Knowing God Theologically - Part 2

Three Popular Approaches To Worship

The manner in which we approach worship tells of our own doctrinal predispositions. While styles of worship may vary with good and godly effect, much of what passes is wrong from the start as a consequence of bad ideas about God. Our traditions and preferences shape our determination to understand God after our own designs.

Formalism, which is religious ceremony; mere conformity to customary modes, is manifested in a kind of expression that says, “I’m right with God because I went through the proper routines.” Formalism is deadly because it allows its adherents to comply with outward forms regardless of the condition of the heart or the conceptions of the mind. It is assumed that since one has attended and complied, they are right with God.

Mysticism, which Hodge described as the claim to “…see or know what is hidden to other men, whether this knowledge be obtained by immediate intuition or inward revelation,” looks within for truth, for self-authenticating experience and impulse. Mystical people hold as their central tenet, “I’m right with God because it feels right.” To “walk by faith” is, to the mystic, a following of internal promptings instead of believing and acting upon what God has revealed in His word (Rom. 10:17). The mystical Christian accepts his inner impulses as authoritative. The familiar expressions would be, “God laid this on my heart,” or “God told me” to do this or that. Mysticism may be the greatest enemy to faithful worship in modern Christianity.

Biblicism is the belief that everything we accept as binding on the conscience is derived from scripture rightly divided. The biblicist declares, “I’m right with God because the Bible says that I’m right.” This is confidence, not arrogance; faith, not stubborn pride. Charles Hodge said, “Idolatry consists not only in the worship of false gods, but also in the worship of the true God by images.” These images are shaped by our imagination (Pr. 6:18; Rom. 1:21). In this regard, our false ideas exalted against the knowledge of God become theological strongholds the adversary uses against us (Ge. 6:5; 2 Cor. 10:5). At some point, our false ideas about God, due to shoddy theology, will fatally affect the nature of our worship (Jn. 4:24).

God May Be Known, But Not Comprehended

It is a fundamental observation: while God has made Himself knowable to man, it is incredulous to think Him comprehensible. Finite man cannot begin to comprehend God. To suggest as much would reduce God and aggrandize man’s limited faculties of comprehension. As Zophar asked in Job 11:7, “Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty into perfection?”  One could hardly find a better treatment of the subject than Paul’s words in Romans 11:33: “O the depth and the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out.”  Also, in 1 Timothy 6:16, “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “God dwells in that light which no man can approach. God in His eternal and absolute being is incomprehensible.” John Gill, said, “God only is essentially, originally, and underivatively, perfectly and immutably holy.” Pink said, “God is solitary in His excellency.”

Shockingly, the world’s blasphemous tendency to reduce God with comic observations and dramatic productions of every sort has had its degenerative effect on the Christian, the preacher, theology and preaching. The high view of God is missing in many worship services. Man, due to his obsession with life-enhancement and his irreparable revulsion for boredom, must be entertained. This itch, preachers have determined to scratch to their own ruin. The result is a yearning, godless vacuum in modern worship services that only God, high and lifted up, could fill. What is needed in every pulpit is the kind of preaching that is preoccupied with God “…who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible” (1689 London Baptist Confession).

While God is incomprehensible, He may be known. He has revealed Himself to us (He. 1:1-2; Ps. 46:10; 100:3; 135:5). We may, within the parameters of our finitude, ascertain certain facts about God, and by believing and acting upon them, experience Him in a personal way. This is what worship is all about. In the gaining of this sacred knowledge, we come to know of God’s holiness and thereby, sense the severity of impending judgment. We discover His grace and turn to Him for deliverance. We learn of His Sovereignty and Provident watchcare and grow to trust Him through the vicissitudes of circumstance and seasons of despair.

In order to know what is knowable about God, we must confront our own susceptibility to error with clear and dramatic words of scripture. Without routine ambles into the garden of sound doctrine, we leave ourselves prey to the stultifying drabness of modernity. Worldliness, like kudzu, will overwhelm our ability to think with discernment. J. I. Packer identified two unfortunate trends in Christianity in 1973, that continue to be a problem today: (1) Christian minds conformed to the modern spirit, and (2) Christian minds confused by the modern skepticism. There are many reasons for the creeping trends among us, but the false dichotomy of mind versus heart, which often accentuates the sensations of emotion at the expense of sound teaching, is most likely the primary culprit.

Edwin Charles Dargan said, “The doctrine of God lies at the very basis of religion…there can be no religion without God, and therefore no thought of religion without the thought of God.” I would add, proper worship requires right thoughts of God, and right, truthful, accurate thoughts of God are the fruit of sound theology. 

Deep as it is, great and glorious ideas of the Godhead are within the everyday grasp of every Christian. The Philadelphia Confession of 1742, says, “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience, although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and his will which is necessary unto salvation.” We understand the one source for all that is certain and knowable about God is His infallible revelation - The Bible. We strive to be bold where it is clear, humble where it is complex, and to never attempt to be wise above what it written. 

What Does It Mean To Know God?

Allow me to quote the answer given by J. I. Packer in his seminal work, Knowing God: 

What are we talking about when we use the phrase “knowing God?” A special sort of emotion? Shivers down the back? A dreamy, off-the-ground, floating feeling? Tingling thrills and exhilaration, such as drug-takers seek? Or is knowing God a special sort of intellectual experience? Does one hear a voice? See a vision? Find strange trains of thought coursing through one’s mind? or what? These matters need discussing, especially since, according to scripture, this is a region in which it is easy be fooled, and to think you know God when you do not. We pose the question, then: what sort of activity, or event, is it that can properly be described as “knowing God?”

Packer answered his own question:

…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 one and drawing one into this divine fellowship.

How Does One Go About Knowing God?

I will summarize Packer’s words with four admonitions: 

Listen to God’s Word.

Certainly, “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). Faith and worship, the twin engines that move us toward this glorious knowledge of God, are unattainable apart from the word of God. In order to know God, it is essential that we listen to Him. This truth cries out to the believer to read, memorize and study scripture. It begs the preacher to labour in word and doctrine.

Note God’s Nature.

As we read, we will profit from every observation that we can make that concerns the God of the Bible. Every clear truth about His immense and majestic Being is foundational to our own spiritual stability. This knowledge is the only material sufficient for building the kind of impregnable faith to stand the tests of time.

Accept God’s Invitations.

To listen to God’s word and note His nature is to encounter divine invitations to know Him intimately, to set aside our sins, to practice good works and to view the world through the sanctified lenses of godly wisdom. All such moves toward God and godliness will be instrumental in transforming us into the image of Christ - the inevitable consequence of knowing Him.

Recognize God’s Love.

The love of God is the core of worship. This is what Paul said “constrained” him (2 Cor. 5:14). As we are made aware of His truth through our journey to know Him, we rejoice! We celebrate every new discovery of God’s grace.