What is a Saving Knowledge of Christ?
George Whitefield (1714—1770) was one of the greatest preachers of all time. His faithful, biblical preaching drew crowds of thousands and thousands. In fact, Whitefield preached at least 18,000 times to perhaps 10 million listeners in Great Britain and in the American colonies. His ministry paved the way for the 18th-century Great Awakening.
In his sermon, The Knowledge of Jesus Christ the best Knowledge, Whitefield says,
I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
1 Corinthians 2:2
if it appears that God has done a thing, we may be sure it is right, whether we can see the reasons for it or not.
I know this doctrine of our ORIGINAL SIN, or fall in Adam, is esteemed foolishness by the wise disputer of this world, who will reply, How does it suit the goodness of God, to impute one man's sin to an innocent posterity? But has it not been proved to a demonstration, that it is so? And therefore, supposing we cannot reconcile it to our shallow comprehensions, that is no argument at all: for if it appears that God has done a thing, we may be sure it is right, whether we can see the reasons for it or not. But this is entirely cleared up by what was said before, that no sooner was the sin imputed, but a Christ was revealed; and this Christ, this God incarnate, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, that he might be freed from the guilt of our original sin; who was born of the Virgin Mary, that he might be the seed of the woman only; who suffered under Pontius Pilate, a Gentile governor, to fulfill these prophecies, which signified what death he should die.
By which word KNOW, we are not to understand a bare historical knowledge…
This same Jesus, who was crucified in weakness, but raised in power, is that divine person, that Emmanuel, that God with us, whom we preach, in whom ye believe, and whom alone the Apostle, in the text, was determined to know. By which word KNOW, we are not to understand a bare historical knowledge; for to know that Christ was crucified by his enemies at Jerusalem, in this manner only, will do us no more service, than to know that Caesar was butchered by his friends at Rome; but the word KNOW, means to know, so as to approve of him; as when Christ says, "Verily, I know you not;" I know you not, so as to approve of you. It signifies to know him, so as to embrace him in all his offices; to take him to be our prophet, priest, and king; so as to give up ourselves wholly to be instructed, saved, and governed by him. It implies an experimental knowledge of his crucifixion, so as to feel the power of it, and to be crucified unto the world, as the Apostle explains himself in the epistle to the Philippians, where he says, "I count all things but dung and dross, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection." This knowledge the Apostle was so swallowed up in, that he was determined not to know anything else; he was resolved to make that his only study, the governing principle of his life, the point and end in which all his thoughts, words, and actions, should center.