Being known

But Paul knows even more about the one-ness of this God. As he says, this one-ness is the oneness of God the Father from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live...That is, the God of Israel is now to be known as the Father of Jesus Christ – revealed in the gospel of the messiah. His exclusivity as the source of all life and existence, and directedness of all things, including our lives, towards him is now revealed in Jesus. You could see his purpose for the world there, in Jesus, in his death for sin and resurrection from the dead. This is the very character of his oneness, its very heartbeat: that he has acted in Jesus Christ, the Lord, to bring us life.


Unlike the idols, and their alleged ‘gods’ – who knows, after all, what they are or if they exist or not! – Jesus is alive. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself – so closely aligned to Christ that we now know God by a new name – the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. The title ‘Lord’ is now applied to Jesus Christ without blasphemy – so close is their identity. He may receive our worship without compromising the very oneness of God on which the faith of Israel was built. You could still recite Deuteronomy 6:4 and declare with your lips ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’. In fact, the very oneness that Israel declared was most fully revealed in the unity of Jesus with his Father in the purpose of reconciling the world to himself.


This was not the one-ness of the Greek philosophers, the oneness of the One, an abstract and impersonal principle, pure, still, unmoving. This is not at all the same oneness of Allah - irascible, distant, transcendent. This is the oneness of Father with the Son and the Spirit – whose plans are brought about and are being brought about in the midst of human history and make possible the reconciliation to God of people from every tribe and tongue.


This is no mere knowledge. This is not a philosophy: as Paul says, in fact The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God. That is, the oneness of the true God which means the defeat of the idols means the overthrow of all kinds of false worship including even the pride of a knowledge that puffs up. It is not so much a matter of knowing, but of being known, it turns out.