Religion is not defined by a number of opinions, or by a collection of articles of faith, but rather by practice and obedience to the known will of God. This is because knowledge is a duty in relation to something else—it is instrumental to something else—it is not principally intended for itself, but for obedience.

Of all the places to turn for cold hard facts and undeniable reality, theology might seem the least likely. Yet science and technology, which some few decades ago were regarded as indisputably reliable, have not only let us down but, especially with the advent of AI, also make increasing numbers of people question what even is reality. Generations of scepticism about the reliability of the Bible have only cycled us through the failures of other competing sources of knowledge, and have not brought us to any better clarity or wisdom. Hugh Binning, the gifted Glasgow philosopher turned pastor, identified God as the one great reality. Furthermore, when God makes Himself known in the Bible His revelation is both reliable and, as Binning points out, relational. It’s not only that we can arrive at genuine certainty about God (and ourselves, and the way of salvation). It’s also that this knowledge draws out a response of devotion to God which expresses itself in very practical ways. Too much of theology as practiced by theologians is, Binning hints, abstract and irrelevant. The real point of finally recognising reality is not to congratulate ourselves on our new-found certainty but to consecrate ourselves to God. Binning explains more in the following updated extract from a sermon on 1 John 2:3.

The apostle John says that the designation of a true Christian is the knowledge of God, and the designation of true knowledge is obedience to His commands. “Hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3).

We should labour to bring our light to the lamp of the Word, and our knowledge to this testimony of unquestionable authority. When we have recourse to “the law and the testimony,” then we will find out if there is light in us, or as much light as people think they see. If we could only open our eyes to the shining light of the Scriptures, we would be able to see that much of the so-called light of this age is darkness and ignorance. I don’t mean only the errors that come out under the guise of “new light,” but especially the ordinary familiarity with the truth of the gospel, which, in comparison with the true metal of the knowledge of God, has been badly contaminated by the mixture of the gross darkness of our affections and lifestyle.

“Hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.” Here then, in a narrow circle, we have all the work and business of a Christian. Our direct and principal duty is to know God and keep His commandments—which are not two distinct duties, but make up the one complete work of Christianity, which consists in conformity to God. Then the reflex and secondary duty of a Christian, which makes for his comfort, is to know that he knows God. To know God and keep His commands is a thing of indispensable necessity to the very being of a Christian. To know that we know Him is of great concernment to the comfort and well-being of a Christian. Without the first, you are as miserable as you can be without the sense and feeling of misery, because you lack the spring of all happiness. Without the second, a Christian is unhappy, for the present, though he may not be called miserable, because he is more happy than he realises, and only unhappy because he does not know his happiness.

Christians really know the real God.

Knowledge is so natural to the human spirit that the desire for it is restless and insatiable. But since the fall, knowledge has taken a journey far from human nature and has not left any footprints behind it to be found out again. This is the case even in the things that are most obvious to our senses, but our darkness is much more increased in spiritual things, because of the dullness and earthliness of our spirits. God Himself should be the primum intelligible of the soul (the first and principal object, whose glorious light should first strike into our hearts), yet Job testifies, “How little a portion is known of him!”

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