J.I. Packer

HT: Carl Trueman

Taking God into the pulpit...

From Carl Trueman:

This last Friday, I had the privilege of being in Vancouver to give Dr. James I. Packer an honorary doctorate and to interview him for the Westminster website. The interview will be posted on the Westminster site in the next week or two. Suffice it to say that, if I had known what answer he was to give on my question about the damaging effect of upper class English public (for US, read private) schoolboys on Anglican theology, I would have walked from Philadelphia to Vancouver in my bare feet. Nay, on my knees in the rain. I love talking to someone who shares the same basic prejudices that I do.

One other question I did ask was about Dr Lloyd-Jones. 'He took more of God into the pulpit with him than any other preacher I have ever known,' was Dr Packer's reply. One can be nostalgic about the past, but I wonder how many of this generation's archetypal, aspirational model preachers will have that said about them thirty years after their death? They were funny; they had huge churches; they took more stand up comedy into the pulpit -- or onto the stage -- than anybody else; they looked cool; they were branded and puffed by the powerful evangelical patrons as role models for the rest of us; they had great hair-does; they were so hip and young, at least until it became painfully obvious that they had passed forty many years before. I can imagine all these things being said. But that they took so much of God into the pulpit? That seems somehow less likely.

Those of us who preach need to reflect on Dr Packer's comment, repent daily of our pride and pray without ceasing that we take God, not ourselves, or Chris Rock, or our mastery of street talk or postmodernism, into the pulpit with us. A preacher should be remembered not for the numbers he once attracted or for his slick engagement with the wider culture but for whether he spoke the words of God as a man of God.

The Pitfalls of "Pietistic Goofiness"

Keswick spirituality is very much like what came to be known earlier in the 20th century as "higher life." If you grew up in a broadly evangelical church in the 70's or 80's then chances are you were at least influenced by this approach to spiritual growth and holiness. I certainly was.

I heard a great many sermons on how to live "the victorious Christian life." It held out an ideal that, if the proper spiritual techniques were employed, one could live beyond sin and temptation. It leads to a form of perfectionism that, in the end, is always beyond the reach of those looking for a higher plane of existence. I remember living from Fall revival to Spring revival just hoping that this time I would finally "get it."

Andy Naselli's newest book explores the history and theology of Keswick spirituality. He has written a helpful guest post for Kevin DeYoung.

It is not much of a recommendation when all you can say is that this teaching may help you if you do not take its details too seriously. It is utterly damning to have to say, as in this case I think we must, that if you do take its details seriously, it will tend not to help you but to destroy you. [p. 159]

That’s what J. I. Packer wrote about Keswick theology, a teaching that has destroyed many people and continues to destroy more today.

It frustrated the tender-hearted J. I. Packer as a young, recent convert in his pursuit to be holy:

It didn’t work and that was a deeply frustrating and depressing thing. It made me feel like a pariah, an outsider, and at the age of eighteen that was pretty burdensome. In fact, it was driving me crazy. [p. 169]

The reality of its [i.e., Keswick theology’s] passivity program and its announced expectations, plus its insistence that any failure to find complete victory is entirely your fault, makes it very destructive. [p. 157]

Packer felt like a “poor drug addict” desperately, unsuccessfully, and painfully trying “to walk through a brick wall.” The explanation for his struggle, according to Keswick theology, was his “unwillingness to pay the entry fee,” that is, not fully consecrating himself. “So all he could do was repeatedly reconsecrate himself, scraping the inside of his psyche till it was bruised and sore in order to track down still unyielded things by which the blessing was perhaps being blocked.” His confusion, frustration, and pain grew as he kept “missing the bus.” The pursuit was as futile as chasing a “will-o’-the-wisp.” He felt like “a burned child” who “dreads the fire, and hatred of the cruel and tormenting unrealities of overheated holiness teaching remains in his heart to this day” (pp. 157–58).

Packer concludes that Keswick’s message is depressing because it fails to eradicate any of the believer’s sin and that it’s delusive because it offers a greater measure of deliverance from sin than Scripture anywhere promises or the apostles themselves ever attained. This cannot but lead either to self-deception, in the case of those who profess to have entered into this blessing, or to disillusionment and despair, in the case of those who seek it but fail to find it. [“Keswick and the Reformed Doctrine of Sanctification,” p. 166.]

The Puritans, says Packer, correct what he calls Keswick theology’s “pietistic goofiness” (p. 33).

J.I. Packer on Theological Training

HT: Justin Taylor

Hell is Real

For too long evangelicals have seemed to be embarrassed of hell. It has even been fashionable among some otherwise solid evangelical leaders to deny what the Bible clearly teaches about Hell. Don't misunderstand. I'm not giddy about Hell. It is an unpleasant topic. But it is something for which Christians should never apologize. It is a part of God's wise and perfect plan. What is more, Hell is an appropriate expression of God's justice.

In 1991 J.I. Packer delivered a lecture in Cardiff concerning "Human Destiny." Packer addresses those who favor a view of judgment often called "annihilationism." Thanks to Martin Downes for posting this.

Download this important lecture HERE.

Carl Trueman on Packer and Ecumenism

The break between J.I. Packer and Martin Lloyd Jones was a sad event. They are both heros to me. They were certainly wonderful gifts from God to His church. I have spoken to Carl about the schism. As a historian and a Brit Trueman has keen insight into those events. I'm posting this in part because Carl is among the folks present at Westminster Weekend.

Incidentally, Trueman's chapter in THIS BOOK is outstanding.

Thanks to Martin Downes for posting this video and the following thoughts:

Have a listen as Carl talks about his recent essay on Packer "An English Non-Conformist Perspective" in Timothy George [ed.], J. I. Packer and the Evangelical Future. You can read some sample pages here.

I don't suppose that my following comments will make any sense unless you have watched the video clip. Perhaps they won't make any sense even if you have watched it.

I have heard Carl talk about some of these issues before, and he is surely right about the lack of a systematic theology from Packer. That said he has given to the church a remarkable written legacy. As a sixteen year old I heard Packer preach in Cardiff on the doctrine of hell. I have listened to the recording many times since then, and had no appreciation at the time of what I was listening to, or who Packer was. I must find a way to get that message from audio cassette to mp3.

I have yet to read Carl's essay and so have no idea about the connection between my comments and what he has written as they appertain to Packer and Lloyd-Jones. The break with Lloyd-Jones came in 1970 and not in 1966. Indeed this Sunday will mark the 43rd anniversary of that definitive moment in post-war British evangelicalism when Lloyd-Jones, the speaker, and John Stott, the chairman, publicly disagreed over evangelical policy on ecumenism at the Evangelical Alliance meeting.

The break between Lloyd-Jones and Packer, in 1970, came after the publication of Growing into Union. The book was written by four authors, two evangelicals and two Anglo-Catholics. But the positions advocated were representative of a common mind ("We are all four committed to every line in the book...and we are determined that no wedge be driven between us." I am referring to a footnote by Iain Murray in Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace and am not able to verify what has been omitted from this sentence).

Certainly from Lloyd-Jones' standpoint the parting of the ways was due to Packer's ecumenical commitment expressed in Growing into Union. Lloyd-Jones expressed his concerns to Packer in a letter dated July 7th 1970. Referring to a discussion about the book at the monthly ministers' Fellowship (the Westminster Fellowship) Lloyd-Jones wrote:

The general opinion there, without a single voice to the contrary, was that the doctrinal position outlined in the book cannot be regarded as being evangelical, still less puritan. The three of us [the free church members of the Puritan Conference committee] therefore feel, most reluctantly, that we cannot continue to co-operate with you in the Puritan Conference. To do so would be at the least to cause great confusion in the minds of all Free Church evangelical people and indeed a number of Anglican people.

This I feel sure will not come as a surprise to you as you must have known that the views expounded in the book concerning Tradition, Baptism, the Eucharist and Bishops, not to mention the lack of clarity concerning justification by faith only, could not possibly be acceptable to the vast majority of people attending the Puritan Conference.

Packer, of course, continued to follow this trajectory, culminating in the 1994 Evangelicals and Catholics Together document, The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium, of which he was an endorser. That document contained the joint affirmation that "we are justified by grace through faith because of Christ," an affirmation notable for the omission of the Reformation's solas. This, above everything else, was surely the great failure.

It is somewhat ironic that the pursuit of a wider ecclesiastical unity, a pursuit that could never be fulfilled by a policy of temporarily suspending the practice of gospel essentials in order to achieve more visible agreement, has been the cause of the open divisions among evangelicals in the twentieth century.

Lloyd-Jones' letter also stressed something of Packer's literary failure that Carl noted in the video:

You have known throughout the years not only my admiration for your great gift of mind and intellect but also my deep regard for you. I had expected that long before this you would have produced a major work in the Warfield tradition, but
you have felt called to become involved in ecclesiastical affairs. This to me isnothing less than a great tragedy and a real loss to the Church.

J.I. Packer on the The Gospel

“I formulate the Gospel this way: it is information issuing in invitation; it is proclamation issuing in persuasion. It is an admonitory message embracing five themes. First, God: the God whom Paul proclaimed to the Athenians in Acts 17, the God of Christian theism.

Second, humankind: made in God’s image but now totally unable to respond to God or do anything right by reason of sin in their moral and spiritual system. Third, the person and work of Christ: God incarnate, who by dying wrought atonement and who now lives to impart the blessing that flows form his work of atonement.

Fourth, repentance, that is, turning from sin to God, from self-will to Jesus Christ. And fifthly, new community: a new family, a new pattern of human togetherness which results from the unity of the Lord’s people in the Lord, henceforth to function under the one Father as a family and a fellowship.” (44, emphasis added)

Packer, J.I. Serving the People of God: Collected Shorter Writings of J.I. Packer. Vol. 2. Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1998.

HT: Trevin Wax

The Impact of J.I. Packer

Few writers, if any, have had as profound an impact on my thinking as J.I. Packer. He has been and continues to be a blessed gift to the church of Jesus Christ. Books such as Knowing God, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, The Quest for Godliness, Fundamentalism and the Word of God, and Rediscovering Holiness have had an immessurable impact on my life and ministry.

So I am thrilled about the book edited by Timothy George entitled J.I. Packer and the Evangelical Future. It contains essays from some of my favorite people: Mark Dever and Carl Trueman as well as Alister McGrath, Charles Colson, and others.

From the introduction by Timothy George:

The genesis of this book goes back to a conversation Alister McGrath and I had at Oxford about our friend, J. I. Packer, his influence on us, and the role he has played in the revitalization of evangelicalism as a living tradition within the world Christian movement. We wanted to bring together a symposium where friends, colleagues, and former students could express their gratitude and respect to him on his eightieth birthday, but we knew that Packer, with his natural British (and perhaps also Canadian?) reserve, would balk at the idea. He did. It took some time for us to convince him that this gathering was meant not only to celebrate a life well lived to the glory of God (the life of one, let it be said, who is still going strong and shows no signs of diminishment at age eighty-three), but more importantly to exalt J. I. Packer’s God—the great, awesome, three-personal God of joy and grace, the God of creation and redemption we meet in the pages of the Bible and see most clearly in the face of Jesus Christ...

Despite his charitable spirit and his desire to foster a unitive, irenic evangelicalism, Packer has not been able to avoid the effects of the deep ruptures within the world Anglican Communion. In June 2002 the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster in Vancouver voted to approve the blessing of same-sex unions. Packer, among other synod members, saw this action as a flagrant abandonment of the authority of Scripture and walked out in protest. In February 2008 Packer’s church in Vancouver voted to seek episcopal oversight from an orthodox Anglican bishop. In response to charges brought against them by the bishop in Vancouver, Packer and other evangelical clergy declared their determination to continue their ministry “under the jurisdiction of and in communion with those who remained faithful to historic, orthodox Anglicanism and as part of the Anglican Communion worldwide.”2 In the midst of controversy that continues to unfold, Packer has received acclaim for his courage and commitment in the face of what by all accounts must be considered one of the great tragedies in contemporary church history.

It has been my privilege to know and work closely with J. I. Packer for the past twenty-five years, only a fraction of his long and still amazingly productive career. I have seen him buffeted by adversity and criticized unfairly, but I have never seen him sag. His smile is irrepressible and his laughter can bring light to the most somber of meetings. His love for all things human and humane shines through. His
mastery of ideas and the most fitting words in which to express them is peerless. Ever impatient with shams of all kinds, his saintly character and spirituality run deep. I love to hear him pray. Again and again, he has reminded us that we live our lives coram deo and in the light of eternity. He has taught us that theology is for doxology and devotion, that theology is always at its best “when it is consciously done under the eye of the God of whom it speaks, and when it is singing to his glory."

J.I. Packer on the Incarnation

"The Incarnation, this mysterious miracle at the heart of historic Christianity, is central in the New Testament witness. That Jews should ever have come to such a belief is amazing. Eight of the nine New Testament writers, like Jesus’ original disciples, were Jews, drilled in the Jewish axiom that there is only one God and that no human is divine. They all teach, however, that Jesus is God’s Messiah, the Spirit-anointed son of David promised in the Old Testament (e.g., Isa. 11:1-5; Christos, “Christ,” is Greek for Messiah). They all present him in a threefold role as teacher, sin-bearer, and ruler—prophet, priest, and king. And in other words, they all insist that Jesus the Messiah should be personally worshiped and trusted—which is to say that he is God no less than he is man. Observe how the four most masterful New Testament theologians (John, Paul, the writer of Hebrews, and Peter) speak to this."

Read Dr. Packer's entire article HERE.

Trinitarian Discipleship

I love J.I. Packer. I try to read everything he writes. His influence upon sound evangelical thinking would be difficult to overestimate. One of Packer's many strengths is his ability to pack a freight train of theology into a comparitively brief statement (see his outstanding Concise Theology).

In this month's edition of Modern Reformation (to which I would encourage everyone to subscribe) features an interview with Dr. Packer that is well worth the read. I found the following statement to be very insightful and encouraging:

"I’m a great believer in the importance of trinitarian thinking in discipling. A lot of what has weakened discipling is the result of thinking of only one person of the godhead at any one time–think about the Holy Spirit and what he does; think about Jesus and his death on the cross for us; think of the Father and of his love and goodwill. But you’re not thinking, you see, of the three together: the divine team which works in the unity of a single program and plan, each person in the team fulfilling his part in our salvation, so that the gospel is much less “what a friend we have in Jesus”, but “what a team of friends we have through Jesus”–it’s the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our discipling instruction will be infinitely strengthened if we present it that way. Sometimes people say, “I’ve never heard it put like that before.” People will be deistic unless they are taught the Trinity.”

- J.I. Packer

Consider it an honor Dr. Packer

Further evidence that the Anglican Church in Canada has lost their marbles.