There’s a big difference between knowing about God and knowing God. You can spend years studying the Bible and learn a lot about who God is. You can study His character, learn the theology, even dig into the original languages. All of that is good. We should want to know as much about God as we possibly can. But there are some things about God that you don’t fully understand until you experience them.
There’s a difference between saying, “I know that God is faithful,” and saying, “I know God as faithful.” I can learn about the faithfulness of God in a book or a sermon. But, I may not truly discover what God’s faithfulness feels like until I’m in a hospital room waiting on answers.
I can read what the Bible says about forgiveness. I can study the Greek words and walk through every passage. I can agree with all of it. Then somebody hurts me. Not annoys me. Hurts me. Now forgiveness isn’t just a doctrine I’m studying. It’s something Jesus is asking me to do. That’s different because now it’s personal.
Warren Wiersbe said,
“We do not understand and then obey: that is instruction. We obey by faith, and then we understand: that is illumination.”
I think Wiersbe is pointing out something we can easily miss. The Bible is instructional. We study because we want to understand what God has said. We need sound doctrine. We need good theology. And our experiences should always be measured by the truth of Scripture, not the other way around. But… instruction isn’t where it ends. At some point, we have to live it out. It has to move from what God has said, to what God is saying. That’s where illumination begins.
There’s something interesting about the biblical idea of “knowing”. The Hebrew word often translated “know,” is “yada”, it does refer to knowing information about God, but Scripture also uses it for something much more personal and experiential. To “know” God carries the idea of a relationship and a personal experience.
When the Bible talks about knowing God, we’re dealing with something much bigger than knowing facts about Him. You can know what the Bible teaches about God. You can know the Word and even believe the Word. But, all the while, still be discovering what it means to actually walk with Him.
For instance, maybe you’ve known for years that God provides. You’ve read about God’s provision. You “understand” it. You know Jesus said that your heavenly Father knows what you need. You’ve heard testimonies of God’s provision. You believe every bit of it. Then you find yourself in a season where the numbers don’t work. You’ve run out of pay before you’ve run out of month. You don’t know how the bills are going to be paid. You don’t know where the answer is coming from or when the answer may come. You pray, you do what you know to do, and somewhere in that season you have to depend on God in a way you’ve never had to before.
The doctrine hasn’t changed. But you have. Now when you say, “God is my provider,” there may be something behind those words that wasn’t there before. You know something of God that you didn’t know before you had to trust Him completely.
I think that’s a glimpse of what Wiersbe means by illumination. It’s not a new revelation. God isn’t adding something to extra to the Scripture. It’s more like the truth you’ve read about for years suddenly has weight in your life. Now, that truth you already believed comes alive, because you’ve had to live it out.
John 7:17
“If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.”
Notice the order. There is a willingness to do the will of God. Then comes the knowing. We usually want it the other way around. “God, explain everything first. Give me the details. Show me why. Show me how. Show me where this is going. Help me understand, and then I’ll decide whether I’m ready to obey.”
But sometimes understanding comes only after obedience. Think about Abraham. He knew God, but he was asked to take some tough steps of obedience. Each step brought a new level of understanding. First, he had to uproot his family and go to an unknown destination. Over time Abraham got a deeper understanding of God’s guidance and provision. Not by studying, but by experiencing. Eventually he is on a mountaintop with his son Isaac. An altar is waiting. Isaac is about to be sacrificed, until at the last moment a ram appears. God provided! Abraham knew that God would provide. He knew because of knowledge, but he really knew because of past experiences.
These are times in our lives where instruction begins moving toward illumination. Some of the deepest Christians I’ve known weren’t necessarily the people who could explain the complicated doctrines of our faith.. They couldn’t necessarily trace all of Paul’s journeys on a map. They knew their Bible, but there was something else there, they knew the God behind the Bible. That’s different. They had walked with God. They had trusted Him through the tough seasons. They had prayers that weren’t answered the way they wanted. They had times where they couldn’t see what God was doing. They had buried people they loved. They had made decisions that cost them something because they believed obedience mattered. Through all of it, they came to know God. Not just know about Him. Know Him.
To be clear, I don’t think we ever graduate from instruction. There will always be more to learn from Scripture. There will always be places where our theology needs correcting and our understanding needs deepening. But we also don’t want to spend our whole Christian life simply collecting more information about a God who has invited us to walk with Him.
We can know more about God in a Bible Study, but we only truly know God in the lab of experiences. You know about God. But do you know God? Instruction needs to become illumination.