What Does It Really Mean to Know Christ?
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Is there a more important question to ask ourselves than this? It is most paramount to ponder and address if we really know Jesus. What does it really mean to know Him? Like reading about a celebrity, we may become familiar with their life and have some vague understanding about them from what we read. Yet, we do not really know them at all. We can read all about Jesus in the Bible, and listen to countless stories about Him on a Sunday, but not personally know Him.
How do we get to know someone? By spending time with them. Listening to them. Sharing life together. When we trust in Jesus, He gives us His Spirit to live within us (1 John 4:13). We become His friends and He says “for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). Knowing Jesus means we know God the Father. Jesus, the Son of God, is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3). To know Christ is to know God. We are invited to know Him more, and if it is our prayer that we may truly know Him, He will not turn us away.
To Know Jesus Is to Abide in Him
Jesus spoke of Himself being the vine and His people being branches (John 15:5). If we abide in the vine (Jesus), we will bear fruit. We need to remain connected to Jesus. Apart from Him we can do nothing of eternal, lasting value. Evidence of being with Jesus and knowing Him will be reflected in our life. It’s not about trying harder, but remaining in Him. He does not let anyone snatch away His children (John 10:28). It is His will to work in our lives.
As we abide in Him, our heart’s affections will change and our priorities and lives will begin to reflect His, as we walk as He walked and follow His example (1 John 2:6; John 13:15).
To Know Jesus Is to Know the Father
Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father and that would be enough for them (John 14:9). Jesus had been with His disciples for a long time, and Jesus said to Philip, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” The religious Pharisees also asked Jesus where His Father was, but He told them that they did not know Him or His Father because if they knew Jesus, they would also know His Father (John 8:19). We do not need to wonder what God the Father is like, because Jesus makes it clear that those who know Him know God.
To Know Jesus Is to Share in His Sufferings
The Father is the vinedresser, Jesus is the true vine and those branches of believers that abide in Him will be pruned back. Pruning results in more fruit and good, healthy growth. Bible commentator John Trapp (1601-1669) said, “If it be painful to bleed, it is worse to wither. Let me be pruned, that I may grow, rather than be cut up to burn.” All who know Christ will suffer. Yet with suffering, we can know the power of God. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us (Romans 8:11).
To Know Jesus Is to Recognize His Voice
When we know Jesus, we will know His character and His voice. Like the sheep who know their shepherd, the children of God who are the sheep of His pasture will know His voice as the good Shepherd (John 10:27). When we spend time in prayer to Him, waiting on Him, reading His holy Word in the Bible and listening, we begin to know His voice. It will help us to live for Him, to discern truth from error and to walk in obedience by the power of the Holy Spirit that is at work in His followers.
To Know Jesus Is to Have Eternal Life
The Bible is clear that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). Jesus prayed to the Father saying, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Jesus stepped into our world, both fully human and fully God, living the life that we could not live and dying the death that we should have died.
When we know Jesus, we can know that He has paid the penalty that our sins deserved. When God looks at those who trust in His Son, He sees Christ’s perfection. We can come into the presence of God now, unblemished, and our eternal future is secure because we are trusting in the One who has washed us clean and will bring us to our eternal home.
To Know Jesus Is to Grow in Grace and Knowledge of Him
Peter warns the readers of his letter to “be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position” (2 Peter 3:17). There are many false teachings, enemies of God and temptations acted upon, which can hinder our walk with the Lord. We know that when we follow Jesus, we will suffer for being a Christian. The enemy hates believers and will do his utmost to stunt and kill, steal and destroy (John 10:10). Yet, Peter says “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). With the help of the Holy Spirit, we are to grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus.
Knowing Jesus and growing in grace is continual. We never exhaust the subject! There is always more to know about someone, and when it comes to the King of Kings, Lord of Lords and Creator and Sustainer of all things, it is limitless and beyond all comprehension. However, like Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians, we can ask:
“That out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:16-19).
Final Thoughts from J.I. Packer’s Book Knowing God
In J.I. Packer’s book Knowing God, he states four propositions which show the effects of the knowledge of God on a person. Using the book of Daniel, his first proposition says that “those who know God have great energy for God.” This is evident by “their reaction to the anti-God trends around them” (p.28) and being “sensitive to situations in which God’s truth and honor are being directly or tacitly jeopardized” (p.29).
His second proposition was “those who know God have great thoughts of God” (p. 29), noting Daniel’s knowledge of God’s holiness, majesty, moral perfection and faithfulness.
The third proposition is “those who know God show great boldness for God” (p. 31), and Daniel and his friends counted the cost, and remained loyal to their God.
Finally, Packer’s fourth proposition is “those who know God have great contentment in God” (p.32). We can know peace and full assurance that we can know God, that He knows us and that can carry us through life, death and into eternity.
There is an outworking in the life of the believer of what is going on inside. When we really know Christ, He captivates and transforms our heart, and there will be fruit from that. There will be noticeable changes in our mind, heart and actions as we abide in Jesus. We must remember that it is His work, and we are becoming more like Jesus as we yield to Him and seek to know Him more deeply.
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Tinnakorn Jorruang
