What does the Bible mean by the knowledge of God?
God is not a subject the mind can master by effort, and Scripture treats knowing Him as something closer to life itself than to information. So when the Bible speaks of "the knowledge of God," what exactly is being claimed — and how does anyone get it?
Knowledge That Only God Can Give
Every account of knowing God in Scripture starts from His side, not ours. Human thought never arrived at Him on its own, and one writer traces the failure back to the beginning:
The Bible TreasuryThe knowledge of God was given up. Men did not like to keep God in their knowledge. (Romans 1) The mind of man never conceived by itself the truth of One infinite in power and wisdom, infinite in goodness and love. The cultured and the refined were as far from it as the rude untaught savage. The world by wisdom did not know God. He can only be known from and by Himself — from His own word, and by His own Spirit.
Knowing That He Is, and Knowing Him
There is a difference between being convinced God exists and being acquainted with Him. One writer draws the line in a single sentence:
J Wilson SmithStill, the knowledge of the existence of God is not the same as the knowledge of God Himself; and it is the latter that is our enquiry.
The same line separates religious study from the thing itself, and the outcome is not small:
C. H. MackintoshIt is not eternal life to know theology or divinity. A man may sit down to the study of these, as he would to study law or medicine, astronomy or geology, and all the while know nothing of God, and therefore be without divine life, and perish in the end.
The Name Reveals the Measure
The knowledge deepens as God discloses more of Himself, and each of His names opens a different door. Commenting on John 17:3 — "this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (ESV) — one writer sets the names side by side:
J. N. DarbyThe knowledge of the Almighty is acquaintance with protecting power; of Jehovah, faithfulness to promise; of the Father, in the exercise of love, is eternal life. It is to know Himself in His own blessedness in relationship with the Son.
Learned at the Cross
Because God is known in His Son, His love is not a general idea to be assumed but something shown at a particular place:
The Bible Treasury"Through the knowledge [literally, full knowledge] of God" — not a smattering. We ought to be growing in it. We know God and are known by Him... People talk of God's love, but they do not know it until they see it in the cross. You must "see and believe"; believe God's love, and know Christ's work.
Knowing by Sharing His Nature
Scripture also ties knowing God to being like Him. That is why love, not intellect, is the test:
J. N. DarbyThe knowledge of God is immensely important; if I have not light, I do not know what light is; the knowledge of a being flows from sharing the nature of that being. An animal does not know what a man is... So "anyone who does not love does not know God." If God is love, and I have His nature, then I know that He is, and what He is.
A Knowledge With No Ceiling
Paul prays for believers who already know God that they may keep increasing in that knowledge. One writer points out that the growth is both the goal and the means:
F. B. HoleAnd in all this there is no finality while we are on earth, as the last clause of verse 10 shows. Though we may have the knowledge of His will, we are to go on increasing in the knowledge of God, or, "by the full knowledge of God." We not only grow in it but by it, for the more we know God by experience the more our spiritual stature increases.
What Its Absence Costs
Israel shows the other side. Losing this knowledge was not a gap in education but the collapse of their nearness to God:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe people were destroyed for lack of knowledge — the knowledge of God and His truth. They had lost their place of nearness to the Lord, their priestly character into which the Lord had called the nation (Exodus 19). Therefore they would be rejected, and no longer stand in priestly relationship to Jehovah.
Yet the story does not end with that loss. What Israel forfeited will one day be worldwide:
A J PollockThen the earth will "be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9).
Summary
- Source. No one reasons their way to God; He is known only from His own word and by His own Spirit.
- Substance. Knowing that God exists is not knowing God — theology can be studied while the soul stays a stranger to Him.
- Sight. God's love is not guessed at; it is seen at the cross, and known by sharing His nature, so the one who does not love does not know Him.
- Scale. The knowledge has no ceiling — believers grow in it and by it, gaining spiritual stature as they know God by experience.
- Stakes. Where it is rejected, nearness to God is lost; where God finally gives it, it will cover the earth like the sea.