Knowing God: Chapter 9 - God Only Wise

-

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.”

Popular posts from this blog

Songs I Find Helpful: It was finished upon that cross

-
 Part of my devotional life is listening to songs I find helpful to my walk with Christ, helpful in transforming me into the image of my Savior. In an on-going series of posts, from time-to-time I will post songs that I find helpful in my walk with Christ, songs I find encouraging, songs I find that express my own struggles, songs that express my own longings, songs that express my own lament. Many of these songs are songs that we as a body sing together, confessing our own communal longings, desires, laments, and encouragements for God, for Christ, for the gospel, for His glory. As we approach Easter I wanted to share a new song from City Alight ( https://www.cityalight.com/ ): “It was finished upon that cross.” The song glories in the finished work of Christ on the cross “that we would be free indeed...free from every plan of darkness, free to live and free to love.” It glories in and reflects upon the final of the seven sayings of Christ on the cross found in John 19:30, “It is fini
Read more

Knowing God: Chapter 16 - Goodness and Severity

-
Chapter 16 of Knowing God helps us to see the necessity and complement of God’s goodness and God’s severity. The chapter warns that “people today are in the habit of disassociating the thought of God’s goodness from that of his severity.” That is, people want the benevolence of God without the wrath of God. But this is a picture of the mythical Santa Clause not the true God. Dr. Packer points out that seeing God as merely and solely benevolent effectively creates the problem of evil and neuters God of “his omnipotence and lordship over the world.” God's Goodness The goodness of God is that perfection of God that includes His generosity, mercy, grace, and love. It is “the sum total of his revealed excellences.” The particular moral perfection that God’s goodness points to is His generosity, “his 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 t
Read more

Knowing God: Chapter 18 - The Heart of the Gospel

-
Chapter 18 of  Knowing God  is a rather lengthy chapter, and rightfully so, for its aim is that we would understand the very heart of the gospel. And its summarizing argument and conclusion is this:  the very heart of the gospel is propitiation , “the pacifying (satisfaction) of God’s wrath”, “the averting of God’s anger by an offering”, namely, the salvation of sinners from the wrath of God by the death of Christ (Rom 5:9). While there are numerous blessings that the gospel delivers to those who place their faith alone in Christ alone for salvation, the primary and most fundamental need and blessing is the averting of God’s righteous and personal wrath upon us for our rebellious sin against Him via the death of Christ on our behalf and, instead, having our relationship with God restored.  Dr. Packer notes three facts about propitiation:  Propitiation is the work of God himself.  It is  not  the work of man in any way. That is, it is entirely a work of grace. (1 Jn 4:7-9) Propitiation
Read more