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Can we know God?Without hesitationCAN WE KNOW GOD? Anyone who has tried to write evangelistically will appreciate the difficulty of the task. Maurice Roberts has made a valiant and helpful attempt to answer the question which is the title of this booklet. Having affirmed in the introduction that it is possible to know God personally, he provides the answers to nine basic questions. What does it mean to be saved? How good must we be? Are we not all God’s children? Who can give us righteousness? Is there life after death? How can we be sure of what to believe? Can we be sure that we are saved? What do Christ and the apostles teach about hell? What do Christ and the apostles teach about heaven? I particularly appreciated his explanation of becoming a new creation as being ‘rather like an old book that is re-published in a new edition. They become new and better than ever before.’ It is a booklet I would unhesitatingly use for someone who is obviously seeking after God. If it is reprinted — and I hope its use will make that necessary — I venture to make the following suggestions that are relevant to all of us who share Maurice Roberts’ concern to explain the gospel to unbelievers. First, it is good if we identify ourselves with the unbeliever when we can since we were once in their position. For example, in establishing that something is clearly wrong with the world, the author says that ‘The way unbelievers dodge this question is also deeply selfish.’ I would prefer to replace ‘unbelievers’ with ‘we’. Second, we need to check that we do not use expressions that are not immediately intelligible to the reader. A reference to wearing ‘the robe of righteousness’ used on page 12 finds no explanation until page 15. The description of Christians as ‘saints’ is used twice on page 31 without any clarification. Unbelievers’ understanding of the word tends to be very different from that of the New Testament. Third, we must beware of saying anything that is not fundamental to the gospel and perhaps beyond Scripture such as ‘the bodies of the wicked will be repulsive in appearance’ at the resurrection. We preachers should learn from this, for we probably all take too much for granted when we preach evangelistically. Derek Prime,
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