The following is an excerpt from a recent sermon preached at Victory Baptist Church, by pastor Josh Sommer.
I now want to distinguish between different kinds of knowing. The first type of knowledge mentioned in our text is what some call head knowledge. And the second is what is often called heart knowledge. I do not like these terms, since the head and heart are necessarily engaged with one another, constantly. And there is no separation. What is often called head knowledge is most properly understood as what is known by the intellect. And what is often called heart knowledge should be understood as the will as it is moved by the intellect. There is a third type of knowledge, which is acquired through God’s Word, but is also not a saving knowledge, which is the kind of knowledge to which our text refers when it says, “Know the LORD.”
We need to dig further into these three kinds of knowledge. The first is what might be called a legal knowledge of God. The second is experimental knowledge, which comes only through the gospel as it’s affected in the hearts of men through the new birth. There is a third kind of knowledge which is more fundamental to both of these called natural knowledge of God, and we will briefly speak of it also.
The first kind of knowledge is legal knowledge of God. Scripture often refers to this kind of knowledge through use of the word γινώσκω. Many of the Jews of old had a mere legal knowledge of God, as Paul indicates in Romans 10:2-3—
For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
Second Peter 2:21 implies the same kind of knowledge when Peter writes, “For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.” Legal knowledge is what people often refer to as head knowledge. But a better way to understand legal knowledge is to consider a person who knows what they ought to do, but their wills have not been inclined to do it. They do not trust in the truths they’ve learned, they’ve but memorized them. Many know the law of God, but they do not trust in its goodness and wisdom, so they do not do it. Many know the gospel, but they lack the willingness to bend the knee to Christ. Legal knowledge is knowledge without a goal. Legal knowledge is a knowledge not acted upon, not lived according unto, not developed, improved, obeyed. Legal knowledge is, one might say, a dead knowledge, part and parcel with a dead faith.
The second kind of knowledge is experimental knowledge. This is the meat, the stuff we ought to long to sink our mental teeth into. Experimental knowledge begins as a head knowledge (to use a poor but familiar term), but it doesn’t remain head knowledge. Experimental knowledge is the kind of knowledge that animates our minds and bodies to obedience. This is the kind of knowledge which comes through the New Covenant, which our text promises. Legal knowledge knows only what, but experimental knowledge knows both what and how—what to do, and how to do it. Most simply, experimental knowledge could also be called wisdom. Experimental knowledge doesn’t only know the fact of the gospel, but it trusts in the fact of the gospel. It’s the difference between acknowledging the existence of a chair, and not only acknowledging it but trusting it so as to actually sit down in it.
Experimental knowledge is that knowledge of the gospel I’ve alluded to many times throughout various sermons. It is the kind of knowledge wherein the intellect actually determines what we do. Speaking of experimental theology in terms of preaching, Joel Beeke defines it as follows:
Experimental preaching seeks to explain the Holy Spirit’s saving work in believers in terms of biblical truth as to how spiritual matters ought to go, how they do go, and what the goal is of the Christian life. It aims to apply divine truth to the whole range of the believer’s personal experience as well as to his relationships with family, the church, and the world around him.[1]
This experimental knowledge is that knowledge which is here introduced in our text, and promised in the New Covenant. To know God experimentally is not only to know Him as a matter of fact—for many unsaved persons know God as a matter of fact (e.g. Judas Iscariot); but it is to know God and to live according to His divine will. And this divine will, we’ve seen, is written on the hearts of New Covenant members, and it’s on this basis that they not only know God propositionally or factually, but also experimentally.
There is a third kind of knowledge which I’ve mentioned from time to time. It is most basic to both legal and experimental knowledge types because it precedes them both. Natural knowledge, or natural theology, is the first knowledge of God man comes into contact with, and he comes into contact with it through what has been made, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse (Rom. 1:20).” This kind of knowledge is also represented in the Greek by the term γινώσκω. It is similar to legal knowledge in that it consists of only an apprehension of facts by man’s mind or intellect. But it differs from legal knowledge in that legal knowledge may include things only revealed in the Scriptures, such as the ceremonial law, whereas natural knowledge includes facts about God known through nature. For one to have natural knowledge of God, they do not need to know the Scriptures.
Now, natural theology consists in the knowledge that God is one (Deut. 6:4), and it also observes several attributes of God known through what has been made, such as His goodness, wisdom, and power. But there are things natural knowledge cannot attain. For example, that God is triune cannot be known through nature. That God created in six days and not ten days cannot be known through nature. Through nature, we cannot know the Son as the Son, nor can we apprehend His saving work which is necessary for our redemption. This is why the pagan philosophers knew many things about God through nature—they often had a fantastic natural theology—but none of it was enough to reconcile them to His holiness. And pagans they remained.
Legal, experimental, and natural knowledge types are those which we’ve just covered. In our text, we see both legal knowledge, that is, the knowledge under the Old Covenant, and experimental knowledge, or the knowledge promised under the New Covenant. Natural knowledge is not immediately in our text, but while speaking on knowledge of God, we had an opportunity to look at it.
Resources:
Joel Beeke, Puritan Reformed Theology, (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2020), 301.
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