Of all the places to turn for cold hard facts and undeniable reality, theology might seem the least likely. Yet science and technology, which some few decades ago were regarded as indisputably reliable, have not only let us down but, especially with the advent of AI, also make increasing numbers of people question what even is reality. Generations of scepticism about the reliability of the Bible have only cycled us through the failures of other competing sources of knowledge, and have not brought us to any better clarity or wisdom. Hugh Binning, the gifted Glasgow philosopher turned pastor, identified God as the one great reality. Furthermore, when God makes Himself known in the Bible His revelation is both reliable and, as Binning points out, relational. It’s not only that we can arrive at genuine certainty about God (and ourselves, and the way of salvation). It’s also that this knowledge draws out a response of devotion to God which expresses itself in very practical ways. Too much of theology as practiced by theologians is, Binning hints, abstract and irrelevant. The real point of finally recognising reality is not to congratulate ourselves on our new-found certainty but to consecrate ourselves to God. Binning explains more in the following updated extract from a sermon on 1 John 2:3.

The apostle John says that the designation of a true Christian is the knowledge of God, and the designation of true knowledge is obedience to His commands. “Hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3).

We should labour to bring our light to the lamp of the Word, and our knowledge to this testimony of unquestionable authority. When we have recourse to “the law and the testimony,” then we will find out if there is light in us, or as much light as people think they see. If we could only open our eyes to the shining light of the Scriptures, we would be able to see that much of the so-called light of this age is darkness and ignorance. I don’t mean only the errors that come out under the guise of “new light,” but especially the ordinary familiarity with the truth of the gospel, which, in comparison with the true metal of the knowledge of God, has been badly contaminated by the mixture of the gross darkness of our affections and lifestyle.

“Hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.” Here then, in a narrow circle, we have all the work and business of a Christian. Our direct and principal duty is to know God and keep His commandments — which are not two distinct duties, but make up the one complete work of Christianity, which consists in conformity to God. Then the reflex and secondary duty of a Christian, which makes for his comfort, is to know that he knows God. To know God and keep His commands is a thing of indispensable necessity to the very being of a Christian. To know that we know Him is of great concernment to the comfort and well-being of a Christian. Without the first, you are as miserable as you can be without the sense and feeling of misery, because you lack the spring of all happiness. Without the second, a Christian is unhappy, for the present, though he may not be called miserable, because he is more happy than he realises, and only unhappy because he does not know his happiness.

Christians really know the real God

Knowledge is so natural to the human spirit that the desire for it is restless and insatiable. But since the fall, knowledge has taken a journey far from human nature and has not left any footprints behind it to be found out again. This is the case even in the things that are most obvious to our senses, but our darkness is much more increased in spiritual things, because of the dullness and earthliness of our spirits. God Himself should be the primum intelligible of the soul (the first and principal object, whose glorious light should first strike into our hearts), yet Job testifies, “How little a portion is known of him!”

In natural things, we have one veil of darkness in our minds to hinder us, but in the things of God, we have a twofold darkness to break through — the darkness of ignorance in us, and “the darkness of too much light” in Him, which makes Him as inaccessible to us as the other.

This is why those holy ones who know most of God think they know the least, because they see more to be known, but infinitely surpassing knowledge. Pride is the daughter of ignorance, for he who does not know his own ignorance, supposing he knows ever so much, is the greatest ignoramus.

Knowing reality has definite effects

The true knowledge of God does not consist so much in grasping points of theology, as in a serious grasp and conception of the divine majesty which kindles into flame the two affections of love and hatred toward their proper objects. It is a knowledge that carries the torch before the affection — a light that shines into the heart and transmits warmth into it until it burns in the love of God and the loathing of oneself.

As long as you only hear of God in sermons, or read of Him in books, you can maintain a good opinion of yourself, and your knowledge only “puffs you up” in vanity. Ordinarily, those who doubt least are not the ones most free from error and misunderstandings. And when you seriously reflect on the difficulty of knowledge, and the darkness of our minds, and the general curse of vanity and vexation on everything (so that what is lacking cannot be numbered, nor what is crooked made straight), then you can’t help seeing the dangers of excessive confidence on a par with a race being run at full speed on a dark night on a track full of pits and snares. Our level of confidence too often flows not from the evidence of truth, but from the ignorance of our minds; it is built not so much on the strength of reason as the strength of our emotions and the weakness of our judgment.

But if ever you come to see God and know Him in a living manner, then you see your own weakness and vileness in that light, and you cry out, like Isaiah, “Woe is me! I am a man of polluted lips!” Then you discern in that light the beauty and loveliness of God, and it ravishes your heart after it. Then, as Jeremiah says, you will not glory in riches, or strength, or beauty, or wisdom, but only in this, that you have at last got some sight of the only fountain of happiness. Then you don’t think so much of tongues and prophesyings and knowledge of controversies — gifts of body or mind, or the external appendages of providence, don’t much affect you. You would be content to trample on all of these to get into a fuller discovery and enjoyment of God Himself.

If we search the Scriptures, we find that they do not entertain us with many and subtle discourses on God’s nature or decrees or properties; nor do they spend much time on the many perplexed questions that are raised about Christ and His offices, about which so many volumes are churned out, to the infinite distraction of the Christian world. The Scriptures do not claim to satisfy your curiosity, but to edify your soul. That’s why they display God in Christ, clothed with all His relations to mankind, in all those plain and easy properties, which concern us everlastingly — His justice, mercy, grace, patience, love, holiness, and suchlike.

From this I gather that the true knowledge of God does not consist in comprehending all the conclusions that are deduced and controversies that are discussed, but rather in the serious and solid grasp of God as He relates to us, and consequently in order and with reference to our hearts being moved to love, and adore, and reverence Him. Scripture holds Him out to us only in those garments that are fit to move and affect our hearts.

It is possible for someone to know all these things, and yet not know God Himself, for knowing Him cannot be abstracted from loving Him. ‘They that know thy name will trust in thee,’ and so love thee and fear thee. For it is impossible but that this will be the natural result, if only He is known in reality, because there is nothing more attractive (and at the same time more terrible) and more eligible and worthy of our choice. Infinite beauty and goodness, and infinite power and greatness, and infinite sufficiency and fullness, are combined together with infinite truth, and so the soul that really grasps Him at all cannot but grasp Him as the most ravishing, and the most to be revered too. If someone doesn’t find their soul appropriately affected, it is a clear demonstration that they don’t really grasp God, but only an idol. The infinite Light, and the infinite Life, are simply one, and anyone who sees the one cannot but be warmed and moved by the other.

Real knowing leads to practical obedience

But everyone claims that they know God! The self-love in people’s hearts is such that it makes them blind in judging themselves. Therefore, the Holy Spirit not only designates a Christian by the knowledge of God, but also characterises knowledge by keeping the commandments. “Hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.”

So religion is not defined by a number of opinions, or by a collection of articles of faith, but rather by practice and obedience to the known will of God. This is because knowledge is a duty in relation to something else — it is instrumental to something else — it is not principally intended for itself, but for obedience.

Some things that we study are entirely theoretical; others are practical. Perhaps some may think that Scripture, or theology, is mainly theoretical, as there are so many mysteries enfolded in it which don’t seem to concern our practice in any way. I accept that much that is drawn from the Scriptures is like that, but I rather think that all that is in the Scriptures themselves has the practice of God’s will as its objective, either directly or eventually. Either it prescribes our obedience, or else it engages our affections and secures our obedience. Those exalted discourses about God, His nature and properties, His works and the mysteries included in them, are all directed towards this end — further than the mere knowing of them, engaging the heart of a believer to more love and reverence and adoration of God, so that he may be brought more easily to a sweet compliance and harmonious agreement with the will of God in all His ways.

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