The Knowledge of Christ Cannot Be Received by Natural Understanding

This is from The Missing Cross to Purity:

“The knowledge of Christ is not literal, traditional, or fleshly, nor can it be received by the natural understanding; but it is spiritual, and the understanding must be given by God which receives it. “He has given us an understanding, that we may know him who is true.” 1 John 5:20. A man may read scriptures, hear sermons, etc., and thereby gather a knowledge into the old understanding: but neither this understanding into which the knowledge is gathered, nor the knowledge itself that is gathered, are spiritual, but fleshly, and so cannot save. He who comes once to receive an understanding from Christ, and to have the knowledge of Christ poured forth from Christ into his heart, knows the difference between that and the understanding into which he gathers things. The knowledge of Christ after the letter, (and a faith in him answerable to such knowledge), will not save; but a man must know him in that Spirit, life, and power in which he lived, if he is firmly established in hope to be saved by him, (2 Cor 5:16-17).

“[All things are delivered to me by my Father; and no man knows the Son but the Father, neither does any man know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal him. Mat 11:27. The Father and the Son are only known through revelation, by the son revealing him; for the Son and the Father are one. Because what may be known of God is revealed in them; for God has shown it to them, Rom 1:19; not reading about God, not hearing someone talk about God, for God and Christ are known by only revelation in your heart, where you hear him and see him teach you about sin, righteousness, and himself.]”

–Isaac Penington

The Babylonish Church
Thumbnail Biography of Isaac Penington
Resisting and Receiving God’s Spirit, Experiencing His Teachings