1 JOHN - #31, Knowing God means consistent studying of His Word under a qualified pastor. (7-1-25)

-----Complete notes can be downloaded from our website - www.countrybiblechurch.us
-----You may contact us at [email protected] or [email protected]

What follows below was written by Dr. Robert Dean, Pastor of West Houston Bible Church. Dr. Robert Dean NT-23-1 John
What does John mean by knowing God? This is the important interpretive problem in this passage. What are the options? The first option is that knowing God might mean to know about God, i.e. know certain academic truths about God, certain facts about God, to ascertain certain theological information about God or to know what the Bible teaches about God.
This is nothing more than knowing something about someone but it doesn’t involve any kind of personal or intimate knowledge or having a relationship with that person. That doesn’t seem to mean what John is talking about here. He is talking about a more intimate relationship because the context is fellowship.
The second option is one that is more often chosen by people and it equates knowing God to salvation, that to know God is to have saving faith and to be actually a member of the royal family of God. We could paraphrase this perhaps by saying: “We know that we are saved if we keep His commandments.” So that this becomes a test of salvation, and this is the position of Lordship salvation. If you are a believer over a period of time, according to Lordship salvation, you will manifest an obedience to the commandments of God; if you claim to be a believer at one point in life but then fail to keep His commandments they will say, well the faith that you had was not a genuine saving faith, it was a false faith.
But the Bible never really categorizes that kind of faith and there is no biblical basis for it. This is part of what Calvinists call the perseverance of the saints. John 11:25 NASB “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies’”—notice He doesn’t say he who believes in Me and keeps my commandments—[26] “and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” The key word here is believe. Martha’s response: “She said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord; I have believed,’” imperfect active indicative to express the fact that imperfect is past action with results that go on forever. Salvation is not lost.
The third option for understanding this is that to know God is to advance in the spiritual life where the believer has enjoyed fellowship with God and come to know God in a more intimate way. John would then be saying: “And by means of this principle, we know that we have come to have a more intimate, personal knowledge and relationship with God, if we keep His commandments.” Having a more intimate knowledge of God and a relationship with God is characteristic of an advancing believer who has gone from spiritual childhood and is at least in spiritual adolescence.
And what is the sign of that? It is that we keep His commandments. One way we can tell whether a believer is advancing or not is whether they are consistently obeying the mandates and principles of the New Testament. The point is that a person can clearly be saved and still not know God. Knowing God is beyond salvation. John 14:15 NASB “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Jesus continually emphasizes in that chapter that knowing God is related to keeping His commandments. He is talking to the disciples as saved believers; He is not talking to them about becoming saved. John 14:21 NASB “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”
Notice that there is an additional revelation—not apart from the Scriptures—of understanding of spiritual truth that comes as a result of obeying and applying what we know and apply in the spiritual life. God is not going to increase His fellowship until we first begin to walk with Him and apply what we know. He doesn’t give us everything at the beginning.