Knowing God

by J.I. Packer

series of articles on God angled for honest, no-nonsense readers who were fed up with facile Christian verbiage.

The conviction behind the book is that ignorance of God-ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with him-lies at the root of much of the church’s weakness today.

Trend one is that Christian minds have been conformed to the modern spirit: the spirit,

thoughts of death, eternity, judgment, the greatness of the soul and the abiding consequences of temporal decisions are all “out” for moderns,

Trend two is that Christian minds have been confused by the modern skepticism. For more than three centuries the naturalistic leaven in the Renaissance outlook has been working like a cancer in Western thought. Seventeenth-century Arminians and deists, like sixteenth-century Socinians, came to deny, as against Reformation theology, that God’s control of his world was either direct or complete, and theology, philosophy and science have for the most part combined to maintain that denial ever since.

Skepticism about both divine revelation and Christian origins has bred a wider skepticism which abandons all idea of a unity of truth, and with it any hope of unified human knowledge;

ask for the ancient paths,

The most excellent study for expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and Him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity.

And, whilst humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently consolatory.

only twenty years old)

Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.

I ask you for the moment to stop your ears to those who tell you there is no road to knowledge about God, and come a little way with me and see.

five foundation principles of the knowledge about God which Christians have,

Bible shows us of the nature and character of the God of whom we have been speaking.

the qualities of deity which set God apart from humans and mark the difference and distance between the Creator and his creatures: such qualities as his self-existence, his infinity, his eternity, his unchangeableness.

We shall have to deal with the powers of God: his almightiness, his omniscience, his omnipresence. We shall have to deal with the perfections of God, the aspects of his moral character which are manifested in his words and deeds-his holiness, his love and mercy, his truthfulness, his faithfulness, his goodness, his patience, his justice.

We shall have to take note of what pleases him, what offends him, what awakens his wrath, what affo...

What is my ultimate aim and object in occupying my mind with these things? What do I intend to do with my knowledge about God, once I have it?

Paul told the conceited Corinthians, “Knowledge puffs up. . . The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know” (1 Cor 8:1-2).

He wanted to understand God’s truth in order that his heart might respond to it and his life be conformed to it.

His ultimate concern was with the knowledge and service of

the great God whose truth he sought to understand.

And this must be our attitude too. Our aim in studying the Godhead must be to know God himself better. Our concern must be to enlarge our acquaintance, not simply with the doctrine of God’s attributes, but with the living God whose attributes they are. As he is the subject of our study, and our helper in it, so he must himself be the end of it. We must seek, in studying God, to be led ...

Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God. It is an activity of holy thought, consciously performed in the presence of God, under the eye of God, by the help of God, as a means of communion with God.

Its purpose is to clear one’s mental and spiritual vision of God, and to let his truth make its full and proper impact on one’s mind and heart.

Its effect is ever to humble us, as we contemplate God’s greatness and glory and our own littleness and sinfulness, and to encourage and reassure us—“comfort” us, in the old, strong, Bible sense of the word-as we contemplate the unsearchable riches of divine mercy displayed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

would it occur to us to say, without hesitation, and with reference to particular events in our personal history, that we have known God?

Constantly we find ourselves slipping into bitterness and apathy and gloom as we reflect on them,

they never think of the things they have missed, only of what they have gained.

A little knowledge of God is worth more than a great deal of knowledge about him.

learn a great deal secondhand about the practice of Christianity.

Yet one can have all this and hardly know God at all.

The question is, can we say, simply, honestly, not because we feel that as evangelicals we ought to, but because it is a plain matter of fact, that we have known God, and that because we have known God the unpleasantness we have had, or the pleasantness we have not had, through being Christians does not matter to us?

that is a sign that we need to

face ourselves more sharply with the difference between knowing God and me...

great energy for God.

the dishonor done to God’s name goads them into action.

Bishop Ryle

people who pray,

Yet the invariable fruit of true knowledge of God is energy to pray for God’s cause—energy, indeed, which can only find an outlet and a relief of inner tension when channeled into such prayer—and the more knowledge, the more energy!

But we can all pray about the ungodliness and apostasy which we see in everyday life all around us. If, however, there is in us little energy for such prayer, and little consequent practice of it, this is a sure sign that as yet we scarcely know our God.

great thoughts of God.

there is, perhaps, no more vivid or sustained presentation of the many-sided reality of God’s sovereignty in the whole Bible.

God’s hand is on history at every point,

the truth that “the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men” (4:25; compare 5:21).

world history

acts 17

his kingdom and righteousness will triumph in the end, for neither men nor angels shall be able to thwart him.

covenant of love

how we think of God?

isaiah 6

keep us humble and dependent, awed and obedient,