LOVE & IGNORANCE

                                                                    Love & Ignorance

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 When it comes to God, the term ‘ignorance of law excuses no one’ is especially true, and ‘ignorance is bliss’ is especially untrue. According to the Bible, everyone knows God’s law because He has written it on humanity’s heart. Our consciences constantly remind us of such. The Gentiles ‘show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.’ (Rom. 2:15). Therefore, no one is ignorant of God’s law. It is part of our being created in His image and likeness (Gen. 1:27; James 3:9). In short, God has written His Ten Commandments on our hearts, first as revelation of Himself and secondly as an expression of His character which we are to emulate on earth.

God’s law has to do with love. Its summary is that each of us is to love God and our neighbour as ourselves. It is in this love aspect of God’s law that we all have gone awry. For, contrary to how God designed us, no one loves God and neighbour perfectly. Indeed, here we may say that some love ignorance more than God. ‘The fool has said in his heart, there is no God’ (Psa. 14:1). However, this feigned ignorance is no excuse. ‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honour Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened’ (Rom. 1:18-21). We see then the truthfulness of ‘ignorance of law excuses no one’, and, in this context, the untruthfulness that ‘ignorance is bliss’.

Bliss, even eternal bliss, as opposed to wrath, eternal wrath, only comes through having a loving relationship with God, which relationship comes through a saving knowledge of God. At its most basic ‘saving knowledge’ comes through a correct understanding of Jesus Christ, as in who He is and what He came into the world to do. He is God, and He came into the world to save sinners. It is precisely at this basic level that so much ignorance has crept in like a stray black cat on a moonless night. The Bible is very clear that Jesus is God (John 1:1), and that He is God the Son, the middle Person in the Trinity (Matt. 28:19). However, like people with cat allergies, so humanity is allergic to the living and true God – unless and until the Spirit of God opens our eyes to Him. To do this, ordinarily, the Spirit works with the Word; yes, through pulpit preaching and teaching, Bible reading and study, and word of mouth via Christian contact.

Like darkness being darkest just before the dawn, so is our ignorance of God just before we encounter Jesus, the Light of the world. Only then do we realise that we have been set free from the dank and dark dungeon of our own sin. The Father says of His Son, who became flesh and dwelt among us, ‘I will keep You and will make You to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness’ (Isa. 42:6b-7).

Don’t make ignorance your excuse. Show that you love God by calling out to Jesus to set you free from you self-imposed ignorance.