Knowing the Father Through the Son (1 of 2)

The Quality, the Shape, and the Depth of the Relationship John 17:3 Describes

“The Lord says, “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, and let not the rich man boast of his riches. But if someone wants to boast, let him boast about this: that he has the insight to know me, that I am the Lord who acts with faithful love, justice, and righteousness on the earth, for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.”

— Jeremiah 9:23–24 (NET)

The Boast That God Endorses

Centuries before John 17:3, God spoke through Jeremiah and identified the one thing that a human being has genuine grounds to boast about. Not wisdom. Not strength. Not wealth. “Let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me.”

The knowing of God is presented in Scripture not as one achievement among many but as the achievement — the thing that makes all other achievements either meaningful or meaningless. Wisdom apart from knowing God is the wisdom of Ecclesiastes — vanity, a chasing after the wind. Strength apart from knowing God is Samson — spectacularly gifted, catastrophically undone. Wealth apart from knowing God is the rich fool of Luke 12 — barns full, soul empty, and a night coming when everything will be required of him.

The knowing is not a supplement to a well-constructed life. It is the foundation without which every other construction is futile. And yet the contemporary church treats it as one spiritual discipline among many — one more thing to add to the list alongside Scripture reading, prayer, service, and giving. It is not one more thing on the list. It is what gives everything else on the list its meaning.

The Shape of the Knowing: What God Reveals About Himself

Jeremiah 9:24 does not merely endorse the knowing of God in the abstract. It specifies what the knowing consists of: “that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth.” The knowing is not mystical absorption into an impersonal divine. It is the knowing of a Person who has revealed Himself — whose character is described in Scripture with specificity: kindness, justice, righteousness. These are not metaphors. They are attributes. They describe the actual character of the actual God who actually exists.

This is where the knowing differs fundamentally from every other kind of spiritual experience the culture offers. Eastern mysticism pursues the dissolution of the self into an undifferentiated divine consciousness. New Age spirituality pursues the alignment of the self with impersonal cosmic energy. Therapeutic religion pursues an experience of divine warmth that confirms the self as it is. None of these is knowing. Knowing requires a real Person on the other end of the relationship — a Person who is genuinely other than you, who does not simply reflect your preferences back at you, whose character is fixed and independent of your perception of it, and who has taken the initiative to make Himself known.

The God of Scripture has taken that initiative. He revealed His name to Moses (Exodus 3:14). He revealed His character to Israel through centuries of covenant faithfulness. He revealed His face in Jesus of Nazareth — “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). He revealed His innermost purposes to His disciples in the Upper Room. He has given His Spirit to dwell in every believer and illuminate the written Word He inspired. The knowing is available because the known One has relentlessly pursued the knowing relationship. You did not find God. He found you.

Five Qualities of the Knowing Relationship

What does the knowing that John 17:3 describes actually feel like in practice? What are its qualities? What distinguishes it from lesser forms of religious engagement? Scripture describes this relationship across both Testaments, and five qualities emerge consistently.

One: It Is Initiated by God, Not by the Disciple

The knowing begins with the Father’s initiative. John 6:44: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.” 1 John 4:19: “We love because he first loved us.” John 15:16: “You did not choose me, but I chose you.”

This is not a passive observation about salvation history. It is a present-tense reality about the dynamic of the knowing relationship. Every movement toward God in genuine prayer, every illumination of Scripture that opens understanding, every prompting of the Spirit that produces obedience — these are not the disciple’s initiatives answered by a responsive God. They are God’s initiatives, responded to by a disciple who has learned to recognize them.

The practical implication is humility in the knowing relationship. The disciple who works hard at knowing God, who disciplines himself toward intimacy with the Father, who persists in prayer and Scripture and worship — this disciple is not impressing God with his spiritual effort. He is cooperating with the Father’s prior and primary movement toward him. The effort is real and necessary. But the initiative is God’s. The disciple who forgets this produces religious striving. The disciple who receives this produces grateful response.

Two: It Is Personal and Particular

The knowing described in John 17:3 is not generic. It is not the knowing of a category or a concept. It is the knowing of specific Persons — “you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ.”

And the knowing is mutual. Jesus says in John 10:14: “I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” The knowing the disciple has of Jesus is modeled on the knowing the Son has of the Father — the most intimate, complete, and eternal knowing relationship that exists in the universe. That is the template.

You are known by name. Jesus told the parable of the shepherd and said: “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” (John 10:3) Not by category. By name. The God who made the stars and named them (Psalm 147:4) knows the name of every person who belongs to Him, and the knowing is particular to each one. Your knowing of God is not identical to another disciple’s knowing of God. It is shaped by your specific history with Him, your specific suffering, your specific failures and restorations, your specific gifts and callings. The Father’s knowing of you is complete and particular. Your knowing of Him grows toward the same completeness, one year at a time.

Three: It Grows Through Obedience

The knowing relationship is not static. It is dynamic. And it grows through specific means.

Jesus identifies obedience as the primary instrument of deepening knowing: “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” (John 14:21)

The mechanism is explicit: keeping the commands produces love, love produces the Father’s love in return, and the result is that Jesus shows Himself — εμφανίζω (emphanizō), to make visible, to disclose, to reveal personally.

This is not the showing of a vision or an audible voice necessarily. It is the progressive, experiential disclosure of the character of Jesus to the person who is obeying Him. The disciple who obeys the command to love enemies discovers, in the act of loving them, something about the character of a God who loved His enemies from the cross. The disciple who obeys the command to forgive discovers, in the act of releasing the debt, something about the character of a God who released an infinite debt. Obedience is not separate from the knowing. It is the primary pathway into it.