1 Corinthians 8:3 But if any man love God, the same is known of him. This verse is the antithesis of ver. 2. Without love, no knowledge; with love, true knowledge. But why instead of "The same knoweth God," does the apostle say, "The same is known of God"? Does he mean to deny the first of these two ideas? Assuredly not. But he clears, as it were, this first stage, which is self-understood, to rise at a bound to the higher stage which implies it. To be known of God is more than to know Him (Galatians 4:9). In a residence every one knows the monarch; but every one is not known by him. This second stage of knowledge supposes personal intimacy, familiarity of a kind; a character which is foreign from the first. We need not therefore take "known of God" as equivalent to "acknowledged by," or "approved of," or "put into the possession of the knowledge of," God. The word "know" is taken in the same sense as in Psalm 1:6. The eye of God can penetrate into the heart that loves Him and His light, to illuminate it. In this light an intimate communion is formed between him and God; and this communion is the condition of all true knowledge — of man's being known by God as of God's being known by man. (Prof. Godet.) Parallel Verses KJV: But if any man love God, the same is known of him. |
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