In the October edition, I wrote an article with the title “Is heart the same as feeling?”. When it speaks about heart in the Scriptures, that certainly includes our feelings. But, because of this, it may not be identified as feelings. In biblical language, the heart can also refer to our understanding, our will and our conscience. Our heart is deeper than our feelings. You can be touched and feelings can be awakened in you without affecting your heart. At a mass meeting, you can become enthusiastic about Jesus without repenting. You can accept the gospel, immediately and gladly, and not have any roots. Our heart is, as it were, the deepest layer in our inner being. That is where we are confronted with the gospel. That is where the Spirit of Christ dwells. That is our central command center. I formulated it in this way — our “heart” is us “in the way we react to the gospel”. Heart can also refer to understanding, but also then this is valid; our heart is deeper than our understanding. You can understand something and be able to communicate much about it, but it does not cause you to become another person. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, if I have all knowledge and understanding, but do not have love, I am nothing. Knowing the LORD is then also more than an intellectual action.

Worthless Knowledge⤒🔗

There is knowledge that makes one conceited. There is knowledge that becomes irrelevant. There is wisdom that is made to be foolishness by God. There are people who say they know God, but walk in darkness. There is knowledge that is built only on one’s own insight and therefore is self-conceited. The author of Proverbs, Paul (1 Corinthians) and John (1 John) have much to say about this.

However, one who on this basis regards all knowledge as of lesser worth, misses the boat. Allow me to illustrate this with the word “faith”.

James writes in his letter: “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe – and shudder!” (James 2:19). John also writes in his Gospel about the crowds that followed the Lord Jesus and still were real disciples (stronger yet: who at a given moment would turn away from him), that they believed in him (John 8:30-36). Imagine that someone, on the basis of this kind of text would claim that faith is something from outside, something from evil spirits and superficial multitudes! We would all find that absurd. We let ourselves be warned by these texts against all surrogate belief. But there is no way in which we let the continuing call from the Lord to faith, be weakened by it.

Necessary Knowledge←⤒🔗

It is also this way with knowledge of the Lord. We are aware of knowledge that contradicts the wisdom of God and the love that he demands. We must repeatedly be warned against a reliance on that knowledge. But Scripture also calls us to knowledge that is necessary.

The prophet Hosea upbraids the priests. They were responsible in Israel for instruction in the law, but the priests shamefully neglected their task. My people, the LORD accuses the priests, perish through lack of knowledge.

In the night in which he will be arrested, the Lord Jesus prays to his Father. He has come to grant eternal life, and this is eternal life, that they know the Lord, the only true God, and Jesus Christ who was sent by him. The apostle John writes in this way about the Son of God who came to give us insight in order to know the only true God (John 17).

The apostle Paul does not cease praying and asking that the congregation in Corinth may be filled with the right knowledge of God’s will and may mature in the right knowledge of God.

Spiritual Knowledge←⤒🔗

Just a few comments about this necessary knowledge:

1. The knowledge that the LORD demands does not focus on bits of information, but on the LORD. We desire to know him as he is, as he has revealed himself. That became clear in the scripture passages that I referenced; it was about the knowledge of the LORD, of the only true God, of his will. We remember his mighty deeds and we engage ourselves in studying Scripture apart from (cultural) historical interest. We search the Bible and make it our own because the LORD reveals himself to us in it. From Scripture, we learn to know him very personally. That is life. That occupies our hearts.
2. Our knowing the Lord is not a fruit of our thought processes and of our sharp intellect. You can have an enormously high IQ and not know the LORD. You can be very educated and still be a fool in God’s eyes. Knowledge of the LORD only exists thanks to revelation. No one has ever seen God. Only the Son who is in the bosom of the Father can make him known to us. He causes us to know him through his Spirit and Word. We only know what is in God and what is granted to us by God, out of grace through the Spirit of God. He gives us knowledge of God by causing us to accept the gospel in faith. He gives this knowledge to all God’s children. Yes, in different measures. But everyone knows him, from young to old, from highly gifted to mentally handicapped. All of them have been taught by him.
3. Our knowing of the LORD is not limited to what we can understand or reason out. We have a God who cannot be compared to anyone. We cannot fathom his wisdom and his ways are unsearchable. He can do infinitely more than we can understand. The salvation which he grants and the path of salvation that he walks with us would never arise in the heart of man. He far exceeds our knowledge. That which we know, we do not know because we are so smart, but because we submit ourselves to what God says to us in his Word, and which we accept in faith. If knowledge were only a matter of our intellect, then there would only be very meager knowledge. Then we would not know of God’s triune being, of his election and reprobation from eternity, of his work of creation, of original sin, of his grace and love in Christ, of the unique person of our Mediator: God and man, of the work of the Holy Spirit in our conversion, and of the glory which will be revealed to us.
4. Knowing the Lord is not a matter of our memory or of our intellect alone. To know the LORD is to love him. It is living in a covenant of faith with him. It is to honour and respect him and to keep his commandments. For in this way we know that we know him, John writes, when we keep his commandments. Whoever says: I know him, but does not keep his commandments, is a liar. Knowing the LORD is knowing the love of Christ, which exceeds all knowledge. That is a knowing that is rooted and grounded in love.

Knowledge at Bible Study Groups←⤒🔗

When we say that in our Bible studies, it is about learning to know the LORD, then we mean this knowledge. You can know all kinds of things about the Bible, you can have everything clearly explained and logically laid out, but that does not mean that you know the LORD. Knowing the LORD sits at a deeper plane than that of an intellectual production of proofs and a logical transparency, and information that speaks to a person. It is a knowing with the heart, an accepting of the gospel, that only the Holy Spirit can work in us.

When it is about this knowledge, then knowledge is not a contaminated word. Then we do not speak in a belittling way about societies that are focused “cognitively” on knowledge. The goal for which we were created (Heidelberg Catechism answer 6) is that we should know God, our creator, in truth. Knowing the Lord in the glory of his attributes, that is what we learned to ask for first in the “Our Father” (Heidelberg Catechism answer 122).

Let us stand amazed that at Bible study groups we do not have to speak about theories promoted by man, but that we may speak about the LORD whose works far transcend our understanding. How wonderful it is that our fellow Bible study members do not want to use as point of departure that which we ourselves understand, feel, or imagine or what touches them personally, but that they desire to listen to the Word of our high and Holy God. That is not intellectualism! It is the wondrous work of the Holy Spirit when brothers and sisters submit themselves to Scripture with you, and with you are willing to kneel before the glorious God of that Word. Also they are willing to submit their own thoughts to him.