September 10 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading:

1 John 4:8:

⁸He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Devotional:

The knowledge of God is eternal life.

Eternal life is not added to this knowledge, but this knowledge is itself eternal life. This knowledge therefore can not be limited to what the mind grasps or does not grasp, nor to what our intellect sees through, nor to what is imprinted on our memory. The knowledge of God is a knowledge which surely casts an ever clearer image into the mirror of our consciousness, but which can never be an external, abstract jugglery with words.

It is a knowledge which comes to us from our second birth, as a child knows his father and mother; boldly speaking one may say, a knowledge whose seat is in the blood, a Divine atavism. It is a knowledge that is grasped in our will, when our will grasps the will of God. It is a knowledge which comes to us from spiritual experience, almost from inspiration. It is a knowledge which steadily increases in the hidden walk with God, and ripens in the prayer life. It is a knowledge which experiences enrichment in the dark depths of sorrow, and on the sunny heights of joy and prosperity. It is a knowledge which, unobserved, constantly comes to the surface from the stream of life itself; a knowledge which uses our very person as its organ, and sometimes knows moments when it seems that "seeing face to face"—as through the veil of the sanctuary, as through an opening of a curtain—is already granted us here.

Of course this rich, ever ripening, ever more and more full and overflowing knowledge of God, must ever and anon be caught up in the clear consciousness, and be expressed in the creedal statements of the Church, as well as in our own personal profession; unless this is done, quickly mystical corruption enters in, imagination-mania and sentimental softening. But yet, it offends, and affects one with a chill, when in the Church and out of it, barren scholasticism is seen taking the place of life, and one hears the knowledge of God discussed as though it were an inanimate thing, and no elastic, soul-permeating life.

This is not according to the Scripture but in direct opposition to it.

Hear what the Apostle of the Lord says to you: "He that loveth not, has not known God, for God is love" (1 John 4:8).

Though this puts it strongly, yet so it is: by doing ourselves what God does, do we enter most fully into the knowledge of God.

Consider this with a view to the forgiveness of sin, and you will understand the mystery of this particular knowledge of God.

Whether God forgives you your sin is now and for ever for you personally the main question of your existence and of your future. It is now preached differently, as though the main question were, how we can rid ourselves of sin, and work out our own sanctification. But this is all self-deception. As Paul and the Fathers bound it upon our soul, so it is and will continue to be. The supreme life-question is: "How can I be just before God?" Forgiveness of sins is the way to dying unto sin; there is no other way. How we, who till death continue to be beings conceived in sin, can be called unto sonship of God, and to dwell forever in the Father-house above, this and this alone is the mighty life-problem, which immediately touches our relation to God and our knowledge of the Eternal. And so the world-riddle and the riddle of our soul ever and always comes down to this one thing: Is there grace, forgiveness and perfect reconciliation for me?

And now it is most noteworthy that the Our Father links, as with an iron hand, the short prayer for forgiveness to the provision that we ourselves forgive.

Give us this day our daily bread, is immediately followed by the prayer for the daily bread of Divine forgiveness, for the life of your soul, but this is bound to the honest assertion: "as we forgive those that trespass against us."

In other words: You must love with that deepest love which makes you forgive from the heart those that have wronged you, and only he who so loves, knows God. He knows God, in this His highest love, that though your sins be as scarlet, He makes them white as snow, yea, though they have risen mountain-high, He casts them away into the depth of the sea.

Actually, therefore, in the Our Father itself, is expressed the significant thought, which it seemed so bold to utter, that, by forgiving, we learn to understand how God forgives us; that is to say, by loving we learn to know God in His love for us. And he who loves, not in phrases and in play of the emotions, but so that from the heart he forgives his enemy, entirely, altogether and in full, because he loves his enemy also, thereby increases in the knowledge of God, learns to know God, and learns to understand that God is love, love toward himself, too.

Does this originate from within yourself, so that you love first, and afterwards, God loves you? Far from it. In you nothing ever begins with love; and back of the first spark of love that ever glowed in your soul, it was always the hand of your God which caused it to ignite.

Just as little can you ever forgive of your own initiative. You can forgive in such a way that your forgiveness itself becomes new sin to you, but you can never forgive in such a way that it releases your soul. Frequently you hear of a man of the world who forgives, and you yourself have done the same, from a sense of superiority, to show that you thought too little of your enemy to hold him up to his misdeed; to show how virtuous you were in that you harbored no hatred; in order to rid yourself of him in your mind and to be no more bothered by him.

But of course, such forgiveness has nothing in common with real forgiveness, except in the name; while what the Our Father intends is a forgiveness from such a genuine, real, affectionate love, that you feel, "if God forgives me like this, then I am saved." For then it is God Himself Who has quickened this love in my heart, who from His own love has caused this love to forgive to flow over into my soul, and thus, in my forgiving of my enemy makes me to know God as having mercy from eternal love for me, once His enemy, but now His child.

At the sound of the apostolic word: "He that loveth not, knoweth not God," the conscience, as a rule, falls asleep with self-satisfaction. For what man is there who loves nothing, no one? Even criminals have been known to love an animal, or child or wife, sometimes at the sacrifice of self.

But what does it signify, when it says: "He who loveth not?" It means, he who does not live from love, he who is not ruled by love, he who has no joy in loving, he who has no love that can stand the test of fire.

And to this fiery test love is put, not in regard to one who is necessary to us, or one who is agreeable to us in life, but even with one who stands in our way, one who in fact we can call our enemy; and, therefore, the genuineness of your love only becomes evident in forgiveness. In the forgiveness of him who offended you, hindered you, embittered your life. And to forgive such a one from love for him, and not because it was your duty, this alone is proof that there is this love in you which makes you learn to know God.

But this is unthinkable, this is impossible, it simply can not be done, you say. To forgive for God's sake, to forgive because I myself am sinful, to forgive from Christian duty, yes; but to forgive from preceding love, how is that? And yet, Jesus demands it: "Love your enemy, bless him who curses you."

Further entering into the root of the matter is necessary here.

"Thou shalt love God with all thy soul, all thine heart, all thy mind and all thy strength, this is the first and great commandment" and then follows: "And the second is like unto it: thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and this neighbor shall every time be your enemy.

How can this be? Not merely that I must also love my neighbor, but that this second commandment is like, altogether like, unto the first?

And then the answer is: Thus only, when you love in your neighbor what there is of God in him. Nothing else. Hence, not his sin, and not his sin against you. These you should rather hate. But as you love nature, because God's Almightiness and Divinity express themselves therein, and you love an animal, because God hath organized it so wonderfully and provided it with instinct, so you shall much more love your neighbor, as man, because God has created him after His Image; because of the gifts and talents which God created in him; and because of the germ of essential being that has been implanted in him.

If all this has been spoiled, everything corrupted, become poisoned and hopelessly satanic, then there is nothing more of God in him, and love ceases, and turns into hatred, which it is bound to do. Satan was a wonderful creature, but he has sinned his divine endowment all away, and, therefore, every child of God hates this monster.

But however deeply fallen, man is never such as he in this life. The murderer on the cross rejoices before the Throne. The most distant wanderer, Jesus has renewed unto life. Hence all your Gospel, in its application to you, is, that in every man, hence also in your enemy, there still remains a point of connection, where grace unto life may enter in. Thereby alone is the Gospel your salvation. And he only who with the love of his heart, for God's sake, continues to love that spark that remains even in one who has wandered farthest off, loves with a love that learns to know God in this His eternal love, wherewith He also loves you as sinner.

This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."

The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit

Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.