For several months I was having a spiritual conversation with a physician friend of mine. One day in frustration he said, “I don’t get it. You (and those like you) talk about a personal relationship with Christ. That doesn’t make sense to me. How can you have a “personal relationship” with God?”
His response surprised me and made me think how casually I use that term without thinking about it or explaining it. It does sound strange. No other religion claims that its followers can relate to God in a personal way. Wanting to explain the concept, I realized that the phrase “personal relationship” is not used in Scripture….but then neither is the word “Trinity”. Although the words are not used the concept of relating to God on an individual and personal level is everywhere. It would be presumptuous, even preposterous, if it were not taught as a reality.
Since this idea is so central to discipleship, let’s stop and see how it is developed in Scripture.
“Knowing” is a term in the New Testament that carries the idea of a personal relationship. The Greek word is GINOSKO and Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words explains it like this:
GIN0SKO (GK) signifies “to be taking in knowledge, to come to know, recognize, understand,” or “to understand completely”. In the NT (ginosko) frequently indicates a relation between the person “knowing” and the object known; in this respect, what is “known” is of value or importance to the one who knows, and hence the establishment of the relationship.
Jesus refers to knowing him as eternal life. “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). The implication is that eternal life is more of a relationship than a place, beginning at the moment of our new birth and lasting throughout eternity. What if eternal life is the relationship we establish now and the essence of our future life in the new heaven and earth?
So how do we know Christ? What does knowing mean when dealing with God who is both transcendent and invisible? The Bible even talks about the possibility of knowing him as we would a personal friend. How is that possible?
We can better understand the meaning of this relational knowing by comparing it with other things we know.
We can know a rock, for example, by studying its composition. A microscope, chemicals, and diligence can reveal a great deal of knowledge about a rock. Geologists can give us the history of the rock, how it was formed, and what it can be used for. But though well informed, we would not claim to have a relationship with a rock.
Knowing a real person who lived in the past is another form of knowing. A biographer is one who studies and writes about the life of an historic person so others can know about him or her. Based on the reliability of the historic records used by the biographer, others can get a reasonably accurate picture of that individual. But even with all that knowledge, the knowing is not on a relational, personal, or experiential level.
The biblical idea of knowing Christ (God) is more than knowing his composition (character and attributes) or the historic story line (the biblical account). Rather knowing Christ is similar to how we would know another living person except, of course, that he is invisible.
There are four critical elements that are needed to have a personal relationship with another individual as well as with Jesus Christ.
- Mutual respect
- Consistent dialogue
- Shared experiences
- Authentic transparency
There is a danger that our knowing Christ is more like how we would know a rock or an historical figure. We study and marvel at his attributes. We explore his story down through the biblical records and become familiar with what he said and what others said about him. But we may fail to personally know him through developing a life on life relationship.
In our next blog we will explore the above four relational dynamics in more detail.
For further reflection: Think about the implications of the following presuppositions:
- God is knowable and delights in being known (1 John 3:1)
- God has made it possible to know him through the second person of the Trinity (John 1:18)
- Knowing God is possible but not automatic (Matt. 7:22-23)
- Knowing God involves revelation, faith, reason, and relationship (Eph. 1:17-18)
This was a great one! I’m really looking forward to the next post on the 4 elements. It makes me really think about how intentionally I relate with Christ. And I really like your thought “What if eternal life is the relationship we establish now and the essence of our future life in the new heaven and earth?” – such an interesting consideration, and a reminder that the present life matters very much!