John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. By the faculties inherent in natural life there comes the knowledge of every natural object. If there is to be the knowledge of more, there must be something more whereby to know. Hence it seems not enough here to take "eternal life" as but another way of expressing the knowledge of the only true God and of his Son. Rather is it true of him who has the life of eternity in him that he thereby gets that glorious knowledge which God and Jesus want him to have. As Jesus himself put it to Nicodemus, a man must be horn again to see the kingdom of God. A beast sees what a man sees so far as the image on the retina is concerned; but a man will do very different things as the result of his seeing. And so a natural man sees what a spiritual man sees so far as the image on the retina is concerned; but the spiritual man will do very different things as the result of his seeing. I. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. Thus early does the theological element come in to this prayer. Jesus had to work for men through all the institutions of worship and religious faith which he found in the world. What he here says is quite in accord with the introduction to the Epistle to the Romans. There can be no peace or blessedness for mankind till the delusions and vices connected with the worship of false gods have passed away. And not only must there be deliverance from the dominion of false gods - so much has been achieved by gradual perception of the absurdity of idolatry - there must be deliverance from the dominion of false and defective ideas of Deity altogether. How humiliating are the narrow and superstitious thoughts of God entertained by many who have always been under the influences of Christianity. The best of us cannot easily be kept from tending towards exaggeration and one-sidedness in this matter. Notice how worshippers of the one true God and worshippers of the false gods of Rome were joined together in the acts of wickedness which brought Jesus to death. Sympathetic and adoring knowledge of the one true God is the thing that is wanted, and it comes as those who are babes in Christ Jesus grow up to the stature of perfect men in him. Not by the wisdom of this world can God ever be known. II. THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SENT JESUS. HOW this addition sweeps away the arrogant, self-confident claims of mere general theism! Man can only get true, comforting knowledge of the one true God through him whom God sent to reveal. Knowledge of God is by revelation, not by discovery. The necessity that man should know God explains the mission and the nature of his Son Jesus. Jesus brings the knowledge of God out of the darkness wherein it was hid; and then, God being known, Jesus himself becomes more intelligible to men. The more we know Jesus, the more we know God; and the more we know God, the more we know Jesus. What barren, tantalizing teachers are those, expatiate they ever so much, who leave Jesus out of the necessary elements in explaining Deity! And similarly, those who separate Jesus the moralist from Jesus the theologian, and try to satisfy men with a scheme of glorified ethics, are soon found out. How needful, then, that we should nourish all beginnings of eternal life! - all that unrest of the heart which, if only we do not kill it by mere opiates, will grow into the peace and blessedness of them who really know God. - Y. Parallel Verses KJV: And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. |
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