What Did the Cross Achieve? E-Book

J. I. Packer

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Crossway Short Classics
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

A Classic Essay on Penal Substitutionary Atonement from Theologian J. I. Packer Penal substitutionary atonement—the belief that Jesus's death on the cross satisfied God's wrath against sin—is central to the Christian faith, but frequently debated. Is it just to punish an innocent person in place of the guilty? How can the temporary death of one substitute for the eternal death of many? Why doesn't the cross grant Christians unlimited permission to sin?  In this famous essay, late theologian J. I. Packer analyzes Scripture and the works of early Reformers to defend the truth of Christ's substitutionary suffering and death, the heart of the Christian gospel. Considered one of the most significant short works on penal substitutionary atonement from the 20th century, this careful, concise essay has influenced prominent theologians and is essential reading for students, pastors, and laypeople. - From Renowned Theologian J. I. Packer: This work was originally delivered as a Tyndale Biblical Theology Lecture - Part of the Crossway Short Classics Series: Other titles include The Lord's Work in the Lord's Way and No Little People; The Life of God in the Soul of Man; and Fighting for Holiness  - Includes a Foreword by Mark Dever

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What Did the Cross Achieve?

The Crossway Short Classics Series

The Emotional Life of Our Lord

B. B. Warfield

Encouragement for the Depressed

Charles Spurgeon

The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

Thomas Chalmers

Fighting for Holiness

J. C. Ryle

The Freedom of a Christian: A New Translation

Martin Luther

Heaven Is a World of Love

Jonathan Edwards

The Life of God in the Soul of Man

Henry Scougal

The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way and No Little People

Francis A. Schaeffer

Selected Sermons

Lemuel Haynes

What Did the Cross Achieve?

J. I. Packer

What Did the Cross Achieve?

J. I. Packer

What Did the Cross Achieve?

Copyright © 2023 Crossway

Published by Crossway 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

This essay was first published as “What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution,” Tyndale Bulletin 25 (1974): 3–46. Used by permission of Tyndale House Cambridge.

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: The Stapleton Collection / Bridgeman Images

First printing 2023

Printed in China

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 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 NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NEB are taken from the New English Bible, copyright © Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press 1961, 1970. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.

Scripture quotations marked ASV are from the American Standard Version of the Bible. Public domain.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-9050-4 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-9052-8 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-9051-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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

Title: What did the cross achieve? / J. I. Packer.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2023. | Series: Crossway short classics | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022046431 (print) | LCCN 2022046432 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433590504 (paperback) | ISBN 9781433590511 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433590528 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Jesus Christ–Crucifixion. | Atonement. | Theology of the cross.

Classification: LCC BT450.P335 2023 (print) | LCC BT450 (ebook) | DDC 232.96/3–dc23/eng/20230217

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046431

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046432

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2023-07-23 06:57:17 PM

Contents

Foreword by Mark Dever

Series Preface

Biography of J. I. Packer

What Did the Cross Achieve?

Scripture Index

Foreword

I had the privilege of knowing James Packer, or “Jim” (as he told me and many others to call him), personally. I got to know him in 1984 when he was at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary teaching a class. After class, I saw him alone in the dining room, introduced myself, and asked him if he would like a home-cooked meal. He responded enthusiastically that he would. I called my wife and brought home J. I. Packer for dinner!

Jim Packer would introduce himself in his classes saying “Packer’s my name and packing’s my game.” By this he meant that he would stuff content into his lectures and reading assignments until the students were full with the material. He was a gifted Bible teacher and a master popularizer of Reformed theology.

For many of us Christians who came of age in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, J. I. Packer was our first, and often our best, teacher of theology. He was our guide to historic Christianity. His treatments of the atonement, the authority of the Bible, and other topics were both popularly written and theologically careful. To settle certain issues for myself, I turned again and again to his books, which I would then give out to help others. Fundamentalism and the Word of God, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, and his introduction to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ were the first serious theology texts read by many people in my generation. And of course, all of Packer’s skill shined forth in his bestseller, Knowing God.

All the while, Jim Packer was warm, kind, and pleasant. His mind was always alive, especially with thinking through the meaning of ideas. He often helped students or friends see the implications of what they said, perhaps even unintentional implications. And he did it often with a prodding, Socratic style of questioning.

“What Did the Cross Achieve?” was originally given as the annual Tyndale Biblical Theology Lecture in 1973 at Tyndale House, Cambridge. In this address, Packer dives deep into the Bible’s teaching on the death of Christ and its atoning significance. Crucially, Packer is also concerned with how Christians and theologians down the centuries dealt with the question, “Is penal substitution one image of the atonement, or the heart of it?” He concludes—rightly, in my view—that it’s the heart.

Packer’s lecture was a watershed clarification of a doctrine that he himself had been sometimes criticized for downplaying. In “What Did the Cross Achieve?,” Packer engaged directly with criticisms of penal substitution that were effectively minimizing or undermining it. Whereas some scholars saw penal substitution as just one of many images of the atonement used by the New Testament writers (to be considered equally or even as less than the others, such as ransom and victory), Packer demonstrated that all other metaphors used to describe the reality of Christ’s atoning death assume penal substitution. Packer’s great conclusion is that penal substitution is not merely one of a series of images; it is rather at the heart of the atonement itself.

I’m delighted that Crossway has decided to reprint this as a book of its own. It is worth your time to read (or reread). This work, while short, is nonetheless “packed” with truth about the astonishing saving work of Jesus.

Read and marvel!

Mark Dever

Capitol Hill Baptist Church

Washington, DC

Series Preface

John Piper once wrote that books do not change people, but paragraphs do. This pithy statement gets close to the idea at the heart of the Crossway Short Classics series: some of the greatest and most powerful Christian messages are also some of the shortest and most accessible. The broad stream of confessional Christianity contains an astonishing wealth of timeless sermons, essays, lectures, and other short pieces of writing. These pieces have challenged, inspired, and borne fruit in the lives of millions of believers across church history and around the globe.

The Crossway Short Classics series seeks to serve two purposes. First, it aims to beautifully preserve these short historic pieces of writing through new high-quality physical editions. Second, it aims to transmit them to a new generation of readers, especially readers who may not be inclined or able to access a larger volume. Short-form content is especially valuable today, as the challenge of focusing in a distracting, constantly moving world becomes more intense. The volumes in the Short Classics series present incisive, gospel-centered grace and truth through a concise, memorable medium. By connecting readers with these accessible works, the Short Classics series hopes to introduce Christians to those great heroes of the faith who wrote them, providing readers with representative works that both nourish the soul and inspire further study.

Readers should note that the spelling and punctuation of these works have been lightly updated where applicable. Scripture references and other citations have also been added where appropriate. Language that reflects a work’s origin as a sermon or public address has been retained. Our goal is to preserve as much as possible the authentic text of these classic works.

Our prayer is that the Holy Spirit will use these short works to arrest your attention, preach the gospel to your soul, and motivate you to continue exploring the treasure chest of church history, to the praise and glory of God in Christ.

Biography of J. I. Packer

James Innell Packer (1926–2020) was born in England. As a boy, he suffered a severe head injury that prevented him from participating in sports. Taking refuge in books, Packer discovered his intellectual gifts, and while a student at Oxford University, he was converted to Christianity. Shortly afterward, he discovered the writings of the Puritans, whose emphases on the trustworthiness of Scripture, genuinely transformed affections, and earnest pursuit of holiness deeply shaped Packer’s life and theology.

While working in Christian education, Packer wrote a series of articles about the basics of the faith for a small evangelical magazine. These articles were expanded and adapted into Knowing God, which became one of the bestselling Reformed Christian books of the century and established Packer as an influential theologian and teacher. Packer’s teaching and writing ministry grew in influence, and he became one of evangelicalism’s foremost defenders of biblical inerrancy and the doctrines of grace. His prolific career included numerous publications, a tenure at Christianity Today as a senior editor, the role of general editor for the English Standard Version of the Bible, and a faculty position at Regent College.

Packer’s keen insight and articulation helped to make him one of the best and most effective popularizers of Reformed theology in the twentieth century. “What Did the Cross Achieve?” was delivered as a lecture for Tyndale House in 1973 and demonstrates Packer’s theological skill as well as his ability to connect doctrine to the Christian life. His efforts shaped an entire generation of Reformed pastors and theologians who carry on the work of this modern-day Puritan.

What Did the Cross Achieve?

The task that I have set