Knowing God: Chapter 7

Knowing God – Week 8:

Chapter 7: God Unchanging

REVIEW

• Part I – Behold Your God

  • Chapter 1 – Study of God – Theology
    Packer, “we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it.”

  • Chapter 2 – The People Who Know Their God – Evidence
    Boldness, Contentment, Thoughts, Energy – Declaration of Dependence

  • Chapter 3 – Knowing and Being Known – Being Known by Grace Alone
    Packer, “There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.”

  • Chapter 4 – The Only True God – 2^nd Commandment/Idolatry/Images
    Packer, “Recognize that God the Creator is transcendent, mysterious and inscrutable…humble ourselves, to listen and learn of him, and let him teach us what he is like and how we should think of him.”

  • Chapter 5 – God Incarnate – Compassion of Christ
    Packer, “The Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all year round. [Instead; our] ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the submiddle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.”

  • Chapter 6 – He Shall Testify – Power of the Holy Spirit
    Doctrine (bond of brotherly fellowship), Fellowship (mutual society), Breaking of Bread (sharing of meals), Prayer (public profession of faith)
    
    

two worlds – one god

• Generation Gaps

  • Generations: Dealing with Boomers, Gen-X, and Beyond
    
    

Issues	Silent (61-78)	Boomers (43 - 60)	X (22 - 42)	Y (13 - 21)
Outlook	Practical	optimistic	skeptical
Work Ethic	dedicated	driven	balanced
Authority	Respectful	love-hate	unimpressed
Leadership	Hierarchy	consensus	competence
Relationships	self-sacrifice	personal gratification	reluctance to commit
Perspective	civic-minded	team-oriented	self-reliant
Personality	Conformists	Soul-Searchers	Risk-takers	Optimistic

• Illusion of Remoteness

  • Packer, “It is true that in terms of space, time and culture, they and the historical epoch to which they belonged are a very long way away from us. But the link between them and us is not found at that level. The link is God himself.

• Immutability

  • Hebrews 6: 13 – 20

6 ways god does not change

• God’s life

  • Psalm 90: 1-2

  • Packer, “Created things have a beginning and an ending, but not so their Creator.”

• God’s character

  • Packer, “The character of God is today, and always will be, exactly what it was in Bible times.”

? How do the two disclosures of God’s name in Exodus supplement each other?

• YHWH (Jehovah) – I AM, to be, existence, LORD

  • Exodus 3: 13-15

  • Exodus 34: 6-7 (he tells them how he will keep this covenant)

    • Compassionate/merciful, gracious, patient, loving, faithful, forgiving, just

• God’s truth

  • Packer, “The words of human beings are unstable things. But not so the words of God. They stand forever, as abidingly valid expressions of his mind and thought.”

• God’s ways

  • Packer, “His aims and principles of action remain consistent; he does not at any time act out of character. Our ways, we know, are pathetically inconstant – but not God’s.”

? What are some things God does today which he also did in Bible times? Why does he do it?

• God’s purposes

  • Packer, “Repenting means revising one’s judgment and changing one’s plan of action. God never does this…No change in his eternal purpose is implied when he begins to deal with a person in a new way.”

  • Chuck Swindoll, “Omniscience doesn’t learn…it doesn’t discover.”

? What effect should our awareness of “the immutability of God’s decrees” have on us?

• God’s Son

  • Hebrews 13: 7-8, 17

reformed Foundations

• Generation Connection

  • Catholic versus Reformed (Ashcroft’s speech)

  • Packer, “Fellowship with him, trust in his word, living by faith, standing on promises of God, are essentially the same realities for us today as they were for Old and New Testament believers”

? How should this thought comfort us? challenge us?

• Sola Scriptura or Scripture Alone

  • Scriptures are our only ultimate and infallible authority for faith and practice

  • Frame

    • “revelation of God’s absolute personality”

    • “Governs our understanding of everything else”

  • Holcomb, “From my experience, evangelicals have a tendency to make the Bible central to their belief.”

• TULIP – Election/Salvation

  • Why I’m not an Arminian? By Robert Peterson and Michael Williams
    “The Central Point of contention between the Calvinists and the early Arminians was whether…All other issues of dispute emanated from this core disagreement

    • election is unconditional or conditional upon human acceptance of the gospel

    • whether salvation is to be understood monergistically – God exercising his sovereign right to choose and save whom he will – or synergistically – God offering salvation to all, but leaving it up to each person to accept the Gospel and thus complete the act of salvation.”

  • TULIP

    • Total Depravity – sin extends to every part of our personality

    • Unconditional Election – God chose whom to save not based on merit but grace

    • Limited Atonement – Christ died only for the elect

    • Irresistible Grace –overpowering inward call of the Holy Spirit

    • Perseverance of the Saints – assurance of salvation of the elect

• A Defense of Calvinism by Charles H. Spurgeon
  “The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach to-day, or else be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox's gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again.”

open discussion