Proclaiming Christ in a Pluralistic Age E-Book

J. I. Packer

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

5 Classic Lectures from J. I. Packer Defending the Truth of the Gospel against Humanism, Universalism, and More Christians today confront complex opposition to the gospel from intellectuals, skeptics, and pluralists who deny the divinity of Christ. But these are not new issues; the first-century church encountered similar challenges to their faith. How did the apostle Paul address these questions and doubts to effectively spread God's word? In these lectures, originally given at Reformed Bible College and Moore College in 1978, renowned theologian J. I. Packer tackles common objections to Christianity—including secular humanism, pluralism, and universalism. By studying the evangelistic efforts of Paul and the early church, Packer skillfully preaches the glory of Christ crucified and helps students, pastors, and believers share their faith in an age of skepticism. - 5 Vintage Lectures: Covering topics including Jesus's humanity and divinity, substitutionary atonement, and the truth of Christ's resurrection - A Great Resource for Pastors and Thoughtful Christians: Provides gospel-centered answers to different worldviews including universalism, secular humanism, and pluralism - From J. I. Packer: Prolific theologian and bestselling author of Knowing God

Leseprobe

Thank you for downloading this Crossway book.

Sign up for the Crossway Newsletter for updates on special offers, new resources, and exciting global ministry initiatives:

Crossway Newsletter

Or, if you prefer, we would love to connect with you online:

“In 1978 J. I. Packer delivered these lectures at Reformed Bible College in Michigan then traveled to Australia to present the second series of Annual Moore College Lectures. So we have been waiting forty-five years for them to be published! However, precisely because of the long gap between delivery and publication, this book is able to challenge us powerfully about how far we have fallen from those days. These chapters remind us of vintage Packer: the calm and courteous style, the unrelenting focus on the Lord Jesus our Savior and faithfulness to the Scriptures, and an incisive perspective on the movements shaping the world in which we live as Christian disciples. This book is certainly worth reading, and I highly commend it.”

Mark D. Thompson, Principal, Moore Theological College

“J. I. Packer set a high standard for proclaiming the gospel of Christ. His arguments were gracious but never cowardly, strong but never strident, faithful but never repetitive. Now with the publication of his 1978 lectures, we are all enriched more deeply for ‘the defense and confirmation of the gospel’ (Phil. 1:7) in our generation.”

Ray Ortlund, President, Renewal Ministries

“In my youth, I was bombarded with teaching that denied the absolute uniqueness of Christ. We were told that such an assertion was based on a few proof texts which ran counter to the overall message of the Bible. At that time the writings and tape-recorded messages of J. I. Packer helped convince me that our affirmation of uniqueness was based primarily not only on a few proof texts, but upon the person and work of Christ who was the Creator’s answer to the dilemma faced by his creation. I’m so happy to see this material in circulation in a new format. The issue is even more critical today than it was in my youth. This robust exposition by Packer is both timely and powerfully convincing.”

Ajith Fernando, Teaching Director, Youth for Christ, Sri Lanka; author, Discipling in a Multicultural World

Proclaiming Christ in a Pluralistic Age

Proclaiming Christ in a Pluralistic Age

The 1978 Lectures

J. I. Packer

Proclaiming Christ in a Pluralistic Age: The 1978 Lectures

© 2024 by Glevum Publication, LTD

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

Cover image: Dr. J. I. Packer, “He Emptied Himself: The Divinity of Jesus Christ,” Lecture 3, Annual Moore College Lectures, Sydney, Australia, September 1978.

First printing 2024

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated into any other language.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4335-8530-2 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-8533-3 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-8531-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Packer, J. I. (James Innell), author.

Title: Proclaiming Christ in a pluralistic age : the 1978 lectures / J.I.Packer.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2024. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023005878 (print) | LCCN 2023005879 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433585302 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781433585319 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433585333 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible.—Luke—Criticism, interpretation. | Crucifixion—Religious aspect—Christianity.

Classification: LCC BS2595.52 .P34 2024 (print) | LCC BS2595.52 (ebook) | DDC 226.4/06—dc23/eng/20231003

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023005878

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023005879

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2023-11-29 12:33:42 PM

Contents

Publisher’s Preface

1  We’ve a Story to Tell: We Preach Christ Crucified

2  The Man Christ Jesus: The Humanity of Jesus Christ

3  He Emptied Himself: The Divinity of Jesus Christ

4  A Wonderful Exchange: The Work of Jesus Christ

5  No Other Name: The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ

General Index

Scripture Index

Outline

1. We’ve a Story to Tell: We Preach Christ Crucified

The Antithesis of the Gospel

The Unreasonable Skepticism of Jews Requiring Signs

The Invasive Intellectualism of Greeks Seeking Wisdom

We Preach Christ Crucified

The Antithesis of the Gospel Today

Intellectuals Seek Wisdom

Liberals Seek Needs

The Story of the Gospel

We’ve a Story to Tell

The Heart of the Story

A Story in Many Strands

The Story of the Kingdom of God

The Story of the People of God

The Story of the Mediation of God

The Story of the Victory of God

The Story of God the Father Glorifying His Son

The Story of the Image of God

2. The Man Christ Jesus: The Humanity of Jesus Christ

What Sort of Man Is Jesus?

1. The Nature of the Gospels

2. Jesus in the New Testament

a. Jesus Is the Messiah

b. Jesus Is the Son of God

c. Jesus Is the Only Way to the Father

d. Jesus Is the Only Hope

3. Jesus in the Modern Humanitarian View

The Bible: Reliability and Reconstruction

Jesus: Man or Myth?

The New Testament: Fact or Fiction?

4. Jesus: Son and Savior

3. He Emptied Himself: The Divinity of Jesus Christ

The Story: Christ Crucified

The Savior: Christ Jesus, the God-Man

The Speculations

Christological Identity: Eternal God

Christological Identity: Suffering Servant

Christological Identity: Incarnate Son

The Theory

What Is the Kenosis Theory?

Why Do People Consider the Kenosis Theory?

Is The Kenosis Theory Biblical?

Is the Kenosis Theory Necessary?

What Happened to Divine Omniscience?

What Happened to the Trinity?

What Happened to the Dual Nature of Christ?

What Happened When Christ Returned to Heaven?

Is There a Better Explanation?

Divine Mystery

Divine Love

4. A Wonderful Exchange: The Work of Jesus Christ

A Wonderful Exchange

First Stage: Substitution

Second Stage: Reconciliation

Folly or Frenzy or Whatsoever

Categories of the Cross

Sacrifice

Ransom

Redemption

Propitiation

Substitution

Satisfaction

Is Penal Satisfaction Biblical?

Penal Substitution in the Old Testament

Substitutionary Righteousness

The Eye of Flesh and the Eye of Faith

Judicial Righteousness

Implications of Penal Substitution

1. The Definition of Substitution

2. The Character of Substitution

Insight 1: Concerning God

Insight 2: Concerning Ourselves

Insight 3: Concerning Jesus

Insight 4: Concerning Guilt

3. The Solidarity of Substitution

4. The Source of Substitution

5. The Fruit of Substitution

5. No Other Name: The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ

Theological Truth

The Purpose of the Cross

The Person of the Cross

The Event of the Cross

The Truth of the Cross

The Witnesses of the Cross

The Preaching of the Cross

The Claim of the Cross

The Need for the Cross

Theological Speculations

Pluralism: All Religions Save

Roman Catholicism: Anonymous Christians Will Be Saved

Universalism: All Will Be Saved

1. Universalism and Man’s Decisions

2. Universalism and Gospel Preaching

3. Universalism and Christian Conscience

A Perishing World

A Sovereign God

An Urgent Call

Publisher’s Preface

The Life and Legacy of J. I. Packer

J. I. Packer (1926–2020) was a lifelong Anglican churchman who spent the first half of his life in England and the second half in Canada but who was perhaps most popular in the United States. He is widely recognized as one of the most influential theological popularizers of the twentieth century.1

James Innell Packer was born on July 22, 1926, in the village of Twyning in the north of Gloucestershire, England, the firstborn child of James and Dorothy Packer. His only sibling, Margaret, was born in 1929. The Packers were a lower–middle-class family with a nominal Anglican faith, faithfully attending nearby St. Catharine’s Church but never talking about the things of God or even praying before meals.

In September of 1933, at the age of seven, young Packer was chased by a bully at junior school out into the street and violently collided with a passing bread van. The traumatic injury resulted in brain surgery, a three-week hospital stay, and six months of recuperation at home away from school. He had a depressed compound fracture of the frontal bone on the right-hand side of his forehead—he later compared it to the way the top of an eggshell is knocked in when hit with an egg spoon. A skilled surgeon at his local hospital was able to extract the bits of broken bone. The doctor required him to wear a black, protective aluminum plate over his injury, held in place by an elastic band. He was forbidden from playing any sports, causing the young man, already prone to being a loner, to confine himself even further to activities like reading and writing. He wore the protective plate for the next eight years, and then at the age of fifteen, refused to wear it again.

On the morning of his eleventh birthday, in 1937, Packer awoke hoping to find a bicycle waiting for him—a traditional coming-of-age gift for English boys. He had dropped hints. Instead, his parents gave him a used, heavy Oliver typewriter in excellent condition. His biographer Alister McGrath notes the spiritual lesson: “It was not what Packer had asked for; nevertheless, it proved to be what he needed. . . . his best present and the most treasured possession of his boyhood.”2

That fall, in 1937, Packer transitioned from junior school to the Crypt School, which counted among its former students the eighteenth-century preacher and evangelist George Whitefield. Packer became the only student in his class to specialize in “classics.”

Packer was confirmed at their family church, St. Catherine’s, at the age of fourteen having never heard about conversion or saving faith.

At the age of eighteen, Packer won a scholarship to Oxford University, studying classics at Corpus Christi College. He arrived in Oxford as an awkward, shy, intellectual oddball (his own description), with a single suitcase in hand. His father, a clerk for the Great Western Railway, was able to secure for his son a free ticket for the hour-long train ride.

Three weeks later, on October 22, 1944, Packer attended a Sunday evening evangelistic sermon at St. Aldate’s Church. An elderly Anglican parson gave the address. The biblical exposition left Packer bored, but in the second half, the pastor recounted how at a boys’ camp he had been challenged as to whether he was really a Christian. Packer recognized himself in the story and realized he did not know Christ. Following the invitation, which concluded with the singing of “Just as I Am” (written by Charlotte Elliot in 1835), Packer trusted in Jesus Christ as Savior for his sins and as Lord of his life. He was just yards away from where Whitefield had converted in 1735.

That same year, in 1944, a retired Anglican clergyman, losing his eyesight, donated his large library to the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union. The leaders of OICCU stored them in a basement and asked Packer the bookworm if he wanted to sort through the sets, including classics from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Packer soon came across an uncut set of the writings of the seventeenth-century Puritan, John Owen. Packer noted with interest the volume on temptation and sin. He cut the volume open and devoured the contents. Years later he wrote: “I owe more, I think, to John Owen than to any other theologian, ancient or modern, and I am sure I owe more to his little book on mortification than to anything else he wrote.”3 Packer would go on to adopt the Puritan model of the pious pastor-scholar. In fact, he asked people to think of him as a latter-day Puritan: “One who, like those great seventeenth-century leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, seeks to combine in himself the roles of scholar, preacher, and pastor, and speaks to you out of that purpose.”4

After obtaining his BA degree from Corpus Christi in Oxford (1948), he took up his first teaching post at Oak Hill Theological College in London as a tutor (instructor) in Greek and Latin (along with some philosophy). For the next three years, Packer studied for ordination at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and then did doctoral research. He was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England in 1952, then as a priest at Birmingham Cathedral in 1953. From 1952 to 1954, he served as a curate (associate pastor) at St. John’s in Harborne, a suburb of Birmingham, while finishing his four-hundred-page doctoral dissertation on the Puritan Richard Baxter at Oxford University. He was awarded the MA and DPhil degrees in 1954.

On July 17, 1954, Packer married Kit Mullett, a Welsh nurse whom he had met after a speaking engagement in Surrey in the late spring of 1952. Together they would go on to adopt three children: Ruth, Naomi, and Martin.

The Packers moved to Bristol in 1955, where Packer served as a lecturer at Tyndale Hall. In 1961, the Packers moved back to Oxford, where for the next nine years he served as librarian and then warden at Latimer House—an evangelical research center begun by Packer and John Stott to theologically strengthen the Church of England.

In 1970, Packer returned to Tyndale Hall as principal. The following year, Tyndale Hall was incorporated into the new Trinity College, Bristol, where Alec Motyer was named principal and Packer the associate principal. The move freed Packer to have more time to write.

In the early 1970s, Packer approached Inter-Varsity Press about publishing a series of articles he had written in the 1960s for Evangelical Magazine. The publisher responded that they needed him to write on the charismatic issue sweeping through Great Britain before they would consider a book from him on another subject. As a result, he took it to Hodder & Stoughton instead, who gladly accepted it for publication. InterVarsity Press in the United States agreed to pick up the North American rights. The book was published in 1973 with the title Knowing God. This work, more than any other, established his international fame and went on to sell over a million and a half copies. “The conviction behind the book,” he wrote, “is that ignorance of God . . . lies at the root of much of the church’s weakness today.”5

In February of 1977, Packer met with R. C. Sproul, John Gerstner, Norman Geisler, and Greg Bahnsen for a conference on the authority of Scripture at Mount Hermon, California. Later that year, the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy was formed, which produced the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in 1978, with Sproul as the lead author.

In 1979, James Houston, who had been friends with Packer since their undergraduate days at Oxford, invited him to join the faculty at Regent College at Vancouver. Packer eventually accepted the position, which would allow him to teach without administrative duties, and his family made the transatlantic relocation. He maintained a position at the university until the end of his life, retiring from full-time teaching in 1996 and teaching part time thereafter.

In the late 1990s, Packer accepted an invitation from Lane Dennis, president and CEO of Crossway, to serve as the general editor of the English Standard Version, a revision of the Revised Standard Version, which itself was in the historic English-language lineage of the King James Bible. The ESV was published in 2001. Packer reflected in the winter years of his life on his involvement with this Bible translation: “I find myself suspecting very strongly that this was the most important thing that I have ever done for the Kingdom.”6

Packer’s “last crusade” was devoted to helping the church recover catechesis (instruction in the Christian faith). This work culminated in To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism—the catechism of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

Packer sometimes wondered if commentators on his theological and ministerial career had missed his personal side, including the humor that he saw in life and the twinkle in his eye. He did not want to be portrayed as a brain in a vat or a mere purveyor of theological ideas. His longtime friend Timothy George described what it was like to watch the man in action:

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.7

In 2015, while filming a short documentary on Packer for Crossway, it came time for a final question. He was asked how he might want to be remembered someday when he was gone. He paused, in his characteristic way before answering any question (no matter how routine), took a breath, and responded:

As I look back on the life that I have lived, I would like to be remembered as a voice—a voice that focused on the authority of the Bible, the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, the wonder of his substitutionary sacrifice and atonement for our sins.

I would like to be remembered as a voice calling Christian people to holiness and challenging lapses in Christian moral standards.

I should like to be remembered as someone who was always courteous in controversy but without compromise.

I ask you to thank God with me for the way that he has led me, and I wish, hope, pray that you will enjoy the same clear leading from him and the same help in doing the tasks that he sets you that I have enjoyed. And if your joy matches my joy as we continue in our Christian lives, well, you will be blessed indeed.8

J. I. Packer went to be with the Lord on July 17, 2020, at his home in Vancouver at the age of ninety-three.

This Posthumous Book

In 2020, Pastor Griffin Gulledge of Madison Baptist Church in Georgia, himself a PhD candidate in systematic theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, posted on his blog five black-and-white videos of Packer lecturing at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia, from 1978.9 Crossway had the lectures transcribed and initially edited by freelance editor Karalee Reinke.

Further research on the provenance of this material reveals that Packer delivered these lectures first at Reformed Bible College (now Kuyper College) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and they were lightly revised for presentation at Moore. Though the intention was that the lectures would be published as a book, this never materialized.

In the course of these lectures, there are some sections of the lectures (as documented at relevant sections in the notes in this book) that were repurposed from previously published articles, in particular one of the lectures that Packer delivered at Dallas Theological Seminary in April of 1972 as part of the W. H. Griffith Thomas Memorial Lectures and a lecture delivered in July of 1973 at Tyndale House, Cambridge, on the logic of penal substitution. We are grateful to all of these institutions for their cordial cooperation.

The lectures in this book constitute a narrative that begins in eternity past, culminates in the cross of Calvary, where both the person and work of Christ are expounded, and then applies the good news to our own day.

Packer begins by noting that the Jews required signs and the Greeks sought wisdom—and today intellectuals seek wisdom and liberals seek needs—but we have a different and better story to tell, the story of Christ crucified and risen. This many-stranded story—of God’s kingdom, people, mediation, victory, Son, and image—is the true story that must be proclaimed today for all to hear.

In the second lecture, Packer looks at the humanity of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, the only way to the Father and thus our only hope. Packer describes and refutes the modern humanitarian views swirling in the 1970s.

Packer’s third lecture turns from Christ’s humanity to focus on his divinity as eternal God, suffering servant, and incarnate Son. He considers the kenosis theory of Christ emptying himself of his attributes and finds it wanting before proposing his own understanding that seeks to take into account all of the biblical witness.

The fourth lecture moves from the person of Christ to the work of Christ, glorying in the wonderful exchange. Packer works through various categories of the cross—sacrifice, ransom, redemption, and propitiation—before expounding in greater depth the categories of substitution and satisfaction.

Finally, in the last lecture, Packer looks at the uniqueness of Christ. As with all of the other lectures, he first sets forth theological truth—looking at the cross from the angles of the purpose, person, event, truth, witness, preaching, claim, and need. He then sets his sights on three challenges to the uniqueness of Christ: pluralism (all religions save); Roman Catholicism (anonymous Christians will be saved); and universalism (all will be saved).

The lectures are vintage Packer. With the apostle Paul, he gloried in the cross, boasting in it alone, and was convinced that its proclamation was essential in every age, especially our pluralistic one. Though these lectures bear the marks of their age, delivered forty-five years ago, the message is eternally relevant. We have sought to edit them with a light hand, adding subheadings and citations, as well as smoothing out the prose as required for its written form. We have resisted editing it so heavily that it loses some of its original flavor as oral addresses.

Throughout his nearly seventy years of public ministry, in the classroom, at churches, and through his writings, Packer stressed the importance of knowing and praying to and communing with the triune God. He called for the church to take holiness and repentance seriously by walking in the Spirit and fighting against indwelling sin. He defended biblical authority and championed the cause of disciple-making catechesis. And he reintroduced multiple generations to his beloved Puritan forebears, whom he regarded as the Redwoods of the Christian faith.

He saw himself as “a voice that called people back to old paths of truth and wisdom.” His entire life was spent resisting the idea that “the newer is the truer, only what is recent is decent, every shift of ground is a step forward, and every latest word must be hailed as the last word on its subject.”10 Though he was willing to address and engage the controversies of his day, he wrote, “I should like to be remembered as one who pointed to the pasturelands.”

May the lectures captured in this book point you to the pasturelands as you walk with the Good Shepherd who is the Savior of the world.

1  Portions of this preface are adapted from Justin Taylor, “J. I. Packer (1926–2020),” TGC, July 17, 2020, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org. For biographies and studies of Packer, see in particular, Alister McGrath, J. I. Packer: His Life and Thought (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2020); Leland Ryken, J. I. Packer: An Evangelical Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015); Sam Storms, Packer on the Christian Life: Knowing God in Christ, Walking by the Spirit (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015); Timothy George, ed., J. I. Packer and the Evangelical Future: The Impact of His Life and Thought (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009); Don J. Payne, The Theology of the Christian Life in J. I. Packer’s Thought (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2006).

2  McGrath, J. I. Packer, 6.

3  J. I. Packer, “Introduction,” Puritan Portraits (Fearn, Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus, 2012), 1.

4  J. I. Packer, “Inerrancy and the Divinity and Humanity of the Bible,” in Honouring the Written Word of God: The Collected Shorter Writings of J. I. Packer, vol. 3 (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2008), 162.

5  J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), xiv.

6  J. I. Packer, comments at a banquet hosted by Crossway at the International Christian Retail Show, 2006.

7  Timothy George, “Introduction,” J. I. Packer and the Evangelical Future: The Impact of His Life and Thought, ed. Timothy George (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 11.

8  “J. I. Packer: In His Own Words,” Crossway Articles, July 18, 2020, https://www.crossway.org.

9  Griffin Gulledge, “J. I. Packer’s 1978 Moore College Lectures,” Contra Mundum, https://griffingulledge.com.

10  J. I. Packer, “Is Systematic Theology a Mirage? An Introductory Discussion,” in Doing Theology in Today’s World: Essays in Honor of Kenneth S. Kantzer, ed. John D. Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991), 21.

1

We’ve a Story to Tell

We Preach Christ Crucified

The Antithesis of the Gospel

The apostle Paul set forth his gospel to the Corinthians:

We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block [skandalon] to Jews and folly [mória] to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor. 1:23–24)

In so doing, Paul put his gospel in antithesis to two first-century forms of intellectual self-assertion:

Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom. (1 Cor. 1:22)

Two attitudes reveal this self-assertion: by the questions that they asked about the gospel and by their reactions to the gospel. By these, the questions and the reactions, you shall know them.

The Unreasonable Skepticism of Jews Requiring Signs