Do You Really Know God?
A Review of “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer
Do you really know God? Most reading this article will immediately answer “yes” without giving this question much thought. You might be thinking “of course I know God” and follow that with some thoughts about Him. For example, He is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. He spoke to Moses as a burning bush. He sent Jesus to die on the cross.
Certainly those are true statements about God, and they are also what I would call surface level statements. Imagine a group of friends reuniting for the first time a few years after high school. One says she has been dating a great guy, and they are getting pretty serious—in fact she thinks he may soon propose. Her friends are ecstatic and want to know all about him. The girl starts listing things about him: he’s from Michigan, he’s 26, he is a construction worker. But her friends want to know what he is really like. She responds with more of the same: he has a younger sister, brown hair, hazel eyes, and drives some kind of blue car.
At this point the girl has shown she knows information or facts about her suitor, but does she really know him? That is the issue J. I. Packer attacks in his book Knowing God. Packer says that “one can know a great deal about God without much knowledge of Him.” We can read about God, memorize scripture, even lead a Bible study. However, all those things may lead us to know a lot about God without really knowing Him.
Packer furthers this thought by stating “one can know a great deal about godliness without much knowledge of God.” Again, we can get insight into godliness from merely reading scripture and books, listening to sermons, attending small groups, etc. To Packer’s point, we can easily build our knowledge about God without truly knowing Him. What does it look like to really know God? Packer relies on the familiar characters in the book of Daniel—Daniel himself, along with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—to make four points that illustrate what knowing God looks like. These are actionable things we can do to help us know God.
Point One: Those who know God have great energy for God. In other words, our action for God and our reaction toward anti-God movements, can give clear indications of knowing God. Conversely, a lack of action or a lack of reaction in those same situations may give indications of not knowing Him. Daniel and his friends knew God and displayed this with great energy. For example, pause and read Daniel 1:8-16. In this passage we read that Daniel refused to risk eating food considered unclean. Read Dan 3:1-15. Here we read how Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow and worship a golden image despite the threat of death for refusal. Finally, read Dan 6:6-10. Here we read how Daniel continued to pray despite strict forbiddance. In each of these situations we see people who definitely had great energy for God evidenced by their actions for God and their refusals to act against God. They were not being obstinate or argumentative just to bring attention to themselves or because they enjoyed causing disruption by going against the masses. They were called to do something—their great energy for God led them to a call for action.
Point Two: Those who know God have great thoughts of God. The Bible is filled with descriptions of God’s greatness displayed through examples of His sovereignty, love, grace, mercy, power, wrath, patience, and more. We use words like omniscient, omnipresent, all-knowing, and unchanging. But when we are hearing a sermon, in a small group, or simply reading His word, do we really see and reflect on His greatness?
The book of Daniel is certainly filled with multiple examples of His greatness on display. But when we read His word, do we really reflect on His greatness? Do we have great thoughts of His sovereignty, love, grace, mercy, power, wrath, and patience? Packer states the Book of Daniel “as a whole forms a dramatic reminder that the God of Israel is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords” and that “God’s hand is on history at every point, that history, indeed is no more than ‘His story,’ the unfolding of His eternal plan, and that the kingdom which will triumph in the end is God’s.”
For one example, read Daniel 9:1-19. Here we see Daniel praying for his people. In v3 Daniel describes how he turned his face to the Lord God and in v4, he exclaimed how great and awesome God is, remembering His covenant and steadfast love for us.
Point Three: Those who know God have great boldness for God. Of the four points that Packer makes, this one may be the most outwardly visible. There are many secular and un-Godly pressures Christians face today. Pressures to approve of abortion, transgenderism, homosexuality, and other positions that go against God’s word. Society says to do what feels right to you and that truth is whatever you make it to be.
Taking a stance takes boldness. Peter and the Apostles stated in Acts 5: 29 that “We must obey God rather than men.” Daniel and his friends displayed this boldness for God several times, and one of the best-known examples of that is of the fiery furnace. Pause and read Daniel 3. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew the consequences of disobeying the order to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image—the fiery furnace. However, what did they do? Cower in fear? Beg for mercy? Capitulate their beliefs? No! They boldly stood their ground despite the consequences. They simply obeyed God’s word and washed their hands of the consequences. Those who truly know God stand with great boldness for Him.
Point Four: Those who know God have great contentment in God. Packer states “there is no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with the full assurance that they have known God, and that God has known them.” This is the contented peace that the imprisoned Paul stated “surpasses all understanding” (4:7). Even from prison, Paul was content.
Again, let’s turn to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as they faced the fiery furnace. They displayed great boldness as described earlier and were 100% content as they stood their ground. Their response in Dan 3:16-18 displays their contentment perfectly. “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.'”
This example summarizes the four points Packer makes. They easily stood their ground in faith (great energy), believed their God was great enough to deliver them from the furnace (great thoughts), obeyed and washed their hands of the consequences (great boldness), and were at peace with whatever the outcome (great contentment).
Packer challenges us to continuously increase this kind of knowledge of God. To increase our knowledge of God requires that we first admit we lack knowledge of God. If you ask any great theologian who truly knows God, they will likely say “I need to know Him better.” To increase our knowledge of God, we have to give ourselves completely to Him. Christ tells us that we “shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).
Knowing Him therefore becomes a personal matter. Throughout the Bible God is exclaiming he knows His people by name (Exodus 33:17, Jeremiah 1:5, and John 10:14-15). He definitely knows us … how well do you really know Him?
Your brother in Christ,
Joe Holmes