Do You Truly Know God?
Do You Truly Know God?
In the previous lectures we spoke about spiritual vigilance. Since this subject is lengthy, and it would be better to gather its many lectures into a book, we will therefore suffice with what we have published and begin another topic: “The Knowledge of God and Existence with Him.”
Do you truly know God?
By this question, “Do you truly know God?”, we do not mean to address the atheist or the one who is far from the Church. Rather, we direct it more to those who think that they know the Lord and worship Him, and who recite the Creed saying aloud, “Truly we believe in one God…”
Many encountered Christ and lived with Him, yet did not know Him!!
Many will say to Him on the last day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many mighty works in Your name?” And the Lord will answer them saying, “I never knew you. Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity” (Matthew 7:22–23).
The same situation applies to the foolish virgins: they were virgins, preserved their virginity, took their lamps, and waited for the bridegroom. They believed in Him and knocked on the door saying, “Our Lord, our Lord, open to us.” But He answered them, “Truly I say to you, I do not know you” (Matthew 25:12).
Mary Magdalene: after the Resurrection she met the Lord and spoke with Him, yet she did not recognize Him, but thought that He was the gardener! Likewise the two disciples of Emmaus: they met Him and spoke with Him, yet did not recognize Him. Also the man born blind, after the Lord healed him, and after he defended the Lord before the Jews, he still did not know Him. And when the Lord asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” he answered, “Who is He, Sir, that I may believe in Him?” (John 9:36). Although he finally believed, like Magdalene and the two disciples of Emmaus…
The Jews lived at the same time as the Lord Christ and associated with Him, yet they did not know Him. Rather, the Scripture says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:5).
The knowledge of God is not an easy matter. To know Him means that there exists between us and Him a personal relationship. Knowing Him is summarized in the words of the psalmist: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.”
The relationship with God is not merely intellectual faith nor mere formalities. For the demons “believe—and tremble” (James 2:19). Mere intellectual faith is of no benefit. Balaam was a prophet and prophesied true and accurate prophecies about the Lord Christ, yet he perished. He did not have a personal relationship with the Lord, and his prophecy did not benefit him…
There may be an employee who knows the name of the minister, deals with his orders and decisions, and conveys them to the people, yet there is no relationship between him and the minister. And there may be a farmer who uses electricity in his life, in many of his devices, yet he does not know what electricity is or how it works… merely superficial knowledge without depth.
Likewise, there are people who pray and fast and enter the church and have service in it, yet they do not know God at all.
The Pharisee used to go to the temple, pray, fast twice a week, and tithe all his possessions, and was not like other people—extortioners, unjust, adulterers. Yet he did not have a relationship with God and did not go down from the temple justified (Luke 18:11–14).
Another Pharisee brought Christ into his house, but did not bring Him into his heart. He hosted Him but did not know Him. And when the woman poured the ointment on His feet and wiped them with the hair of her head, he doubted Him (Luke 7:39).
Many do not know the Lord despite their faith and prayers. They pray, yet they have no relationship with the Lord nor knowledge of Him. These are the ones of whom the Lord says, “This people draws near to Me with their mouth, and honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). Indeed, the Lord rebuked them strongly, saying, “When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear” (Isaiah 1:15)… They pray, but they have not yet tasted the Lord…
They did not know the Lord. Even if they think that they know Him, it is merely intellectual knowledge.
Mere intellectual knowledge is not sufficient. Experiential knowledge is necessary. Someone asked his friend, “Do you know so-and-so?” He replied, “Yes.” He asked him, “Have you lived with him? Have you experienced him?” He answered, “No.” So he said to him, “Then you do not know him.”
True knowledge is experience—the knowledge of companionship and personal relationship. Many know God from books only, not from life… and thus it is as if they do not know Him…
The knowledge of God is not an easy matter. Philip, one of the Twelve, said to the Lord Christ, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?” (John 14:9)…
Thus this knowledge is necessary even for the apostles…
The mighty Apostle Paul says, “I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him… that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.” “I count all things loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8–10). And the Lord Christ Himself shows the importance of this knowledge in His words to the Father: “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).
The statement of John the Baptist still stands before us until now: “There stands One among you whom you do not know” (John 1:26). Christ is in our midst, and we do not perceive Him, nor know Him, nor see Him… We become occupied with theoretical knowledge, with books and ideas, and we think that they are everything… and we remain in our ignorance of God…!
If we know God with true knowledge, this knowledge must change our lives. The person who has known Christ and tasted His sweetness cannot bear the love of the world or the things in the world, because the love of the world is enmity with God… Rather, he continually says, “From the day I knew Christ, I was changed… the effective word of God had its impact on my heart and on my life.”
From the day Saul of Tarsus met Christ on the road to Damascus, Saul changed completely and was transformed into Paul… And you, O blessed son, have you known Christ? Have you seen Him on the road to Damascus? Have you changed? Have the scales fallen from your eyes so that you can see clearly and behold the Lord…?
There is a contemplative fictional story written by one of the spiritual fathers, on the tongue of one of the soldiers who divided the garments of Christ at His crucifixion. He said: We divided His garments among us, and His sandals fell to my lot, so I wore them. And behold, these sandals led me on a path I had never known before. Without realizing it, I found myself on the way to the Mount of Olives. I, who used to hate prayer and despise it, found myself kneeling beside one of the trees, praying.
There is a great difference between experiential knowledge and intellectual knowledge. Righteous Job was able to distinguish between them when he said, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You” (Job 42:5). Perhaps this is the same thing that the people of Samaria said. At first, the Samaritan woman invited them to see Christ, saying, “Come, see a Man who told me all that I ever did.” When they came and saw Him and believed in Him, they said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe.” The faith of those who had seen Him was much deeper in its wondrous effect (John 4). Perhaps this was also the feeling of the Queen of Sheba when she saw Solomon, for Scripture says that “there was no more spirit in her” (1 Kings 10:5). She used to hear and not believe the reports until she saw and beheld…
We call people to know God through a life of experience, through companionship, through true connection and personal relationship. And we tell them: the one who does not have a life with God and a connection with God cannot know God. Books alone are not enough, and lectures and information are not enough. They fill the mind with ideas, but the heart may remain empty—without feelings, without love, without affection, without emotions. As one writer said: “What benefit is it to you if you know all the information about the Holy Trinity, while the Holy Trinity is not abiding in you, nor are you abiding in Him?”
We do not want to be merely scholars, for knowledge alone puffs up. The devil has much knowledge, yet he is perishing. His knowledge is a form of ignorance. True knowledge is the knowledge of “taste and see.” I have seen some who have a great deal of information, yet they do not know God—and perhaps they do not even know themselves…
We want our information to be transformed into life, because the Lord said to us, “The words that I speak to you are spirit and life.” And by this spirit and this life, we know God—not by the mind alone, but by the heart, the will, and the spirit. Then we will sing with the psalmist, saying, “You have given me the knowledge of Your knowledge.”
We do not want the mind to live alone, independent of the heart and the spirit. We do not want to leave to the mind alone the subject of the existence of God, to think about it as it wishes. We want the heart to enter into this subject, and experience also, so that you can prove the existence of God from the reality of your life. You will say, “I have seen the hand of God in this event.” The hand of God was clear and very powerful; it worked wonders among us…
You can also perceive the attributes of God in His dealings with you and with others, in the events of your life and the lives of people.
Thus you know God—not only the God about whom books, sermons, and lectures speak, whom people explain to you according to their understanding—but the God “whom we have seen with our eyes, whom we have looked upon, and our hands have handled” (1 John 1:1).
It is truly unfortunate to live a religious life far from God, with no connection to Him—mere formalities, rituals, and practices… like life under the Law in former times. It is truly unfortunate that the name of God be called upon us, without our having a personal relationship with God.
Those without God are nothing. God is the center of all religion. He is its goal and its means. Even if we attain all righteousness and all virtue, yet do not reach God, we are nothing… And these virtues would be nothing but practices or works of the Law. All the saints had a personal relationship with God. God was their entire life, as David said: “But as for me, it is good for me to draw near to God…”
From now on, let us try to form a relationship with God—friendship, love, companionship, and frankness—so that we may know Him, and so that He may reveal Himself to us, and we may see Him.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III
Al-Keraza Magazine – Fifth Year – Issue Four – 26 October 1974
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