THE MIND AND ITS KNOWING

PART II

The Biblical idea of knowing is so different from the modern Western one as to be scarcely recognizable. The modern one, which we as Christians have grown up with, conceives of knowing as an analytical, theoretical process which has no necessary connection with the value systems or actions. We tend to think of knowing the multiplication tables or the "facts" of history simply as useful information. This is what Western culture, growing in the soil of the Enlightenment and with its roots in ancient Greek thinking, has taught us.
The Bible never speaks of knowing in terms of mere observation, investigation, or speculation. It does not agree that knowing is a matter of objectifying, studying, and describing reality. For us to think of knowledge in this way – and we can do it even in connection with the study of the Bible itself – is to misunderstand and to misuse the Bible.
One of the most sad and sterile myths to which modern man is committed is that one can know a thing without knowing God in the process. The myth is false because, as Romans 1:20 indicates, all things are revelatory of God. To know a thing as if it were a thing itself, comprehensible by our minds as logical instruments in themselves, is to miss its revelatory quality, which is its meaning. All things point ultimately to Christ, Who is the Truth. To think of knowing without involving Him, then, is to violate the plain message of Scripture.

The Nature of Knowing

A peculiar (to us) feature of Biblical knowing is that the truth can only be known as it is done. That is because the Bible defines the truth as a Person, Jesus Christ (John 14:6). To know Him, one must love Him, and to love Him, one must keep His word (John 14:23) or, one must do the truth. "If we say that we have fellowship with the truth." (1 John 1:6)
The Bible does not distinguish spiritual, theological, or doctrinal truth from an other kind of truth. Indeed, if truth is a person, such a distinction is impossible. Christ is as much the truth (the final meaning or referent) of arithmetical, psychological, or historical truth as He is of theological truth. The whole creation is full of His glory (Isaiah 6:3); it is all "booby-trapped" with His presence. The dualism which posits a "spiritual" as a distinct from a "natural" truth is totally unbiblical.
This means that we cannot know the truth in any aspect of our experience unless we recognize that it points to Christ as its final meaning and unless we love and serve Him in that aspect of life too. Hence Biblical knowing is a matter of doing.

Knowing and the Fear of God

Now it becomes easier to understand why the Bible speaks of the fear of God as an element in knowledge. "The fear of Jehovah is the chief part of knowledge." (Proverbs 1:7, margin). Because knowledge of God is experience of the reality of God, not merely knowledge of propositions concerning God, it frightens man (e.g. Exodus 3:6; Job 37:34), and the fear of God is an essential ingredient in the Old Testament knowledge of God (Psalm 25:14; Proverbs 9:10)." (see footnote 1)
Steensma, speaking of the Old Testament meaning of "knowledge," says: "The Old Testament Israelite grew in knowledge as he listened to God’s proclamations and then committed himself to live in accord with those proclamations. Knowing was existential, a total awareness of a living God who acts in His creation. Every event was understood as an act of God or of men who acted either obediently or disobediently to a living, powerful God of grace and love . . .The Old Testament believer not only acquired some information, but he acknowledged a personal relationship that committed him to act in accord with that which he "knew." (see footnote 2)
This explains why the Psalmist often moves directly from talking about the creative power of God’s Word to praising God. His knowledge of the creation is a knowledge of the God who reveals Himself in His creation, and it includes a strong element of reverential awe which moves him to praise God. (Psalm 33:6-9)

Knowing and Righteousness

Another distinctive element in Biblical knowledge is its relation to righteousness. The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, quoted above on the fear of God as an element in the knowledge of God, goes on to say, "This fear is not a mere sentiment. It manifests itself in a way of life, in which man respects the majesty and power of God. Only the righteous man can therefore be said to truly know God (e.g. Deuteronomy 4:39; Jeremiah 22:15-16). This feature, more than any other, brings out the whole wide gulf that separates the Hebraic from the Greek view of knowledge. In the latter, knowledge itself is purely theoretical, and it is left to man’s discretion whether or not he will derive rules for conduct from his insight; whereas in the Old Testament the person who does not act in accordance with what God has done or plans to do has fragmentary knowledge, which, if not coupled with the fear of God, will eventually result in moral disintegration (e.g. Hosea 4:1)" (see footnote 3)
Knowledge and righteousness are thus inextricably linked. One cannot be said to know truly unless one lives righteously. This is why the two New Testament passages which define the renewed image of God in man (Colossians 3:10 and Ephesians 4:24) speak of these two aspects, "renewed in knowledge," and "after God . . . created in righteousness and holiness of truth."

Knowing and Joy

It is not surprising that this kind of knowledge is described in terms of rapturous joy. "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding . . . She is more precious than rubies: and none of the things thou canst desire are to be compared unto her . . . her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." (Proverbs 3:13-17)
How could it be otherwise? This kind of knowing brings us to the repose of the Father’s house. It leads us to the Fountain of Life, whom to know aright is life eternal (John 17:3). It makes us lie down in green pastures and leads us by waters of quietness (Psalm 23). This is the path of life. "In thy presence is fullness of joy; in thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." (Psalm 16:11)
The important thing is to steadfastly resist the temptation to isolate such knowledge and its joy in the "spiritual" area of life. All our lives we have learned to do that, but in doing so we have greatly reduced the life and richness of the Gospel. Jesus Christ, in whom all things hold together (Colossians 1:17), claims all knowledge for His own. We dare not exclude Him from any of our knowing. And as we learn to recognize Him, our knowledge will be suffused with growing joy!

What Shall We Do?

If this is the nature of Biblical knowing, what ought we who profess the name of Christ do? Two things, one negative and one positive.
Negatively, we should repent. We have taken for knowledge something that isn’t knowledge at all. If we listen carefully, we can hear the Word of the Lord coming to us as it came through Jeremiah to His people in that ancient day. "For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." (Jeremiah 2:13) We are no better than our fathers were, and it would be well for us humbly, broken-heartedly, to confess this to the Lord and seek His forgiveness.
Positively, we should give evidence of the genuineness of our repentance by our effort to cultivate a truly Christian mind, to be "transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Romans 12:2) In our homes, in our churches, and in our Christian schools we should seek to develop a kind of knowing which does the truth, grows out of a reverential awe for God, involves a translation of understanding into righteous action, and is characterized by the experience of the joy of the Lord. Then we will grow in our knowledge of the Lord, and there is no telling what new uses God may begin to make of our lives!

Editor: Al Greene

Alta Vista College