“The people that do know their God shall be strong.”

– Dan 11:32

Every believer understands that to know God is the highest and best form of knowledge; and this spiritual knowledge is a source of strength to the Christian. It strengthens his faith. Believers are constantly spoken of in the Scriptures as being persons who are enlightened and taught of the Lord; they are said to “have an unction from the Holy One,” and it is the Spirit’s peculiar office to lead them into all truth, and all this for the increase and the fostering of their faith. Knowledge strengthens love, as well as faith. Knowledge opens the door, and then through that door we see our Saviour. Or, to use another similitude, knowledge paints the portrait of Jesus, and when we see that portrait then we love him, we cannot love a Christ whom we do not know, at least, in some degree. If we know but little of the excellences of Jesus, what he has done for us, and what he is doing now, we cannot love him much; but the more we know him, the more we shall love him. Knowledge also strengthens hope. How can we hope for a thing if we do not know of its existence? Hope may be the telescope, but till we receive instruction, our ignorance stands in the front of the glass, and we can see nothing whatever; knowledge removes the interposing object, and when we look through the bright optic glass we discern the glory to be revealed, and anticipate it with joyous confidence. Knowledge supplies us reasons for patience. How shall we have patience unless we know something of the sympathy of Christ, and understand the good which is to come out of the correction which our heavenly Father sends us? Nor is there one single grace of the Christian which, under God, will not be fostered and brought to perfection by holy knowledge. How important, then, is it that we should grow not only in grace, but in the “knowledge” of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. –Spurgeon

It is easy for us to increase wholly in grace and avoid the instruction of God by the Word. We trust too freely in the knowledge of a loving and merciful God. The people of Israel stood condemned before a jealous and merciless God who also poured out grace upon grace as chronicled in the pages of the Old Testament. There is also written how a people favored by God showed contempt for His goodness and mercy by their lack of knowledge. God tells Hosea (4:6), “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” (2 Peter 3:17, 18) We have taken advantage of God’s tolerance for too long. And too often, due to our own lack of knowledge, we believe that it is by grace that others will be redeemed without the law. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, not of ourselves, but the gift of God. An inadequate faith in the obligation of God to fulfill His great redemption has made ignorant those whose active obedience is replaced with an indulgence of grace. The Bible never says that the law is ineffective. On the contrary, it brings us to a guilty remorse. The elementary effects of God’s ever-present and relevant Law leads us to repentance. In the last day it will be by the knowledge of the neglect of the law that will convict us. The Law to which I refer is not the ritualistic code of social practice redacted by rabbinical tradition over centuries. It is the Law to which Paul’s Gospel to the Romans refers which is a “law written on every person’s heart.” The knowledge of this Law and the consequences of being bound to this course of the earth is most fully understood when juxtaposed to the cross. Of necessity, Christ came to claim those whose conscience was seared with the conviction of justice. It was by the elementary principle of law that the sinner first encounters grace. (Hebrews 6:1-2) With the greatest remorse we have become a people who as revealed in Job (35:10ff.) where, “none say, ‘Where is God my maker, who gives us songs in the night; who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of heaven?’” Our attempt at knowledge has reduced us to a barnyard mentality and comparable to the beasts of the earth.

In what then must we grow if not in the knowledge of the covenant law? How will we prosper then without the knowledge of consequence and benefit; of reciprocity and rejection? We sin without remorse because the knowledge of God has not been perfected in our lives and we are destroyed as those in Hosea’s day. We strive without gain because we know not the law by which we can attain peace and we are destroyed. In this, I hold myself condemned. How little of the knowledge of grace is exhibited by our lack of grace exercised toward others? When little grace is known, little grace is shown. When you show little grace, you show much lack of its knowledge and comparatively great lack of God’s law.

I can think of many whose own law they exercise contrary to God’s. Many who in all appearances are godly. They consistently give of themselves to others, are devoted husbands and wives and are committed to their families. They are called by such titles as philanthropist. It would seem that this elementary knowledge would save, but it does not, as revealed to the rich young ruler in Luke. The law on the hearts of men is a convicting sentence, condemning us to damnation unless we loose ourselves of our contempt of God. “Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4, NIV)

Coinciding with the knowledge of grace is the expectation of justice; the preparation of condemnation, and the habitation of damnation. Justice will be executed, by the law of grace. Preparation is being made for God’s justice to be meted out upon the world. There is a habitation for those who will eternally stand condemned by the law where grace did not save. There is also a habitation being prepared even now for those whose guilt of the law once condemned, but by the righteousness of Christ stand redeemed from the law’s effects. How great a grace there is “known” with the knowledge of the law. How great a confession and repentance there is with the knowledge of the grace.