Inspirational Quotes by J.I. Packer
“All very fine—yet interest in theology, and knowledge about God, and the capacity to think clearly and talk well on Christian themes, is not at all the same thing as knowing him. We may know as much about God as Calvin knew—indeed, if we study his works diligently, sooner or later we shall—and yet all the time (unlike Calvin, may I say) we may hardly know God at all.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“If we really knew God, this is what we would be saying, and if we are not saying it, that is a sign that we need to face ourselves more sharply with the difference between knowing God and merely knowing about him.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“By this we may test ourselves. Perhaps we are not in a position to make public gestures against ungodliness and apostasy. Perhaps we are old, or ill, or otherwise limited by our physical situation. But we can all pray about the ungodliness and apostasy which we see in everyday life all around us. If, however, there is in us little energy for such prayer, and little consequent practice of it, this is a sure sign that as yet we scarcely know our God.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“knowing God is a matter of grace. It is a relationship in which the initiative throughout is with God—as it must be, since God is so completely above us and we have so completely forfeited all claim on his favor by our sins.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“In England, the kenosis theory was first broached by Bishop Gore in 1889, to explain why our Lord was ignorant of what the nineteenth-century higher critics thought they knew about the errors of the Old Testament. Gore’s thesis was that in becoming man the Son had given up his divine knowledge of matters of fact, though retaining full divine infallibility on moral issues. In the realm of historical fact, he was limited to current Jewish ideas, which he accepted without question, not knowing that they were not all correct. Hence his treatment of the Old Testament as verbally inspired and wholly true, and his ascription of the Pentateuch to Moses and Psalm 110 to David—views which Gore thought untenable. Many have followed Gore at this point, seeking justification for rejecting Christ’s estimate of the Old Testament.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“As it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesman to fly him to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square and leave him, as one who knew nothing of English or England, to fend for himself, so we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“knowing God involves, first, listening to God’s Word and receiving it as the Holy Spirit interprets it, in application to oneself; second, noting God’s nature and character, as his Word and works reveal it; third, accepting his invitations, and doing what he commands; fourth, recognising, and rejoicing in, the love that he has shown in thus approaching you and drawing you into this divine fellowship.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“Tyndale, in his preface to Romans, linked both thoughts, calling Romans “the principal and most excellent part of the New Testament, and most pure Euangelion, that is to say glad tidings and that we call gospel, and also a light and a way in unto the whole Scripture.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“To make an image of God is to take one’s thoughts of him from a human source, rather than from God himself; and this is precisely what is wrong with image-making.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“What is the “eternal life” that Jesus gives? Knowledge of God. “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3). What is the best thing in life, bringing more joy, delight and contentment than anything else? Knowledge of God. “This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me”’ (Jer 9:23-24).”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“The theory also raises great and insoluble problems of its own. How can we say that the man Christ Jesus was fully God, if he lacked some of the qualities of deity? How can we say that he perfectly revealed the Father, if some of the Father’s powers and attributes were not in him? Moreover, if, as the theory supposes, true manhood on earth was incompatible with unreduced deity, it must presumably be so in heaven too; so it follows that “the man in the glory” has lost some of his divine powers for all eternity.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“Thus, so far as we are concerned, God is love to us—holy, omnipotent love—at every moment and in every event of every day’s life. Even when we cannot see the why and the wherefore of God’s dealings, we know that there is love in and behind them, and so we can rejoice always, even when, humanly speaking, things are going wrong. We know that the true story of our life, when known, will prove to be, as the hymn says, “mercy from first to last”—and we are content.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“One cannot imagine that talk of divine judgment was ever very popular, yet the biblical writers engage in it constantly. One of the most striking things about the Bible is the vigor with which both Testaments emphasize the reality and terror of God’s wrath. “A study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury, and wrath of God, than there are to His love and tenderness” (A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God, p. 75).”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“They knew what they were doing. They had counted the cost. They had measured the risk. They were well aware what the outcome of their actions would be unless God miraculously intervened, as in fact he did.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“Furthermore, it is not possible to use the kenosis theory, as Gore does, to justify the ascribing of error to part of Christ’s teaching while maintaining the divine authority of the rest. Christ claimed in comprehensive and categorical terms that all his teaching was from God: that he was never more than his Father’s messenger. “My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. . . . I . . . speak just what the Father has taught me. . . . For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. . . . Whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say” (Jn 7:16; 8:28; 12:49-50). He declared himself to be “a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God” (Jn 8:40).”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“The root cause of our unhappiness seems to be a disquieting suspicion that ideas of wrath are in one way or another unworthy of God.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“God’s love is an exercise of his goodness toward individual sinners whereby, having identified himself with their welfare, he has given his Son to be their Savior, and now brings them to know and enjoy him in a covenant relation.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“For this very reason we need, before we start to ascend our mountain, to stop and ask ourselves a very fundamental question—a question, indeed, that we always ought to put to ourselves whenever we embark on any line of study in God’s holy book. The question concerns our own motives and intentions as students. We need to ask ourselves: What is my ultimate aim and object in occupying my mind with these things? What do I intend to do with my knowledge about God, once I have it? For the fact that we have to face is this: If we pursue theological knowledge for its own sake, it is bound to go bad on us.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“The impression of Jesus which the Gospels give is not that he was wholly bereft of divine knowledge and power, but that he drew on both intermittently, while being content for much of the time not to do so. The impression, in other words, is not so much one of deity reduced as of divine capacities restrained.”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
“The Son appears in the Gospels not as an independent divine person, but as a dependent one, who thinks and acts only and wholly as the Father directs. “The Son can do nothing by himself”; “By myself I can do nothing” (Jn 5:19, 30). “I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (Jn 6:38). “I do nothing on my own. . . . I always do what pleases him” (Jn 8:”
― J.I. Packer ,
from Knowing God
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Dr. Packer, the Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology at Regent College, was hailed by TIME as “a doctrinal Solomon” among Protestants. “Mediating debates on everything from a particular Bible translation to the acceptability of free-flowing Pentecostal spirituality, Packer helps unify a community [evange licalism] that could easily fall victim to its internal tensions.”
Knowing God, Dr. Packer’s seminal 1973 work, was lauded as a book which articulated shared beliefs for members of diverse denominations; the TIME profile quotes Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington as saying, “conservative Methodists and Presbyterians and Baptists could all look to [Knowing God] and say, ‘This sums it all up for us.’”
In a similar tribute to Dr. Packer almost ten years ago, American theologian Mark Noll wrote in Christianity Today that, “Packer’s ability to address immensely important subjects in crisp, succinct sentences is one of the reasons why, both as an author and speaker, he has played such an important role among American evangelicals for four decades.”
For over 25 years Regent College students have been privileged to study under Dr. Packer’s clear and lucid teaching, and our faculty, staff and students celebrate the international recognition he rightly receives as a leading Christian thinker and teacher.
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