The First Word: Knowing

In John 17:3, on the night He was betrayed, praying to the Father in the hearing of the eleven, Jesus gave the definition:

"Now this is eternal life – that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent." — John 17:3 (NET)

The Greek word behind know is ginōskō. It is not the word for the possession of information. It is the word for the dynamic, developing, relational knowing of persons — the knowing that only comes through sustained presence and connection, not through study alone. It is present tense and continuous action: not have known, not will know, but know — right now, ongoing, in the present moment of every moment.

The same word appears in the Septuagint — the Greek translation of the Old Testament — to describe how Adam knew Eve. Not merely physical intimacy, but the deep mutual knowing of two persons living close to each other across time. The knowing of Genesis 4:1 is not information about Eve. It is Adam in relation to Eve, present with her, known by her. This is the word Jesus used to define eternal life.

Eternal life is not a destination secured. It is not a transaction that happened once in the past and requires nothing of you now. It is not a status carried the way you carry a membership card. It is a relationship you are in — or are not in — right now. The branch drawing from the vine. The child in the Father's house. The knowing of persons, not propositions.

And John names the One being known:

"The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love." — 1 John 4:8 (NET)

Not love as an emotion. Not love as a spiritual practice. Love as the nature of God — what He is, not only what He gives. The knowing of John 17:3 is the knowing of the One whose very being is love. This is why the fruit-test John gives is love: not because love is an arbitrary requirement, but because you cannot genuinely know the God who is love and remain untouched by what He is. The knowing produces the love, the way the vine's life produces fruit at the branch's extremities. Where the love is absent, John says plainly, the knowing has not occurred — whatever the claim.

The practical consequence is severe. A person can know an enormous amount about God — the doctrines, the arguments, the history, the correct answers on the catechism — and be holding something the size of a folder of notes where a relationship was supposed to be. The notes are not nothing. But they are not the knowing. And Jesus said, plainly, that the people He turned away in Matthew 7 had done extraordinary things in His name — prophecy, deliverance, powerful works — and the verdict over all of it was not you had the wrong theology. The verdict was I never knew you. The word is ginōskō. They had activity. They had correct identification of the name. They did not have the relationship, and the relationship was the only thing that would have mattered at that moment.