Knowing God – To Know God Is To Do/Obey

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Summary of main points

  • In Scripture, “to know God” is frequently covenantal and relational, not merely informational: it means acknowledging YHWH as God and living in responsive loyalty (fear, obedience, truth-walking).

  • Hebrew yada (to know) and daat (knowledge) often function as covenant verbs: “not knowing” God can mean repudiating Him, even if facts about Him are known.

  • In the NT, ginosko and epignosis can denote relational recognition that manifests as obedience; the Johannine test for “knowing” God is command-keeping, not mere confession.

  • Ontologically, “knowledge of God” is participation in reality as God defines it (truth as covenantal light), while sin produces noetic distortion and active suppression of truth.

  • Spiritually and psychologically, fear-of-the-LORD is the affective posture that reorders the will; obedience is the enacted form of acknowledgment; truth-walking is the life-habitus of communion.

  • From the divine perspective, God “knows” in an electing-covenantal sense (to set regard on, to own), and human “knowing” is measured by faithful alignment to His self-revelation.

Exegesis

1) Old Testament: Hebrew terms, idioms, and covenant logic

a) ידע (yada), “to know”

In Biblical Hebrew, yada ranges from (1) cognitive awareness, to (2) experiential acquaintance, to (3) relational recognition and covenantal acknowledgment. The third sense is decisive in many theological contexts: “to know YHWH” is to recognize Him as covenant Lord in a way that entails fidelity.

A key diagnostic text is Jeremiah 22:15-16, where “knowing God” is defined ethically, not intellectually:

  • Hebrew (MT): הֲלוֹא הִיא דַּעַת אֹתִי נְאֻם־יְהוָה

  • Transliteration: halo hi daat oti ne’um-YHWH

  • Sense: “Is not this to know me? declares the LORD”

ESV excerpt: “He judged the cause of the poor and needy … Is not this to know me? declares the LORD.” (Jer 22:16, ESV, Crossway)

Here, “to know me” is equated with covenantal justice that images God’s character. This is a Hebrew idiom of definition-by-fruit: the reality of knowledge is disclosed in aligned action.

A second crucial text is Hosea, where “knowledge of God” is set against covenant infidelity:

  • Hosea 4:1: “no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land” (ESV, Crossway)

  • Hosea 4:6: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (ESV, Crossway)

In Hosea, “lack of knowledge” is not missing data; it is covenant breach (idolatry, moral disorder, rejected instruction). This is reinforced by Hosea 6:6: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hos 6:6, ESV, Crossway) Knowledge here parallels hesed (steadfast covenant love), not mere ritual correctness.

b) יראה (yirah), “fear” as covenant posture

“The fear of the LORD” (often the construct phrase יִרְאַת יְהוָה, yirat YHWH) is not mere dread but reverent awe, submission, and moral seriousness before the Holy One.

Two canonical anchors:

  • Proverbs 1:7: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (ESV, Crossway)

  • Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” (ESV, Crossway)

Note the parallelism: fear and knowledge mutually define each other. In Hebrew poetic logic, fear is the root posture that makes true knowledge possible because it places the knower under God’s authority.

c) שמע (shama), “to hear” meaning “to obey”

A standard Jewish idiom: “hear” often means “heed” (listen with compliance). This is central to covenant theology: Israel “knows” YHWH by “hearing” His voice (obedience).

Deuteronomy 10:12-13 fuses fear, walking (conduct), love, and command-keeping:

ESV excerpt: “what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways … and to keep the commandments” (Deut 10:12-13, ESV, Crossway)

This is the OT pattern you referenced: knowledge-of-God is not separable from fear and obedience because covenant relation is inherently lordship-structured.

d) אמת (emet), “truth” as covenantal reliability

Emet is not merely propositional correctness; it includes faithfulness, firmness, reliability. To “live in His truth” in OT categories is to live inside the reliable moral order established by God’s self-revelation and covenant.

2) New Testament: Greek terms, syntax, and tests of knowledge

a) γινωσκω (ginosko) and ἐπιγνωσις (epignosis)

Ginosko can mean to know, recognize, come to know by experience. Epignosis often intensifies toward full/true recognition. In covenantal contexts, “knowing God” entails relational reality that expresses itself ethically.

The Johannine corpus is explicit that obedience is a necessary marker of “knowing.”

1 John 2:3-4:

  • Greek (NA28/UBS5): Και εν τουτω γινωσκομεν οτι εγνωκαμεν αυτον, εαν τας εντολας αυτου τηρωμεν. ο λεγων Οτι Εγνωκα αυτον και τας εντολας αυτου μη τηρων ψευστης εστιν …

  • Literal sense: “And by this we know that we have known him: if we keep his commandments. The one who says, ‘I have known him’ and does not keep his commandments is a liar …”

ESV excerpt: “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar …” (1 John 2:3-4, ESV, Crossway)

Exegetical note on syntax:

  • “en touto ginokomen” (“by this we know”) introduces an evidential test.

  • “ean … teromen” is a present, ongoing conditional: command-keeping as habitual pattern, not momentary perfection.

This directly substantiates your thesis: Scripture itself defines “knowledge of God” covenantally, with obedience as the necessary expression.

b) “Truth” as life-domain: αληθεια (aletheia) and “walking”

In John and 1 John, truth is not only a set of statements but a sphere of life: to “do the truth” and to “walk in the truth” are covenantal categories.

Example: 1 John 1:6-7 contrasts walking in darkness vs walking in the light. ESV excerpt: “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie … But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship …” (1 John 1:6-7, ESV, Crossway)

Truth is thus communion-shaped: it is lived reality under God’s light.

c) John 17:3: knowledge as relational participation in eternal life

John 17:3 famously defines eternal life in terms of knowing:

  • Greek (NA28/UBS5): αυτη δε εστιν η αιωνιος ζωη, ινα γινωσκωσιν σε τον μονον αληθινον θεον, και ον απεστειλας Ιησουν Χριστον

  • Sense: “And this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

ESV excerpt: “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3, ESV, Crossway)

In Johannine theology, this “knowing” is covenant communion, not mere awareness.

d) A negative control: Romans 1 “knowing” without submission

Romans 1 shows that one can “know” God in one sense (general revelation) while refusing covenantal acknowledgment:

ESV excerpt: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him …” (Rom 1:21, ESV, Crossway)

The logic is important: factual knowledge does not equal covenant knowledge. True “knowledge of God” is the honoring/thanksgiving/obedience posture; the absence of that posture is culpable suppression.

Theological Analysis

1) Free Will (Provisionist / non-extreme Arminian) and Dispensational synthesis

From a conservative Free Will perspective, the biblical data coheres as follows:

  • God genuinely reveals Himself (general and special revelation).

  • Humans are responsible responders: they can receive the truth in humility (fear of the LORD) or suppress it in unrighteousness (Rom 1).

  • Therefore, “knowledge of God” is covenantal acknowledgment that requires a volitional posture (submission) and is verified in obedience (1 John 2:3-4).

This does not collapse knowledge into works-righteousness. Rather, it treats obedience as the constitutive expression of relational knowledge, the necessary fruit of genuine covenant acknowledgment.

Dispensationally, the covenantal shape of “knowing God” is consistent across economies, even as covenant administrations differ (e.g., Mosaic covenant obligations vs new covenant realization in Christ). The enduring principle is: God relates as Lord; covenant knowledge always includes loyal response to the revelation given in that administration (Deut 10:12-13; John 17:3; 1 John 2:3-4).

2) Contrast with Calvinist/Reformed construal

Reformed theology typically emphasizes that saving knowledge of God is a gift flowing from regeneration and effectual calling. On that view, obedience evidences true knowledge because the renewed heart necessarily yields fruit.

The key divergence is causal ordering and resistibility:

  • Free Will: revelation + prevenient/convicting grace is genuinely resistible; covenant knowledge is a real human response enabled by grace.

  • Reformed: regeneration is monergistic and ensures the response; covenant knowledge is the inevitable fruit of the new nature.

Both frameworks, if kept within confessional evangelical boundaries, agree with your core claim at the level of biblical description: “knowing” God is not reducible to information and must manifest in obedient truth-walking. The debate is about why some come to know in that saving sense.

Historical Context

1) Second Temple and Jewish conceptual background

In Jewish thought, “knowing” is not primarily Cartesian (an inner mental state detached from life) but covenantal and holistic: heart, will, practice. The Hebrew Bible already embeds this, and Second Temple piety intensifies Torah as lived wisdom. The “fear of the LORD” functions as epistemic humility: the knower is under the Known One.

This contrasts with a modern Western tendency to treat knowledge as neutral data possession. Biblically, knowledge is morally charged because the object is personal: the living God, who addresses, commands, and judges.

2) Early Christian continuity

The NT continues the Hebrew pattern: confession without obedience is treated as false (Titus 1:16; 1 John 2:4). The church inherits a covenantal epistemology: truth is not merely said, it is walked.

ESV excerpt: “They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.” (Titus 1:16, ESV, Crossway)

Scholarly Insight (non-quoted; bibliographic pointers)

Because you required precise page-level verification for quotations, I am not quoting these works verbatim. The following are conservative evangelical resources that treat these themes in ways aligned with the exegetical pattern above:

  • I. Howard Marshall, The Epistles of John, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978). (On 1 John 2:3-4 as an obedience test of genuine knowledge.)

  • Gordon D. Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007). (On knowledge, lordship, and the ethical entailments of union with Christ in Paul.)

  • Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006). (On authorial intent and semantic-pragmatic meaning, relevant to “know” as covenant idiom.)

  • Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). (On John 17:3 and relational knowledge.)

  • Henry C. Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949). (On revelation, faith, and the distinction between intellectual assent and saving faith.)

If you want, I can add direct quotations with full SBL page citations, but only if you supply the specific edition and the relevant page range (or a photographed excerpt), because I cannot verify page-accurate citations from those volumes in this environment.

Practical Application (conservative evangelical implications)

  1. Epistemology of discipleship
    Scripture treats “knowledge of God” as covenantal allegiance under revelation. Therefore, discipleship cannot be reduced to information transfer; it must form fear-of-the-LORD (reverent submission), obedience (command-keeping), and truth-walking (life inside God’s light).

  2. A diagnostic for false assurance
    Texts like 1 John 2:3-4 and Titus 1:16 provide an objective diagnostic: claimed knowledge without a trajectory of obedience is biblically categorized as false. This is not perfectionism, but covenant realism.

  3. The moral nature of “truth”
    Because God is personal and holy, “truth” is not neutral data. Acceptance or rejection of truth is simultaneously an ethical and spiritual act. Romans 1 implies that suppression is culpable, not merely mistaken.

  4. Teaching and preaching
    A church can drift into a “data-only” theology where orthodoxy is treated as mere correctness. Scripture presses for a deeper category: orthodoxy that is covenantally embodied.

Logic trace: Scripture -> ontology -> spiritual dynamics -> practice

  • Scripture: “Knowing God” is defined by fear, obedience, and truth-walking (Prov 1:7; Deut 10:12-13; Jer 22:16; 1 John 2:3-4).

  • Ontology: Because God is the personal ground of reality, knowing Him is not merely representing facts but aligning with the true order He is and reveals.

  • Spiritual dynamics: Sin disorders the noetic and affective life; the will can suppress truth (Rom 1:21). Fear-of-the-LORD is epistemic humility that restores right posture.

  • Practice: The genuine knowledge of God manifests as obedient fidelity and walking in the light (1 John 1:6-7; 2:3-4), not as disembodied information.

Categories: Word & Topic Studies