THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
By: J. C. Philpot
We cannot take a walk by night or day without seeing the handiwork of God, and when we look at what we are in providence, we see that the same God has been our bountiful preserver in bestowing upon us innumerable favours; but we cannot know anything of the God of heaven and earth – the true God – except He is pleased to shine upon His holy Word, and God has provided that Word to give unto us some acquaintance with Himself.
We do not know God by any vision or ecstasy of enthusiastic rapture, but by what is revealed in the Scriptures. There He has made Himself known to the sons of men, but we need a divine light and faith in our soul to believe the Scriptures and we need that childlike temper and spirit given to us whereby we can receive the kingdom of God as a little child, so that though everything is opened up in the Scriptures, until the Holy Spirit, who wrote the Scriptures, is pleased to bring life and power into our soul, we may read them, but we read in vain.
But when the Holy Ghost is pleased to put life and power into the Scripture and to quicken our souls, thereby begetting us by the Word of truth, then we believe what God has said in the Scriptures and, thus we come to a right knowledge of the only true God. You will find, if you search and examine, that your knowledge of God and your feelings are in harmony with God’s Word, having been formed from the Scriptures being opened up with a divine power in your conscience.
You know from the Scriptures that there is a God – you could have known that from creation – but when He speaks in the Scriptures His voice is powerful and He gives you an ear to hear what He says in the Scriptures and then you come to know God as He has made Himself known – how just and holy He is. And you begin to know and see it in His banishing man from Paradise, in the flood, in the destruction of the cities of the plain and in the destruction of Pharaoh’s host in the Red Sea, and this justice is reflected in our heart, so that we find what a holy God He is. For we see holiness in every line in the Scriptures, and we feel that we have to deal with a holy God, which makes the soul tremble before Him; it sees how unholy it is before the omniscient God, who knows all hearts and says, “I search the heart and try the reins.”
Again and again are we made to feel that God knows everything before it comes to pass. He has predicted man’s thoughts again and again as the prophet predicted what lay so deep in the heart of Hazael (2 Kings 8:10-15). He reads our hearts. Everything is naked and open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. He is also omnipotent; His name is Almighty. All things are not only made and preserved by Him, but He worketh all things. And we are made to feel that He is able to kill and heal. We stand before Him as grasshoppers, as the dust in the balance, as a drop in a bucket. We feel that He is God Almighty.
But as the Lord is pleased to lead us more and more into His blessed truth we begin to see Him in another character – we begin to see that He is not only just, holy, omnipotent and omniscient, but we begin to see also that He is the God and Father of Jesus Christ, not merely the God of infinite justice and holiness, but of mercy, compassion, goodness and love. When He is pleased to drop a sense of His goodness and mercy into our heart and give us some intimation of His favour towards us, we view Him not merely as a God holy and just, but as a God gracious and merciful.
We see the scheme of salvation originating in His love, we see Him sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to die for us, and we begin to believe in Him, to hope in His mercy and love His name with a pure heart fervently; for we see that He can rescue us out of the lion’s mouth. We have been tried perhaps in providence and God has appeared for us, and thus we see that He is not only a God of grace but of providence. Or if He has restored us again and again, we see that He is a God that healeth backslidings, and that His love endureth for ever, and as the Spirit give us hope and love we see not only what God is in the Scriptures, but we come to a spiritual knowledge of the only true God.
Characters and Names of Messiah
Extract of a sermon preached by
John Newton
“Unto us a child is born;” in our nature, born of a woman: “Unto us a Son is given,” not merely a man-child, but, emphatically, a Son, the Son of God. This was the most precious gift, the highest proof and testimony of Divine love. The distinction and union of these widely-distant natures, which constitute the person of Christ, the God-man, the Mediator, is, in the judgment and language of the Apostle, the “great mystery of godliness,” the pillar and ground of truth….It is the central truth of revelation, which, like the sun, diffuses a light upon the whole system, no part of which can be rightly understood without it. Thus, the Lord of all humbled Himself, to appear in the form of a servant, for the sake of sinners.
“The government shall be upon His shoulder.” In our nature He suffered and in the same nature He reigns. When He had overcome the sharpness, the sting of death, He took possession of the Kingdom of Glory as His own – and opened it to all who believe in Him. Now we can say, He who governs in Heaven and on earth, and whom all things obey, is “the child who was born, the Son who was given for us”… [Those united to Him by faith] have, in one respect, an appropriate honour, in which the angels cannot share. Their best friend, related to them in the same nature, is seated upon the throne of glory. Since He is “for them, who can be against them?” What may they not expect, when He who has so loved them as to redeem them with His own blood “has all power committed unto Him, both in Heaven and on earth!”
“His Name shall be called Wonderful.” In another place the word is rendered ‘Secret’. It is true of Him in both senses. He is Wonderful in His person, obedience and sufferings; in His grace, government and glory. So far as we understand His Name, the revelation by which, as by a name, He is made known, we may, we must believe, admire and adore; but how limited and defective is our knowledge! His name is Secret. Who can “by searching find Him out?” His greatness is incomprehensible, His wisdom untraceable, His fulness inexhaustible, His power infinite. “No one knoweth the Son, but the Father.” But they have a true, though not an adequate knowledge of Him, who trust, love, and serve Him; and in their view He is Wonderful!
Another of His names is “Counsellor.” The great councils of redemption, in which every concern respecting the glory of God and the salvation of sinners was adjusted, were established with Him, and in Him, before the foundation of the world. And He is our Counsellor or Advocate with the Father, who pleads our cause – and manages all our affairs in perfect righteousness and with infallible success; so that no suit can possibly miscarry which He is pleased to undertake. To Him likewise we must apply (and we shall not apply in vain) for wisdom and direction, in all that belongs to our duty and the honour of our profession in the present life. In all our difficulties, dangers and cares, we must look to Him for guidance and support. This is to be wise unto salvation. His secret is with them that consult Him; so that, though the world may deem them weak and ignorant as babes (and He teaches them to think thus of themselves), they have a cheering and practical knowledge of many important subjects which are entirely hidden from those who are wise and prudent in their own eyes.
He is “the Mighty God.” Though in the office of Mediator, He acts in the character of a servant, His perfections and attributes are truly Divine. Only the Mighty God could make a provision capable of answering the demands of the holy law, which we had transgressed. Only the Mighty God could be a suitable Shepherd to lead millions of weak helpless creatures to glory, through the many difficulties, dangers and enemies they are exposed to in their passage. In addition, the honour, dependence and obedience, which this great Shepherd claims from His sheep, are absolute and supreme; and they would be guilty of idolatry, if they did not know that He is the Mighty God. Though real Christians, who are enlightened and taught by the Holy Spirit, may, and do, differ in their views and explanations of some revealed truths, I conceive they must be all agreed in this point. It is not only necessary to be known as the only solid foundation of a sinner’s hope, but it immediately respects the object of Divine worship. For if the Redeemer is not possessed of the incommunicable perfections of Deity, the New Testament, in its most obvious and literal signification, would be chargeable, not only with countenancing, but with expressly teaching and enjoining idolatry.
Further, He shall be called the “Everlasting Father.” He is not ashamed to call them brethren, having condescended to assume their human nature; but they are also His children. They are born into His family by the efficacy of His own word and Spirit. From Him they derive their spiritual life, being united to Him by faith and receiving from first to last out of His fulness; and He is an “Everlasting Father.” Our fathers, according to the flesh, are subject to death; but His relation to them subsists unchangeably and therefore they cannot be destitute; and He is thus equally to them all. They live upon the earth and are removed from it, in a long succession of ages; but He is the Father of the everlasting age, “the same yesterday, and today, and for ever.” “All generations shall call Him blessed.” To Him, therefore, the Apostle teaches us to apply that sublime passage of the Psalmist: “Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the Heavens are the works of Thine hands. They shall perish; but Thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.”