b. The Truth About God

Paul's life also illustrates what it means to know God. Previously, he knew much about God, but he didn't know God. Indeed he could not know God, because he was still dead in his sins and thus the enemy of God. Sin is enmity toward God. Therefore God cannot be friends with his unrepentant and unreconciled enemies.

God is holy, pure, good, righteous, just and excellent in every way. But just knowing about him alone is of little value. The demons know about God yet are condemned. We must know God in a right relationship. "Now this is eternal life: that they may know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent" (John [the Injil] 17:3).

Notice that knowing the only true God is inextricable bound up with knowing Isa al-Maseeh. God has forbidden man-made images in the Taurat (Exodus [the second book of the prophet Moses in the Taurat] 20:4-6) not because all images are wrong, but because sinful men can only misrepresent his holy perfection. Only he himself can accurately and perfectly represent himself. He has done so uniquely and perfectly in his only son Isa al-Maseeh: "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets t amny times and invarious ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, Sustaining all things by his powerful word" (Hebrews [in the Injil] 1:1-3).