To Know Christ Jesus

Now this is eternal life:  that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent (Jn. 17:3).

For You granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those You have given Him (Jn. 17: 2).

If you knew Me, you would know my Father also (Jn. 8: 19).

No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made Him known (Jn. 1:18).

It is clear from the Gospel of John that once we "know" God the Father, we have "eternal life."  Clearly also, the "knowledge" Jesus refers to is not intellectual knowledge, or "knowing about" the Father, for even the religious leaders of His day knew about God --- and yet, Jesus accused them of NOT knowing either Him or the Father:  "You do not know me or my Father," Jesus replied. "If you knew me, you would know my Father also."  "You are unable to hear what I say...The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God" (Jn. 8: 19 and 43 and 47). 

In the Hebrew language, "knowledge" was equivalent to "experience," rather than to intellectual understanding alone.  This is why tasting from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was forbidden in the Garden. Our God is not opposed to intellectual pursuit; He gave us a mind which seeks understanding of the world around us and even of spiritual truth.  What He does not want us "tasting" is the experience of evil, for once we taste evil, it has a hold on us.  In fact, the image of "eating" or "tasting" forbidden fruit is exactly right:  whatever we eat enters into us and becomes part of us.  We cannot "undo" it because the experience is now part of our DNA --- and, in fact, we unwittingly and unwillingly pass it on to the next generation as part of their inheritance from us.

The only remedy for the experience of evil that has become part of us is death; it is the only way to get rid of the part of us that would control us.  St. Paul calls it "the law of sin and death that rules over (our) members, overruling the law of God within our minds" (Romans 7).  Our only hope to be free of that "law of sin and death" is to be re-created, a "new creation," no longer bound by our taste or experience of evil.

To know Christ (Savior) Jesus to be made new, to have a new birth, freed from the law of sin and death that reigns in us.  It is to Know God -- that is, to experience God the Father --- and to know (experience) ourselves as children of God.

So, of course, then the question is, "How do we KNOW Jesus Christ?"  How do we EXPERIENCE Jesus as living in us, bringing us to new life (eternal life)?  How do we KNOW God?

Jesus Himself gives us the answer in Matthew 7 and Luke 11:  Ask and it will be given to you: seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you....If you, then, ….know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

The Holy Spirit is the key to knowing Jesus.  Jesus is the key to knowing the Father.  And knowing the Father...and Him who has been sent by the Father....is Eternal Life!

If we know nothing else in this life, our salvation depends upon knowing Jesus Christ --- not as a rabbi, not as a great teacher -- but as the Source and Wellspring in us of eternal life.  This is my prayer for my children, for my grandchildren, for my entire family, and for everyone I know  -- to know Christ Jesus and to taste the joy of eternal life, even now, in this lifetime and forever in heaven.