“Learning the Truth in Jesus”

In my last posting, we asked, “What is God Really Like?” The pathway to discover the answer to this question is two-fold. Foundationally, He is revealed in the written Word of God – the Bible. The Bible is God’s self-disclosure. It is inspired and profitable to reveal and relate the truth about God to our lives.

More particularly, the true knowledge of God, as we saw last time, is revealed in the incarnate Word of God -- Jesus. God came down and walk among us, taught us, modeled what God was really like right in front of us. The four gospels are the in-depth source for discovering the glory of God in flesh.

To know Jesus is to know God. Let’s try the opposite: Failure to know Jesus leads to a failure to know what God is truly like.

Today, many “cultural Christians” have succumbed to an inaccurate caricature of “God.” And the world scoffs at this misrepresentation of “God” the lukewarm church seems to embrace. He is presented as hard, demanding, impatient, controlling, disappointed, uninvolved, intolerant, etc. This resembles the bad experience many have had with their earthly dads, from which they have become damaged and distant. And what one’s carnal nature desires has a warping effect on how we choose to view God.

But when we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, this caricature melts away. What we see in Jesus, we will see to be true of our heavenly Father. We will come face to Face with the true, glorious nature of God. We will taste afresh and see just how good our Lord God truly is.

Now, what difference will it make? As we study of the character of Christ, the God-Man, and discover the glory of our heavenly Father, how will this truth revolutionize the way we relate to Him?

The Lord reminded me of the phrase, “But you did not so learn Christ.” That intrigued me. I was recalling the King James wording. Here is a mechanical layout of the context from the NASB.

Ephesians 4:17-24. 17 So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, . . .

 in the futility of their mind,

 18 being darkened in their understanding,

 excluded from the life of God because of the

 ignorance that is in them, because of the

 hardness of their heart; 19 and they, having become

 callous, have given themselves over to

 sensuality for the practice of every kind of

 impurity with

 greediness.

20 But you did not learn Christ in this way,

21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Here, then, is the practical, transformational result of studying Jesus to discover clearly what God is like. We can become renewed in the spirit of our minds, resulting in loving God as He truly is, and becoming renewed in His likeness. To know God in truth opens our way to godliness, to Christlikeness. It will bring us into a deepening experience of the lavish love that God has for us. That changes everything!