Who is God? What is he like? How can we know him? These are monumental, but deeply important, questions with which all Christians must grapple. Theologian and scholar J.I. Packer’s classic is designed as a starting place for understanding what he contends is humanity’s most important journey.

Many laypeople are quick to dismiss theology as something for the pastor or priest. The days when an average Joe would study God on his own, they insist, are long gone; and people can get by just fine without it.

This is a fair objection, but one to which there is a clear response. Such a line of thinking presupposes theology to be impractical and unrelated to everyday life, but nothing could be further from the truth. Consider what would happen if a villager from a remote corner of the globe with no exposure to an urban, English-speaking setting were dropped into the middle of London or New York City without any instructions or guidance. What would be the outcome? Without any knowledge of his surroundings, the language, or culture into which he’s been thrown, he’ll be dazed and confused. In the same way, without a knowledge of God, we are clueless about his creation and the way he intended his creatures to function. Without this guiding understanding, the world will seem a painful, chaotic, meaningless place. If you want to walk through life stumbling around in the dark, stay far, far away from the study of God.

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Anyone who studies theology, layperson or seminarian, must grapple with the ultimate end of his or her study. Each person must answer the questions, “What is motivating my exploration? What will I do with this knowledge?” If we pursue knowledge of God for its own sake, it will inevitably go sideways. As Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 8:1-2, “Knowledge puffs up while love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.” No one likes a know-it-all, but if someone makes getting the right answers the ultimate measure of success, he’s on track to end up with a bloated sense of self-importance and a judgmental attitude toward others. The tragic irony is that the misguided pursuit of knowledge about God can lead people farther away from the heart of God instead of closer to it. A kind of dissonance often emerges in these cases: true propositions about God might be affirmed, but the person who explains these statements might lack the joy, kindness, and freedom that distinguish the soul who truly knows God.

In order for theology to lead us to God, he must be both the subject and the object of the study. More than knowledge, we must want God himself.

We were made to know God. If this is the purpose for which he made us, then that should be our ultimate goal. Jesus prayed, “Now this is eternal life: that they [Jesus' disciples] know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)

Knowing your chief aim as a human being helps provide a realistic point of view for decision-making, measuring what’s important, and showing our problems for what they are. It’s also an antidote to nihilism (life as entirely meaningless) and absurdism (life as one cruel, drawn-out joke). Life becomes worth living when there is a compelling goal to strive for, and what could be more compelling than to align oneself with and get to know the Creator of the cosmos in a relational way?

But what does it mean to know God? Is it an emotional high, a moment of ecstatic, inexplicable joy, or an experience more comparable to a drug trip? Can the spiritual experience be an intellectual one? Is it a dream or vision? What sort of activity or experience constitutes knowing God?

There’s a great deal that can be said here. One thing worth mentioning is God’s complexity. He is far more complex than another human, and certainly more so than an animal, an inanimate object, or an abstraction like language. Even beings as complex as humans are finite. Knowledge of God requires study as well as seeing him in action, so to speak. People often keep secrets, and don’t readily show us all that’s going on inside. Getting to know others requires that we show interest in and attention to them, coupled with sincere support. When someone does something wildly out of character, we question whether we ever knew the person at all. Thus, knowing someone is more than our trying to get to know him; it involves that person allowing you to get to know him, and your patient waiting as he does.

If you were to meet someone you consider on a higher tier—be that someone with significant political, intellectual, professional, or social clout—like the Queen of England or a U.S. President—you would likely come before that person with an attitude of respectful deference. You would wait for him to set the tone for the interactions. Maybe it’s short and formal and you were hoping for more, but you don’t feel entitled even to that, so you accept it. But what if it were more? What if this person were to take you into his confidence, and reveal to you his central concerns and heart? What if this person entrusted you with a role in carrying out missions and projects he has planned, and requests that you be on call to complete those goals? Would that not be an amazing honor? Suddenly, life takes on a meaning and significance.

It should not surprise anyone that thoughtful, rational people would be skeptical about the Gospel message. The atonement, the virgin birth, the resurrection, Jesus’ ministry, involving everything from feeding 5,000 to casting out legions of demons, to healing the sick, and giving sight to the blind—it all sounds incredible. Confusion and incredulity are unsurprising responses.

The mystery of mysteries and biggest stumbling block of all is not the atonement or the resurrection, but the Incarnation, the belief that Jesus was God in the flesh. It’s stranger and grander than any work of fiction out there. It’s the sticking point for many offshoots of Christianity, like Islam, Unitarianism, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. These groups might quibble over miracles or what the cross did or did not accomplish, but the root of all these issues is the Incarnation. If one comes to accept the truth of the Incarnation, that divinity was pleased to dwell in Christ, the other objections tend to go away because the most unbelievable is now believed. If Christ is divine, then walking on water, healing the sick, and rising from the dead are par for the course. This is a difficult teaching for many, and it’s a mystery that we will never fully grasp, but for those who accept it, the entirety of the New Testament will make sense.

The majesty of God is a theme that we see from Genesis to Revelation. The author of Hebrews twice refers to God simply as “the Majesty.” This title and descriptor speak of the incalculable greatness of God. Traditionally, this sense of God’s grandeur has given the Christian grounds for reverence, worship, and trust.

There is clearly a deeply personal, intimate care that God has for people, but forgetting God’s majesty is no small loss. In contemporary Christianity, the strong conviction of God’s majesty has been crowded out by the growing emphasis on God’s personal nature. In our modern world, the typical person’s lofty view of self has left little space for God. Weakness of trust and anemic worship are symptoms of this slipping regard of God’s indomitable majesty. The book title Your God Is Too Small sums things up well. Many people make God so personable that he is just a human like us—with all its accompanying frailty and flakiness. What a far cry from the God of Scripture! God does not have the same limitations that we do. He is personal, but, unlike humans, he is inexpressibly great and powerful. This gives the believer a deep stability that we could never expect from another human.

Grace is another word we hear plenty about, but its meaning seems to be lost on church-goers and non-believers alike. For many Christians, it has come to connote a 24/7 recharge center that you can simply plug into. But it is much more than that. It is, fundamentally, God’s personal, loving action toward people. Many speak glibly about grace, but, by word and action, grace appears to be absent in their lives. A range of topics still resonates, but grace tends to be met with blank stares. Many have implicitly concluded that they can get by just fine without it.

Where is the disconnect? How can we speak so often of grace and understand it so little? There are four critical truths about the human condition that we must acknowledge if grace is to resonate. Unfortunately, these truths could not be more diametrically opposed to the popular zeitgeists blowing through contemporary culture.

The first truth is that human beings are morally bankrupt. Modern man’s high opinion of himself was mentioned earlier. Scientific achievement has become of greater import and man thinks lightly of his vices. The ounce of kindness he displays compensates for a pound of vice.

A second truth is that God’s justice is retributive. Our actions are not without consequences. We make the mistake that pagan religions have throughout the ages, that the gods mirror our own temperaments and preferences. So if we are willing to tolerate evil in our own lives and the lives of others, then the gods will do the same. But it is not within the character of a God who is good to let evil go unpunished. If God did not care about our sin, there would be no need for grace, and so long as we feel God is okay with our sin, our talk of grace will remain meaningless.

A third truth that is foundational to grace truly resonating in our hearts is the acknowledgment that we are powerless to achieve a position of right standing with God. Pagans try to curry the gods’ favors with gifts and sacrifices.  Modern man seems to believe that church attendance and being a good person is sufficient.

The fourth and final truth that modern individuals have lost sight of is God’s sovereign freedom. None of us is entitled to his grace. It is an undeserved gift, one that God was not obligated to extend to us.

Propitiation is the regaining of favor through sacrifice. Many pagan religions felt that the gods required appeasing, and that this was best done by gifts and sacrifices—the more costly, the more effective. Gold and silver were preferable to fruits and nuts, and a human life was weightier than an animal’s. In the pagan cosmology, the gods were like humans in terms of jealousy, pettiness, and caprice, but had almost absolute power. Tempers flared when another god or human was the object of adulation, and the gods would punish humanity with plagues, famines and pestilences until the sacrifices were sufficient to appease them. People essentially bribed and manipulated the gods into relenting.

Unlike the pagan gods, the God of the Bible is not only good but the source of goodness. It is not in his character to be cruel, hateful, or vengeful. This doesn’t mean, however, that God lets evil go unpunished. He takes sin seriously. Propitiation, therefore, is a theme that runs throughout the Scriptures. In the Old Testament, the Hebrews would offer animal sacrifices for their sins. In the New Testament—and this is where propitiation is different than in any other religion—the sacrifice is given by God himself, and it is a once-for-all sacrifice. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was the perfect sacrifice, diverting the wrath of God which would have otherwise been poured out on a rebellious race that had rejected their Creator.

Just as a mountaintop view helps you see things in proper perspective, so understanding propitiation offers us a vantage point enabling us to see everything in the New Testament is in its proper place—from Jesus’ central mission, to the vastness of God’s love, to the kind of peace that God offers those who believe.

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