A primary benefit of becoming a Christian is our adoption by God as His children. As Christians, this is a privilege that sets us apart, not because of our own merit but because of the inexpressible grace and love of God.
Having become adopted children of God, we have the advantage of coming to know our Creator intimately. Yet, many of us struggle in our relationship with God or in coming to know Him. This is not a contemporary problem; it was there in 1973 when J.I. Packer wrote his seminal book, ‘Knowing God’. Through it, his mission was to help Christians come to know God not just theoretically but as a living Person; as a reviewer of the book put it on Amazon.com:
“To know God, I learned, is to have a real, vibrant and personal emotional relationship with Him; one that requires love, trust, obedience, discipline, forgiveness, guidance, respect, honor and glory! A real relationship.”
Packer establishes early on that knowing God is not a matter of how much doctrinal knowledge we possess, nor of the amount of “religious experience” we have. He identified 4 marks of a person who truly knows God, taking Daniel as an example.
We all know the story of Daniel. He was one of the Biblical figures that really stood out for his faith, and his faith was founded on his knowledge and relationship with God. Daniel and his friends had great energy for God. They knew God and as a consequence felt compelled time after time actively to stand out against the conventions and dictates of irreligion and false religion of their surrounding culture.
Instead, he and his friends felt bound openly to challenge them. Daniel in particular would not let that sort of situation slide. Rather than risk possible ritual defilement through eating the palace food, he insisted on a vegetarian diet, upsetting the prince of the eunuchs (Daniel 1:6-8). When the king, Darius, suspended the practice of prayer for a month, Daniel not only went on with his usual practice of praying three times a day, but did so in front of an open window so that everyone might see what he was doing (Daniel 6:10). Daniel came to know God through his prayers – and the manner in which a person prays is one of the distinguishing marks of the people who know God.
Because Daniel knew God he had great thoughts of God. It was the basis of his prayers and he taught Nebuchadnezzar and reminded Belshazzar of one central truth. God knows, and foreknows, all things, and His foreknowledge is foreordination. God, therefore, will have the last word, both in world history and in the destiny of every man; His kingdom and righteousness will triumph in the end, for neither men nor angels shall be able to thwart Him.
The great thought Daniel and his friends had of God gave them strength to persevere in two major ways; they had great boldness for God (they may find the determination of the right course agonizingly difficult, but once they are clear on it they embrace it boldly and without hesitation, and it did not bother them that others of God’s people see the matter differently and did not stand with them). Despite the consequences, they had great confidence and contentment in God (Daniel 3:16-18):
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
How did Daniel and his friends come to such knowledge about God, that they remained serene and steadfast even in a foreign land and amidst extremely challenging circumstances? One of the things they knew about God, and it would help us too, is to know His covenantal nature. The Bible tells us we know God in the manner of a son knowing his father, a wife knowing her husband, a subject knowing his king, and a shepherd knowing his sheep. This is the Biblical concept of knowing God, that those who know Him – those to whom He allows Himself to be known – are loved and cared by Him. God takes responsibility for our welfare.
God is a Person. Packer shares that it is a relatively simple matter to describe or come to the knowledge of an inanimate object. It becomes much more complex when we relate to living beings. In the same way we relate to our families and close friends, knowing God is a matter of personal dealing. Knowing God is more than knowing about Him; it is a matter of dealing with Him as He opens up to us, and being dealt with by Him as He takes knowledge of us. It is the precondition of trust in Him, and the application of His truths in our lives.
Knowing God is also a matter of personal involvement; in mind, will, and feeling. To get to know a person, we have to commit ourselves to his company and interests, and to be ready to identify ourselves with his concerns. It would not be a fully personal relationship otherwise. It is the same way with God. Packer observed that we have a culture that downplays emotions in our relationship with God for fear of self-absorption but that this shouldn’t be. A deep and intimate relationship will always involve emotion. The believer rejoices when his God is honoured and vindicated, and feels the acutest distress when he sees God flouted.
Ultimately, knowing God is a matter of grace. We cannot know God unless He allows us to, since He is so far above us and we have so completely forfeited all claim on His favours by our sinful nature. We do not make friends with God; God makes friends with us, bringing us to Him by making His love known to us. Grace came first and is fundamental in our knowledge of God and our salvation. It is the consequence of God’s taking knowledge of us. God knows us through and through, and we know Him by faith because He first singled us out by His grace.
Packer describes it powerfully;
“What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it – that He knows me. I am graven on the palm of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All of my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, One who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters.”
There is great comfort in this, Packer writes, because we know that God is constantly taking knowledge of us in love and watching over us for our good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that He already knows the deepest part of our being, including the worst about us, and yet chooses to love us. There is great humility when we know God for who He is, and a great incentive to worship and love God, knowing that for some unfathomable reason He wants us as His friend, and desires us to be His friend, and has given His Son to die for us in order to realise this purpose. Our human minds cannot fathom this but how much it means to us to know, not merely that we know God, but that He knows us.
A substantial portion of this article is derived from Chapters 2 and 3 of J.I. Packer’s ‘Knowing God’. The book is a comprehensive and landmark Christian work, going into more than 20 chapters about the character of God including His eternal nature, majesty, wisdom, love, grace, and wrath, and our correct responses to them.
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