Globally famous, constantly published, and intensely shy, the Reverend Dr. J.I. Packer enriched the faith of millions throughout the world through his hundreds of published books, essays, and articles. Dr. Packer passed away on July 17, 2020 at the age of ninety-three, leaving a hole in the lives of everyone who knew him, heard him speak, or read his work.
In 2014, I received a phone call asking me to spend a week by his side at the Synod for the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC). As a Canadian, I have an inbuilt suspicion of celebrity Christians, which Dr. Packer was to me. I was anxious about what I would find his true character to be. Through his books he had shaped my relationship with God and my call to ministry and, honestly, I didn’t want to be disappointed. Instead, what I found was someone who was authentic and worthy of respect.
A sparkling hunger for God’s Word
Each day, the Synod opened with a young man preaching. And each day a frail Dr. Packer leaned forward, rested his face in his hands, and with his eyes shining, exclaimed, “Oh goody! Daniel, we get to hear the Word of the Lord preached!” He remarked throughout the week how excellent this young preacher was and how nourished he felt by him. In awe, I observed him watch the young preacher. Here was a man who had written one of the most important theological books of all time, Knowing God, and yet, at eighty-eight years old, he was still desperately hungry to hear the Gospel confidently proclaimed. I loved his humility and willingness to learn from anyone, no matter their age or experience. I crave that hunger for God’s Word—the desire to hear timeless truths preached again and again.
A humble devotion to God in prayer
Dr. Packer and I both had sermons to prepare that week, so we walked over to a library where I began digging into commentaries and Scripture. As I worked, I looked up for a moment and saw Dr. Packer quietly praying. I continued studying. He continued praying. Although he is known for his thorough and rigorous preparation, Dr. Packer took prayer even more seriously. He believed there was no brilliance he could muster up to truly make a difference to his hearers. He knew he needed God to work the miracle of making a difference in people’s lives. Prayer was such a sacred practice to him that he once quipped, “Trying to describe what I do in prayer would be like telling the world how I make love to my wife.”
A fierce commitment to godliness
During our week together, I asked how a mutual friend of ours was doing. Dr. Packer paused, thought for a moment, and then cautiously said, “I need to be very careful not to gossip. Hmm… yes, I think I can answer that question.” He then went on to share something that was as far from gossip as I could imagine. I believe this was his typical response when asked to say anything about anyone. He was careful to speak only words of loving truth.
At another point during the week, a man walked up to him, took his hand in both of his for a robust handshake, and declared, “You changed my life!” Dr. Packer looked genuinely afraid. “Don’t say that, sir. It isn’t true. Please don’t say that.” Dr. Packer sought to glorify Christ through his words and actions and genuinely sought to glorify Christ in every way.
Introducing the Puritans to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
Dr. Packer’s earnest desire for obedience to Christ was a painful but beautiful part of his personal testimony. He was raised in a nominally Anglican home, but did not fully entrust his life to Christ until 1944 as an undergraduate at Oxford University. Popular Pietistic Christianity promised full freedom from sin to those who were truly surrendered to Christ. He found this wasn’t the case in his own life. He agonized over how his desires and decisions were so often out of sync with the clear teaching of Scripture. Then, while working as a student librarian, he happened to be putting away John Owen’s seventeenth century classic, On the Mortification of Sin in Believers. He opened it up and was forever changed.
Through John Owen, Richard Baxter, John Bunyan, J.C. Ryle, and other Puritans, Dr. Packer found that sanctification is a life-long process. He found comfort that our hope for salvation is by God’s grace alone. Sanctification is grounded in worship. In his own words, “The life of true holiness is rooted in the soil of awed adoration.”
His DPhil at Oxford was a 500-page treatise on seventeenth century Richard Baxter’s doctrine of salvation. The Rev. Ed Hird notes, “In reading Dr. Packer’s doctoral thesis, I discovered that Packer’s Knowing God classic is an unpacking of the wisdom of Richard Baxter.” Indeed, a large part of Dr. Packer’s legacy is putting the Puritan theology of salvation, holiness, and heaven into the vocabulary of the twenty-first century.
A theology for the rest of us
As is probably the case for many, Dr. Packer’s Knowing God was the first theological book I ever read. And, like millions around the world, it changed the trajectory of my life, faith, and relationship with God. Growing up, I sometimes heard Christians talk about theology as a dangerous endeavor that could reduce God to dry intellectual propositions. But as a teenager reading Knowing God, I found for the first time that studying theology is entirely relevant to my daily Christian walk.
Dr. Packer revealed the vibrancy of theology – showing that God is far too alive to be reduced to anything less than all that He is. He explained that, “Knowing God is a relationship calculated to thrill a man’s heart,” and, “Any theology that does not lead to song is, at a fundamental level, a flawed theology.”
This prolific professor had a magnificent ability to translate theological concepts into language anyone could understand without losing any enchantment or wonder in the process. Dr. Packer believed everyone is a theologian, so it is crucial that our theology is biblically sound. He treasured the words of the late A.W. Tozer, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
It was this desire to equip Christians in theology for everyday life that convinced Dr. Packer to move from England to Canada in order to teach at Vancouver’s Regent College. Regent is a graduate school dedicated to education of the laity. He urged every Christian to make the study of God the center of their lives. He warned, “Disregard the study of God and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.”
Against the tide of progressive Christianity and secularization, he grounded evangelicalism in the authority of Scripture. In everything that Dr. Packer wrote (2,000 words on his typewriter before breakfast daily) he cast Christianity neither as moralism nor a club defined by saying the sinner’s prayer, but rather as adoption into God’s family. This is the heartbeat of his theology. Salvation isn’t simply knowing about God, but actually knowing God.
Helping others succeed
You may have noticed Dr. Packer’s name on forewords to books written by everyone from prolific authors to unknown and forgotten writers. Leland Ryken, professor emeritus at Wheaton College, remarked, “Perhaps no one in history has written more endorsements and prefaces to the books of others than Packer did.” I asked Dr. Packer if he delegated reading some of the books that he endorsed to research assistants. He said, “No, I read every word on every page of every book that I endorse.” It took an inordinate amount of time for Dr. Packer to read all the books he endorsed, but he did it in order to help others share the Gospel.
Author Ajith Fernando recently shared his struggles to get his first book published until Dr. Packer wrote a foreword for it. He was promptly picked up by a major publisher and his ministry took off from there. This scenario has repeated itself hundreds of times. Through his many endorsements and forewords, Dr. Packer used his credibility to elevate the voice of hundreds of men and women around the world. In his public ministry and private life, J.I. Packer embodied humility, integrity, and worship. His life is best summarized by his own words to all of us: “What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance, and this the Christian has in a way that no other person has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God?”
Daniel Gilman is an apologist with RZIM Canada. He speaks primarily to non-Christian audiences on the most common objections to faith in Jesus Christ. He is ordained by the Anglican Network in Canada to serve the Canadian church as an evangelist. Previously, he worked at Parliament Hill with MPs fighting human trafficking and sexual abuse, and as a pastor for university students with the Metropolitan Bible Church. To connect with Daniel, or to invite him to an event, please go to https://www.rzim.org/speakers/daniel-gilman