If you have been reasoned into Christianity, some wise fellow can reason you out of it! If you come to Christ by a flash of the Holy Spirit so that by intuition you know that you are God's child, you know it by the text but you also know it by the inner light, the inner illumination of the Spirit, and no one can ever reason you out of it. When I was a young man, I read most of the books on atheism. I had my Bible and a hymnbook and a few other books, including Andrew Murray and Thomas à Kempis, and I got myself educated as well as I could by reading books. I read the philosophy of all of the great minds—and many of those men did not believe in God, and they didn't believe in Christ... Do you know what I would do after I would read a chapter or two and find arguments that I could not possibly defeat? I would get down on my knees and with tears I would thank God with joy that no matter what the books said, "I know Thee, my Savior and my Lord!" I didn't have it in my head—I had it in my heart. There is a great difference, you see.
Many people know about God but don't know God Himself. There is a vast difference between knowing about God and knowing God—a vast difference! I can know about your relative—and still not know him in person. If I have never met him, I do not know the touch of his hand or the look of his eye or the smile of his face or the sound of his voice. I only know about him. You can show me his picture and describe him to me, but I still don't know him. I just know about the man. So it is that the human being can know about God, can know about Christ's dying for him, can even write songs and books, can be the head of religious organizations and hold important church offices—and still never have come to the vital, personal knowledge of God at all. Only by the Holy Spirit can he know God. Again, it is my contention that as a consequence of this kind of error, we really have two Christs. We have the Christ of history, the Christ of the creeds. On the other hand, there is the Christ whom only the Spirit can reveal.