Knowing God: Chapter 9 - God Only Wise

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In Chapter 9 of Knowing God Dr. Packer draws our attention to wisdom noting that it is both a moral and intellectual quality that can be defined as “the power to see, and the inclination to choose, the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it...Wisdom is, in fact, the practical side of moral goodness.”

Human wisdom can be frustrated and misdirected for wrong uses. But God’s wisdom can never be frustrated and when combined with His other perfections such as God’s omnipotence (all-powerfulness), it always accomplishes its proper goals, what God purposes and intends.


God’s wisdom and love are not intended to give us the “easy” life. God’s purpose is “that we should love and honor Him, praising Him for the wonderfully ordered complexity and variety of His world, using it according to His will, and so enjoying both it and Him...His immediate objectives are to draw individual men and women into a relationship of faith, hope, and love toward Himself, delivering them from sin and showing forth in their lives the power of His grace; to defend His people against the forces of evil; and to spread throughout the world the gospel by means of which He saves.”


Dr. Packer illustrates these realities of God’s wisdom and purposes using the lives of three patriarchs: Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph. He concludes with a reflection on 2 Cor 12:7-9, “...Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me,” (ESV) and provides this seemingly perplexing but profound thought: “Christian joy is greatest when the cross is heaviest.”

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