“Then you will know”

The Bible gives readers a repeated alert, “Then you will know that I am the LORD.” Over seventy times. In both the Old and New Testaments. It’s spoken by prophets as from God himself, and it’s meant mainly for self-assured skeptics. Or quietly indifferent agnostics.

Should we pay attention? Of course. It’s profoundly important. If we know the LORD, we become morally awake in a spiritually deadened world. If we know God, we gain eternal life. We trust him, listen to him, and love him—regaining what Adam lost in Eden. And we start to learn why he made us.

First, how do we come to know God? It’s not a mystery: come to Jesus who wants to share his Father. In John 17:3—”And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” He endorsed Bible calls to love God and neighbors with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. So he both invites us and stirs us. John wrote of this in 1 John 4:19, “We love because he first loved us.” We start with a heart drawn to see Jesus.

Life, then, is not about what we know, or how much we know. It’s about who we know. It’s an encounter. It doesn’t dismiss knowledge but works through heart affections in response to his expressed love. So we learn about the one who loves us, and we then love in return. It’s not an “act of the will” or “a decision to obey.” Jesus made this clear. He initiates and we respond. The term “know” overlaps the intimate language of “knowing” in a marriage. In spiritual terms it’s asexual; yet it is a full devotion of awakened-desire-and-transformed-mind.

We can say this in light of repeated mentions of God’s “heart,” and John’s notice that “God is love” in 1 John 4:8 & 16. This orients us to the basis for creation, salvation, and the trajectory into glory. Jesus spoke of this in John 17:24—”Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

The serpent’s call in Genesis 3:4-5 for independence from God dismissed God’s purpose for us and set out an alternative aim in life: “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So while God offers to share his glory, Satan promised moral standing alongside God. Yet it was a fantasy.

The deceiver’s fantasy-based version of knowledge has no appetite for truth, yet he operates under the guise of reason. As when he tempted Jesus by using Bible verses framed as ways for Jesus to sidestep God’s actual aims. So even then Satan’s form of knowing distorted God’s true words and instead offered options to become “like God.” But not like the true God. The true God is revealed in Jesus as “the way, the truth, and the life.” And no one has any connection with actual, effective life apart being engaged, Spirit-to-spirit, with his divine Life.

The fantasy had worked once before, in Eden, as the serpent invited the first couple to explore the prospects of evil within his new realm of independence: of death. Satan, in fact, twisted the notion of death by his claim, “you will not surely die.” So while he knew Adam and Eve wouldn’t cease to live physically by eating the forbidden fruit, they would die spiritually by moving away from God into a realm of separation from God—into autonomy. Although God, alone, has and shares life. This twist of meanings set up his lie that they wouldn’t die. But they did die.

Jesus confronted this deceit when he spoke to the Pharisee, Nicodemus. He needed new life: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” [Jn 3:6]. So the loss of the Holy Spirit in Eden meant Adam was truly dead. And so are his offspring. And at best Nicodemus could only know about God. Unless and until the Spirit gave him new life.

Satan knows all this and has a fear-based knowledge of God himself. As we see in Job where he knows God as an enemy. James 2:19 captures this sort of vain knowledge of God: “Even the demons believe—and shudder.” To properly know God by the Spirit we must recognize and receive his love as he knocks on the door of our heart. Once we recognize him and reject the Lie, the Spirit pours God’s love out in our hearts. It’s a movement he both inaugurates and sustains. Human faith represents a reciprocal love, rooted in trust and hope.

“Then you shall know” … what? Here are four features of “what.”

1. That the devil both rules the world—apart from believers—and he lies. Always. And one of his boldest lies is that God loses his power if the majority of the world ignores him as he actually exists. As if his status is based on human elections. This only amuses God. “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision” [Psalm 2:4]. All humanity is called to “Kiss the Son” [v.12]. So the notice, “Then you will know …” tells us he reaches out to each of us. And in the end, we’ll know the truth—that only in Jesus do we have joy in knowing the LORD.

2. That humans are all morally blind without the Spirit who pours out God’s love in hearts. So while everyone knows that love is “good,” humanity has lost contact with God’s authentic love. So now our human instinct is to love self. To love others in relation to self—as contingent bonds. And if others please us and meet our needs and ambitions, we value them. If they don’t, they’re made to be marginal. See 2 Timothy 3:1-5 here. But in the end such empty love collapses, and people discover their folly. It’s then that people “know that I am the LORD.”

3. That those who don’t worship God—in wholehearted devotion—turn to new forms of worship. Turning to the creation rather than the Creator. So without healthy spiritual desires souls are captured by outward attractions. By wealth and comfort. Or by status in the power or knowledge that elevates us in a given community. Jeremiah warned “… let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord” [Jer 9:24]. In the end this becomes obvious, and all souls will finally understand “I am the LORD.”

4. That the great question in human history is this: “Do we really need just one Creator-God?” God answers by allowing humanity to search the full range of every form of godlessness. The “what if” of humans becoming “like god” is on display in the people and products of history. The people include human leaders like Caligula, Genghis Khan, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Putin. The products include two world wars in the 20th century. Human trafficking. Social and economic stratification. Revised forms of morality that make evil good, and good evil. Of unending anger, broken marriages, murders, hatred, perpetual falsehoods, and places like Auschwitz or the killing fields of Cambodia. When God returns for a day of judgement, we’ll all know how that question is answered—“then you shall know.”

Let me end with the first word in the ministry of John the Baptist: “Repent.” And with the first word in the ministry of Jesus Christ: “Repent.” Turn away from Adam’s ambitions and embrace the promise of eternal life. Turn to Jesus. Then we shall know that “I am the LORD” through the Spirit and in full companionship with God, the Father, through his beloved Son.