1Co 2:11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
1Co 2:12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. (ESV)
Does it make any sense for a Father to have his own children to be without the capacity to know their own Father?
Where do you think the Church has been translated to? Where is the Church right this second sitting?
"Little children ye know the father and your sins are forgiven ,,," 1John. Praised the Lord.
Little children do know their fathers loves them and provides for them ,that he goes in and comes out ,But they do not know what word he does as it were. In truth little children know their mother more than their father and it takes a growing maturity to develop and know the father .
"Young men the word of God abides in you ,and ye have overcome the wicked one"
Little children can be easily deceived young men in whom the Word of God dwelleth richly not so . For they have "by practice come to know good from evil"
A young man knows the father far better than when you was a little child.
When sons used to follow in their fathers footsteps in their trade or business ,Then the father taught them and "what they saw the father do that they did also " Little children " do not know as yet what thier father is about . They do but know more or less his works.
But then what of "Ye fathers ,ye know Him who is f rom the beginning"?
If" ye know the father " do ye not know him who is from the beginning? Well they are one and the same but clearly not.
For a "father" is not a "little child"
You may well ask then ,what is a father? but that is for another post .
But clearly there is more to God than we know and I would argue that the church in general does not know God as it thinks it does . and most certainly there is an awful lot of Gods people who do not know Him who is from the beginning .On the very simple grounds that most do not believe Him who was in the beginning . and wsho gave HIS record as to how he created the heavcn and the earth .
The scripture says "what knoweth the things of man save the spirit that is in man "
Meaning men know men because of the spirit that is in men . the things of men is not the same as the thoughts of men at all .
it is the Word of God that discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart .
Likewise then what knoweth the things of God save the Spirit of God?
Only the Son knoweth the father and only the Father knoweth the SON.
When the Lord said at the last supper I go to the father . Andrew replied show us the father . The Lord replied "Have I been with you so long ,,,, that you do not know me "?
When the Mary said she believed that Jesus would raise up lazerus from the dead at the ressurection. Jesus replied I AM the ressurection and the life"
Mary and the disciples both knew the Lord but not as they could have or should have .
Are we not to grow in grace and in the knowledge of God?
Then it takes time to know Him who is from the beginning .
Abrahams growing knowledge of God progressed from "God almighty" to God everlasting" to "God the most high " to the "Just judge and moral governor of the whole universe"
It took time for him to know Gods ways .
I should add that this sort of "knowing" is the same sort of knowing as "Adam knew his wife" Expereintially.
It is not the intellectual knowing of facts . or about a thing.
I do not then deny that we cannot know the things of God I simply say that Abraham grew in the things of God and he is our father " for if we are Christs then are we of Abrahams seed and heirs according to the promise"
in Christ
gerald