What They Said

““We all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image” (2Co 3:8). As a painter looking upon a face, draws a face like it in the picture; so looking upon Christ in the glass of the Gospel, we are changed into His similitude.14 We may look upon other objects that are glorious yet not be made glorious by them: a deformed face may look upon beauty and yet not be made beautiful. A wounded man may look upon a surgeon and yet not be healed. But this is the excellency of divine knowledge: it gives us such a sight of Christ as makes us partake of His nature. As Moses, when he had seen God’s back parts: his face shined, [for] some of the rays and beams of God’s glory fell upon him.”

Thomas Watson

“The eyes of the penitent man are opened. He sees with dismay and confusion the length and breadth of God’s holy Law, and the extent, the enormous extent, of his own transgressions. He discovers, to his surprise, that in thinking himself a “good sort of man,” and a man with a “good heart,” he has been under a huge delusion. He finds out that, in reality, he is wicked, guilty, corrupt, and bad in God’s sight. His pride breaks down. His high thoughts melt away. He sees that he is neither more nor less than a great sinner. This is the first step in true repentance.”

J.C. Ryle

“Other knowledge, though you should attain the highest degree of it, would never bring you to heaven, being defective and lame both in the integrity of parts, the principal thing, Christ, being wanting - and in the purity of its nature.”

John Flavel

“It is plain that as God is the Creator of all things, he must be the ultimate ground and centre of all things. Therefore our knowledge of God, no matter how we have gained it, must be fundamental and central to all our other knowledge of every kind.”

A. A. Hodge

“Knowledge is the eye that must direct the foot of obedience.”

Thomas Watson

“If one does not make human knowledge wholly dependent upon the original self-knowledge and consequent revelation of God to man, then man will have to seek knowledge within himself as the final reference point. Then he will have to seek an exhaustive understanding of reality.  He will have to hold that if he cannot attain to such an exhaustive understanding of reality he has no true knowledge of anything at all. Either man must then know everything or he knows nothing. This is the dilemma that confronts every form of non-Christian epistemology.”

Cornelius Van Til

“Indeed, the knowledge of a proud man is the throne of Satan in his mind.”

John Owen

“The teaching of Colossians 2:3-8 is unambiguous. ALL knowledge (note: not simply knowledge of "religious" matters is to be found in Christ.” 

Greg Bahnsen

“Bible knowledge without repentance, will be but a torch to light people to Hell!”

Thomas Watson