I married up. Seriously. Hannah is pretty great. She's brilliant, funny, beautiful and confident. If you don't know her yet, you're missing out on the best life has to offer. So, let's say you wanted to get to know Hannah. I've been married to her for over ten years now, so I could write a book detailing everything I know about her. If I try really hard and put a lot of work into the details you could know a whole lot about Hannah by the time you're done reading the book. But you wouldn't know Hannah. Not really. Knowing a person and knowing a lot about a person are two different things, aren't they?
When the bible says that God "knows" us it uses the Greek word GINOSKO rather than the alternate words NOEO or SUNIMI (I'd type the Greek for you, but I don't have the font). They all mean "to know" or "to understand", but the first word has to do with knowing by experience while the latter two have to do with the acquisition of factual data or new dialectic frameworks. The first is a relational word; the others are academic words. That is not to say that there is no overlap in meaning or usage. For example, in Psalm 139, when God is said to "know our thoughts" (before we think them) the Greek word SUNIMI is used to mean "discern", but that is a use exclusive to God. Our thoughts are as present in his mind as they are in our own, and at the same time. Obviously we don't have the same openness with our fellow humans. If we did there would be no such thing as individuality; how would I be able to distinguish between my thoughts and yours? Just a verse before that in Psalm 139 God is said to have known us (EGNOS). He knows us because he lives with us in dynamic relationship. We know him because we experience the reality of his presence.
But there is a difficultly here: we confess as part of orthodox belief that God is transcendent. He exists beyond space and time. If there is no space and time for God, if all of his actions and activities can said to be both actualized AND eternal, how can we relate to him at all? On what basis? There is no spaceo-temporal playing field, no common ground where interaction with mortal creatures could take place. This is the reason why the Greco-Roman world had no concept of a personal god; their philosophy would not allow for it. Unfortunately, neither does ours, which is why many people continue to deny God's existence on purely academic grounds.
This is why the bible is so extraordinary. It reveals God who intervenes in history, from the election of Israel through God's ultimate rescue plan in the life and work of Jesus. Over and over in the New Testament God says that we cannot know him except through Jesus. This is not a metaphor or a simple restatement of the Gospel message; God means it to be taken literally. No mental process, no way of thinking or philosophical framework will allow for an understanding of God. He is impenetrable darkness. Christ is the light. He is the very image of God. He is everything God means for us to know about him. Everything else is just educated guesswork.
You will not KNOW God by hearing others talk about him. You will not KNOW God by reading the bible over and over again. You will not KNOW God by sitting in a pew or chair in any church anywhere on any Sunday morning. You will acquire data, much of it of a very good and useful sort. You will learn theology and doctrine, both good things as well. All of it will lead you all the way to the edge, where you will be required to leap across a chasm of infinite width. You must KNOW him, and to do that you must accept that you can never know him by means of careful study, via the proper application of the scientific method or rigorous logic. You must accept God has he presents himself to you in the person of Jesus, whether you understand it or not. You must accept the love that he offers and not make it harder than it is. You must trust that what he says about himself in the life, death and resurrection of Christ is the fullest Truth, and when it conflicts with your philosophy, then philosophy gives way.
In short, you must experience him. Don't place experience in tension with the way God reveals himself in scripture. Don't do crazy stuff that's not in the bible, in other words, then defend it with the assertion that your experience is just as valid as anything that's in the bible. It's not. On the other hand, you can't have a relationship with the bible. Don't try. It gets weird really fast. It's both/and, not either/or. As we say a lot around here, the bible is the menu, not the meal.
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