Mike Focht 7/18/2025
Spiritual truth can only be known as it is lived. At least, that is the biblical formula. The mere intellectual conception of spiritual truth is not considered knowing something in the strictest biblical sense. There was a time when the religious leaders challenged Jesus regarding His doctrine. They asked how He knew what He knew when He had not attended their schools. How could He know biblical truth without their intellectual training?
Jesus’ response is important. Jesus answered and said, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority” (John 7:16-17). Jesus tells the Pharisees that they will never know the divine validity of His teaching until they will to do His will. In other words, true spiritual knowledge comes from doing truth—not “learning” truth. I don’t biblically know the truth of something I haven’t willed to live.
It is easy to comprehend intellectually the reality that Jesus Christ died for our sins. We can know the fact that He is risen. We can understand that a price had to be paid. We conceptually grasp the facts without having the reality. I don’t know biblical repentance until I have truly repented. I don’t know the blessings of the gospel until I have put my personal faith in Jesus Christ. I cannot know the power of the gospel until I begin to share it with others. I cannot know the blessings of marriage, family, or Christian fellowship until I obey what Christ commands in those circles.
The knowing that God wants us to experience comes after our willingness to do His will. Obedience comes first. Experiential divine knowledge comes after. From God’s perspective, if I do not obey a truth, I do not know that truth. Unsaved and unholy theologians may be able to teach systematic theology on an intellectual level that most common saved people like you or I may never comprehend. Even so, some of the most intellectually gifted theologians whose hefty tomes are still studied today were just as famous for their personal sins as they were for their theological conceptions. They knew truth intellectually. They didn’t know truth biblically.
This reality gives me a childlike joy and simplicity in my relationship with God. I don’t have to intellectually comprehend everything before I obey. In fact, I often discover greater depths of truth after I obey. Jesus is my Master, but like Peter, I learn that same truth in greater and greater depths when I do what He tells me to do. But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net” (Luke 5:5).