BP 218
I still remember that moment fifty years later. Half a century ago! I was sitting in my high school psychology class when it happened . . .
Flash back two weeks earlier to Homecoming night my senior year of high school . . . Three men on the basketball team and one hippie dude shared the gospel with me late into the night after I bypassed Homecoming activities to go with a girl to a Bible study! (What was I thinking? But even more importantly, what would have happened to me if I had chosen not to go to that small Baptist church in that small farming town in southwestern Minnesota on that particular night? One decision can make an eternal difference.)
After I heard the gospel, I drove home, feeling very alone and empty. At 2:00AM in the morning in the solitude of my basement bedroom, I talked to God directly and honestly for the first time in my life. I said something like, “Jesus, I don’t know if you are real or not, but I want you. I’m not in a good place. My life is empty. By the way, I’m sorry for all the bad things I have done.” (I seemed to be less motivated by the guilt of my sin and more moved by my hunger for Jesus’ presence in my heart.)
After my prayer, nothing happened. I didn’t feel anything amazing like a rush of fire through my body or a vision of angels. I remember feeling disappointed. But I was also desperate.
So, I kept praying a similar prayer every day, asking Jesus to come into my heart and be with me (Revelation 3:20). For two weeks, I repeated my plea to God.
Then came that unforgettable day . . .
I was sitting in my afternoon psychology class next to Mary Merrill when I looked out the window and stared up at the expansive blue sky and the towering white clouds. At that moment, it happened. I sensed/felt/knew/perceived that God was not some distant deity far, far away up in the depths of outer space, but He was with me! More than that—He was in me!
The Living God had heard my prayer for salvation. I had passed from darkness into light. I had become a new creation and now the Holy Spirit lived within me!
All because I didn’t go to the Homecoming dance but as a Lutheran boy went with a Reformed girl to a Bible study at the Baptist church with a bunch of Pentecostal kids. God certainly can and does move in strange ways His wonders to perform.
Since that day in my high school classroom in October of 1972, I have never doubted that Jesus was with and in me. But before that Homecoming night and the two-week period of desperate, repeated prayers, I only knew about God even though I had gone to church since I was an infant. But on that afternoon in my psychology class, I realized that I had come to know God, personally.
My knowledge of God was no longer simply some conceptual mental belief. It was far more than that. I now trusted a personal God. I had gone from inconsequential empty belief to a personal relationship with God!
I had finally graduated past the belief of the demons: “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” ~ James 2:19. Now I not only believed that Jesus existed. I now believed in Him to the point of a transforming faith that produced the radical change of John 3 (the new birth) in me but also launched the deeper change of slow but steady sanctifying growth in my heart over the next five decades.
Whenever doubts nibble at the edges of my soul about the existence of a God and Savior and best friend known as Jesus, I recall my conversion experience and the doubt evaporates quickly. I remember who I was before that Homecoming night and who I have become after that night. Trust me, the change was and is night and day. It hasn’t been primarily a behavioral change (I was a good church kid) in me as it has been a total change in my affections and a freedom from condemning shame and aloneness.
I was indeed born again. I was a new creation. My heart of stone had been turned into flesh. I saw the world through totally different eyes. I began to walk by faith and not by sight.
My main thought here today is that I clearly knew about Jesus before that October night, but I did not know Him personally at all. I had no intimate, saving relationship with Him. I had no love for Him–no attachment or bond on the heart level.
My head knowledge of Jesus before that night did nothing for me (that I was aware of). It altered nothing on a deep level within me for good. If anything, my belief (that I shared with the demons) in Jesus’ existence only fanned the flames of my internal sense of badness and shame. So, Jesus was someone to be pushed away and avoided, not welcomed, because I knew only enough about Him to feel worse.
Knowing about Jesus as opposed to knowing Him personally—here is the great distinction in the universe. Indeed, these two knowledges are a universe apart.
But this issue begs a question: Is it just an unbeliever like I was back in 1972 before that Homecoming night (who knew God conceptually but had no personal relationship with Him) who might experience God as distant? Or can a true believer in Jesus be born again but still feel like Jesus is disconnected from her life? Can a genuine Christian feel like Jesus is far away and detached from her daily walk in this world?
Let’s dig into that question.
Hall and Hall, in their book, Relational Spirituality, mention this distinction in terms of explicit knowledge of God versus implicit knowledge. They define explicit knowledge as more intellectual, conceptual, brainy, maybe even doctrinal and theologically focused while implicit knowledge is more relational and personal, even emotional. Implicit knowledge is about our experience of God Himself through a faith attachment at the level of the heart and soul.
To clarify the distinction further, the authors write, “. . . The Bible refers to two types of knowledge, roughly parallel to implicit and explicit knowledge. The Hebrew word for truth has two basic meanings. There is a propositional aspect to truth (translated as “truth”) and a personal, relational aspect (translated as “faith”), and they are intricately related” (p. 130).
Hall and Hall also write, “We often emphasize intellectual understanding of the content of our faith rather than trust in the person of Jesus who is our salvation. . . We’ve been socialized in our culture [deeply influenced by the Enlightenment that emphasizes intellectual reason] to think that the only thing that counts as knowledge is science, and what is meant by science is logical reasoning and quantification. Yet, there is a deeper, personal kind of knowledge, and we see it in several ways throughout the Bible” (p. 129).
I love it that the authors also allude to the fact that there are two different Greek words for knowledge that we see in the New Testament. One word is “epignosis, a more analytic form of knowing similar to explicit knowledge.” The other word is “gnosis, a more personal kind of knowing. In the early church, gnosis referred to a more mystical or spiritual knowledge of God that was more direct” (p. 131).
Hall and Hall cite Philippians 3:8 as an example of the more intuitive and relational knowledge of the word gnosis: “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
Relative to this Pauline verse, the authors of Relational Spirituality also look to what Ralph Martin says about Paul’s words: “’To know Christ’ is intimate (my Lord), and glows with the warmth of a direct relationship; it therefore may be taken as equivalent to ‘fellowship with Christ’” (Hall and Hall p. 131).
My main thought here is that a born-again believer in Jesus can possess a highly developed explicit knowledge of God while experiencing implicit distance from Jesus (even if that person may not be fully aware of that personal distance). A Christian can have a saving faith in Jesus and still experience a dichotomy between explicit and implicit knowledge of God.
This split can be sad or even tragic as some may deconstruct their faith and walk away from God because He feels so distant, unreal, or even unloving. Also, some born-again individuals may believe that they are not even Christians since all they seem to have is head knowledge of Jesus.
How can this dichotomous split occur in a genuine believer between knowing about God as opposed to knowing Him in a close, personal relationship characterized by love and presence?
Hall and Hall would say that the evangelical church was negatively impacted by the Enlightenment that exalted reason and shunned the early church emphasis on the monastic tradition of seeking the presence of God in a personal, experiential way. Consequently, the evangelical church today can be heavy on explicit biblical truth but light on implicit knowledge that fosters a vivid sense of God’s personal presence, an almost tangible sense of His withness.
After all, explicit knowledge of the Bible is not an end in itself, right? Isn’t familiarity with Bible knowledge a means to an end? Is not knowledge of the Bible meant to lead you closer to Jesus, to help you love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, to walk more intimately and obediently with Him, to know that He is truly with you so that you can obey, love, and glorify Him not because you should but because you are thankful for His presence in your life?
I would say (and I believe Hall and Hall would agree) that there are other dynamics that might interfere with implicit knowledge of God as a born-again believer. What are some of these other interferences to a personal sense of Jesus’ presence?
+ Intellectualization. Some people (more often men) have brains that are more highly developed in the area of conceptual, rational, heady ideas and explicit knowledge but are less developed in the area of personal, intimate relationships. Head logic might be stronger for these people than heart love. Also, some people have coped with childhood emotional pain by escaping into their heads, thus distancing from “negative” emotions. In so doing, they distanced from their hearts and so will find implicit knowledge of humans and God more difficult to experience. They might be a bit (or a lot) alienated from their hearts so intellectual knowledge is much easier to access than personal relational heart knowledge.
+ Transference. Hall and Hall make the point that implicit knowledge of God is often developed to a similar degree to the attachment level you have with your human parents. In other words, if you feel close, safe, and loved by your human parent, your implicit relationship with God will likely reflect that same level of intimacy. But if you had to (chose to) distance from your parent(s) for whatever reason, you may also find yourself distancing from God as well and then must work harder to develop implicit relational knowledge with Him.
+ Having a baseline coping skill of hiding or moving away from others and God will render a personal relationship with God more challenging.
+ Mental illness like obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety, and addictions can majorly and darkly interfere with your implicit affection for Jesus.
+ Holding onto a sinful habit that creates a deep sense of shame that in turn alienates you from God can rise up between you and Him.
+ Always remember a familiar passage here at DTFL. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says, “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ . . .”
What Greek word is used here in this passage for “knowledge”? It is the word, gnosis, which as you may remember from what was mentioned above refers to the type of knowledge that is personal and experiential and relational (implicit). As a Christian, you are called by God to wield the spiritual weapons that have divine power to destroy every stronghold, every argument, every demonic opinion that interferes with your personal relationship with and knowledge of Jesus.
So, keep in mind that if you know your Bible and doctrine and theology well, you are explicitly strong in your knowledge of God. However, being strong in these more intellectual and propositional areas may not guarantee you a close, personal relationship with Jesus. You may indeed be a true, born-again believer, but there may be obstacles that rise up like towering walls that powerfully prevent you from experiencing Jesus on a friendship level.
If this may be true for you, don’t give up. Don’t conclude that you are unloved by God or unloving. Possibly, you need to practice the words of 2 Corinthians to identify and destroy every obstacle to your personal, implicit, knowledge of your best friend in the universe.
Move toward others. Stay in the word of God but know that you may need to go out of your intellectual, explicit knowledge domain and be more vulnerable with people and with God (and very likely your own heart). Never forget the truth that Satan wants to isolate and kill you while Jesus calls you to Himself to be seen, loved, and implicitly known.
Don’t settle for explicit knowledge of God alone (but don’t reject it either). Remember that the purpose of explicit knowledge is to move you closer to knowing Jesus as your brother, friend, and Savior. But also know that God’s word is quintessential to your faith. After all, you can’t believe in what you don’t know.
Practice moving from head knowledge to heart knowledge and from heart knowledge to head knowledge. Let both explicit and implicit knowledge inform each other. By doing so, you will obey the two great commandments!
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” ~ Luke 10:27
