7 “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
In our verse for today, Jesus rebukes His guys both for their dullness and carelessness in their lack of knowledge of Him as well as not acquainting themselves with the deeper things of our Lord in seeking to know Him further still. Earlier in John, Jesus states almost the same thing to the crowd of unbelieving Pharisees:
19 Then they asked him, "Where is your father?" "You do not know me or my Father," Jesus replied. "If you knew me, you would know my Father also." John 8:19 (NIV)
It is hard to imagine which was the most strange or hurtful to our Lord - those who walked and talked and ministered with Jesus yet still displayed defects and mistakes in their knowledge of Him or those who were enemies of the Light - willfully choosing ignorance. John Charles Ryle states the meaning of this verse could be rendered as follows:
“If you had rightly, properly, and perfectly known Me, as the Divine Messiah, in all the fullness of my nature, you would then have known more of that Father to whom I am inseparably united. No one can rightly know Me without knowing the Father, because I and the father are One. Understand from this time forward, that in knowing Me, you know the Father, and in seeing Me see the Father, so far as the Father can be seen and known by man.”
3 The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Heb 1:3 (NIV)
As modern day disciples, this begs the question for us as well – do we really know Jesus? Have we come to know Him through trial, reason and by experience? Have we examined or inquired into, discovered and comprehended further Truths regarding The Truth? Have we come to understand more clearly His character so that we may acknowledge what He professes To Be? Do we know Him intimately as our Lord and Savior? This is exactly what He means when He tells His disciples: “If you really knew me”. Further, as we come to know Jesus more and more we gain the intuitive knowledge of the Father. That is what Jesus means by: “you would know my Father as well”. We come to grow in the knowledge of the Lord through the study of His Word, through applying the Truths learned to our lives and through prayer. We are not to remain as babies tossed around by every wind of doctrine rather we are to grow up in Him. Paul writes in Ephesians:
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. Eph 4:14-16 (NIV)
I well remember many year ago praying for myself and for my family that we would seek after the unparalleled pursuit of knowing Jesus as demonstrated to us through the life of Paul. It is a given that the more we know Him, the more we will love Him. And the more we love Him, the more we will serve Him and follow His lead. His Way is the Way to abundance both in this life and life eternal. I am reminded of the verses Paul penned in Philippians:
10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Phil 3:10-14 (NIV)
“No one has ever lost out by excessive devotion to Christ.” H. A. Ironside
That was Paul’s life goal – to know Him further still. Jesus is boundless and measureless and certainly the fullness of Him we will not come to know until we reach heaven, yet the pursuit must go on here and it is a pursuit always rewarded. We must keep our eyes fixed on the goal which is Christ. The writer of Hebrews tells us:
2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Heb 12:2 (NIV)
The words found in Jeremiah also come to mind:
13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. Jer 29:13-14 (NIV)
"God doesn't reveal Himself to the curious or the careless, but to those who are ready and willing to obey." Warren Wiersbe
Lastly, we see that as we come to know the Son we will know the Father as well. We are told earlier in John:
18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known. John 1:18 (NIV)