Personal Knowledge of God
“The whole business of the Christian gospel is to bring us to God. To bring us to God so that we are made aware of God and God becomes real to us. That’s what it’s about. And that’s why Christ came. That’s why He died. So sometimes, perhaps, people misunderstand what a Christian really is. It’s important that we emphasize that He died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God so that God becomes a real person in our lives and not just a theological proposition.”
― Andrew Davies, Week 1 of Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically
J.I. Packer is one of the most influential evangelical theologians of our day. He is the author of many richly devotional books. We wholeheartedly recommend his best-known book, Knowing God.
In the third chapter of Knowing God, we read:
“Knowing God is a matter of personal dealing, as is all direct acquaintance with personal beings. Knowing God is more than knowing about Him; it is a matter of dealing with Him as He opens up to you, and being dealt with by Him as He takes knowledge of you. Knowing about Him is a necessary precondition of trusting in Him (‘how could they have faith in one they had never heard of?’ [Rom. 10:14, NEB]), but the width of our knowledge about Him is no gauge of the depth of our knowledge of Him. John Owen and John Calvin knew more theology than John Bunyan or Billy Bray, but who would deny that the latter pair knew their God every bit as well as the former? (All four, of course, were beavers for the Bible, which counts for far more anyway than a formal theological training.) If the decisive factor was notional correctness, then obviously the most learned biblical scholars would know God better than anyone else. But it is not.
“You can have all the right notions in your head without ever tasting in your heart the realities to which they refer; and a simple Bible-reader and sermon-hearer who is full of the Holy Ghost will develop a far deeper acquaintance with his God and Savior than more learned men who are content with being theologically correct.
“The reason is that the former will deal with God regarding the practical application of truth to his life, whereas the latter will not.
“Knowing God is a matter of personal involvement, in mind, will, and feeling. It would not, indeed, be a fully personal relationship otherwise. To get to know another person, you have to commit yourself to his company and interests, and be ready to identify yourself with his concerns. Without this, your relationship with him can only be superficial and flavorless. ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good,’ says the psalmist (Psalm 34:8). To ‘taste’ is, as we say, to ‘try’ a mouthful of something, with a view to appreciating its flavor. A dish may look good, and be recommended by the cook, but we do not know its real quality till we have tasted it. Similarly, we do not know another person’s real quality till we have ‘tasted’ the experience of friendship with him . . . This is an essential aspect of the knowledge which friends have of each other; and the same applies to the Christian’s knowledge of God, which, as we have seen, is itself a relationship between friends.”