Knowing God by J. I. Packer - "The Majesty of God" (Chapter 8)

Knowing God by J. I. Packer
“The Majesty of God” (Chapter 8)

• Majesty = Greatness
• Declaration of Greatness and Invitation to Worship
• “In Heaven” - God is far above us in greatness, and therefore is to be adored.
• God’s Majesty - diminished in the modern church

“We are modern people, and modern people, though they cherish great thoughts of themselves, have as a rule small thoughts of God.” – J. I. Packer

“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!” – J. I. Packer

“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

Personal Yet Majestic

• Genesis 1 - God is introduced as both personal and majestic.
• Not an impersonal force or principle, but a living, personal Being.
• But an infinite Being, full of majesty, power, and sovereignty.
• El Shaddai - “God Almighty”

No Limitations

• How do we rightly think of God’s greatness?
  
  • Remove from our thoughts of God limits that would make him small.
    
    • Psalm 139 is a great example of how to think on God’s limitlessness:
      
      • Limitless Presence
      • Limitless Knowledge
      • Limitless Power
  • Compare him with powers and forces which we regard as great.

The Incomparable One

• Isaiah 40 is a good example of how to compare God with that which is great to help us think great thoughts of him:
  
  • God greater than his works
  • God greater than the nations
  • God greater than the world
  • God greater than authorities (great ones)
  • God greater than the stars

Our Response to Majesty

1. “To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One” (Is 40:25 RSV). This question rebukes wrong thoughts about God.

“‘Your thoughts of God are too human,’ said Luther to Erasmus. This is where most of us go astray. Our thoughts of God are not great enough; we fail to reckon with the reality of his limitless wisdom and power.” – J. I. Packer

2. “Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, 'My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God'?” (Isa. 40:27 NIV). This question rebukes wrong thoughts about ourselves.

“He never abandons anyone on whom he has set his love; nor does Christ, the good shepherd, ever lose track of his sheep. It is as false as it is irreverent to accuse God of forgetting, or overlooking, or losing interest in, the state and needs of his own people.” – J. I. Packer

3. “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom” (Isa. 40:28 NIV). This question rebukes our slowness to believe in God’s majesty.

“‘What is the trouble?’ he asks. ‘Have you been imagining that I, the Creator, have grown old and tired? Has nobody ever told you the truth about Me?’ The rebuke is well deserved by many of us. 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!” – J. I. Packer