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CHAPTER

VII

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD


BY REV. DAVID JAMES
MINISTER

OF THE

MARBLE

BURRELL, . D. D., LL. D.,

COLLEGIATE

CHURCH,

NEW

YORK

CITY

The man who does not know God has not begun to live.
He may eat and drink, make merry, accumulate a fortune
or wear a crown; but he has not entered into that better life
of high hopes and noble purpo ses and aspirations which make
us worthy of our Divine birthright. For "this is life enternal,
to know God."
To put ourselves into just relati9ns with God is literally a
matter of life or death. All the ologies are worth mastering
but THEOLOGY
is indispensab le. We must know God.
But where is He? "Oh, that I knew where I might find
Him! Behold, I go forward but He is not there, and back~1ard but I cannot perceive I-Iim; on the left hand where He
doth work, but I cannot behold Him; He hideth Himself on
the right hand so that I cannot see Him !" The horizons
recede as we approach them, and the darkness thickens as
we grope like blind men feeling their way along the wall.
There are three roads which are vainly trodden by multi:tudes who pursue thi s holy quest. Each of them is marked,
"T his way to God"; .and ,each of them is a cul de sac . or
blind alley, which leaves the soul still groping and crying,
"Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!"
The first of these paths is Intuition.
.
There are no natural atheists. All are born with an indwelling sense of God. We do not enter on conscious life
like the inferior orders; but "tra iling clouds of glory do we
come from God who is our horn en. In regions of darkest
paganism there are traces of two innate convictions; namely,
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a Divine birth and a sinful a]ienatiOn. Hence the universal


spirit of unrest so pathetically expressed by Augustine: ''We
came forth from God, and. we shall be homesick until we return to Hinri.''
No doubt there l1ave been some who, with no Jight but
tl1at wl1icI1shines along the pathway of Intuition, h.ave, made
the acquaintance of Go'd ; but the vast multitude have simply
arrived at idolatry. They have made unto themselves gods
'''after t11e similitude of a man''; gods, like the Bro ,cken o,f
the Ha1z mountains , p1ojected on tl1e skies. An idol is a manmade god. It may be carved out of wood or conjured out
of the gray matter of tl1e brain; but a11 gods, whencesoever
. they co,me, are i,dols, except the one true God.

Tlie second pathway of tlie ,God-seekers is Reason .


He ,re we come upon the philosophers and thos ,e wh 0 travel
witl1 them, This also leads to disappointment; as it is writ-
ten, '' The wor1.d by wisdom knew not God''.

The golden age of philosophy in Greece fo11owed close


on the decay of the Pantheon.. It was when the people had
lost confidence in their idols and the cry was heard, '~Great
Pan is d,ead I'' that the Groves ,and G.ardens an,d Painte ,d.
Porches arose on the hanks of the Ilyssus. The thoughtful
1nen who assumed the na111e .Philosoplio,i, that is, ''lovers of
wisdom'', were all seekers after God. The Stoics, Epicureans,
Cynics and Peripatetics all hoped to discover Him by the
light of reason. Ho,v vain the quest!
When Sim.onides ,vas asked for a definition of God, he
required some weeks for meditation and then anSwered, ''The
mo1,e I think of Him, the more He is unl<n,own I'' The innumerable , gods and altars of Athens had been laughed out
of court; and the results of philosophic inquiry were recorded
on that other altar which succ,eeded them, ''To the Unknov,n
. God'' ,~

The stock 1n trad e 0 f the pht]o,,sophers of Athens was


p,recisely that ,q f the phi1o,so,phers 0 f our time. It ,cons.i.sted

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92

The Fit1tdame1itals

substantially of four arguments, to wit: (A) The ontological


argument; to the effect that the being of God is involved
in the i,dea of God.. This is good as fa1 as it goes, bttt it
'
fa lls vastly short of demonstration;
and in any case it
reaches no conclusio n as to th e character of G,od.. (B) Tlie
cosmolo,gi,cal argument, which reasons from effect to caus e
.and expresse ls itself in the epigr,a~ ex 1iiliilo nihil fit; ''out
of nothing nothing comes''. This is equally inconctusive,,I since
th je neces sary Somewhat to wl1ich it leads is but the merest
shade of th.e shadow of a god. (C) The teleological a1~gum;.ent, which proce ,eds from design to a designer; carrying
with it a strong presumption as to infinite wisdom but taking
little or no Cognizan ,ce of the mo ral nature of God. (D)
And the antliropological argunient, wl1ich inf~rs the 1no1,al
nat ure of God from the mora l nature of man. This goes
further tha n the others; neve1theless it is so far from being
final proo 1f. i11 the mathen1atical s,ense tl1at on 1e n1ay re .asonably questio11 whether any trutl1-seeker was evet .. really con- _
vinced by it.
Thes e are the arguments whicl1 have be.en used by pl1ilosophers from time immemorial ; and little has been added in tl1e
process of the passing years.
The result, as a who le, is
me lane .holy failure.
T 'he worl d by its wisdom, that is by
the exercise of its unaided reason, fias simp,ly reached Agnosticism; it has not '' f oun ,d out God''.
elve,,s wise, b,ut rather
Not to those who deem tl1e1n then1si1
to the simple whose hearts are open Godward, comes tl1e
great revelation. It is one tl1ing to know about God and
quite a11.o,t.her to know Him. John Ha .y kne,v all about
Pres ident Lincoln from his boyhoo d up; littl ,e ''Tad'' had 110
such information, but he knew his father, knew him through
and thr .ough. The ey,es of Faith se:e further 'tha n those of
rea son. Wherefore Jesus sa id, ''Exce p t ye become as a
little chi.Id ye shall in no wise enter into tI1e kingdom of God'' .
The ,t'hird of the allitring pathway.s i'.s that of the Fiv e
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'\

Se1,ises.; that is, of Natt11a] Science, wl1ich reache s its conclusions on the evidence of tl1e physical senses.
This rules out faith, which is the sixth sense divinely
given to men for the apprehension ~f spiritual truths. To
undertal,e to solve
a11y
of
the
grea

t
problems
which
have
to
.
do with .our spiri tu,a.1 life by th,e testimony o;f the fin_g
er tips
is to l1ave one's labor 01 one's . pains; since, in the nature
of the case,. ,,s,piritual ,thing s are spirituall .Y discerned''. To1 .
undertake to grasp a sp iritual fact by the p'hysical senses
is as preposterous as it woi1ld be to insi.st on se,eing with
the ears or hearing with the eyes. Faith i.s not. cr,edu1ity,
nor is it unsubstantial, n or is it believing witl1out ,evidence .
On the contrary, it is both substantia l an,d evidential: only
it is ''the substance of . things hoped for, the evid,en ce of
t.hing s not seen'' .. To reft1se to exercis ,e this .sixth sense or
. power of spiritual . apprehension is to sl1ut oneself out forever rom the possibility of appr ehe11ding Go d ~r any o,f
the great, intangible, but real truths which center in Him.
Yet we are constant]y hearing, in certain quarters, of the
in1portance of pttrsui11.g ott r theological studies ''by the scientific method''.
With wl1at result? ''W ,e have a world of
facts'', tl1ey say, ''and fro .m . the se facts, by the inductive
pr ,ocess, we rnust arrive .at our conclusio ,ns'' '. It is like an
example in Algebra: God is the unknow n term ; let this , 'be
expr essed by ''x'' : th ,e p ro hl em then ~s to resolve ''x'' into
known terms by th ,e use of a multitude of seen and tangible
facts. Can it be done? Go on and pursue yo,ur research ,es along
the line ,s of evolution, until back of cosn,os you come to chaos,[
an.cl back of chaos to the nebula, and ha,ck of tl1e neb11]ato the
primordial germ; and that last infini tesimal atom will loo~ up
at you with t'he ,old question on its lips, as loud as ever and
involving .a probl .em as deep as wl1en ,you began, ''Whence
ca1ne I?'' What is your answer? God?' Call it '' God'' if yo ,u
please; in fact, however, it is s.imply an impersonal indefinable,
inescapable something or otl1,er which, for l.ack of a better
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94

The Fundamentals

'

t,erm, is designated as a ''First Cause'', h'ut which is infinitely


far from what is meant by a perso11al God.
.
W 'elJ, then, shall the quest be given up ? Is the universal
thought of God merely an ignis f atiius leading the hopef ttl
traveler into a r eal111of impenetr ,abie mists and shadows ? Or
is there .still some way of finding , out God?
Yes, there is a foiirth road by w lii'ch we approacli Rini; and
. it is an liighway cast up by the King ,Hiinself. It is, calle~
''Revelation'', or tlie Unveiling.
Th .ere i,s an antecedent pr esumption in its f lav,or; to wit,!
that if there is a ,God anywhere in the universe He would not
Jea:ve us ~o gr ope QU,r way hopeles lsly in tl1.e dark towa,rd Him, .
but would somewhere, somehow, unveil Himself to us,
Well, her e is a Book, which claims to b e Revelation. Of
all the books in the literature of the ages it is the only one that
claims to have been div inely authorize d and '',;v,ritten by holy
men as they were moved by the Spirit of God''.
It opens with tl1e words, ''In the begin11ing, God''; and proceeds to set forth the tw 0 great doc ,trines of Creat ,ion and
Providence. It affirms, on the on e hand, that everything in the
universe ha ,s its, origin in the creative powe ,r 0 f G,od .; and, 0 n
1

the other, , that everything is sustained by the providence of


God.
.
In these two doctrines we have the sum and sub.s tance of
Bibl e, truth. But thi.s is not all. In b etwe en tl1,e do,ctrines of
Creatio n and Providence there walks, through all the co,rridors
of Holy 'Writ, a my s,terious Figure who is the foregleam of
anotl1er revelation further on. At th~ outset this Figure
appears in the protev ,angel as the ''See ,d of Woman', who is
to come in the fulln ,ess of time to ''bruise the serpent's hea,d'''.,
An d He appears and re-appears, n,ow in l{i.ngly guise, again as
a man of sorrows an.d acquainted . with gri ,ef, and again with a.
name written on His ves.ture, ''Emmanu~l '', which being inter1

preted is '' ,God with us''.

This Book, claiming to be the written Word of God, mal<es

The Knowledge of God


us acquainted with His being, personality and rnora1 attri 'butes ;
bttt it does not exhaust the theme. It leads us along a road,
li,ghted h.Y visions and prophecies, untiJ it opens into another
and cl.earer roa ,d; to wit, ''The Incarnat ,e Word of God,'.
And this fifth road, t.he Inca-rnati,on, is the way which all
tru,th-seekers mi.is,t pursue if they would fina.lly arrive at ,a just
and saving kn0:wledge of God.
It js here that we meet Christ, bringin lg th e mes sage from
the throne .. He comes into our worl\d with the expi'ress purpose
of making God l<nown to us; as it is written, ''No man hath
seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son whi ch is i~ the
bosom of . the Father, He hath declared Him''.
He is called the Word, because He is the mediu m of conmt1ni,cation be.tween the Infinit ,e and the finite ; as it is written,
''In the beginning wa.s tl1e Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God ; and the Word was. made flesh and
dwe,Jt among us'': th .at is to s,ay,, the In ,carnation . is the articulatio n of the s,peech 0f ,Gad.
In the Scripture s we have a. l.etter from God; but in the
Incarna tion, we have the coming down of God to unveil Him,self bef ore us.

The sottl o,f sinf 'ul man is like a child lost among strangers,
wild-eyed , lips trembling, eyes searchi11g vain]y for a familiar
. face. Al1, l1ere the motlier ,com.es I Ahd the child is sobbing
out its happiness on her br east. ''Cuddle doon, my bairnie 1',
So is it when the sinner find.s Christ; or sh,all we not rather
say, when Chri st, th,e seeking God, finds l1im?
If, th en., we a,r e ever to Iea.rn the .ology it mu st be ,as di,scip1les, sitting in a docile attitude at the feet of Cl1rist. He, a.s
the i11carn.ate Son, is our authoritative Teacher,
What,
there ore , ha s He to say about God?
- As to Hi s being, He ha s little or nothing to say; for the
obvious rea son that God' s being is the s11bstrattun of Christ'~
entire doctrine, with out which it ,vould be as insignificant
as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. l\1oreover, ,all His

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on the written Word, , o,f ' whic ,h He s,aid,


'' Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have et e1~nal
life; and they are they which testify of Me.'' And the moment
we turn from . tl1e Incar11ate Word t 0 the wri tten Wor ,d, we ~
come upon the saying, ''In the beginning, God''.
A.s to the moral att1ibutes of God, the teach .ing of Jesus is
indUbitabiy clear. ''God is a spirit'', He says, ''and they that
It
worship Him 1nust worship Him in spirit and in truth''.
11ee,d scarc ,e1y be said tl1at a. spirit, t.hough invisible and impal pable, is a real s,elf-conscious personality. The communion of
teaching is postulated

Jesus with this Spirit is that of one person with another. He


do,es, not s,p,ealc to Law, n,ot t 0 Energy, nor to, an ind efinab]e
''Something not ou1~selves that maketl1 for right ,eousness'', but
to One with whon1 He is on familiar terms. ''The only begotten Son which is in t}ie b.0so111of the Father, He hath decla1ed Him''.
.
Asj to Divine providence I-Ie speaks i11 no t1,nce1tain tone~
The God whom He unveils is in .and ove1~all. Out on the
hillsides H ,e bi ds t1s ''Consider tl1e lilies,, how tl1ey grow'', and
assures : us that 0~1r Father, ''who eareth f'or tl1em, will muct1
more care for us''. In pursuance of this fact He encourages us
to pray, saying, ''Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye
sl1all find, knock -and it sha]] be opened unto you''. Oh, great
heart of the Infinite, quick to respond to our every cry for
l1elp! The doctrine of prayer, as taught by Jesus, is simplicity
itself. We are to run to God with our longings as children to
their parents; ''For if ye, being evil, know how to give gooc1
gift ,s unto Y'OUr' c.hiidren, how much mor e sha.11you.r Fatl1er
which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him''.
As to th ,e moral attributes of God the tea ching of Jesus is
not only clear but most emphatic; be1c1ause at this point it
toucl1es vitally our eternal welfare. The Divine holiness is
pr ,esented not so .much as .an attribute as the condition of God's
being. It is the light emanating from I-Iis thr 1on e, of whicl1
Christ is the supreme n1anifestatio .n, as He said, ''I am the
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light of the world' ' ; and this light must ever be reflected in
the life of His dis.ciple.s, .as He said, ''Ye a.re the ligl1t of the
world ; let your light so shine before men that they may see
your good works and glorify God''. This holiness is not merely
freedom from moral contamination; but sucl1 a sensit ive, aversion to sin as makes it impossible for God to 100,k with complac1ency upo,n any cre~ture ,vl10 is defiled by it. Hence the
appeal .to the cultivati ,on of .a ho1,y life; since '',vithout holiness
no man sha.lI see Go,d''.
Out of this atm :os.phere of holiness proceed two attributes
\vhi,ch, like op ening arms , embr,ace the world. 0ne of th,em
is Justice, or regard for la\iv. No teacher ever lived, 11ot even
.Mo,,se,s, who emphasized as deeply as d.i,d Jesus t.he integrity of
the mora.1 law. He de,fended not only the law its.elf but th e
penalties affixed to its violation. The Deca1ogue is not so
sev,ere an arraignmen t 0 !sin as the S,ermo n on the , Moun .t,
which rings with the inviolability of law.
The other of the outstretched arm :s is Love. The fullne .ss
of D ivine love is set forth in the words of Jesus: ''When ye
pray sa.y, 'Our Fat .her', .,. It was wisely obs.erve d by Mad .ame
de .Stael that if Jesus had nev,er do,ne an)rthing in the world
except to teach us ''Our Father'' He wo,uld h.ave ,conferred an
inestimable boon upon a11 the children of men. God~s love is
manifest i.n the unceasing gifts of His providence; but its
crowning token is the grace of salvation : ''God so loved the
world that He g3.ve H is only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him shou1d not perish but h.ave everlasting life''.
And the reconciliation between Love and Justice is found
at the Cro .ss, Here ''mercy and truth are me.t togeth ,er ; rigl1teousness and peace have kissed each other''. As law is s.acred
an,d invio1able, i.ts pen .alty m.u st b,e inflicted; it must be. inflict,ed
e1ther upon the maleacto,r 01 upon some competent substitut e
who sha.11volunteer to st1ffer fqr him. It i,s the only begotten
S,on who ,vo]unteers, saying, ''Here am I, send Me!'' The justice ~
'of God is shown in the suff er ,ing inflicted upon His only begot-

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..

..

ten Son; and Hi ,s l,ove is corre ,spondingly shown in 'the proffer


of all tl1e 'be].J.efits of that vicarious suffering to every one on
the so,Je condition of faith.
.

. It pleased God to vindicate Hi~ supre me maj esty before Iiis ,


an cient peop te in the controversy on Carmel. All day the paga?3
p,riests assemb led at their altar cried, . ''O Baal, l1ear us'' : but
t 'here was no voice nor any that regarded. At evening tl1e
lone p ro pl1et of Jel1ov,ah stood be s.ide his altar and calmly n1ade
l1is prayer, ''0 God of Israel, . let it be known tl1is day that
Thou a1t God !'' Was there any tI1at r,egar 'ded? Lo, yonder
in t11e twilight sky a falling fleece of fire! In awe-struclc
silence. t11e people saw it desc ,ending, lower ,and lower, until it
touched the sacrifice and cons11med it. The lo,gic of the argument was ir1esistible: they cried with one accor d, ''Jehovah
i,s the Go,d !''
.
The antitype and parallel of that great controversy is at
Calvary, ,vl1ete Christ, at once the ministering p riest and the
sacrifice upo n tl1e alta1, made I-Iis last prayer with hand s outst retcl1ed upon the cros .s ; and the desce11di11gfire consumed
14im as a wl1.0Ie burnt 0 ffering for the w,orld's sin. The logic,
here .also, is un ,answerable.
In all the world t'her ,e is no othe r
gospel \Vl11cl1
adequately sets fortI1 the Divi11e love* By the
power of truth, by the trii1mph of righteousness, by the logic
of events, by the philosophy of history, by the blood of the
atonement, . let the world answ ,er, ''Our God is the God of
sa lvati o11; and th.ere is none otl1er beside Him !''
Tl1e fai lure of other religions and philosophies has been
grote squely pathetic: The irony of Elijah on C'armel is merely
an ecl10 of ' tl1e D ivine bttrs ,t of laughte ,r out of heaven in
respons ,e to tl1ose who cry ,: ''Let us br eak Hi ,s band asunder
and cast away I-Iis, cor ds f r,o,m us!." He th,at si,tteth in the
I1eavens sha ll laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.
Th ,e pantheo ns cr ,umble an ,d the pri ests die; one altar remains,
to wit, tl1e cross on C'alvary. It is the sole altar and supreme
argum ent of tl1e true God .
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The Knowledge of God

99

But every ,nan must f'or himself make answer to that argument. Each for himself , must figl1t his way into the tru .th. It
is like the grapple which Jacob had with an unseen .antagonist at
'the br ,ookside. As, the, nigl1t wore on he came to under ,stand
that Omnipotence had laid hold upon him. Then came a
sudden ,vrench an ,d Jaco ,b fe'll, disabled. God had thrown him I
H ,e sank a helple ss man, but, clinging still, crie d, ''I will not let
Thee go except Thou b,Iess me l'' And thereupo n the bless ,ing
was given, a blessing which God had waited through the , weary
years to bestow upon him: ''Tl1y name shall be called no mor ,e
Ja ,cob, 'th "e Suppl ,ant ,er', but Is ,rael; for as a, prince hast , thou
pre ,vail ed with Go,d''. Then and , there he rec eive,d his guerdon
0f knighthood and entered in,to the higher lif e. At the clo,se
of that conflict the light of morning was g]owing on the hills of
Edom: how significant the words, ''And the sun arose upon
hi,m I''

,
The new life had begun ; th,e Jong ,quest, was ,over ; Jacob had
found God. And he went his way llll1l()ingon his shrunken
thigh., to bear throu ,gh all the after years the token of ' that
struggle until he came to heaven's gate,. at peace with
.
It is thu s that every man finds God; in a close grapple that
ends 'in self surrender, an 'Utter yielding to the beneficent
power of God.

So true Iif e begins with knowing God. It begins when a


m,an, oppressed by doub t an~ uncerta .inty, hears , His voice,
flaying, ''Reach hitl1er thy hand a11dthrust it into My side,I'' It
begins when, standing under the cross, he realizes, as Luther
did, ''He died for me, for me!'' Then the day breaks and the
shadows flee away. Love conquers doubt, and the soul,, ~
holding the unveiling of the Infinite in the passion of Christ., .
cries out, ' 'l\! y Lord and My God !'' .

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