Intellectual knowledge or sight — Personal knowledge — Mental and physical sight — Thoughts and feelings — Value of feelings — “ Sight” in Epistles and Gospels —

Three eyes to see God — Three abstract senses — Agnostics — Atheists — Nature and Scripture—

Both reveal God — Nature does not reveal much — The Unknown God — God fully revealed in Scripture — Many Bible students don’t know God — Agnostics and idolaters — Idolatry easy — No true God apart from Scripture — Careless neglect of to-day — Goetze’s Academy picture— All shall yet know God.

xiii xiv

Chapter II Page

Four classes of men — 1. God unknown — agnostics and atheists — 2. God known through Nature — 3. God known in the Scripture —

4. God known personally — Many Christians do not know God — Personal knowledge not a question of intellect — Danger of mere intellectual knowledge of God — It leads to idolatry — Christian “idols” — True knowledge leads to humility — How we treat artificial gods — How God is dishonoured — Contrast between God and idols — Current Christian expressions — Uttered without shame — Never heard where God is known — All Agnostics apart from revelation — All our thoughts of God are wrong —

The living Christian longs for the living God —

We have all manufactured false gods — A short catechism — Our language the measure of our knowledge — Language partly dependent on our state — Illustration of child and father — Artificial “spiritual” communion — The concept of the true God is rare — What is eternal life?

Chapter III

Two words for “knowing” — How to know God — The illumination of heart and soul — Feelings and thoughts — Light from Sophocles — Iole and Hercules — We enter God’s presence — We are “content” when we know God — “Now mine eye seeth Thee ” — Our words and acts change— Effect of God’s presence — Four aspects of God — Anglo-Indian children— Faith, meditaxv

PAOE

tion, and prayer — Eating the words. Assimilation — Waiting on God — Character of prayer changed — “Apprehend” and “comprehend” —

The living God — Personal knowledge implies life — What love is — The true God — True means real — God is the great reality — Our knowledge shown by our words — The God who is love —

Rest and peace — The love of God cannot be told — The language of experience — The delight of the home circle-rThe Agnostic period — Intellectual knowledge of God — Backsliding — Personal acquaintance with God — The tenderness of God’s love — God’s two detectives — The Psalms speak to the heart — Personal testimony — The deepest knowledge of all — Christ’s knowledge of God — Few possess this deepest knowledge — God changes the character — The language changes — We shall fully know God — The most wonderful prayer of St. Paul — To know God is heaven begun — Strong language of St. Peter — The fullest knowledge of God may bi enjoyed now — Personal knowledge leads to greater intelligence.

Chapter IV

Three powers of evil — the world, the flesh, and the devil — The story of Israel — Canaan is not heaven — The wilderness and Canaan — The tired pilgrim — The child at home — In Christ Jesus — Seated in heavenly places — Rest, safety, and enjoyment — A pleasant Christian — No murmurs in heavenly places — The twofold life of God’s child — We have absolute defence against evil — Surrounded by the peace of God — Christ was misunderstood — Peace depends on position —

Shirt erf chain-mail — Growth from knowledge of

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PAGE

God — Change of character — Change of language — Harmony in all the being — Effect on physical health — Liberty results from the knowledge of God — Amateur law-makers— A fence and a bridle for horses and mules— Christians who keep time — What is the right time ? — God’s chronometer — Christians and Waterbury watches — Self-winding watch — The Christian’s home-life — Living in lodgings and at home — Picture of a man who lives with God — Socrates in the “ Phaedrus ” of Plato — Thoughts on God — The soul and its wings — The oyster and its shell — Character changed in seven ways — I. The mind is changed — The mind casts a shadow — Our minds are like ferments — Starch changed into sugar — To know God is to be a blessing — Virtue goes out unconsciously — 2. The desires are changed — Not “what,” but “why” — “ Giving up ” is no use — 3. The manners are changed — The manners of a friend of God — Sweetreasonableness — 4. The pursuits are changed — 5. The heart is content — The sight of God changes all — 6. The man is conquered — No battle is possible — No fight where God is known — 7. The thoughts are changed — God the new centre of thought.

Chapter V The Walk Of God’s Child

The dim light of Enoch’s world — The thoughts of Enoch — The man who walked with God — History of Enoch — Enoch pleased God — Testimony to Christ — Private life at Nazareth — Why God spoke at Christ’s baptism — Public and private life — Tablet at Victoria University — Christians can please God — Inward consciousness of God’s favour — Conditions of Enoch’s life — What walking with God means — It is easy for us to walk with God — Story of Nicholas Herxvii

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man — His thoughts of God — How to go to God — How to converse with God— How to live with God — The oratory in the heart — God in business and daily life— The kitchen the gate of heaven —

How to walk before God — How to be always happy.

Chapter VI

The school of suffering — An almost impossible injunction — Current ideas of conduct in suffering — Same joy in heaven as in suffering — Our thoughts are not God’s thoughts — Various ways of rejoicing — Three qualities of Christians — Lead, silver, and gold — Character of true scholars —

Gold in the furnace — No condolence needed — Incandescent light in suffering — Trust is not knowledge — Intelligence in God’s ways — The destiny of Christians — Kings and priests — Great training for high destinies — Sufferings for our own good — Story of two nurses — The standpoint is everything — The value of true insight — The blessed fruits of tribulation — The hardness of petty worries — The defence against small ills — Bearing the suffering of others — Does suffering result from lack of faith — Evils of the doctrine when unduly pressed — Christ bore our sicknesses in His life — Two evils that result — The health-giving value of true religion — Tribulation includes sickness.

CHAPTER VII TO THE AGES OF AGES . . l6l

The apotheosis of humanity — The most wonderful epistle in the Bible — Different horizons —

XV1U

The materialist’s horizon — A more extended view — Christian horizons — Millennial horizon — The furthest limit outside Ephesians — The black depths in the heavens — The words bend under their weight of meaning — Grace and Wisdom are Light and Love — Manifold or chromatic wisdom — The glory of God’s grace — “ Christus Consummator ” — True evolution — Functions of a spiritual body — Christ not recognised — The Head of all Creation — Conformed to Christ — The riches of God’s grace — We shall make known God’s love — Truth like fairy tales — We are to represent God — We are to reveal God’s wisdom — To all eternity — Glory without end — We are living pictures of the grace of God — The transparent cube the figure of the Church — Our high calling — To walk worthy of this great vocation — Powers of the world to come — These powers not for use now — We flower in the garden — Wait, till then — Summary — Result of the knowledge of God — The love of God will never cease — The knowledge of God shall yet fill all.

INTRODUCTORY

INTRODUCTORY

T HE average Christian life often fails to commend Christianity. One can hardly say that the bearing of religious people as a whole constitutes a powerful argument for the faith. Indeed they are sadly too often quoted as stumbling-blocks in the inquirers path ; and many unbelievers protest (not wholly unjustly) that their mental attitude is the result of a careful contemplation of the habits and lives of professing Christians.

A leading Chinese nobleman, whose young son had embraced the Christian faith in China, is said to have sent

Christians and Christianity.

Cure for faith in China.

him to Oxford for a course of theology as an antidote ; after a two years’ course he returned “ cured ” believing in nothing. Others in Japan are said to have found the same result. These stories are not incredible.

Indignant apologists may point with pride to many noble, Christ-like men, whose whole lives are consistent with the faith they profess ; and there are, especially amongst the humble, hundreds whose lives adorn their profession. But all this does not alter the fact, that the charge in the main is true. The half-hearted policy of present-day Christians in trusting their God with a half-trust, and believing in their Scriptures with a half-faith, has led to their being half-and-half all round, and whole-hearted in nothing.

You see in the world the gambler absorbed in bridge, the sportsman in

INTRODUCTORY shooting, the golfer in the links, the racing man in the turf, the society woman in fashion, honestly and wholeheartedly ; but where is the Christian who is absorbed in Christianity ? — to whom the fact of God is the greatest fact, the truth of the Scriptures the greatest truth, the love of the Divine the all-absorbing passion ?

And yet the Christian faith in its noble simplicity, in its divine magnificence, deserves a far different treatment and is worthy of a different following.

A whole-hearted belief in God and the Bible would not only result in a worthy testimony to the Christian faith, but would bring untold joy to the hearts and lives of believers themselves.

Lukewarm water, half-hearted faith, hedging and trimming, sitting on the fence, are one and all descriptions of

Lukewarm

faith.

Cause of

half-hearted

practice.

conditions and policies that bring neither credit nor pleasure to their followers, nor even possess the safety for which they are adopted.

If the Lord be God, follow Him — wholly.

As for me and my house , we will serve the Lord — wholly.

The whole-hearted Christian says of his faith as Ruth of Naomi : God do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me (Ruth i. 17). Death of course does part the believer from his faith ; for then, and not till then, is faith changed to sight.

The cause, doubtless, for this half-hearted practice is largely the bondage, the narrow ruts and grooves, in which so many Christians move. There is abundant formalism, and a correct attitude, but no warmth, no heat, no true liberty of the Spirit of God. It is for this that Faber’s lovely hymn (p. 8)

INTRODUCTORY yearns and longs. It is this that is the supreme need of Christianity to-day. In reading this, an earnest minority will of course protest that the words are not true of them; and this we gladly own. We are speaking in broad terms of the Christian world at large. There are, as we have said, everywhere to be found whole-hearted Christians.

My hope, then, is that I may be able to point out the real reason of this general condition, which lies deeper than any I have yet suggested. God is the God of freedom and of love, and of breadth and depth, and of all wisdom ; and it is because this God is not as a rule personally known in His true relationship by the bulk of Christian people, that lives are what they are. I am persuaded that a personal knowledge of the living God makes a living Christian, and a heart in tune

God is not personally known.

with the Infinite can strike no discordant note in its faith or practice.

We will therefore consider together what this personal knowledge of God means, and how it is to be obtained.

Oh for freedom, for freedom in worshipping God,

For the mountain-top feeling of generous souls,

For the health, for the air, of the hearts deep and broad,

Where grace not in rills but in cataracts rolls !

Nothing honours our Lord like the thirst of desire,

Nor possesses the heart so completely with Him ;

For it burns the world out with the swift ease of fire,

And fills life with good works till it runs o’er the brim.

For the heart only dwells, truly dwells with its treasure,

And the languor of love captive hearts can unfetter ;

And they who love God cannot love Him by measure,

For their love is but hunger to love Him still better.

God loves to be longed for, He loves to be sought,

For He sought us Himself with such longing and love ;

He died for desire of us, marvellous thought !

And He yearns for us now to be with Him above.

F. W. Faber.

Chapter I

I N writing of such sacred subjects as concern us here, it is essential that the meaning of all important words should be accurately defined. Even in ordinary discussion this is necessary ; how much more, therefore, when we speak about the things of God!

Many of us may not have noticed that one of the great marvels of Scripture is that it can express so much as it does of the revelation of God in the words of men. It is this fact that makes it difficult for me to conceive

Meaning of words.

Verbal

inspiration.

Two words for

“knowing.”

of any inspiration that is not verbal, for it is on the very words used that the accurate expression of the Divine thought depends.

I am convinced that no reverent mind can study the Greek Testament without seeing the truth of this on every page. The difficulty of writing the thoughts of Heaven, even in a language so rich in expressing shades of meaning as the Greek, is perhaps best appreciated by those missionary pioneers who are constantly translating the New Testament into fresh tongues. These translations into the crude dialects of savages are beset with almost insuperable difficulties.

Much of the force of the Greek is lost even in our Revised Version, for it is well known that the English language is very poor in some respects.

Take, for instance, in connection with our subject, the verb “to know.” For ii this we have, in English, but one word ; whereas in other languages there are at least two ; the right understanding of these two is essential to grasping the arguments of this book.

In Greek, Latin, French, and German, oi$a ( oida ) scio, s avoir, and wissen refer to one sort of knowledge, while ytyvu)(TK<D (ginosko), cognosco , connaitre , and kennen mean another. O &a, which is the perfect of the disused ul u> ( eido ), really means to see (but opaw [orao] is also used), and refers primarily to physical sight, and with the present tense would be connected directly with videre in the Latin and voir in the French ; but in the perfect, oiSa , “ I have seen,” i.e., “ I know,” meaning “ I understand” it, is better connected with scio and savoir, referring to an intellectual perception by the psychic eye of what is impressed on the mental retina. OiSa, which refers primarily to things and facts rather

Intellectual knowledge or sight.

Personal

knowledge.

Mental and

physical

sight.

than to persons, may range from a passing glimpse to the most profound intellectual understanding.

The second four words, headed by yiyvuxjKG), are 1 to learn, to know, to come to a knowledge,’ which is gradual and increasing, and refer to personal knowledge, or knowledge of persons rather than things. This Greek word often implies relationship, heart knowledge, and a certain familiarity.

Returning to (otSa), the two visions, mental and physical (both of them differing from personal knowledge), are very interesting. We can say, looking at a photo of a person whom we do not know, “ I see what he is like,” After some dealings with him we can again say, “ I see what he is like,” referring this time to mental and not to bodily vision ; and yet in neither case may we know him personally at all, and so we can say, “ I know (o 18a) him, and yet I do not know (yiyviovKiu) him at all.” i

Before leaving the subject one other JJdSSui: distinction of interest and value may

1 The difference between oila (oida) and ycyyhHTKio (ginosko) is worth considering a little further, as follows : —

Oila is immediate perception.

rLvioaKU) is gradual knowledge.

The genius sees at once (oil a).

The scientific man comes to know (yiviofTKu),

Oila is to know by reflective thought.

Tivuokoj, to know by observation, and implies an active relation, a self-reference of the knower to the object known.

Matt. xxv. 12, I know ( oila ) you not y i.e. t officially as virgins you are in no relation to me.

Matt. vii. 2 3, / never knew (ytvwoxw) you, i.e., personally I have never been in connection with you.

The following is a list of the passages where oil a is applied to persons, and in the following passages clearly refers to official and not to personal knowledge : Matt. xxv. 12, xxvi. 72, 74 ; Mark i. 24, xiv. 68, 71 ; Luke iv. 34, 41, xiii. 25, 27, xxii. 34,

18; Gal. iv. 8; 1 Thess. iv. 5 ; 2 Thess. i. 8; Titus i. 16; Heb. viii. n, x. 30.

be made between the two sorts of knowledge of which I have spoken. That connected with the intellect (eiSw oi$a) leads to thoughts, that understood by yiyvnHJKix) leads to feelings. This, of course, is obvious if we connect the former knowledge with the head and the latter with the heart.

Four passages remain to consider.

John i. 26, 31, 33, Ye know not — I knew him not — I knew him not. A careful consideration of this passage leads me to believe that John was not referring to his personal knowledge of his cousin, but his official knowledge of him as Messiah; which was not clear till the Spirit descended.

John vii. 29, viii. 55, I know hi?n y and refers to Christ’s knowledge of his Father, a subject so profound and beyond our grasp in criticism that we cannot analyse it.

2 Cor. xii. 2, I knew a man in Christ. This is difficult, and looks like personal knowledge. 0 10a may be used here, however, as it is a vision, a perception rather than an ordinary personal knowledge. I think these passages include all where €i<W is used with regard to persons ; elsewhere it is either to see, or to know facts and things.

r ivucrKh) and ETnyivitKTKw is experimental know-

Much has been written and spoken against “ feelings ” in connection with Christian experience ; but this book is written to show their value, and to laystress on the fact that the intellectual study of God is indeed barren if it does not produce feelings. Feelings may be associated with much ignorance. Such was the case with Mary Magdalene, who thought Christ was the gardener, but in spite of this her heart-knowledge of the Lord led to His recognition, and made her the honoured messenger to His own apostles, who had more knowledge, but less feeling.

We may here note the interesting point that in the Gospels, when Christ was visible to the natural eye, «$o>, or oi$a y is translated “to see” 194 times, and “to know” 173 times. And in

Value of feelings.

“Sight" in Epistles and Gospels.

ledge and growing personal experience which comes day by day to those who have first seen (oiha), and known Him by faith.

the Epistles, when Christ can only be seen by the spiritual eye (we see Jesus , Heb. ii. 9), the word is translated “ to see ” only twenty times, as against “to know” 21 1 times. Of course there are other reasons as well for this difference.

The title of this book, “ The Knowledge of God,” might therefore refer to any intellectual understanding or appreciation of His character and ways ( oi$a ) or to a personal acquaintance with Him ( yiyvi*)cnca>) } for in English only one word is possible.

Three eyes I should like to make a remark here

to see God.

about mental vision before we pass on. We have two eyes by which we see man, and three by which we see God. These three are the three abstract senses — the intellectual, thought or reason ; the emotional, or aesthetic feeling ; and the moral sense, or conscience. As the light of the body is the eye of the body, so is the light of the mind the eye of the mind ; and thus the life common to all organic creation is in man alone of the nature of light (of reason, of emotion, and of morality), by which he can see God with head, and heart, and conscience. It is in this way that the life is the light of men (John i. 4).

These three senses are alike in their inscrutable origin. They are all arbitrary in character, hence we have axioms and self-evident propositions for the intellect ; we have a sense of beauty that rules and guides us, and not we it ; and conscience, the moral sense is often a veritable tyrant, speaking to us with authority, and often torturing us if we do not listen and obey. The origin of all this authority is unaccountable apart from God, who is thus stamped upon our very being.

Having cleared the way by this

Three

abstract

senses.

explanation of the two words used for knowledge, we may now turn to the title of this chapter, “ Agnosticism.”

The word Agnostic was coined by Professor Huxley, in 1869, to describe those who held that there was no knowledge save through phenomena, i.e. 9 material proofs.

Those thus styled therefore professed not to know at all whether God exists or not. They thus differed on the one hand from atheists, who, exalting their ignorance into knowledge, boldly said there is no God, because they did not know Him ; on the other hand they differed also from the Athenians, who came to the opposite conclusion, and declared that there was a God, though they also did not know Him.

Now as the existence of God cannot ever be proved by material phenomena apart from revelation, all men are by nature agnostics or idolaters ; that is, they either recognise that they know nothing about God, or they worship some projection or invention of their own minds which is without value or authority.

But forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God \ who would draw us all into the nearer and dearer relation of sons, He could not and would not leave us so — hence a revelation was needed and provided.

So God has revealed Himself, as we believe, in two ways — in Nature, and in Scripture, and both of these give us truth concerning Him.

We read about those who have studied (and despised) the book of Nature only , that they hold the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. i. 18). And as to Nature, we are told that That which may be known of God is manifest in them ; for God hath shewed it unto them . For the

Nature and Scripture.

Both reveal God.

Nature does not reveal much.

invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen , being understood by the things that are made , even His eternal person and Godhead (Rom. i. 19, 20).

Thus, though Nature is undoubtedly debased and defaced by man, and has far departed from its pristine beauty, and though the Scriptures too have suffered through the imperfections of the human instruments and human speech and defective translations, both undoubtedly contain and proclaim the truth as to God.

The man who reads either of these two books — the Scriptures or the book of Nature — can no longer be a true Agnostic, but only such in a secondary sense.

Those who read the book of Nature only, have at any rate before them God’s eternal power and Godhead, The figure that is thus visible is very much like that of a man wrapt up from head to foot in a cloak, which, while it reveals his outline, conceals his features ; and thus Nature has not inaptly been called “the garment of the Lord.”

The Greeks, too, at Athens who built that altar to the “ Unknown God ” ° d * had studied the book of Nature, and, recognising this, St. Paul led them on to further knowledge in the light of a fuller revelation.

One can discern, even through a cloak, that the figure is strong, broad, and majestic, although the finer features of character be hidden and the man himself quite unknown. Those who only discern this much regarding God may be called Agnostics in a secondary sense, and are actually termed so in i Cor. xv. 34 and i Thess. iv. 5 : Some have not the knowledge of God (lit. “ are Agnostics ”), and Even as the Gentiles which know not God (i.e. f Agnostics).

God fully revealed in Scripture.

But this outward revelation or knowledge (otSa) may be carried much further, and yet the Person remain unknown.

With the fuller revelation of Scripture we see God as we cannot see Him in Nature, for although the cloak largely covers Him still in the Old Testament, it is dropped in the New : and we see revealed the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We discern His holiness, wisdom, love, pity, compassion, justice, and many other attributes ; and yet, although we may study the Divine thus closely, we may still in the deepest sense not know ( yiyvwaKO ) , ginosko ) God.

For example, our kings person is familiar to many thousands of his subjects, and a very large number know the leading traits of his character. The sound of his voice may be as familiar to our ears as his appearance to our eyes, and yet we may not know him at all.

In the same way there are many familiar with the book of Nature and Many Bible

students

the Bible, who have all the knowledge G°od. tknow embraced by the words oi$a ( oida ), scio, savoir , and wissen , who are still wholly without that intimate simple personal knowledge of God implied by the words, yryvwo-icw ( ginosko ), cognosco> connaitre and kennen; and it is of this latter personal knowledge alone that I write here.

One thing I should like to emphasise Agnostics before I pass on. I have pointed out ldolaters ‘ that naturally a man (apart from revelation) must be an agnostic or an idolater ; the former is, however, by far the better position of the two, though the latter is the more common. An idolater worships the conception of a deity simply formed by his own mind, and these projections of the imagination differ, of course, one from another, and the Pantheon becomes as large as it is worthless. It is so easy for us uncon-