Life Ministries

"The Knowledge of God" 
Ephesians 1:15-1:17

    God’s Word has a lot to say about knowledge, and the different forms and subjects of knowledge, and today we are going to look at what the Bible calls the “knowledge of God”. Not knowing what God knows, but knowledge about God…or knowing God. Our scripture has to do with knowing some things about God,  but we have to start from the beginning because of the first words of verse 15 – “For this reason” - So, we have to know first of all what Paul is talking about. For what reason? 

How many spiritual blessings can we find here in these verses?

1. “chose us to be holy and blameless in His sight”. ( by the way, “to be” means this is a result of – not the basis for…)

2. “predestined us to be adopted as his sons – through Christ” (means nothing more than what it says!)
3. “we have redemption” – “the forgiveness of sins” ( by grace )
4. “made known to us the ‘mystery of Christ’ (that is a blessing many don’t enjoy.)
5. “marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit” (you could call it a security deposit.)

“For this reason” – ( because of all that or for all these reasons) “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation, so that you may know Him better...”
    In other words, Paul is praying for the Ephesians the most important prayer any Believer can pray for another Believer; that God would take them deeper and deeper into an intimate knowledge of Himself. Man’s chief end is to know God and to enjoy Him forever. It was determined in the Westminster Catechism; but Paul knew and taught that basic truth long before that was ever written.
    “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.” Now something that surprised me about the various translations is that only the NIV translates verse 17 to say “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation” giving the word ’Spirit’ a capital S.
    The same Greek word is used for spirit throughout the New Testament, whether referring to the Holy Spirit or the spirit of man. The application of it is generally determined by the context. For example, chapter 1:13 uses the term Holy Spirit and that makes it quite obvious. But over in chapter 2, verse 18, when Paul says that we all have our access in one Spirit to the Father, it is understood that he again is referring to the Holy Spirit. So looking closely at verse 17, I have to say that the wording of it and in the context of what Paul is praying for the Ephesians, is for something that only the Holy Spirit of God can give. He is praying and asking God for this particular thing because he is praying for “spiritual wisdom and revelation” that can only come from God’s Holy Spirit.
    Now does that mean he’s praying for God to give them the Holy Spirit? No, because he’s writing to believers. They have the Holy Spirit since their salvation. What he is praying for simply, is the Holy Spirit’s help and continued unction in bringing to these faithful believers an ever greater wisdom and revelation in their knowledge of God.
    When was the last time you prayed for the spiritual growth and well-being of another Christian?  I wonder how many of us would even think to pray for one another that the Holy Spirit would give them wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God?
    Some things we can pray for each other and never have to wonder if we are praying for a legitimate need or not. For instance, I can pray verse 18 - that “the Lord will enlighten the eyes of your heart, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe;” I can pray that the Lord will give you an ever greater hunger for His word, and that He will use your study to draw you ever closer to Himself, and that as you grow in the grace and knowledge of Him you will be used of Him to illuminate the world around you”… How many of us pray that kind of prayer for one another? 

    When we pray this way, we’re asking God to give us and give our fellow believers something that is only available to us who have the Holy Spirit of God. The point is this; Man in his natural mind cannot begin to comprehend God. In fact, one basic truth that the scriptures teach us from beginning to end, is that apart from the Spirit and spiritual birth, God is infinitely and eternally out of man’s grasp. “Man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1^st. Cor. 2:14)
    Paul is, in effect, repeating Jesus’ teaching when He told the Pharisee Nicodemus, “...unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Man cannot have the knowledge of God apart from God’s Spirit; the wisdom, the teaching, and the understanding of the things of the Spirit.
Here is probably the clearest and best example. The disciples walked and talked with Jesus for over three years. They were with Him constantly, listening to Him teach, seeing His miracles, asking Him questions, seeing Him in all the aspects and circumstances of life. But they did not understand. They did not perceive His purpose in coming, until after the resurrection...and even then they continued to ask questions that exposed their ignorance. “We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel”…They asked him; “Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”… It wasn’t until they were gathered in the upper room, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they stepped out onto the streets of Jerusalem...
    Now I want you to take notice here... they weren’t given a crash course in theology. They didn’t stay sequestered in the upper room for another 13 weeks while Jesus appeared to them with a dry erase board and a box of scrolls and taught them doctrine and homiletics and how to properly apply the scriptures…They had a certain knowledge, a learning that He had stored up in them while He was with them, but they had no revelation of the Spirit, until He came and filled them; and baptized them, there in that upper room. And when He did, these disciples who only days before stood gazing into the sky as He ascended...now stepped immediately out of the upper room and preached a Holy Spirit inspired sermon that had even those who crucified their Lord crying, “What must we do to be saved?”
    So you see, it is not enough to have just a head-knowledge of Jesus. To examine Him and scrutinize His word and His actions and think to understand Him that way. Our relationship to Him must be based on the revelation of Himself through His Spirit to our spirits; it will only be in the spirit and by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation…as Paul prays … that we will begin to understand His mission in the world, His purpose in us; and that we begin to know the Father.