Knowing God: Our Primary Goal

Introduction:

David has described the physical creation as a permanent witness of the glory of God.

What weight bears down upon us?

What question should ask?

What does God want from us?

Worship?

Trust?

Love?

Obedience?

Fear?

What do all of these presuppose? They presuppose that we can know him so thoroughly that we are capable of loving, trusting, obeying, fearing, and worshipping him in the way we should.

A radical idea…we can know the God who created us.

Six Things the Word of God Is

David employs words that, in this context, all refer to written scripture.

Law (Torah): “the teaching” = the written words of God given through Moses in order to reveal knowledge of Him, His will, and how to worship.

Testimony: the law is called this in Ex. 31:18. They bear witness of God’s person and character and thus stipulate what righteousness is.

Precepts: a term that occurs 24 times and all in the Psalms. It is “a general term for the responsibilities that God places on his people” (TWOT 2:732). This term gives us a conception of how David understood the nature of Scripture. The commands of God are responsibilities, given that the come from God, for man to observe. We have an obligation to do what God has said in the way in which he has said it. Known revelation and instruction from God places upon man the moral responsibility for living in obedience to God’s commands. Failure to do so is a sin and manifests our sinful nature.

Commandment: “the terms of a contract” in a land. It can also refer to the content of instruction a teacher gives to his pupil. God reveals, up front, what he wishes for his people to do. God’s will for how we live our lives is not a mystery.

Fear: this must be a reverence for God that is inherent to the nature and existence of scripture itself and thus derives from it.

Rules: used in the plural. The term is a reflection of God’s authority and claim to government, rulership, and justice. Scripture, therefore, reveals God’s just claims and expectations that derives from the reality that He is our creator. Notice that in light of Ps. 19:10, it is in light of the nature of God’s judgments that they are so valuable.

He then describes what scripture is in each line. (Notice it is these things independently of us. We, like David, can recognize what Scripture is, but our recognition doesn’t make it what it is. God doesn’t need us to tell him what is word is allowed to be. That would make us superior to him).

Perfect: what is complete, entirely in accord with truth and fact.

Notice that it is the Law of God that restores the soul/person. The picture here seems to be of the reviving of the spirit of man that is otherwise dead to the person and character of God. Nature does not revive. Scripture does.

Sure: “Amen” = that which is faithful, certain, true. It is therefore trustworthy.

Simple is the naive person who must be taught or else he will go on to become one who is inclined toward hardened, outright rebellion against God by rejecting his person and His word. He would therefore be impaired of moral and spiritual values. (wise and simple are moral terms, not just epistemological ones).

Right: “an attribute of God in Scripture as well as His word. That which is morally and practically right. Another usage is “a quality of heart and mind which enables the upright man to keep loyally to any legally binding agreement” (TWOT 1:417).

Rejoicing = being glad or joyful with the whole disposition. True gladness and joy comes from our access to and knowledge of the moral and practical responsibilities that God has revealed in His word.

Pure: to be pure, free, and clear.

Written scripture is where true knowledge, understand, and wisdom are found. It provides our instruction so we can conceive of God and ourselves correctly. Any view of God or of ourselves that does not derive from an accurate understanding of Scripture is guaranteed to have foreign admixtures in it.

Our minds aren’t pure. Scripture is pure.

We may love the study of the Bible, and we should. But, let us never forget that the goal of Bible study is to know the one who created us, the one who gave his word. What impresses you most? Creation or a book...

Our goal is to know him. It never stops. It is never exhaustible for he is not exhaustible. He, however, is knowable.