What does it mean to ‘Know God?’; 1 John 2:3
From 2:3-11 the theme is the
importance of knowing and loving God to advance to spiritual adulthood. We have
to remember the background of 1 John. The problem was an unsophisticated version
of what later became known as Gnosticism. They emphasised a secret knowledge:
that you had to have a special insight, a special intuitive revelation. There
was a mystical element to Gnosticism in which it was only those who had this
special knowledge that were admitted into the mystical fraternity. That it
worked its way out in some of the secret cults, and only if you had that
knowledge could you really be spiritual. The congregation John was addressing
was basically being influenced by the cultural, worldly, pagan ideas of the
Hellenistic world around them. We have seen in the book of Judges how a culture
becomes influenced by paganism and its destructive results. John is countering
that and one of his messages is how to avoid the influence of pagan thought and
how destructive it can be to the spiritual life. It is important to understand
that this Gnostic background was a serious assault on the spiritual life Jesus
Christ pioneered in His humanity for the believer today. Experiential
righteousness wasn’t important so they created a dichotomy between the spirit
and the physical, the result of which was that having to apply the Word of God
was not longer that important.
To correct that John first
chooses as his theme in this epistle the challenge to remain in fellowship, to
enjoy fellowship with God, to live in the life and consistently apply doctrine.
The way he emphasises this in terms of the structure is that in 1:5-2:2 he
emphasises the negative, the three false claims, to show the importance of maintaining
fellowship, maintaining the Christian life and living in fellowship with God.
Then he is going to advance beyond that, starting in 2:3, to show that it is
not merely being in fellowship, enjoying fellowship, but it is being in
fellowship for the purpose of knowing God and developing an intimate personal
relationship with God which is the basis for moving into that advance adult
spiritual life. It is not just being in fellowship, it is staying in
fellowship.
1 John 2:3 NASB
“By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.”
The principle is given in this verse. Then the flip side is given [4] NASB
“The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His
commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. [5] but
whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By
this we know that we are in Him.”
Verse 3 begins with the
conjunction kai [kai], “And,” which is a simple connective in this
passage, used to simply add an additional element to a discussion or as an
additional idea to the train of thought. “… by this”
is en touto [e)n touto], instrumental dative, which should be translated “by
means of this.” touto is the near
demonstrative of the pronoun houtos
[o(utoj] which suggests something nearby: “And by means of
this principle or test” we are going to know something. The principle comes at
the end of the verse: “if we keep His commandments.” Then we have the main verb
and we see that it is used twice in the passage; the word
“know”—ginosko [ginwskw]. If we look at that in the English it looks as if
both of the “knows” are the same word, the same tense. They are different
tenses. The grammar makes a tremendous difference in interpreting this
particular passage. The first use of “know” is a present active indicative—by
this we can have a continual knowledge or understanding. It is up to our
volition to understand and recognise the principle. We can know something with
certainty. Then the verb is a third person plural and we have seen that the
third person plural has run down through the entire first chapter and to this
point, and it primarily emphasises John plus the apostles. But it can also
refer in a much more derivative sense all believers. All believers can know
something. So: “And by means of this principle we can know…” This is introduced
by the word “that” in English, but it should really not be translated. The
Greek word here is hoti [o(ti] which can mean because, but it is also used to introduce either a
direct quotation, an indirect quotation, or a principle. “… we
have come to know Him.” This is the verb ginosko
(present tense, continuous action),
but there is the second use of ginosko
and it is the perfect active indicative. The perfect tense indicates action
that was completed in past time but the results go on. The intensive perfect,
which this is, is going to emphasise the present results of a completed past
action. So it should be translated: “And by this principle we know we have come
to know Him [have a relationship with Him], if we keep His commandments.”
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 categorises 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
Then we learn that the person
who does not keep the commandments does not have the truth in him and is
deceived, 1 John 2:4.