"Today, vast stress is laid on the thought that God is personal, but this truth is so stated as to leave the impression that God is a person of the same sort as we are—weak, inadequate, ineffective, a little pathetic. But this is not the God of the Bible! Our personal life is a finite thing: it is limited in every direction, in space, in time, in knowledge, in power. But God is not so limited. He is eternal, infinite, and almighty. He has us in his hands; we never have him in ours. Like us, he is personal; but unlike us, he is great. In all its constant stress on the reality of God's personal concern for his people, and on the gentleness, tenderness, sympathy, patience and yearning compassion that he shows toward them, the Bible never lets us lose sight of his majesty and his unlimited dominion over all his creatures."
—J.I. Packer, Knowing God, ch. 8
Kyle
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified.
That is the theme of the book; He is God, we are not. I am on a mission to get every Christian to read and study that book. I think a healthy understanding of the Holiness and "otherness" of God is the only way we can ever begin to understand how needy we are and how great is His redeeming love.
Trust the past to God's mercy, the present to God's love and the future to God's providence." - St. Augustine Hiraeth
Oh, I'm sorry, Wes!! My punctuation is misleading. "He is God, we are not" is what I think is the supporting theme of "the book" Knowing God <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/rofl.gif" alt="" />
It is a good title for a book, though, isn't it??
Trust the past to God's mercy, the present to God's love and the future to God's providence." - St. Augustine Hiraeth
That statement is so true! Packer goes on to say that God is both personal and majestic. "For illustration, we do not have to look further that the opening chapters of Genesis. Right from the start of the Bible story, through the wisdom of divine inspiration, the narrative is told in such a way as to impress upon us the twin truths that the God to whom we are being introduced is both personal and majestic.
Nowhere in the Bible is the personal nature of God expressed in more vivid terms. He deliberates with himself, "let us..." (Gen. 1:26). He brings the animals to Adam to see what Adam will call them (Gen. 2:19). He walks in the garden, calling to Adam (Gen. 3:8-9). He asks questions (Gen. 3:11-13; 4:9; 16:8). He comes down from heaven in order to find out what his creatures are doing (Gen. 11:5; 18:20-33). He is so grieved by human weakness that he repents of making them (Gen. 6:6-7).
Representations of God like these are meant to bring home to us the fact that the God with whom we have to do is not a mere cosmic principal, impersonal, and indifferent, but a living Person, thinking, feeling, active, approving of good, disapproving of evil, interested in his creatures all the time."
This chapter in "Knowing God" brings out beautifully the personal character of an awesome God. He also goes on to write: "The first step in apprehending the greatness of God: to realize how unlimited are his wisdom, and his presence, and his power. Look at Job 38-41, the chapters in which God himself takes up Elihiu's recognition that "with God is terrible majesty: (Job 37:22), and sets before Job a tremendous display of his wisdom and power in nature, and asks Job if he can match such "majesty" as this (Job 40:9-11), and convinces him that, since he cannot, he should not presume to find fault with God's handling of Job's own case, which also goes far beyond Job's understanding."
"How slow we are to believe in God as God, sovereign, all seeing and almighty. How little we make of the majesty of our Lord and Savior Christ! The need for us is "to wait upon the Lord" in meditations on his majesty, til we find our strength renewed through the writing of these things upon our hearts."
Packer's "Knowing God" is a wonderful book!
Wes
When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride. - Isaac Watts
