Do You Know Jesus, Or Only About Jesus?
2 Corinthians 13:5 (KJV)
Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.
Do you know Christ as Savior, Redeemer & Friend, or only know about Christ?
Philip Melanchthon's Preface to Loci Communes Theologici of 1521
If a man know nothing of the power of sin, of law, or of grace, I do not see how I can call him a Christian. It is there that Christ is truly known. The knowledge of Christ is to know his benefits, taste his salvation, and experience his grace; it is not, as the academic people say, to reflect on his natures and the modes of his incarnation. If you do not know the practical purpose for which he took flesh and went to the cross what is the good of knowing his story? . . . He is given us as our remedy, or, in the Bible’s phrase, our salvation. And we must know him in another way than the scholars. To know him to purpose is to know the demand of the conscience for holiness, the source of power to meet it, where to seek grace for our sins’ failure, how to set up the sinking soul in the face of the world, the flesh, and the devil, how to console the conscience broken.
Octavius Winslow Daily Walking With God
Oh, look well to your faith! There must be, in true faith, not only an assent, but also a consent. In believing to the saving of the soul, we not only assent to the truth of the Scripture, but we also consent to take Christ as He is there set forth - the sinner's reconciliation with God. (Romans 5:10-11, 2 Corinthians 5:18) A mere intellectual illumination, or a historical belief of the facts of the Bible, will never place the soul beyond the reach of hell, nor within the gates of heaven.
On Matthew 7:21-23 "I never knew you..."
There may be in an individual's frame of mind and outward conduct much that bears a strong affinity and resemblance to many of the positive evidences of the new birth, without a single step towards that state having been taken. There may be, as regards the state of mind, a deep and clear knowledge of Divine truth, a strongly enlightened judgment, and a sound and scriptural creed. There shall be a strong attachment to, and a zealous maintenance of, some of the distinguishing doctrines of grace—even a desire to hear of Christ, and an ability to judge between sound and unsound preaching, and all the while the heart shall be encased in the hardness of impenitence and unbelief—a stranger to the regenerating influence of the Spirit of God.
G. Campbell Morgan “The Turning Again of Peter”
The faith which saves is not faith in anything heard about Jesus, but faith in Jesus.
A.W. Pink “Experimental Salvation” (or “the inward workings of God’s grace”)
“That which distinguishes genuine godliness from human religiousness is this: the one is external, the other internal. A carnal religion is all on the surface. It is at the heart God looks and with the heart God deals.”
https://www.the-highway.com/articleJan09.html
It is greatly to be feared that there are multitudes in Christendom who verily imagine and sincerely believe that they are among the saved, yet who are total strangers to a work of divine grace in their hearts. It is one thing to have clear intellectual conceptions of God's truth, it is quite another matter to have a personal, real heart acquaintance with it. It is one thing to believe that sin is the awful thing that the Bible says it is, but it is quite another matter to have a holy horror and hatred of it in the soul. It is one thing to know that God requires repentance, it is quite another matter to experimentally mourn and groan over our vileness. It is one thing to believe that Christ is the only Savior for sinners, it is quite another matter to really trust Him from the heart. It is one thing to believe that Christ is the Sum of all excellency, it is quite another matter to love HIM above all others. It is one thing to believe that God is the great and holy One, it is quite another matter to truly reverence and fear Him. It is one thing to believe that salvation is of the Lord, it is quite another matter to become an actual partaker of it through His gracious workings.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
Matthew 6:25-34 "Do not worry about your life..."
There are certain questions which we should always be putting to ourselves. Do I face the things that happen to me in this world as the (unbelievers) do? When there are difficulties...how do I face them? Is my reaction just like that of the heathen, and of people who do not pretend to be Christian?
Do I put (everything) in the context of what I believe about God and my relationship to Him? Is my conduct and my behaviour in life such that it shows (verifies) that I am a Christian? Do I show plainly and clearly that I belong to another King and Kingdom?
Do you realize that it is possible to have a false sense of forgiveness? A false peace within you? The devil can give you (counterfeit) guidance.
What is your supreme desire? Are you out for the benefits and blessings of the Christian life and salvation, or have you a deeper and profounder desire? Do you long to know God and to become more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you hungering and thirsting for righteousness? (Matthew 5:6)
Authority
I (must) ask myself, am I an advocate or am I a witness? You can be an advocate of Christianity without being a Christian...you may be talking about something which you do not really know, about Someone you have never met. Note the Lord said to the apostles: "Ye shall be my witnesses..." (Acts 1:8)
“The Essential Foundation” (The danger of assuming we are Christian; seeking sanctification before regeneration)
https://www.monergism.com/essential-foundation-john-31%E2%80%938
It is possible to have a knowledge of the Bible that is really expert, and yet you have never known its meaning, you have never seen its teaching. There are people who have an almost perfect knowledge of the letter of the Scripture but have never known the message of the Scripture. You can attend Bible schools and classes, you can attend colleges, and you can get knowledge and information that is purely intellectual, and in the meantime you may know nothing about the message at all; you may have missed the spirit and the meaning completely.
You can say that you believe these things, and you can become a great church worker, but that does not of necessity prove that you really are truly a Christian. You can be in the position of a man like Nicodemus who thinks that he can decide to take this up and add it on to what he already has and so on. Many, it seems to me, are relying simply upon a decision that they once made. They made that decision, and they think that it has somehow put them right. All I am concerned to say is that you can make a decision without being regenerate, and if you are not regenerate, you are not a Christian.
You cannot decide to be born again. If you could decide for Christ you would not need to be born again.
What is this Christian life? The glory of this is that it is something that happens to us. It is not something we do; it is something that is done to us. You cannot give birth to yourself. The new birth is a new creation. It is comparable to the original creation, something being made out of nothing, something being produced. (Creatio ex nihilo) Not by man but by God! “Born again”; born from above; “born of the Spirit.”
Experiencing the New Birth: Studies in John 3
https://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/book-of-john/3/
So many of us are children and are only interested in the presents and the gifts and the entertainments. That is not proof that we are truly born again. The Devil can counterfeit experiences and gifts and most other things, but there is one thing the Devil cannot do, and that is give us a desire for a personal knowledge of God. The Devil can give you an interest in theology and encourage it; as you go on, you become more and more proud of your vast knowledge. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about the crying out of a child’s need for his or her Father, the true filial cry and desire. The Devil cannot counterfeit that; he knows nothing about it, and he cannot produce it. Only one person can produce it; that is God himself through the Spirit as he implants within us a seed of this living life.
A.W. Tozer The Size of the Soul
It will help us to locate ourselves spiritually if we face up to the rather ungracious question: “Are you a Christian in fact or merely a student of Christianity?” A lot will depend upon the answer, and if ever we should be frank, it is when we examine ourselves to see if we be in the faith.
R.C. Sproul “What Is Saving Faith?”
Fiducia refers to personal trust and reliance. Knowing and believing the content of the Christian faith is not enough, for even demons can do that. (James 2:19) Faith is effectual only if one personally trusts in Christ alone for salvation. It is one thing to give an intellectual assent to a proposition but quite another to place personal trust in it.