Now, however, having come to know God –or rather to be known by Him– how is it you are again turning back to weak and worthless rudimentary notions to which you are once more willing to be enslaved?
»All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one fully knows the Son except the Father, nor does any one fully know the Father except the Son and all to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.«
For those whom He has known beforehand He has also pre-destined to bear the likeness of His Son, that He might be the Eldest in a vast family of brothers;
For what was impossible to the Law –powerless as it was because it acted through frail humanity– God effected. Sending His own Son in a body like that of sinful human nature and as a sacrifice for sin, He pronounced sentence upon sin in human nature;
For the present we see things as if in a mirror, and are puzzled; but then we shall see them face to face. For the present the knowledge I gain is imperfect; but then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
For God who said, »Out of darkness let light shine,« is He who has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory, which is radiant on the face of Christ.
For I always beseech the God of our Lord Jesus Christ –the Father most glorious– to give you a spirit of wisdom and penetration through an intimate knowledge of Him,
Yet God's solid foundation stands unmoved, bearing this inscription, »The Lord knows those who really belong to Him.« And this also, »Let every one who names the Name of the Lord renounce all wickedness.«
For if, after escaping from the pollutions of the world through a full knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, people are once more entangled in these pollutions and are overcome, their last state has become worse than their first.
And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we know the true One, and are in union with the true One–that is, we are in union with His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and the Life of the Ages.