Knowing God

This topic goes hand in hand with a true understanding of the nature of God as I discussed in another blog, so next I will attempt to expound on this aspect of it, and why it appeals so much to my soul.  Though I make a conclusion here, I do not feel that I can fully describe nor understand completely this subject, but I only wish to bring out from the scriptures and from the teachings of the prophets what we know about knowing God.  Clearly we do not have God here with us, at least in a way that we can see and ask questions to get to know Him.  We must rely on revelation—from those who did see, and did ask, and then wrote what they learned for all to see and know for themselves.  Then beyond that, we can have personal experiences with Him that can also go a long way in increasing our knowledge of Him.

A pivotal scripture when it comes to this subject is John 17:3, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”  Notice here that knowing God is equated with the most precious of gifts—eternal life.  We might ask, how is it that knowing God is eternal life?  Knowing God must indeed be extremely important.  But what exactly is it we must know about him, or maybe the question should be, what does it mean to know him?  

When we think of people we love, we can likely be sure that we know them--and know them very well.   The same can be said about God.  If we know Him, we probably love Him.  He is not mysterious to us.  We get to know Him by reading about Him, being obedient to Him, learning His attributes and how He interacts with us personally in the many ways He can touch our lives.  Eventually, this growing knowledge naturally becomes love.  But this process can only go so far with an incorrect concept of Him.

In John 4: 22, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well, “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.”  But he says in verse 21, “the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.”  From this we can gather that the Samaritans had it wrong at the time, the Jews had it right at the time (especially since Christ himself was among them), and the time would soon come that the Jews would have it wrong as well.  He stresses that the Samaritans did not know what it was they worshipped.  This seems like a very strange statement to make to someone—you don’t know what you worship.  But can this statement also be made to us in this day?  For example, if we refer to God or His nature as a mystery, as many do, logically do we not deny ourselves the privelege of then turning around and claiming to know Him?  It seems to me it must be a very basic first step of any religion to know exactly what it is you worship.  If we can only see what the Jews had and then lost, as Jesus tells us, we may be able to add some light to this.

Luckily for us we can simply look at history to see what happened to the idea of God in this part of the world to see just how this saying of Jesus worked out as he told it.  First off, we can note that Christianity was born of the Jews, but then eventually completely split into two distinct religions.  Christianity then went from a Jewish religion to a Greek/Roman religion, which was then interwoven into all the Greek ideas and traditions.  

Not to be repetitive from another blog, but the following statement is both simple and overpowering; that through the first century A.D. the idea of God was strictly monotheistic with God the Father, Jesus His Son, and the Holy Spirit as three distinct and separate beings, yet one in purpose—all in a non-metaphysical sense, the way the Jews had always believed.  As I explained above, into the second and third centuries, this idea of God began to evolve. The cry of polytheism was thrown at this new Christian religion with a great deal of persecution and even death to those who believed such a "heresy".  Polytheism was a dirty word; one that was strictly prohibited by the Jews as well as in the Christians own scripture.  The Greeks came to the rescue.   The Greek philosophers solved the problem by forming the idea that the three were actually one all along—they were merely three extensions of the same being.  

The division and contention from this issue cannot be understated.  It enveloped all Christians and divided them in what should have been a very basic and united belief.  As I said before, Constantine attempted to bring this unity. 

Although many refused to believe in this new being, those who did not were literally exiled or killed until centuries later this idea of God was finally the orthodox belief for the Christian religion.  This being, as stated in the creeds, became a metaphysical God without body, parts or passion—a mystery.  He also became, “unknowable.”  Considering what we learned above, this was a critical error.  

What should be undeniable, the creeds did not come to man in the same pattern as scripture did—revelation from God.   And certainly they could not be claimed as scripture.  Note that, although the sacred writings may have been available to some, assuming they were literate, the Bible as we know it did not come to be until nearly a century later.  The writers of this creed did not, and indeed admitted they did not consult scripture to solve this doctrinal issue, although 1 Corinthians 8: 5, 6 would have helped immensely.  I will expand on this scripture in a later section.

Now lets take a step back and examine Jesus’ statement to the Samaritan woman.  Remember—the Jews (or Christianized Jews) had it right at the time, but eventually nobody would know what they worshiped.  Sadly, this seems to be exactly how history played out.  By man's doing, the nature of God became a mystery to all.

Back to the scriptures for another clue.  1 John 2: 3, 4 (NRSV) tells us, “Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments.  Whoever says, ‘I have come to know him,’ but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist.”  When I think about it, this makes sense. If you follow only in word but not in deed, you are not a follower at all.  Remember, if we know Him, we love Him, and if we love Him we will keep His commandments.  The importance of keeping commandments must be a part of our worship and will enhance our ability to know God.

Now, let’s get to know God through more scriptures.  In Genesis 1:27, we are told that God created man, “in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”  Can we, or should we try to explain this away?  Are we not literally created in the image of God—both male and female?  (And let’s not delete the word female.)  For some reason man cannot fathom that God is in his image, or is…gulp…a man!  Yikes!  Well, in Genesis 5: 3 we are told that, “Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image.”  The same Hebrew words are used here to describe Adam’s son in his image, as in Genesis 1 to describe Adam in God’s image. 

As I stated in a previous blog, this debate of what exactly, "in the image of God" means has gone on for millennia.  But major denominations of today have concluded the question.  "There is but one only living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions."  (Protestant wording of the Anglican 39 articles, 1563.)  "God is without body, parts, or passions."  (From the Presbyterian confession of faith.) 

Any Christian must admit that Jesus himself was born, was an infant, grew as a child, and eventually died.  He experienced life just like a man.  In later chapters of the Old Testament we see that God gets angry, is joyful, is merciful and forgiving, demands obedience, grants blessings, and allows justice its natural course.  Of course in the New Testament we read of the many man-like passions of Jesus.  Often we hear of God’s body parts—his eyes, ears, hands and feet.  We can easily see from simple scripture that the confessions and creeds got it wrong—God indeed does have a body, as well as parts, and passion.  Else how can He love, have empathy, or even weep?  If we take scripture at its word and agree that God is a man, albeit a glorified and perfected man, this simple, yet profound idea takes us light years toward knowing God.  To me this indeed seems to be a God that we can get to know!

One key Biblical occurrence in this matter has yet to be adequately answered by trinitarians.  When Jesus was resurrected, He appeared to many.  He went to great pains to both show and tell them He was not a spirit, but was in fact a physical body, "A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." (Luke 24: 39)  He even ate some food in front of them.  So if He is only a spirit, what happened to this resurrected body? 

Now, let’s get to know God through the eyes of Jesus.  He tells us in John 5: 19 (NRSV), “The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.”  What a great instruction sheet to our understanding of God!  Jesus is showing us what God is like through his very life.  So if we know what Jesus is like, we know what God the Father is like.  

We can go on and on with this, but to point out just how profound this journey can be, let’s examine the shortest verse in scripture, “Jesus wept.”  Certainly this is a man-like passion.  It shows sadness, it shows empathy, it shows love for mankind, and it shows that He is vulnerable.  If we get to know God through Jesus, why can’t we see that God too has passion?  And what of Jesus’ resurrection?  He went to great lengths to show his disciples that he died, yet has a body that you can see and touch, a body that eats and moves and acts just like a real man’s would.  An understanding that God is of the same species as we are is an all-important step in knowing him.

When Job saw the deep love God had for man he was puzzled.  He asks, “What is man that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?” (Job 7: 17)  As Terryl Givens says in The God Who Weeps, “The astonishing revelation here is that God does set His heart upon us.  And in doing so, God chooses to love us.  And if love means responsibility, sacrifice, vulnerability, then God’s decision to love us is the most stupendously sublime moment in the history of time.  He chooses to love even at, necessarily at, the price of vulnerability.”

To help us understand who God is even more, we must understand how we are related to this glorified man.  The prophet Joseph Smith said, “If we do not know our Heavenly Father and our relationship to Him we become little more than the brute beasts.”  Again the importance to our knowing God is expressed here, but a bit more is added—our relationship to Him.  Joseph speaks of Him as our Heavenly Father.  If He is truly our father, again here is another morsel that we can easily digest.  Most all of us know what it is like to be a parent.  How, by our very bloodline we can suddenly teach, forgive, and love unconditionally, and put all of our time, effort, and worry, and yes, even put our vulnerability on the line for the sake of these, our offspring. 

As mentioned earlier, in the first vision of Joseph Smith we learn many things, not the least of which is the nature of God.  In this vision, He had the form of a man in every way.  He spoke as one man speaks to another.  This seems to fit very well with Moses’ experience, “The Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.”  (Exo 33:11)  Yet He was different.  He was, “whiter than noon day sun,” Joseph tells us.  He was a man, but a glorious man.  We also learn a little bit from the words He spoke to Joseph at the time.  When speaking of the religions of the day, Joseph was told that, “all their creeds were an abomination in his sight.”  Let me point out again, he did not say their religions were an abomination, but that their creeds were.  Certainly, as we learned, the very reason the creeds came to be is in their spurious attempt to define the nature of God.  This attempt was devastatingly wrong.  They took away the Fatherhood of God, the very being that He wanted us to know him by, and that we must get to know.  Here it was revealed to a mere 14-year-old boy an all important key to eternal life, that the greatest minds of the previous 18 centuries could not get a hold on.  And as it was in all of history, it took revelation to get it right.

 

We mostly begin to know God through the influence of the Holy Ghost, “the Comforter, which showeth all things, and teacheth the peaceable things of the kingdom” and which “beareth record of the Father and of the Son” (Doctrine & Covenants 20:27; 39:6).

Experiencing “the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto prayer” (Moroni 8:26), makes it possible to “grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you” (Mosiah 4:12). Deepening our commitment to serve God ever more effectively, we become the “friends” of Jesus, a celestial category of servants who labor alongside Jesus in the ministry of saving souls (John 15:14–16; Doctrine & Covenants 84:77–79). This course in life involves the experience of knowing Jesus personally.

Latter-Day revelation confirms the biblical account of God as the literal father of the human family; as a being who is concerned for the welfare of mankind, and a Personage who hears and answers prayers.  That He is approachable.  That He is a perfected and glorified holy man.  A being that we can aspire to be like (1 John 3: 2), not just because we know what it’s like to be human, but also because we now know that He knows in a personal way what it’s like to be human.  (Romans 8: 14-18)  And He not only knows how we can be like Him, He wants us to be like Him, as any normal father would for their own children.  (Matt 5: 48) Knowing that we can be like him coupled with our success in doing so, it turns out, is the very essence of eternal life.

Our worship of God can only go so far with an incorrect conception of Him, but with a true understanding of His nature and with the companionship of the Holy Ghost, we can, as Jesus tells the woman at the well, “worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4: 24)  And, “through the knowledge of him… ye might be partakers of the divine nature.”  (2 Peter 1: 3, 4)