GINOSKO - Deep and Rich Intimacy
Ginosko - to know
As John explains that Jesus came revealing the Father (whom no one had ever seen), he says in verse 1:10 that the “world did not recognize him.”
This is far more than walking past your favorite celebrity in a grocery store but failing to recognize them because of the large hat and sunglasses they were wearing. “Recognize” only covers the tip of the iceberg, and while it certainly meant that the world did not recognize that Jesus was the Messiah, John meant so much more.
The word used is ginosko, which means “to know,” and in this case “to come to know.” There is certainly a revelatory nature to the phrase, which “recognize” encapsulates in a broad sense. But the word is referring to coming to know Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior of the world. John uses this word in other contexts throughout his writings, attempting to capture exactly what Jesus reveals of God and what we are invited to come to know:
In John 17:3 and 6:69 it refers to knowing his Messianic dignity or distinction
In 1 John 2:13 cf. John 1:10 it refers to knowing his divinity
In John 10:14 it refers to knowing Jesus’ consummate kindness towards us, and the benefits rebounding to us from fellowship with him
In John 14:31 it refers to knowing his love of God
In 1 John it refers to knowing his sinless holiness
John was concerned with far more than facial or vocal recognition. He is stating that you and I have been given every chance to know God, THE God, by knowing Jesus in his fullness: his character, position, authority, transcendence, perfection, everything.
Unfortunately we have treated “knowing God” just like facial recognition on our phones where the goal is to make sure we could pick Jesus out of a lineup, while knowing nothing about who he is, in order to unlock access to heaven after we die. But as Dallas Willard said, God is less concerned with getting us into heaven but with getting heaven into us.
That, according to John, comes by knowing, truly knowing Jesus.
Again, you can learn all of these things about Jesus without actually knowing him personally. And that is where this word takes on even more life throughout scripture. Ginosko is used to mean:
To become known, as in you and I become known by God as we know him
To know, perceive, have knowledge of, as in you and I are given the intellectual ability to know the mind of God and the purposes and intentions of the Kingdom of Heaven. That is staggering.
A Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse between a man and a woman, as in rather than being acquaintances held and holding off at arms length, we are invited into intimacy. We are invited to experience and engage with the fullest expression of love and delight and desire the universe holds, of which sex is is a pale, pathetic shadow.
And finally, to become acquainted with, to know, as in a relationship, built over time and time together and trust and mutual interests and common goals and proximity and vulnerability and all of the other things the best friendships are made out of.
John would not have us settle for merely recognizing Jesus in a crowd. He wants us to know him so deeply and personally that we recognize his scent, the pitch and tenor of his voice, the warmth of his smile, the comfort of and safety in his presence, the utter peace and joy that is ours when we simply sit with him and move to that place beyond words. It only comes through deep and rich intimacy.
Know God. It is the only thing you were created for. You were made to know him so deeply that all of the other things he invites us into flow naturally and abundantly from us, like prayer and holiness, co-creation and obedience.
And this knowledge, the personal and intimate relational knowing, must take priority over everything else you and I can ever “know.” From our relationships with others to our expertise in our vocation, from parenting and family matters to the vices we know will fix us if we can just get a little more, it all must come second. And I don’t mean a close second. And I don’t mean a distant second. I mean a “all else is absolute garbage and I couldn’t get it out of my life fast enough if it meant knowing Jesus more” type second.
All things at all times are competing for our attention and affections. And in this competition the rankings cannot exist like Jesus first, then relationships second, possessions third, ambition fourth and so on. There is only first place and last place.
In the competition for our hearts, where the victor determines all other aspects of our lives, knowing Jesus must come first, and absolutely everything else must come dead last, so far behind your loving Savior that the track is closed, the lights are off, and everyone is home and asleep before anything else even sees the finish line.
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” - John 1:14