God can be known

“This is what the LORD says:

‘Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength
or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this:
that they understand and know me...’” (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

Can we know God? If we can, what can we know? Isn’t God too big for us to comprehend?

There’s an old tale of a group of blind men who encounter an elephant. Each touches a different part of it and thinks the elephant is like a rope (the tail) or a fan (the ear) or a snake (the trunk). This is supposed to teach that we all get little glimpses of God and shouldn’t think we have the whole picture, the whole truth.

The problem with this illustration is that, in reality, the elephant can talk. We are not stumbling and feeling our way, trying to figure out God. He has told us what he wants us to know.

It is true that we cannot know God fully. He is infinite, and we are finite. We have less of a chance of fully understanding God than ants do of understanding quantum mechanics. But we can understand what he has chosen to reveal. This is true because God made us to know him. Jesus said, “This is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). God’s plan is that there should be a day when “no longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest” (Heb 8:11).

God reveals himself to us through general revelation (the world around us) and special revelation (specific messages he has given, now recorded in the Bible). He has revealed what he wants us to know, what he knows we can understand.

As Spurgeon said, “There must be knowledge of God before there can be love to God.” So he has revealed things about himself, his ways, and his plans. The passage above from Jeremiah continues: “[L]et the one who boasts boast about this: that they understand and know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.”

He wants us to know his character, that he is kind and just and righteous. He wants us to appreciate these things about him, and he wants us to act like him. So we will be exploring God’s nature and character in the days ahead.

Now how do we get to know God?

In a sense, we get to know God the same way we get to know anyone — by spending time with him. We talk to him through prayer, and he talks to us through his Word. This includes knowing certain facts about him. But it is more than that. If you know a person but don’t know that this person is funny or kind or creative, do you really know that person? No. But merely knowing those facts is not sufficient to know that person, either. You have to experience that on a personal level.

So how does that apply to God? Let’s turn to the reigning expert on the matter, JI Packer, in his classic Knowing God:

“How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God? The rule for doing this is simple but demanding. It is that we turn each truth that we learn about God into a matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God.

“Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God. It is an activity of holy thought, consciously performed in the presence of God, under the eye of God, by the help of God, as a means of communion with God.

“Its purpose is to clear one’s mental and spiritual vision of God, and to let his truth make its full and proper impact on one’s mind and heart.” 

It also requires living in light of what he has revealed to us. “Knowing God involves, first, listening to God’s Word and receiving it as the Holy Spirit interprets it, in application to oneself; second, noting God’s nature and character, as his Word and works reveal it; third accepting his invitations and doing what he commands; fourth, recognizing and rejoicing in the love that he has shown in thus approaching you and drawing you into this divine fellowship.”

Does that sound like a lot of work? It’s not a task for the lazy. God wants us to put some effort into it, to show that we’re serious. But the effort is rewarded handsomely.


The go-to work on this topic, and one that every Christian should read, is Knowing God by JI Packer.

Picture credit: Blind Men Appraising an Elephant by Ohara Donshu


Part of Christianity 101