Can We Know God?
“Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.’” John 6:35
Can we know God? This question has been asked through the centuries. Is it possible to truly and authentically know God? Some have speculated that God, though he may exist, is silent. This is why, they say, we do not see more obvious evidences of God in the world. God simply chooses to remain unobtrusively in the background, away from human perception. He lets us live as we choose to see whether or not we will work things out.
This is not the Christian viewpoint. In fact, the entire Bible is the account of a God who has chosen not to remain silent. In creation he shows ample evidence of his existence, and in the Bible, God speaks and makes himself known. He shows himself active in the world in many ways. The final and ultimate revelation of God to humankind is the person of Jesus Christ, in whom God came personally to make himself truly and most fully known.
Christianity affirms that only Jesus Christ makes God truly and authentically known. Why is this? It is because only the Son of God has seen the Father. For that reason, only he can make him known. While many teachers, sages, and prophets have spoken, none of them were God. Jesus Christ is the truth about the Triune God, fully and perfectly revealed, for only he is the Truth. In Jesus Christ, we know God as he truly is.
One evidence of this is that Jesus did not merely point the way to God. Jesus did not just claim to show the way but to be the way. Jesus used several images to illustrate this. He claimed to be the bread of life that gives authentic life to the world. He claimed to be the water of life whose presence would flow in the heart of everyone who came to him. In addition, the New Testament makes a claim about Christ that is only true for God. It claims that he is the author of creation, who was present in the beginning, for whom all things were made and in whom all things hold together.
The promises of the New Testament are remarkable and often overlooked. The nature of God’s love for us is not impersonal. That is, God does not just love us as a group, or in theory, like a person might say they love art or literature. God’s love toward us is a particular and intimate love in which each individual child of God is called by name and known as precious. How can this be? How can God know each individual and care about us personally? This is the wonder, majesty, and mystery of God. Yet we should not be surprised. A God who can make a universe so vast, and the subatomic world so small and complex, is also able to know and care about every person.
Our salvation in Christ does something wonderful for and in us. It restores the image of God in us which was lost in the Fall. In the Fall, the image of God was defaced and corrupted. It no longer was able to reflect the glory and nature of God. In Christ, however, we not only have forgiveness and reconciliation with God, but God’s transforming presence in us. God’s love has an effective transforming power in us to restore his image such that we, though broken and sinful, become capable of holy living. Who are we that God would take such thought for us! Who are we that God would promise such great things to us? Who are we that our lives should reflect the love, light, and glory of God himself?