Knowing God

by J.I. Packer

The second is part of the exposition in Hebrews of the rationale of the Incarnation of God the Son.

The third is John’s testimony to the heavenly ministry of our Lord.

The fourth is John’s definition of the love of God.

Has the word propitiation any place in your Christianity? In the faith of the New Testament it is central. The love of God, the taking of human form by the Son, the meaning of the cross, Christ’s heavenly intercession, the way of salvation—all are to be explained in terms of it,

1. Propitiation is the work of God himself.

In paganism, man propitiates his gods, and religion becomes a form of commercialism and, indeed, of bribery. In Christianity, however, God propitiates his wrath by his own action. He set forth Jesus Christ, says Paul, to be a propitiation; he sent his Son, says John, to be the propitiation for our sins.

“By grace” (that is, mercy contrary to merit; love for the unlovely and, one would have said, unlovable). By what means does grace operate? “Through the redemption [rescue by ransom] that is in Christ Jesus.” How is it that, to those who put faith in him, Christ Jesus is the source, means and substance of redemption? Because, says Paul, God set him forth to be a propitiation. From this divine initiative the reality and availability of redemption flow.

2. Propitiation was made by the death of Jesus Christ.

the atonement in terms of representative substitution—the innocent taking the place of the guilty, in the name and for the sake of the guilty, under the axe of God’s judicial retribution.

Representative substitution, as the way and means of atonement, was taught in typical form by the God-given Old Testament sacrificial system.

Propitiation manifests God’s righteousness.

the basic ingredient in God’s peace, without which the rest cannot be, is pardon and acceptance into covenant—that is, adoption into God’s family.

The peace of God is first and foremost peace with God; it is the state of affairs in which God, instead of being against us, is for us. No account of God’s peace which does not start here can do other than mislead.

You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator.

everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God. (Evangelical Magazine 7, pp. 19-20)

When God is declared to be holy, the thought is of all that separates him and sets him apart and makes him different from his creatures: his greatness (“the Majesty in heaven”—Heb 1:3; 8:1) and his purity (“Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong”—Hab 1:13).

Our first point about adoption is that it is the highest privilege that the gospel offers: higher even than justification.

Our second point about adoption is that the entire Christian life has to be understood in terms of it. Sonship must be the controlling thought—the normative category, if you like—at every point.

Number three is the principle of pleasing the Father. In Matthew 6:1-18, Jesus dwells on the need to be a single-minded God-pleaser in one’s religion, and he states the principle thus: “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven” (Mt 6:1

Do I treat God as my Father in heaven, loving, honoring and obeying him, seeking and welcoming his fellowship, and trying in everything to please him, as a human parent would want his child to do?

Have I learned to hate the things that displease my Father?

Do I love my Christian brothers and sisters with whom I live day by day, in a way that I shall not

basic mistake is to think of guidance as essentially inward prompting by the Holy Spirit, apart from the written Word.

Be it noted that the reference to being “led by the Spirit” in Romans 8:14 relates not to inward “voices” or any such experience, but to mortifying known sin and not living after the flesh!

The Spirit leads within the limits which the Word sets, not beyond them. “He guides me in paths of righteousness” (Ps 23:3)—but not anywhere else.

First, unwillingness to think. It is false piety, super-supernaturalism of an unhealthy and pernicious sort, that demands inward impressions that have no rational base, and declines to heed the constant biblical summons to “consider.” God made us thinking beings, and he guides our minds as in his presence we think things out—not otherwise. “O

Second, unwillingness to think ahead and weigh the long-term consequences of alternative courses of action.

Third, unwillingness to take advice. Scripture is emphatic on the need for this. “The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice”

Fourth, unwillingness to suspect oneself. We dislike being realistic with ourselves, and we do not know ourselves at all well; we can recognize rationalizations in others and quite overlook them in ourselves.

We need to ask ourselves why we “feel” a particular course to be right, and to make ourselves give reasons—and we shall be wise to lay the case before someone else whose judgment we trust, to give a verdict on our reasons. We need also to keep praying, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”

Fifth, unwillingness to discount personal magnetism.

Sixth, unwillingness to wait. “Wait on the Lord” is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting.

so it teaches in particular that following God’s guidance regularly leads to upsets and distresses which one would otherwise have escaped.

13), but equally not

Unregenerate apostates are often cheerful souls, but backsliding Christians are always miserable.

What is grace? In the New Testament, grace means God’s love in action toward people who merited the opposite of love. Grace means God moving heaven and earth to save sinners who could not lift a finger to save themselves. Grace means God sending his only Son to the cross to descend into hell so that we guilty ones might be reconciled to God and received into heaven.

Comfort is, of course, used here in the old, strong sense of that which encourages and nerves, not in the modern sense of that which tranquilizes and enervates. The quest for “comfort” in the modern sense is self-indulgent, sentimental and unreal, and the modern “I-go-to-church-for-comfort” religion is not Christianity; but Elton is talking of Christian assurance, which is a different thing.

“The best measure of a spiritual life,” said Oswald Chambers, “is not its ecstasies, but its obedience.”