What is the difference between a knowledgeable, defeated Christian, and a knowledgeable victorious Christian? Logic tells us it must be something more than the knowledge.

All around us, we have knowledgeable Christians. Some have grown up in church or in religious circles. They have, over the years, read Christian books and sat through countless sermons. They have a fairly vast store of Christian data in their minds. In fact, most sermons they listen to and Christian messages they hear are not new to them. They know these things.

However, they are not excited about them. They are not delighted over these facts. They do not savour them. In fact, they are bored by them. Hearing more sermons seems dry and laborious to them. This knowledge is, in their words, not relevant to them.

Indeed, from such Christians come all sorts of new philosophies and techniques. They assume that the problem is with the actual presentation of the knowledge. They are afraid to say that the knowledge itself is boring to them, so they blame the format in which the knowledge is delivered. They say: “Preaching is old-fashioned and boring – we need something fresh. We need louder bands, more impressive presentation techniques, better ways of presenting the Gospel.”

But actually, the truth which gnaws at their soul is this: they are bored with the Gospel itself. They hope that superficially dressing it up with brighter lights, louder music, and a sing-song of innovation will somehow brighten up what has come to be drab and dull to them. But it will not work. When all the fanfare is over, the depression will again strike home – the Christian faith is boring to them. The actual facts, knowledge and data of the Christian life are as monotonous and dreary as they come.

If this is you, then you are not alone. In fact, you are probably by no means in the minority. It’s probably safe to say that most Christians today are in an epidemic state of boredom and dryness of soul. They know many facts about God, salvation, the Christian life – but they have no relish for these facts. They have learned many truths about sin, heaven and holiness, but these truths are as exciting to them as the weather.

And so, they gravitate from church to church, hoping the next one will be the kick start in their spiritual engine. They latch onto on or two specific Christian teachers, believing that listening to all they have to say will lift them out of the chronic boredom they have with the Christian life.

One very obvious place where this is seen is in singing. Many of the great old hymns of the faith are rich in wonderful statements like “Amazing love! How can it be? That thou my God shouldst die for me” and “Blessed assurance! Jesus is mine! Oh what a foretaste of glory divine.” Wonderful words, rich in meaning – but I daresay millions will let those words pass out their lips without their souls so much as stirring.

They know the fact – ‘Jesus died for me.’ ‘But so what?’ is the whispered reaction of many an ear. The songs are nothing more than melodies to such Christians – the truths sung in those songs are far away from reality to them – they almost have an unreal, fairytale quality.

That’s why the church today reacts by dumbing down the songs. They realise people are not relishing the great truths of who God is, so they simplify the songs even more to trite, repetitive choruses, with very little truth in them at all. Again, they hope by changing the format of the message, the message itself will seem more attractive.

What’s going on? How can we have so much knowledge, and yet so little enjoyment of that knowledge? How can we have professors of theology who are bored with God? How can we have Christians with multitudes of Bibles, commentaries, Christian books and media subscriptions – whose hearts are a refrigerator when it comes to the things of God? What are we missing?

Clearly – not knowledge. A.W. Tozer once said: “Indeed I wonder whether there is anything taught in any seminary on earth that could not be learned by a brigand or a swindler as well as by a consecrated Christian… It does not strain my imagination to think of Judas Iscariot as coming out of school with a Th.B., if such a thing had been offered in his day.”

In fact, we are probably the most knowledgeable Christians in 2000 years. And Paul does say in 1 Corinthians 8:1: “Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.” Here, he means knowledge without a love for God simply leads to pride. That takes very little explaining. We have all seen from experience people who are simply hungry for Biblical knowledge without reference to a relationship with God very frequently become proud, arrogant people. They boast in their knowledge, they like to parade it.

So if you want to know things about the Christian life simply because you want to seem knowledgeable, you are on the road to pride. All knowledge must be toward loving God more. Knowledge as an end in itself leads to pride. The problem is that attitude, because the Bible repeatedly commands us to gather knowledge.

• Peter ends his second epistle by saying, “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).
• Paul commands in 1 Corinthians 14:20: “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.” Don’t be childish in your thinking, Paul says. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking, be mature.
• 2 Peter 1:5 says, “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge.”
• Colossians 1:9-10 says: “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”
• There’s also Romans 15:14, which says, “And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another.”

It’s clear that knowledge is not only a positive thing – it’s quite necessary to grow in the Christian life. The Christian life has many truths, that must be learned. It goes without saying that in order to become like God, we must learn of Him. We must grow in knowledge. But here is where we make some distinctions.

Knowledge is essential for the Christian life. But the Christians described above already have knowledge. They have many facts in their heads. But they have no delight for those truths. They have no savouring, no relish, no joy in the things they know. Why not? The answer is found in the word illumination.

The English word ‘illumination’ means to supply with light, to lighten what is dark. Now, the problem some Christians have is they think the inspired Word of God can be known and rejoiced in, merely by the mental accumulation of the data contained therein. However, the Bible itself says something different:

But as it is written, ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.’

But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.1 Corinthians 2:9-14

Those are some of the most important verses in all of the Bible. Paul points out that physical eyes and physical ears have not perceived the spiritual truths God has for His children. On the other hand, they have been seen by His children. How? By His Spirit. His Spirit knows the mind of God, and thus can communicate God’s mind to man. Apart from the Spirit, there is no understanding. Verse 14 says the things of the Spirit are foolishness to the natural man; he cannot know them, for they are spiritually discerned.

Now that effectively refers to an unsaved man, but there is a secondary application here. The word ‘natural’ really refers to man apart from his spiritual nature. Man in his purely carnal, physical ways can never relish or understand the Bible. That is true for the unsaved man. But it is equally true for the saved man who is not controlled by the Spirit.

Such a person is acting or living at that point in a purely carnal or natural way. Such a Christian may open up the Scriptures, but all they will see is what their natural eye and natural thinking powers can pick up from the page. Certainly God calls us to use these faculties, but apart from His Holy Spirit coming to set those truths ablaze in our heart, there will be cold, dead religion. Pages could be quoted from A.W. Tozer on this topic, including this section:

“The doctrine of the inability of the human mind and the need for divine illumination is so fully developed in the New Testament that it is nothing short of astonishing that we should have gone so far astray about the whole thing. Fundamentalism has stood aloof from the Liberal in self-conscious superiority and has on its own part fallen into error, the error of textualism, which is simply orthodoxy without the Holy Ghost.

Everywhere among Conservatives we find persons who are Bible-taught but not Spirit-taught. They conceive truth to be something which they can grasp with the mind. If a man holds to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, he is thought to possess divine truth. But it does not follow. There is no truth apart from the Spirit. The most brilliant intellect may be imbecilic when confronted with the mysteries of God. For a man to understand revealed truth requires an act of God equal to the original act which inspired the text…

Conservative Christians in this day are stumbling over this truth. We need to re-examine the whole thing. We need to learn that truth consists not in correct doctrine, but in correct doctrine plus the inward enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. We must declare again the mystery of wisdom from above. A re-preachment of this vital truth could result in a fresh breath from God upon a stale and suffocating orthodoxy.”

See, many Christians equate fascination with illumination. They hear a very interesting Bible teacher, or read his books. He seems to teach in a remarkable way, he shows them things they had never seen in the Scriptures. They’re amazed by the parallels he can draw, and by the fact that he can seemingly see things they never saw. (Sometimes, by the way, it’s because they’re just not there). Such believers enjoy the new discovery, the new slant on some ideas. But they are fascinated, not illuminated.

They are fascinated the way they would be with the discovery of a new moon orbiting Jupiter, or a new figure on the population of the world, or a description of a place they have never been to. They simply enjoy the discovery of new facts. That’s a very human thing – to enjoy learning. But sadly, many Christians mistake this fascination with the truth with illumination of the truth.

Fascination might cause some delight, but it never causes change. There is no humility, no brokenness, no repentance. Illumination is when God Himself turns on the light, and allows you to see His glory in the words. He takes the truth and causes it to come alive. Suddenly, the truth you have heard over and over again is unveiled in all its true brilliance.

The reaction? It will move you emotionally. You will want to praise God for the truth. It will move you intellectually. You will want to remember and express this truth to others. It will move you volitionally – you will want to obey this truth. When God turns on the light, when you hear those old simple truths preached again, the reaction will not be boredom and dryness, but a joy unspeakable.

As a hymn puts it this way: “I love to tell the story, for those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.” How can that be? Illumination. But is it Scriptural? Does the Bible teach illumination? It certainly does. In Luke we find the risen Christ talking with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Luke 24:27 tells us: “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”

After He disappears – listen to the disciples’ words: “And they said one to another, ‘Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures?’” Their hearts burned – there was a joy, and love for the truth – not simply because Christ expounded the truth accurately, but because He graciously unveiled their eyes as He did so. Illumination is a gracious act of God. Peter was told this by Christ:

He saith unto them, ‘But whom say ye that I am?’

And Simon Peter answered and said, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’

And Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.’Matthew 16:15-17

In fact, Jesus often spoke about the lack of illumination in the Pharisees: “Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand” (Matthew 13:13). In other words, there was knowledge but a lack of understanding. They could accumulate knowledge as much as they wanted, but because of the hardness of their hearts, the Spirit of God did not give them understanding.

Paul knew that illumination was not automatic to a Christian. He was anxious that his readers would not only hear the Spirit-inspired knowledge he was imparting, but that the Spirit would illuminate them to truly perceive the depth of that knowledge. Listen to his prayer:

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him:

the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power,Ephesians 1:17-19

Don’t miss who Paul is speaking to and what he is praying for. He is not speaking to unbelievers. He is praying for Christians. His prayer for them is that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened – so that they could know the hope of His calling, the riches of His glory, and the greatness of His power.

Now, ask yourself, did these Christians not know about their hope? Did they not know about the power of God to them? Did they know nothing of the riches of God’s glory? They certainly did. But Paul was praying that God open the eyes of their understanding so that they would know intimately, so that they would, as it were, personally experience the truth. This is illumination.

Illumination is not mysticism. Mysticism says that you can know the truth of about God apart from the Scriptures, through some inner light or personal experience or revelation. That’s unbiblical. But illumination is the Biblical truth that the Spirit of God must take the Word of God and unveil to us the glory of God.

2 Corinthians 3:18 says: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Paul wanted his readers to not only know the facts, but to have those facts shown through the Spirit in all their beauty, splendour and loveliness. This is an act of God’s grace. As Tozer puts it:

“The Scriptures, to be understood, must be read with the same Spirit that originally inspired them.” No one denies this, but even such a statement will go over the heads of those who hear it, unless the Holy Spirit inflames the heart.

The charge often made against by liberals that conservatives are “bibliolaters” is probably not true in the same sense as meant by our detractors; but candour and self-analysis will force us to admit that there is often too much truth in their charge. Among religious persons of unquestioned orthodoxy there is sometimes found a dull dependence upon the letter of the text without the faintest understanding of its spirit. That truth is in its essence spiritual must constantly be kept before our minds if we would know the truth indeed. Jesus Christ is Himself the Truth, and He cannot be confined to mere words even though, as we ardently believe, He has Himself inspired the words. That which is spiritual cannot be shut in by ink or fenced in by type and paper. The best a book can do is to give us the letter of truth. If we ever receive more than this, it must be by the Holy Spirit who gives it.

The great need of the hour among persons spiritually hungry is twofold: First, to know the Scriptures, apart from which no saving truth will be vouchsafed by our Lord; the second, to be enlightened by the Spirit, apart from whom the Scriptures will not be understood.”

What we desperately need are Christians hungry for illumination. We need churches, and especially church leaders, thirsty to be Spirit-taught. We need Christians who want to know more than the truth – they wish to see the truth as God sees it – with unveiled eyes. How does this happen? How do we go from head-believing Christians to heart-rejoicing Christians?

In Part 2 of this series, we will try to answer that, as we look at how illumination takes place in the life of a believer. It is a work of grace, but there is also a human responsibility. It’s time for us to stop trying to dress up the truth with louder music and brighter lights, and instead earnestly pray for a revival of illumination.