Knowing God

by J.I. Packer

No doubt there have been some who have

preached of wrath and damnation with tearless eyes and no pain in their hearts.

Yet if we would know God, it is vital that we face the truth concerning his wrath, however unfashionable it may be,

Otherwise we shall not understand the gospel of salvation from wrath, nor the propitiatory achievement of the cross, nor the wonder of the redeeming love of God.

The wrath of God [wrote A. W. Pink] is a perfection of the Divine character on which we need to meditate frequently. First, that

our hearts may be duly impressed by God’s detestation of sin. We are ever prone to regard sin lightly, to gloss over its hideousness, to make excuses for sin. But the more we study and ponder God’s abhorrence of sin and His frightful vengeance upon it, the more likely are we to realise its heinousness. Second, to beget a true fear in our souls for God. “Let

cannot serve Him “acceptably” unless there is due “reverence” for His awful Majesty and “godly fear” of His righteous anger, and these are best promoted by frequently calling to mind that “our God is a consuming fire.” Third, to draw out our soul in fervent praise [to Jesus Christ] for having delivered us from “the wrath to come”

Our readiness or our reluctancy to meditate upon the wrath of God becomes a sure test of how our hearts really stand affected towards Him.

Pink is right. If we would truly know God, and be known of him, we should ask him to teach us here and now to reckon with the solemn reality of his wrath.

Never, perhaps, since Paul wrote has there been more need to labor this point than there is today. Modern muddle-headedness and confusion as to the meaning of faith in God are almost beyond description. People say they believe in God, but they have no

idea who it is that they believe in, or what difference believing in him may make.

How on earth have people got into such a muddle? What lies at the root of their confusion? And where is the starting point for setting them straight?

people have gotten into the practice of following private religious hunches rather than learning of God from his own Word;

we have to try to help them unlearn the pride and, in some cases, the misconceptions about Scripture which gave rise to this attitude and to base their convictions henceforth not on what they feel but on what the Bible says.

A second answer is that modern people think of all religions as equa...

we have to try to show people the uniqueness and finality of the Lord Jesus Christ...

A third answer is that people have ceased to recognize the reality of...

A fourth answer, no less basic than the three already given, is that people

today are in the habit of disassociating the thought of God’s goodness from that of his severity;

The habit in question,

has infected modern Western Protestantism as a whole. To reject all ideas of divine wrath and judgment, and to assume that God’s character,

in many parts of the Bible, is really one of indulgent bene...

severity, is the rule rather than the exception among or...

Modern Protestants are not going to give up their “enlightened” adherence to the doctrine of a celestial Santa Claus

when once it has put down roots, Christianity, in the true sense of the word, simply dies off.

on the basis of the Santa Claus theology, sins create no problem, and atonement becomes needless;

The idea that God’s attitude to me is affected by

whether or not I do what he says has no place in the thought of the man on the street, and any attempt to show the need for fear in God’s presence, for trembling at his word, gets written off as impossibly old-fashioned—“Victorian,”

Yet the Santa Claus theology carries within itself the seeds of its own collapse, for it cannot...

when belief in the “good God” of liberalism be...

the so-called problem of evil (which was not regarded as a problem before) suddenly leaped into prominence as the number one concern of Christian apologetics. This was inevitable, for it is not possible to see the good will of a...

The only way to save the liberal view of God is to dissociate him from these things and to deny that he h...

in other words, to deny his omnipotence and lordshi...

Thus he is left with a kind God who means well but cannot always insulate his childre...

When the biblical writers call God good, they are thinking in general of all those moral

qualities which prompt his people to call him perfect,

when David declared, “As for God, his way is perfect”

what he meant was that God’s people find in experience, as

he himself had found, that God never comes short of the goodness to which he has laid claim. “His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is...

Generosity means a disposition to give to others in a way which has no mercenary motive and is not limited by what the recipients deserve but consistently goes beyond it.

Generosity expresses the simple wish that others should have what they need to make them happy.

God is good

to all in some ways and to some in all ways.

The psalmist’s point is that, since God controls all that happens in his world, every meal, every pleasure, every possession, every bit of sun, every night’s

sleep, every moment of health and safety, everything else that sustains and enriches life, is a divine gift. And how abundant these gifts are!

But the mercies of God on the natural level, however abundant, are overshadowed by the greater mercies of spiritual redemption.

The principle which Paul is applying here is that behind every display of divine goodness stands a threat of severity in judgment if that goodness is scorned. If we do not let it draw us to God in gratitude and responsive love,

we have only ourselves to blame when God turns against us.

The patience of God in giving a chance to repent (Rev 2:5) before judgment finally falls is one of the marvels of the Bible

From the above line of thought we can learn at least three lessons.