Knowing God by J. I. Packer - "The Love of God" (Chapter 12)

Knowing God by J. I. Packer
“The Love of God” (Chapter 12)

1 John 4:8 NIV
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:16 NIV
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

• A doctrine often misunderstood
• One of the most precious doctrines in Scripture

Romans 5:5 NIV
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

A Flood of Love

• Poured Out - “God’s love has flooded our inmost heart” (NEB).
• Perfect tense - a settled state consequent upon a completed action.
• A regular ministry of the indwelling Holy Spirit to all believers.

“With a perversity as pathetic as it is impoverishing, we have become preoccupied today with the extraordinary, sporadic, nonuniversal ministries of the Spirit to the neglect of the ordinary, general ones.” - J. I. Packer

“a right-minded concern for revival will express itself not in a hankering after tongues, but rather in a longing that the Spirit may shed God’s love abroad in our hearts with greater power.” - J. I. Packer

Love, Spirit, Light

1. “God is love” is not the complete truth about God so far as the Bible is concerned.

• This statement presupposes all the rest of the biblical witness to God.
• “God is spirit” (John 4:24).

- God’s presence is unlimited.
- Worship is not localized but is receptive to God’s presence and his truth.
- God’s Spirituality - “without body, parts, or passions”

“The love of God is… a spontaneous determination of God’s whole being in an attitude of benevolence and benefaction, an attitude freely chosen and firmly fixed. There are no inconstancies or vicissitudes in the love of the almighty God who is spirit.” - J. I. Packer

• “God is light” (1 John 1:5).

- “in him there is no darkness at all”
- Light = holiness and purity

“The God who is love is first and foremost light, and sentimental ideas of his love as an indulgent, benevolent softness, divorced from moral standards and concerns, must therefore be ruled out from the start. God’s love is holy love.” - J. I. Packer

“God’s love is stern, for it expresses holiness in the lover and seeks holiness for the beloved. Scripture does not allow us to suppose that because God is love we may look to him to confer happiness on people who will not seek holiness, or to shield his loved ones from trouble when he knows that they need trouble to further their sanctification.” - J. I. Packer

2. “God is love” is the complete truth about God so far as the Christian is concerned.

• “God is love” means that his love finds expression in everything that he says and does.
• The cross of Christ gives us assurance that we are beloved of God (Gal. 2:20).
• In every circumstance, God is working out of love for our good (Rom. 8:28).

“Every single thing that happens to us expresses God’s love to us, and comes to us for the furthering of God’s purpose for us… 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.” - J. I. Packer

Defining God’s Love

“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

1. God’s love is an exercise of his goodness.

2. God’s love is an exercise of his goodness toward sinners.

3. God’s love is an exercise of his goodness toward individual sinners.

4. God’s love to sinners involves his identifying himself with their welfare.

5. God’s love to sinners was expressed by the gift of his Son to be their Savior.

1 John 4:9–10 NIV
⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

6. God’s love to sinners reaches its objective as it brings them to know and enjoy him in a covenant relation.

“You shall have as true an interest in all my attributes for your good, as they are mine for my own glory. . . . My grace, saith God, shall be yours to pardon you, and my power shall be yours to protect you, and my wisdom shall be yours to direct you, and my goodness shall be yours to relieve you, and my mercy shall be yours to supply you, and my glory shall be yours to crown you. This is a comprehensive promise, for God to be our God: it includes all.” - Thomas Brooks

Amazing Love!

1 John 4:11 NIV
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.