Transformed By His Glory – Part 3: To Know the Unknowable

Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life’s problems fall into place of their own accord….What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance, and this the Christian has in a way that no other person has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God?   J.I. Packer – Knowing God

One of the most challenging issues I faced during my 30 years of managing blue-collar work environments was the problem of racial prejudice in the workplace. Early in my career I just didn’t get it. I listened to and tried to address the concerns and issues brought to me by African-American workers, but I was unable to comprehend the basis for their grievances. As a result, I did not acknowledge the problem, settling instead on the opinion that the problem simply did not exist. I thought the minority representatives who brought these issues to me were perhaps oversensitive and judgmental of their white co-workers. My assessment was based on the only perspective I knew – the perspective of a white man, in a white man’s workplace, in a white man’s world.

Yet, with every successive employer I served, I found the complaints of racial bias to be equally pervasive and strikingly similar. This contradiction of perceptions weighed heavily on my mind. I became convinced that I was missing some key piece of knowledge or experience. How was I to be fair and impartial to all parties concerned when the experience of being a black worker in Springfield, Missouri was, for all practical purposes, unknowable to me?

The answer to this question can be described by a single word: ‘revelation’ – the uncovering of something which had been previously covered and therefore unknowable. Over the course of time, I became good friends with some of the African-American workers who were in my line of responsibility. As our friendships grew, they began to speak to me in confidence as if to a friend, rather than with the distrust generally rendered to a boss. They revealed to me the subtle signs and indicators of the racism they faced every day, both in the workplace and outside of it. They made an effort to communicate to me the realities of their world and the realities with which their families dealt on a daily basis living in a predominately white community. They were intentional to communicate clearly and in forms I could understand. I began to see the contour of everyday life through their eyes and through the life experiences they related to me. As a result, I began to comprehend their struggles and I saw much more clearly the workplace issues they faced. It was a perspective I could never have attained on my own. I am thankful those friends spoke to me, and not just that they spoke to me, but that they spoke to me with the intent that I understand the message.

There are some things that are just not knowable unless they are revealed to us in some way. Indeed, this statement would appear to be a self-evident axiom. However, being the egocentric creatures that we humans are, most of us seem to have great difficulty accepting its veracity. We habitually, and most often inaccurately, apply our very limited knowledge and experience to the formation of firm and lasting opinions about all manner of people and situations for which we have very little authentic knowledge and understanding. The set of facts or experiences that must necessarily be present in order to form an accurate judgement may exist, but their presence is unknown to us, fixed somewhere out beyond our sphere of knowledge and observation. Thus we assume they do not exist – that is, until someone or some situation reveals them to us. It is only then that we can gain a true understanding – only then that we can begin to know the unknowable.

The vast majority of people in this world rely on false and inaccurate assumptions when forming their concept of God. In doing so they unavoidably settle upon a fraudulent view of the nature of God and the nature of His dealings with mankind, a view from which they are often not easily moved. Or, by ignoring the logic of causality, they simply deny God’s existence altogether. The deity and power of God are clearly revealed in creation, yet those two truths alone do not provide answers to questions regarding our own human condition. None of us, for instance, can discern a reason for the existence of pain and suffering in the world merely by staring at a picturesque landscape. It is impossible. Yet many attempt to do just that, inevitably setting the foundation for a fallacious and distorted theology. In order for man to truly know God, it is necessary for God to speak to man.

God has indeed spoken to us, and He has spoken with the intent that we understand His message. Why? Because He wants us to know Him. To know God, to discern Him as He is in truth, is to behold His glory. The discernment of truth about God is an utter impossibility if God does not initiate its revelation, and it is perfectly reasonable to expect that He would indeed move to reveal Himself to His created beings. Moreover, it is reasonable to assume that He would do so with the intent that He should be plainly understood in the things He has chosen for mankind to know.

Such an understanding, however, does not lay itself before us as if it were possible to be grasped by mere intuition or instinct. It is, in fact, contrary to our sinful nature to attempt to grasp a genuine knowledge of a holy God. While it is true that God draws the elect to Himself, it is equally true that some measure of personal attention and effort on our part must be applied to move the rudder of our souls to a course which will steer us to Him. In his essay titled “The Weight of Glory,” C.S. Lewis addresses what I believe is the characteristic human weakness which hinders us with regard to our pursuit of a knowledge of God:

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. 

The apprehension of the glory of God is not achieved by half-hearted efforts, much less no effort at all, which seems to be the expectation of so many professing believers. God does not display the fullness of His glory as if it were a blockbuster movie to be played out on the widescreen of a modern theater for the enjoyment of passive and pampered viewers munching popcorn in padded reclining seats. God has revealed His glory by speaking to us from the depths of His heart. His speech, however, is in a language that we must study and learn if we are to comprehend His majesty in ever-increasing degrees. This language of God has a name. In fact, it has a name above all names.

That name is Jesus.