Knowing God – Week 1:
Introduction
Business
22 Chapters - approximately 12 pp/chap
Track 1 (1 Year – 2 chap/month)
Jan 15 – Introduction
Jan 29 - Chapter 1
Feb - Chap 2/3
Mar - 4/5
…
Dec – 22
Track 2 (6 Months – 4 chap/month)
Jan 29 – Chapter 1/2
Feb - Chap 3/4/5/6
Mar - 7/8/9/10
Apr - 11/12/13/14
May - 15/16/17/18
Jun - 19/20/21/22
JI PACKER
Bio
James Innell Packer (born July 22, 1926 in Gloucester, England)
Accomplishments
Ordained a priest in the Church of England
Board of Governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia
Served as general editor of the English Standard Version of the Bible
Influences (Calvin, Spurgeon, C.S. Lewis)
Description (Orthodox, Reformed, Anglican, Ecumenical/Unifying)
“Knowing God, sums it all up for us - conservative Methodists and Presbyterians and Baptists”
Knowing God - Preface
“Now this is a book for travelers, and it is with travelers’ questions that it deals.”
? What do you think it means to be a traveler?
Why he wrote this book:
Not a full treatise/exposition
“Ignorance of God – ignorance of his ways and the practice of communion with him”
Trends towards ignorance
Christian minds have been conformed to the modern spirit (great thoughts of man – small thoughts of God).
Christian minds have been confused by the modern skepticism.
? What are some examples that you see?
What it is to know God?
As Creator/Redeemer
Calvin - “First, the Lord shows himself to be simply the Creator. Then in the face of Christ he shows himself the Redeemer.”
Narnia Creation Story - “In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it.”
Through General Revelation
Van Til
“Van Til’s starting point is the historic doctrine of creation: God is the creator; the world is his creation… for Christianity, God is the sovereign Creator and Lord; the world is in no sense equal to him.”
Two Circle View
Analogical Knowledge vs. Open Theism
Analogical - “God is the original and man is the derivative. Man must think God’s thoughts after him; but this means that he must, in seeking to form his own system, constantly be subject to the authority of God’s system to the extent that this is revealed to him.”
Open – Chuck Swindoll, “Because bad things are happening to good people, then God, because he is good, did not know they were going to happen and therefore would never have allowed such to occur. And so, depending on how we respond, God determines what he will do next STOP Let me clarify here, that is heresy. Omniscience doesn’t learn…it doesn’t discover.”
? What is the difference between the two?
Through Special Revelation
Chapter VI – Scripture is needed as guide and teacher for anyone who would come to God the Creator
3. Without Scripture we fall into error – “For we should so reason that the splendor of the divine countenance is for us like an inexplicable labyrinth unless we are conducted into it by the thread of the Word”
? What is the implication here for those without a Bible or those with one that do not read it?
What is God known by?
El – supernatural provision or power
El-Shaddai – God Almighty
Elohim – God of eternity; God the everlasting; God for ever;
Adonai – Lord par excellence or Lord over all
YHWH (Jehovah) – I AM, to be, existence, LORD
Exodus 3: 13-17 (v17 - he remembers his covenant promise)
Exodus 6: 2-8 (he tells them what he will do to keep this covenant)
v7 - “You are my family”
“This is my Gospel”
Exodus 34: 6-7 (he tells them how he will keep this covenant)
Calvin - Here let us observe that his eternity and his self-existence are announced by that wonderful name twice repeated. Thereupon his powers are mentioned, by which he is shown to us not as he is in himself, but as he is toward us: so that this recognition of him consists more in living experience than in vain and high-flown speculation
How is he toward us?
Compassionate/merciful, gracious, patient, loving, faithful, forgiving, just
what is the purpose of this knowledge?
Worship
Calvin – “pure and real religion: faith so joined with an earnest fear of God that this fear also embraces willing reverence, and carries with it such legitimate worship as is prescribed in the law.”
Obedience
Psalm 145: 17-21
Draw us close to the God of the covenant – the God of hope
“The most suitable order, is not for us to attempt with bold curiosity to penetrate to the investigation of his essence…but for us to contemplate him in his works whereby he renders himself near and familiar to us…”
“Knowledge of this sort, then, ought not only to arouse us to the worship of God but also to awaken and encourage us to the hope of the future life. “
Become Holy as the Lord
Jeremiah 9:24
“but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,”
? Is that easy to do? Is there a contradiction here?
Kindness/Mercy – salvation by grace alone
Justice/Righteousness/Judgment – order is persevered and “we are most tenderly nourished”
? Which of these do you find most difficult to exercise? Why?
Calvin – “If, finally, “all his paths are mercy”, judgment, justice, in these also is his holiness visible.”
Our cure for the “Ignorance of God – ignorance of his ways and the practice of communion with him”
Knowing God
apostle’s creed
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