Obtaining Infinite Knowledge
It has already been stated that discipleship is an ongoing, eternal process. We are to disciple others constantly. If God is infinite, and the process of learning about God and knowing God more is called discipleship, must our finite minds not also learn of God and know God more and more throughout all of our days? Because of our finite capacity to learn, this question persists: can we ever know an infinite God?
And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day-and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Revelation 21:22-27 ESV
After John sees, however it was that he saw, the final judgment and the creation of the New Heaven and the New Earth; after he witnesses the people of God coming down out of Heaven to reside with God on the earth for an eternity with Him as His people, John begins to describe the vast city that the people of God will occupy.
God as the infinite teacher
There was no temple in the new city for God the Almighty and the Lamb (Jesus) were its temple. Currently, the church is the institution by which God chooses to reveal Himself. We disciple one another, and we know God through the experience and knowledge of those around us. Discipleship is one follower of Jesus Christ imparting both knowledge and wisdom to a fellow believer. We must not forget, though, that it is God who grants us with the knowledge and wisdom that we are able to impart.
In the future, after God completes His redemptive work on the earth, there will be no temple. The Church will no longer be the vessel by which God reveals Himself to humanity. God will reveal Himself directly to humanity and directly to His people through the presence of Jesus Christ. What does this say about discipleship now and forever?
It says that God is the infinite teacher. For, though we are the vessels of discipleship now, God will reveal Himself directly in the future. This is possible because our perception will no longer be diluted by the power and presence of sin on the earth.
The idea is similar to that of a man who enlists in order to become a member of his nation’s military. He leaves his wife and children to fight a war that will keep them safe. Though he loves them and is fighting for their safety and freedom, they never get to see him. For years he fights for them, and is not once able to see them. The children never get to talk with their father and were so young at the time of his departure that they don’t really even know who he is. All they know about their father is what their mother tells them about him. This will all change when their father returns and reveals himself directly to them. The children can finally see their father in full and there is no need for them to learn who he is from their mother because he is there with them.
In the future, we will be able to see God in full. He will be the one teaching us about Himself and revealing Himself to us. If God is going to teach us about Himself in eternity, then why is it that when we begin teaching, we resolve to stop learning from others? Not only should we always be teaching, but we should also always be learning.
Jesus as the eternal mediator
Not only will God the Almighty and the Lamb be the temple, but God will be the light of men and the Lamb will be the lamp by which that light is revealed. This means that, even in eternity, we will rely on Christ for our eternal relationship with God. It is only by the revelation of Christ that we will grow in our relationship with God even in eternity. This means that discipleship here on the earth is an eternal investment. It also means that our refusal to accept instruction has eternal consequences.
If the children within the home of the military man, described above, refused to learn about who their father was while their father was gone, then they would not have known anything about him upon his return. As a result, they would have felt distant. They would have had to begin building a relationship out of only the knowledge that their father existed. Sadly, this is exactly where most twenty-first century Christians in America find themselves.
We want eternal life without a commitment to discipleship. We are content with just receiving salvation and not growing in the knowledge and wisdom of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We fail to realize that not accepting discipleship has eternal consequences. If we do not allow ourselves to grow in the knowledge and wisdom of the Lord today, how much do we limit the reward that we receive from Christ in eternity?
If we forsake being discipled, either by our superiors or by our peers, for the sake of discipling others, then we also forsake making a greater eternal investment in our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Not only that, but if we ever choose to stop learning, then we are limited in our capacity to teach others. True discipleship requires us to learn. It also requires that we teach everything we know to those with whom we have contact each day.
Mankind walks by God’s light
Mankind will be exposed to God, in eternity, through the person of Jesus Christ. All nations will walk by this light and this light alone.
Today, even within the Christian subculture that we have invented, we are exposed to many ideas that may or may not be true. Justification either applies to all men equally through the sacrifice of Christ, or it only belongs to the elect. We either choose God or God predestines us. We are either raptured from the earth before the Great Tribulation, after the Great Tribulation or are Glorified before God reveals His complete wrath against corruption. Worship either has no structure or contains a set of regulations given by God. Speaking in tongues is either a sign of being filled with the Holy Spirit or a way to communicate the Gospel to a people who speak different languages. Salvation is either a burden or a gift. God either works for the prosperity of His people or works for the prosperity of His purpose. The Old Testament was either written for only the ancients or it was established for posterity. God is either self-centered or Omni-benevolent. Jesus Christ either replaced Hebrew Law with the Law of Grace or fulfilled the Hebrew Law with the Law of Grace. Either Satan has power over the earth or God has authority over the earth.
Everywhere we look we seem to hear ideas that contradict other ideas that we have learned. There is no doubt that much of the knowledge we receive on this earth, and during this lifetime, is false. Even as Paul is writing to the Corinthians, he states that love will never end; but prophecies, languages and knowledge will.1 Love will not end. Our relationship with God and our knowing God will remain. Since our knowing about God supplements our relationship with God, that knowledge then will remain because it is a knowledge that comes out of love, and love will never end. The false knowledge that we accumulate due to all of the false philosophies that reign prevalent in the world, however, will pass away. Only truth, which is from love, will remain.
We could even view this concept from the lens of creation, as we should view all of scripture. God created mankind in His image. Because mankind naturally wanted to be like God, mankind was able to naturally maintain a pure relationship with God: relying on God to make him like God. Knowledge was pure and true. Later, the serpent found mankind in God’s garden and said, “You will not surely die (for death was the consequence of man’s rebellion against God). For God knows that when you eat of it (the forbidden fruit) your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”2 Mankind took the fruit and ate. In doing so, mankind gained knowledge that God did not intend him to have: the knowledge of evil. This is because in order to obtain the knowledge of evil, mankind actually had to partake in evil. This opened the door for mankind to begin developing his own knowledge. No longer did he rely on God. Because we choose to develop our own knowledge, much of what we learn is false. Despite this fact, we know that God is working toward the restoration of His people. We will be restored to right knowledge. We will be restored to pure and true knowledge that comes only from God.
God will be the light by which His people walk. He will be the light by which all nations live. We will see clearly because all impure knowledge will be done away with.
Infinite nature of knowledge
“…its gates will never be shut by day-and there will be no night there.”3
If God will provide light for the world and there will never be night, then the right knowledge that God will provide through Jesus Christ will be infinite. It only makes sense considering the source of true knowledge, God, is infinite. Would the knowledge that comes from such an infinite source not also be infinite?
Before I began seriously pursuing an education, I was content with the knowledge that I had. Now, after being exposed to the pursuit of knowledge, I find it difficult not to study. The only problem that I have found is that the more I learn, the more questions I have. The more I learn, the less I realize that I actually know. This, I believe, is because knowledge, by design, is infinite.
This idea attests even more greatly to the eternal nature of discipleship, as God designed it. If knowledge is infinite, than we can truly learn from God even in eternity. We will be able to pursue and serve God even in eternity. We will not be bored or run out of things to do. We will be disciples, as we are disciples know. This also means that we can pursue God currently and unreservedly. If we will continue to learn infinitely in eternity, and if we will continue to know God more infinitely and in eternity, than we can be confident that our pursuit of God here on the earth during this lifetime will yield a profit for us in eternity.
During the day, the gates of the city will never close and there is no night whatsoever. God will always be available and providing us with the unsearchable knowledge of Himself. Since this will be true of God in the future, and since God also currently exists outside of time, can we not also say that He is available for us now? Is He not always available to us? Yes! Since God is always available for us, willing to teach and reveal Himself to us through the power and presence of Jesus Christ, we should always be seeking to know Him more and to know more about Him. We should always be seeking to serve Him more and allow His revelation to shine brightly through us to others through communal discipleship.
Gaining a pure knowledge
What do we benefit, today, if we wait until eternity to begin seeking Godly knowledge: both knowledge about God and knowing who God is? We can begin, not only teaching fundamental truths of the faith to others, but also coming to a greater understanding of who God is and growing closer to God in relation, even as we are among corrupted peoples and living on a corrupted earth. The fact that people of the earth will bring into the new holy city the glory and honor that they achieve, means that it is possible for us to achieve glory and honor, in the name of Christ, and take it with us into eternity. What we achieve now, in accordance to our relationship with God in purity, accompanies us into God’s eternal kingdom. We can build up treasure in Heaven as we live on the earth. What we do, how we act and what we know now matter when considering eternity.
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other that that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw-each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only through fire.
1 Corinthians 3:5-15 ESV
Everything that we think, everything that we do, everything that we say, all of our work, everything that we choose to believe, the attitude we choose to have and the way in which we treat certain philosophies and worldviews will be tested with God’s fire. All corruption will be eliminated and we will be left with what is pure. All of God’s people will be saved, but they will only be left with the truth that they obtain and the good work that they do for Christ Jesus.
Could you imagine a brother or sister, who has declared Christ the Lord of his or her life, chooses not to strive for pure knowledge, contend for the faith or even take place in the discipleship we have been discussing to this point? Because they choose not to pursue perfection and attain it in part, through both knowledge and work, almost every philosophy and work that they do hold will be burned away in God’s eternal purifier. They will be left with only the foundation of Jesus Christ and have to start again as a babe in Christ as God reveals Himself to us in eternity. That would be tragic. It will be tragic for many Christians today.
So, then, we are left with an incredible responsibility as the people of God living on this present earth. For, even though we cannot fully attain infinite knowledge, we are to pursue that goal in full. We are to be constant learners, professional students in the character and knowledge of God. We should never be satisfied with what we know. To pursue God is to pursue understanding, and to pursue understanding is to gain both knowledge and wisdom. All of God’s children are disciples for the rest of their lives and for eternity.