July 30, 2017 The Radiance of God by Conley Owens Deacon

Good morning. There are many beliefs, many classes of beliefs, about the knowledge of God. So, for example, there's atheism, the rejection that there is any God to know. There's agnosticism, the belief that we cannot know whether or not there's a God.

There's also the belief that we can know God. Now, if I were to ask you, which of those is most common here in Silicon Valley, what would you say? Maybe you would say, well, there are a lot of religious people here.

Maybe it is that you can know God. Or maybe you would say, well, people in the technology sector tend to reject religion, and so it might be atheism. The more I think about this, the more I think that the answer is none of the above, and in fact, something else, something that was very popular at our nation's founding even, and that is deism, the belief that there is a God, but that he may or may not be personal, and he most certainly cannot be known.

So a lot of your friends, you may have not thought about it and just labeled them as atheists because they're not religious people. But if you press them on it and you talk to them, you might be surprised to find that they do believe in a God.

They recognize that there must be some higher power, but given that everybody has different opinions on what that is, it seems impossible that we could actually know that higher power, know who God is.

God Wants Us to Know Him

Well, in stark contrast to what deism has to offer, the Bible says that we can know God, and the Bible says, in fact, that God wants us to know him. If you remember what Josh just read to in Hosea 6, it says that he desires knowledge of himself more than sacrifice.

So more than you doing your devotional time in the morning, more than you praying to God, more than you coming here to church, more than you giving of your finances, he desires you to know him. All those other things sit on the foundation of knowing God.

Let me illustrate this. One of the greatest works on God, on theology, what we believe about God in the Bible, is the Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin. And he was a man who wrote comments on almost every verse of the Bible.

So there were many things that he could have written about, and he lived during the time of the Reformation, so there were many hot topics he could have talked about. He could have talked about indulgences.

He could have talked about how Jesus is the only mediator between God and man. He could have talked about how faith alone is the instrument of salvation. But he opens his book by speaking of the knowledge of God, and I want to read to you the first couple of sentences that he says.

Oops, sorry. True and substantial wisdom principally consists of two parts, the knowledge of God and the of ourselves. But while these two branches of knowledge are so intimately connected, which of them precedes and produces the other is not easy to discover.

So what he's saying there is wisdom has two parts, knowing yourself, knowing God. And this is so important to him that he begins his book with this. And after wrestling with this for the rest of the chapter, he concludes that it is knowledge of God that is more fundamental.

In order to know yourself, you must know God. How can you know a creature without knowing its creator? How can you know where he came from, where he's going to? How can you know what is required of that creature, what that creature's purpose is?

People talk about the meaning of life, but how can you have any concept of what meaning is without the God that gives all things meaning? How can you know your meaning without knowing God, who not just created you body and soul, but created you with meaning?

You see, you must know God in order to know yourself. This is why this is so important. This is why knowledge of God is more fundamental than any service that you could possibly render. How could you serve God if you don't know him?

How could you act properly at all if you do not know yourself? And this knowledge of God is what concerns the author of the book of Hebrews as he begins his book, whether or not we have a sufficient way to know God.

Christ the Radiance of God's Glory

If you are in Hebrews 1, let's read that first verse. Long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. So in order to give knowledge of himself to man, God sent prophets, prophets to speak of him, to tell people who he is, and many people knew God through the prophets.

But the prophets were very limited in what they could reveal. For one, the prophets did not have perfect knowledge. They did not know God in his entirety, so they were not able to give people perfect knowledge of God.

In addition to that, each prophet tended to have his own specialty. So for example, Moses tells us about the law of God. David and Solomon tell us about the wisdom of God. Isaiah tells us about God's plan to transform his people, to lead people into righteousness.

But these are all just bits and pieces at different times, different ways, different places. And even if you sum up all those prophets together, there's still going to be big holes missing in what we could know about God.

How could you know God with just these few things? And you see, the task is quite difficult, because God is incomprehensible. And by that, I don't mean that term as it's used in common parlance that God can't be known.

I've already said he can be known. But that you cannot have comprehensive knowledge of God. He is infinite. You are finite. How could you know God in his entirety? You can't. His depths cannot be plumbed, and so if you are to have sufficient knowledge of him, if you are to know him well enough as he requires, this needs something substantial.

This is why the prophets leave much to be wanted. Jeremiah—you know, the prophets understood that their task was great. They understood that it was difficult. Jeremiah, he was very discouraged that he saw people saying to each other, no God, each one to his brother, no God, because that shows that people, you know, didn't have assurance of their knowledge of God.

There was something still left to be wanted. People couldn't be sure that they really knew God enough. Now the author of Hebrews in chapter 8 quotes Jeremiah and says that that day that Jeremiah looked for, when people would no longer say no God, has come, and it has come because God has sent Jesus Christ.

Let's keep reading. But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Now today we're going to be focusing on just those two phrases. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. What is the glory of God? The glory of God is his goodness, it's his beauty, it's his majesty.

What is radiance? Radiance is that thing by which you know something that's beautiful and majestic. If there's a flame, its radiance is how you see it. You see that it is bright. You could have a very large flame, but unless it's giving off some kind of light, you can't see it.

You can't know it's there until you get too close and it consumes you. He says that Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. It is through Jesus that we know God's goodness, that we can see his beauty, his majesty.

It says that he is the exact imprint of his nature. What is a nature? A nature is that thing which something is. It is a concept. So, for example, I could speak of human nature, right? But what is human nature?

How could you know without a human by which to see this? Someone that you can observe. If I had an invisible creature running around here and I were to dump a bucket of plaster on its head, that would make an imprint, right?

And then you'd be able to see the invisible creature in the imprint. That is what, that is what it's saying here about Jesus. He is the imprint of God's nature. God is invisible. Jesus is visible. You can observe him.

You can see his glory. You can see his nature through Jesus. And I don't just mean that you can physically look at him because, you know, I don't know if you noticed, but Jesus is not here physically with us today.

But through observing his teachings and his life as written in the Bible, you can see God because you can see God's nature. You can see God's glory. So there's this contrast here between visible Jesus and invisible God.

Jesus is visible. This is how we know who God is because we can see God in Jesus. Colossians 1 .15 says that he is the image of the invisible God. Once again, there you have image, something you can see.

Invisible, something you cannot see. This is how we know God. And if you think about it, this is why we focus so much on Jesus Christ here. I've heard Christians become discouraged and upset that people seem to talk so much about Jesus and so little about the Holy Spirit.

And while this could be the case that we don't pay enough attention to what God says about the Holy Spirit and his word, however, oftentimes this kind of complaint comes from a misunderstanding. It's misguided because it is not through the Holy Spirit, it's not through focusing on and observing the Holy Spirit that we get knowledge of God.

It is through observing Jesus. You see, even though all three persons of the Trinity are equal, that doesn't mean that they must be equally focused upon to know God. All three persons of the Trinity want us to know God, but the way they seek to accomplish that is through Jesus.

The Father sent the Son. The Holy Spirit turns our eyes to the Son. If I have an hour to improve my knowledge of God, I'm not going to spend 20 minutes waiting for the Father to speak out of heaven as he did it at Jesus' baptism, and then listen for another 20 minutes to the Holy Spirit inside of me, and then listen to another 20 minutes to the words and teachings of Jesus Christ.

No, I'm going to spend the whole time reading the word of God, both Old Testament and New Testament, as illuminated by the life and teaching of Jesus. This is how we know God, through focusing on the Son, the one who is a visible expression of God's glory, of his nature.

And why is it that Jesus is able to tell us about God? It is not just that he is this greater prophet, but it is because he is himself God. Now, he is not the invisible Father, but he is another person of the Trinity.

He has the same nature as God, and the author of Hebrews is telling us that here, and you may not see it, but it comes out pretty clearly in almost every phrase if you know the word of God well enough.

I'd like to walk through some of these passages with you to show the deity of the Son here. So, keep your thumb in Hebrews 1, but we're going to flip around a little. So, it calls Jesus the Son. Turn to John 5 .18.

John 5 .18 says, this was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. You see, God is his Father.

If he is the Son, he makes himself equal with God. Now, God is the greatest being. There's no equal with God. So, Jesus is either God himself or he is an imposter. The fact that he is the Son, the author of Hebrews is calling him God.

It says, whom he appointed the heir of all things. Turn to Deuteronomy 32 .9. Deuteronomy 32 .9 says, but the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob, his allotted heritage. The Old Testament talks frequently about God's people being his inheritance, about even the whole earth being his inheritance.

And so, how can Jesus inherit the world if the world is God's inheritance? There would be a conflict. There would be a conflict of interest. They would be at odds with one another. The idea here is not that they are at odds, but that Jesus is God.

He is the one who inherits the world. It says, through whom he created the world. Now, through is not some passive conduit of creation, but it is a direct participation. It says in verse 10, speaking of Jesus, you, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth and the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands.

You see, Jesus was directly creating the heavens and earth. Isaiah 44 .24. Please turn there. Isaiah 44 .24 says, thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb. I am the Lord who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth all by myself.

See, God created the heavens and the earth by himself. He did not have a helper. There was no one else. There was only God. And so, Jesus created the heavens and the earth. How can this be unless Jesus is God?

He is the creator. The author of Hebrews continues, he is the radiance of the glory of God. Look at Isaiah 48 .11. Isaiah 48 .11 says, for my own sake, for my own sake, I do it. For how should my name be profaned?

My glory I will not give to another. God's glory is not something he shares. He doesn't share honor with other people. That would be unjust for someone else to take credit for what he has done to be considered as great and wonderful as God is.

But if Jesus is the radiance of that glory, he is receiving credit. He is receiving all that honor. Does God share these things? No. Jesus is God. The author of Hebrews continues again, and he upholds the universe, excuse me, and he is the exact imprint of his nature.

Okay, Isaiah 46 .9. Isaiah 46 .9 says, remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. You see, there's no one like God. None at all. And yet, Jesus is like God.

Jesus is the exact imprint of his nature. That doesn't work. It must be, these two verses would be in contradiction unless it is the case that Jesus shares the same being with the Father, that he is God, and says he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Look at Job 12, starting in verse 9. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind. You see, Job here is concerned that people know that the upholding of the world, it is not done by someone else, but that it is done by God.

And so when the author of Hebrews comes along and says that the world is upheld by Jesus, he's either contradicting Job's words, or he is declaring that Jesus is the God, is the creator of the universe that upholds all things.

You see, this is how God communicates knowledge of himself to us. This is how Jesus is able to communicate the knowledge of God to us. It's because he's not giving us bits and pieces like the prophets.

He is the whole thing. He is himself God. Remember Moses told us about God's law? Matthew 5 says that Jesus is the fulfillment of that law. David and Solomon told us about the wisdom of God. The New Testament says that in Jesus are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

He is the wisdom of God. And Isaiah told us about God's plan to leave his people into righteousness. Who is the one that does that? It is Jesus. See, all the things that the prophets were talking about, all the little bits and pieces, come to complete perfection when seen in Jesus Christ.

That is where all these things come together. That is how we can have knowledge of God. You see, if you just, if you have something less than that, if you have something, if you have something else, then it's like, it's like trying to study the ocean, trying to study this incomprehensible God by looking at drops of dirty saltwater.

You're not going to become a marine biologist that way. You need to look at the whole thing. That is what Jesus is. And so we don't have just some better prophet telling us about God. We have God himself.

We don't have just some better messenger of truth. We have truth itself. But yet, yet many people, many who even saw Jesus and witnessed him, did not know him. They did not know the God who he represented.

When he came to people and he told, he talked to the Pharisees, he told the Pharisees that they did not know his father. Now how is it that these people came in contact with Jesus and still they did not know the father?

So seeing Jesus visibly is not enough. Hearing his teaching is not enough. So what hope do we have who don't have him here? It seems that we have even less of a shot than the Pharisees did. Jesus said that people would, on the day of judgment, come to him and say, Lord, Lord, claiming that they know him, and he would reject them.

So just saying that you know Jesus is not enough. By what standard do you tell if you know him sufficiently? All kinds of people say they know Jesus. Doesn't mean they do. A lot of people like to adopt him for their own cause.

I've heard communists say that Jesus is a communist. I've seen a gender studies student say that Jesus is transgendered. I met a man once of very little education who claimed that the greatest thing that Jesus was known for was not dying on the cross, was not being a great teacher or miracles, but was that he was a good bagpipe player.

I don't know where he got that from, but this man did not know Jesus. And it wasn't his lack of education that was the problem, because some of the most educated people on Jesus, some who have studied Jesus their entire life and call themselves Jesus scholars, have some of the worst views of Jesus, considering him nothing more than a charismatic leader.

So how is it, how is it that you can really know Jesus? It's not—you can't say I know him more than, you know, most people, because how do you know that's the standard? You can't say I know him even more than everybody, because like I said, those who probably have more knowledge about the facts of Jesus' life than us, those people, those Jesus scholars who have studied him their entire professional careers, they know more than you about Jesus, and yet they don't know him sufficiently.

How can you know that you know Jesus truly and sufficiently? So for you who think you know God, do you really know him? You don't know him perfectly. He's incomprehensible. You can't know him perfectly.

You're finite. He is infinite. I'd say you don't even know him exceptionally, because exceptional knowledge would imply exceptional obedience. Think about how our knowledge informs our actions. If a stove is hot, we don't touch it because we know it will burn us.

If we know we'll get a paycheck for going into work, we go into work. Our knowledge informs our actions. Now people's knowledge doesn't seem to inform their actions about God all the time, even though they say they know him.

And that's because they have doubts about the sincerity of his promises that he punishes evil, that he rewards good. Think about your thought life. When no one else is observing, that's the easiest time it is to sin, because we don't believe that we'll have to give an account for such things.

Discontentment, covetousness, lust—why is it that you allow yourself to entertain such thoughts? It's because the knowledge of God does not weigh heavily on you enough that it compels you to perfect obedience.

It just doesn't. So we must consider that we need a good knowledge of God in order to obey him. We need a sufficient knowledge of God. How do we get such a knowledge? The answer is not so much in us knowing God.

It is more to be found in God knowing us. Now that's kind of hard to understand. So what I mean by that is the Bible speaks of of God's knowing us, God knowing us as his salvation of us. When he forgets somebody, it means that he has let them die.

When he remembers somebody, it means he has saved them from death. So you see, knowledge, remembering, they speak of salvation. And so it is in Jesus Christ that God knows us. You see, when Jesus said that people will come to him on judgment day and say, Lord, Lord, he didn't say that he'd say, no, you don't know me.

He said he'd say, I never knew you. You see, when God sent Jesus to die on the cross, Jesus paid the penalty for sin so that people can be spared from death. That's salvation. That is God knowing us. It is in Jesus Christ that God knows us.

That is how he knows us. And that knowledge, that is why the Bible so frequently speaks of knowledge and salvation related to each other. John 17 3 says that knowledge of God is eternal life. Now this knowledge, it is—excuse me—Jesus, the reason why it's so important that Jesus is a man is not just because in seeing the visible image expression of God that we have someone we can relate to, someone we can know.

It is that because without Jesus being man, we cannot have someone who is humiliated, who suffered and died for our sins. And it's not just important that Jesus be God so that we have that whole picture that the prophets can't give.

It's because without God, we can't have forgiveness of sins. The Bible says that only God can forgive sins. Psalm 49 says that a man's life is too costly to be ransomed. You see, a mere man cannot ransom the life of another.

And later on in that same psalm, it says, but God will ransom the life of man. You see, we need Jesus to be both God and man so that God can know us. And this is where God's knowledge of us meets our knowledge of God.

It's because when Jesus died, was raised again, and ascended to the Father, he didn't just leave us here. But after having purified our souls, he sent the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. Now, that Holy Spirit gives us knowledge of Jesus.

That Holy Spirit communicates those things that Jesus said, but directly, without being mediated. It is an immediate knowledge. So we can know something. We can learn facts about Jesus. Oh, he died on the cross.

That is a good thing. I can say that propositionally. But without having experienced that goodness directly, it's not sufficient knowledge. You see, this is the resolution. This is why someone can know many more facts about Jesus than you ever will, and not have sufficient knowledge.

It's because the knowledge that we need of Jesus must be an immediate knowledge, something that only he can provide, communicated by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, often spoken of as Christ in us. This is how Jesus gives us the knowledge of God.

So God—excuse me for a second—Hosea 6, it talked about us being raised again on the third day as a result of the knowledge of God. You see what it's saying? It's saying that we can be raised again. We can have Jesus' resurrection because of God's—because of God communicating knowledge to us.

And it's not that each of us will spend three days in the grave. It is that we will have the same glorious resurrection that Jesus had. This is what God gives to us. This is the great hope that we have.

This is why the knowledge of God is so important, because it and a third day resurrection go hand in hand. Now, ever since the garden, when Adam and Eve discarded the knowledge of God, instead chose the knowledge of good and evil, knowledge of God has been hidden away.

You might think of it like an invaluable tome that's been hidden away in the middle of the Sahara, but it's not quite like that. It's more like a book that's been right in front of you the whole time, and you've just opened it to realize that you are, in fact, illiterate.

It's not God's problem. It's not his problem that he's having trouble—it's not that he is having trouble revealing himself to you. It is that you are not an appropriate conduit of that revelation. When Adam and Eve sinned, they made themselves so that they could not properly have knowledge of God when they rejected that knowledge of God and chose the knowledge of good and evil.

But Jesus, when he died for our sins, he purified us and made us appropriate conduits of that knowledge. That is how we can know him. Think about what this does for us as a people, as a church. We can have assurance.

We can have assurance that we know God. We don't have to be like the people of Jeremiah's time who would have to say, know God, to each other. But we can instead know that we know God by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We can know that our brothers and sisters know God. And if the Holy Spirit is Christ living in us, that opens up new doors to the knowledge of God. Because if Jesus is living in you, those of you who believe in him, then when I see you, I see Jesus.

I could have knowledge of God not just through Jesus' life and teaching, but in observing you. First John 4 says that we should see God in our brothers and thus have a special love for them. That is because if God is dwelling in you, then we can see God in our own love for each other.

And if that's the case, then we are also God's representatives to the world. That gives us a charter and a commission to stand around. You see, Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. He's the exact imprint of his nature.

But in a secondary way, we are the imprint of God's nature because we have Jesus living in us. And in a secondary way, we are the radiance of the glory of God because it is through us, through the church, that people come to a knowledge of God's glory, that they begin to see his glory and his beauty and his majesty.

That is something that can motivate us, commission us, to go represent God to the world. And it also gives us a great hope because this glory is not just something that we get to participate in by showing to others, but it's something that we are benefiters of.

Romans 8 .17 says that we will be glorified with Jesus. Now, we won't have the same honor that he has. We won't have the glory that God doesn't share with another. But we can have a glorious resurrection.

We can have a great hope, life after death. That is something to march forward to. So for you who recognize that you do not have sufficient knowledge of God, recognize also that you need that knowledge of God.

How can you do what is proper and right? How can you live in a way that is good at all if you do not know God? Because if you do not know God, you do not know yourself. But if you would like to know God, then the answer to this is because if it is through the cross of Jesus Christ that God knows us and we know God, Jesus has promised to give that knowledge to all who believe in his sacrifice.

So if you trust in him for the forgiveness of your sins, to be saved on that last day, to have that glorious three-day resurrection that goes hand in hand with the knowledge of God, you can have it if you believe.

For those of you who already have sufficient knowledge of God, I've already said you don't have perfect knowledge of God, but you can, as 2 Peter 3 says, grow in the knowledge of Christ every day. So turn to his word.

Read the Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, seeing it all as illuminated by Jesus' life and teaching. See God's love worked out here among the body, and you can grow in your knowledge of God. You can better know him, and you can better know yourself, because our God is not the God of the deists.

He has made himself known. He has made himself known in Jesus. Dear Holy Father, thank you for sending Jesus. In him you know us, and in him we know you. We thank you for that mediation. We thank you for his work on the cross, and we pray that you would ever enlighten us so that we can know you more and more every day.

In Jesus' name, amen.