(upbeat music) Dr. J.I. Packer recently passed into glory. It was about a year ago that we began to get updates indicating that his race on earth was nearing its end. And I had a short list of topics I wanted to talk with him about over the telephone, and he very kindly agreed to a series of three phone calls to answer various questions that I had about the Puritans and specifically his thoughts on a Puritan theologian named Thomas Goodwin.

These were not formal interviews, just informal chats that we had. However, I knew at the end of that third call, it would be the final time that I would speak with him. And I wanted to voice my gratitude to God for his life and ministry and to voice it to him.

And the final minute of that last call I did record, here's how it ended. - The world of Puritan studies is waiting for someone to focus on Owen, sorry, on Goodwin as a life's work. - Yes, amen. - All right. That's Packer sticking his neck out. And now I must say over to you.

- Yeah, excellent. Dr. Packer, thank you for your time. I am grateful to God for your works and all of the books that you've written over the years. And God has used you in a mighty way in my life, and I'm grateful to God for you. Thank you. And when next you see John Piper, give him my greetings and assurance that though my productive days, I think, are over, my position on everything which we've shared views in the past, my position remains where it was.

For general assurance, God be with you and bless you. - All right, Dr. Packer, God bless you. Thank you. - Bye now. (static crackling) - Although Dr. Packer's formal ministry had ended and he would no longer preach or sit at his typewriter to write books or articles, he wanted Pastor John to know that the shared convictions that he had with us, the convictions that drove his public ministry, convictions about Christ and imputation of personal holiness and of the nature of scripture, those convictions were all convictions that he was still clinging to privately.

I love that, that's precious. And I know friends close to him in his final weeks and days and hours on earth confirmed the very same thing. Until the very end, Dr. Packer talked about the preciousness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And those shared convictions that we had with him bring us back to an earlier date, five years ago.

It was in April of 2015, Pastor John traveled from Minneapolis to Vancouver to interview Dr. Packer about life, doctrine, and ministry. What resulted from their time together is a 72 minute conversation. This interview has never been released until now. Here it is. - Dr. Packer, in 1988, you came to the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors.

You may not even remember that we started as a church. It's been going on now for, what's that, 27 years or so. And you didn't know anything about this. It was the very first one. I didn't know if anybody would come. And I wanted to publicly thank you for coming.

And I mention it because you have, I think, assumed that lowly, risk-taking servant role for more than one ministry. Getting our little conference off the ground with your presence was a gift to us. So thank you, and the legacy has been significant. There's another thing. If you wanna respond, you can in just a minute.

There's another thing. Two years before that, and I'm almost sure you won't remember this, I wrote a book called Desiring God, first popular book. My dissertation doesn't count because it didn't get any blurbs. And you wrote a blurb for it, first blurb, right at the top, and you said, "The ghost of Jonathan Edwards "walks through the pages of this book." (laughs) And you added, to my amazement, "I think he would be pleased with his disciple." It really did bring tears to my eyes.

That you would write it, that you would say that, moved me deeply. So for those two reasons, a blurb on my first popular book, and the first speaker at the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors has endeared you to me in some pretty significant ways. - Well, that's a very gracious way for you to start this conversation.

I appreciate it, and you remind me of things which are very happy memories, as a matter of fact. Nothing that has happened since I made those gestures has changed my mind about any of the things that we had in common then. And, well, it's just a great joy to be talking to you now, after so many years, and realizing that all of this stays firm.

- Yeah. So here's the way I wanna turn that ghost comment into a question. So Jonathan Edwards is walking through John Piper's writings like a ghost, and I'm happy with that. And to be called a disciple who would be pleasing to the master, that sub-master is pleasing to me.

You have different ghosts walking through your pages. And if I were to guess what they are, I think it's pretty clear. They are English Puritans from the 17th century. - You're right. - You have called them Redwoods in the book, "The Quest for Godliness." So the question is kind of twofold.

What, speaking now to younger people who may be very marginally familiar with that group of Redwoods, what was it about them that took you, took hold of you, and have stayed hold of you, that would be useful for us today? And subordinately, does Edwards walk at all through the pages?

In other words, did Edwards have a little place in the shaping of J.I. Packer? Just take those one at a time. If you forget the Edwards piece, I'll bring you back. Talk about the Puritans for a minute. - Well, the first thing to say, I think, is that the Puritans broke into my life when I was still a young Christian.

I became a believer at Oxford, and I was put in charge of a library that had been left to the university chapter, and in that library were uncut volumes of the works of John Owen, who by general consent, of course, is the top Puritan. And I was interested, simply, I suppose, because I'm that sort of person.

I like to know about the past of anything that I'm interested in in the present. And at that time, in the present, I was interested in, well, more than interested, I mean, I was committed as a disciple of Christ. I was a new disciple. I was trying to catch up for all those years during which I hadn't been a believer, and from that standpoint, it was time wasted.

And I had heard that the Puritans were something rather special. So I cut the pages, the uncut pages, of a volume of John Owen and started reading. Now, I hadn't expected what happened. I was reading him on indwelling sin in believers and the mortification of sin in believers. I hadn't realized that I had a major problem at that point until Owen showed me that I did, showed me what it was, showed me how to understand myself, and showed me what the Lord would do for me and what I must do for him to deal with the sin that was still operating in my life.

So unexpectedly, John Owen, for a time, became my pastor. And I moved out from John Owen to various of his friends. Richard Baxter was another great Puritan whom I began to read and was thrilled by. And I read for the first time seriously Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, both parts. And, well, there were quite a number, actually, of other Puritans of almost equal stature whom I read because Owen, although actually he's difficult in style, Owen gave me a taste for a reality which now I think I'd describe in terms of the recognition of God, quite simply.

The Puritans carried a tremendous sense of God with them, and Owen, with his awkward style, was able to communicate that sense of God. And it took me a little time to recognize what it was that was coming across. But in fact, during those months when I was doing my first exploration of the Puritans, I was also able from time to time to listen to the great Martin Lloyd-Jones preaching the gospel.

And Martin Lloyd-Jones, more than any preacher whom I have ever sat under, brought God with him. That's the only way to say it. Brought God with him into the pulpit. And from being in worship that he was leading, I got to the point where I recognized the reality of God is what's impacting me from the Puritans.

>> Is that-- >> And that stays with me today. >> Is that what you mean by Redwoods? >> That's one of the things that I mean by Redwoods. It isn't all. The Redwood image is intended to conjure up the thought of stability and strength and the capacity to stand firm under pressure.

Actually, I'm not sure that in terms of botany that actually works for Redwoods. I've been told that they have shallow root systems. And that isn't part of the picture at all. The Puritans were very strong because they had very strong root systems. But yes, they became my example, as they still are, of folk who lived slowly enough to be able to think deeply about God.

And they did. And what they thought, they expressed. Some of them were quite eloquent, actually, in the ordinary sense of the word. Bunyan, for instance, is a very pleasant writer to read. >> Who did you say? >> Bunyan. >> Okay. >> Quite a poet from the fact that, in my estimate, at any rate, Pilgrim's Progress is simply magnificent as Christianity.

>> Yeah. >> Well, anyway, have I given you the idea of what I mean by Redwoods? I hope so. And you asked about Jonathan Edwards. >> Right, in other words, he does not figure in your thinking the way he figures in my thinking. He's prominent. They are prominent for you.

>> He did for you what John Owen did for me. >> Yes, that would be very true. He was for you the first exponent of the strong sense of God, the strong thinking about God's reality, and the strong perception of what a healthy relationship with God is like. >> Right.

>> I'm not telling you anything you don't know. You wrote about that again and again, very clearly and strongly, and I thought rightly from every standpoint. And I was writing, and still I suppose from some, every now and then, I am writing still, things about the Puritans which are intended to highlight those particular Puritan virtues, which I learned from Owen, Baxter, Bunyan, and the rest of them.

>> Would it be accurate to say that the pattern of pastoral theological life that you have developed for decades is profoundly, it seems to me, affected by the way Puritans live their lives? In other words, they were pastors, mostly not university professors. You have been a professor, but your writing ministry and your church ministry has seemed to be marked by a more pastoral bent than many.

>> Well, as far as I'm concerned, the two things come together and bond. I mean, as a matter of history, those Puritans who worked in universities, and quite a number of them did for more or less time, they saw themselves in that situation as pastors. They preached, they catechized, they pastored the young men who were passing through their hands.

It was understood in those days that a university tutor would do that. The gulf between academic theology and personal devotion didn't exist in those days. And it seems to me that that was a much healthier state of affairs than you can match in most universities nowadays. But certainly, that's how they saw their vocation.

And I equally certainly, yes, well, it's true, I equally certainly, equally strongly have believed myself called to pastor, to shepherd, to guide folk as best I can in their relationship with God, in their service of God. And, well, that I suppose has a lot to do with what we were talking about, the fact that the Puritans pastored me at an early stage.

But it's beyond, behind that and beneath that, it's rooted in the Bible. I mean, if you think of the apostles, think particularly of Paul, followed by John, and the para-apostles, people like the writer to the Hebrews, they were persons with tremendously strong minds. That, by the way, really does include the apostle John.

He had a marvelously simple way of expressing the marvelously profound things that he has to communicate. Paul is more obviously, how can I say it, a very strong-minded man and a very articulate man. And, well, Hebrews the same. As far as I'm concerned, these things belong together. >> Yeah, the Bible running like a massive stream underneath your work and the Puritans.

In 1978, you were happy to be a part of the battle for the Bible. You helped move beyond the battle for the Bible of the book by that title. It was about inerrancy. Here we are 30 some years later, and are you as equally committed to the doctrine of inerrancy today?

And why should young people embrace, defend, minister out of a conviction like that? >> Well, first of all, as a matter of personal effect, yes, my commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture is as strong as ever it was. And the basis of it is a recognition that Scripture according to the Lord Jesus, there's no higher authority than he, Scripture according to the Lord Jesus is precisely the word of God, the word of his heavenly father, the word of authority to which he models obedience to show his disciples amongst other things, the way that they must go.

And it seems to me as the years go by that the gulf between those who do and those who don't recognize the, what I would call if I'm left to choose my own phrase, the divinity of the Scriptures, the gulf is deeper than it was. I hoped that the result or one result of the public controversy about inerrancy during the late '70s and on would be that the hollowness, and I think that's the word that fits, the hollowness of liberal claims to insight and authority and spiritual things would appear and the next generation of liberals would quietly dissociate themselves from it so that they wouldn't need to be labeled liberals anymore.

It hasn't been like that. And if I'm asked to diagnose what's happened, I would say, well, one thing that has happened is that the intellectual pride that produced liberalism in the first instance, challenging the Bible, you see, and professing, at least in their own hearts, these people did professing to be wiser than the Bible, that pride has strengthened its grip, I think, so that the non-inerrantists in the church are further from the truth and the wisdom that comes of acknowledging the divinity of the word of God than their predecessors were.

Well, all right, sin in the world often wins victories, which one would have hoped they wouldn't win and one wouldn't have expected them to win, but I was telling another group of people only yesterday with as much emphasis as I could manage, Satan, who stands behind all the unbelief in the world, he is a very cunning operator, and, well, he doesn't give up.

He devises new ways of establishing his grip in the lives of people whose positions are shown to be flimsy, intellectually flimsy, as they stand. Satan doesn't say, well, all right, then you'd better become orthodox again. Satan says, I've got a better idea for you along the line that you've been following, and the better, supposedly better idea emerges, and away they go.

>> Within those who embrace the divinity, inerrancy of scripture, there emerge differences of the way they read it. Another theme through your writings is a love for, a defense of, an exposition of the doctrines of grace, as the Puritans probably would have called them as opposed to, say, the five points of Calvinism, but the question is very simply, if you take the gospel, and I'm thinking of 1 Corinthians 15, and you take the five points, soteriological, Calvinism, doctrines of grace, what's the relationship between those two?

How do you like to describe the specificities of reformed theology over here in the center of the gospel? If that's even the correct way to set it up. >> Well, let others be the judge of that, but as far as I'm concerned, the five points of Calvinism are a secondary concern, not a primary one.

They are the reformed answer to the five points of classical early 17th century Arminianism, and if there had never been an Arminian version of reformation theology, there never would have been five points at all, but there would have been the doctrines of grace, and that's the conception that I like to pursue and the category in terms of which I like to speak.

>> So did you mean the doctrines of grace are secondary or the structure of the five points are secondary? >> Well, no, no, the five points are secondary. No, no, you have to talk, I think, about the doctrines of grace if you're going to talk about the teaching of scripture at all, or the teaching of Paul, or the teaching of the Lord Jesus.

>> So they are definitions of the gospel, expansions of the gospel, elaborations, insights, elucidations. I'm thinking of Spurgeon who said his robust reformed theology, or maybe even Warfield, I think, said this is the gospel in its purest form. >> Well, that sounds like Warfield, but it's a sentiment that Spurgeon would have, well, did agree with 100%.

>> Does Packer? >> Oh, yes, yes. Packer belongs to that tribe by the grace of God. I have nothing that I've not received, and I'm just profoundly thankful that God in his providence has led me this way 'cause this is the truth. And, well, ultimately, the quest for truth and its reality is what it's all about.

>> So would another way to say it would be, and I don't want to go too far because we have brothers who don't agree with us about some of these things. Would it be fair to say that the proper elaboration of the doctrines of grace is good for the gospel?

It is a deepening of the gospel, a preservation of the gospel, an advancement, not a distraction from the gospel? >> No, I would use the word elucidation, I think. And I would point to places, passages, in the New Testament where these doctrines are laid out and used in the course of pastoral exhortations and simply say, as indeed I think I've already said in one way, and now I will say in another, this is the scriptural path, which is all that concerns me.

I want to go where the scriptures take me. Why? Because the teaching of scripture is the word of God, the truth of God, the gospel of God, and that's where I cast anchor. God has taught me that, and I stay with it. >> Amen. Another place where the scripture has seemed to take the church for the last, well, 2,000 years, I hope, but 500 years, concerning justification, about 15 years ago, a prominent New Testament scholar in America wrote a couple of articles in which he said, "The doctrine of the imputation of the righteousness "of Christ is not a New Testament doctrine.

"Justification should be understood without," more in terms of the forgiveness of sins, "not the positive imputation of the righteousness of Christ." In your own experience of the word and in your relationship with Christ, what's the place of that particular aspect of the doctrine of justification, namely the imputation of the righteousness of Christ?

>> That's a very fair question, and I know that you're a committed man on that subject. You wrote against an English scholar whom I know quite well, as a matter of fact, to try and put the record straight, when in your estimate he had muddled it up a little.

Seriously, now, I think the reality that we are called to elucidate, and indeed that the scriptures go ahead of us elucidating, the reality of salvation, if the question is asked, what sort of a reality is salvation? This is the answer. It is union with the risen Christ in the life that is his, and that he, through the Holy Spirit, communicates to us so that we are one with him in terms of union of life, even though, of course, we remain distinct from him in terms of personal identity.

But union with Christ is the central category for apostolic thinking, it seems to me, about the substance, the reality of the salvation that is ours when we put faith in Christ. This is Paul and this is John, and this is where, I think, Peter points in both his letters, although he's not so explicit as Paul and John.

Never mind, he's pointing in the same direction and he's on the same wavelength. Well, now, within that relationship, the language of the imputing of righteousness, which is Paul's phrase in Romans 4, that language is very properly extended. Now, I think one has to say this is going a little beyond what any particular New Testament phrase does, but it's entirely on wavelength with the New Testament phraseology.

It's a slight extension of what Paul says about God imputing righteousness, to say, "And the righteousness imputed "is the righteousness of Christ." What does that mean? It means that God judges us as he sees us in Christ. It means that Christ, in a real substantial sense, by virtue of our union with him, casts his, I have to be pictorial here, I don't know any other way of saying it, casts his righteousness, his status, that is, as the one who has perfectly done the will of God, pleased God, and so is accepted by God, he casts that status over us like, what shall I say, a cloak, McIntosh, if you like, covering us and shielding us from what would otherwise be ours, namely the clash between our sinfulness, which, well, it is sinfulness, as well as a track record of sins.

The sins are the fruits of the sinfulness. Satan is seen to it, that sinfulness runs right through our system as children of Adam and Eve. But no, we are accounted righteous in Christ because of what Christ is, has been, continues to be, the righteous one. And the Father sees us in that way.

And this is our fundamental identity as new creatures in Christ. So I would say, indeed I often have said, and Douglas will say again, that though the imputing of Christ's righteousness isn't a scriptural phrase, it's a scriptural thought and a very fundamental scriptural thought. And I wouldn't, therefore, want to discourage reformed people from using it simply on the grounds that it isn't exactly a New Testament thought, which I don't think it is, as I said.

The substance of it, the substance of the meaning is 100% New Testament. And when we talk about our life in Christ, well, the first thing we have to talk about is the standing, the status, the position in relation to Christ and the Father. We're united with Christ, and so we are welcomed by the Father in Christ.

We have to understand that that phrase, that little phrase which we so often pass over and so rarely explain in the pulpit or in books or anything, the phrase in Christ, that's a phrase of tremendously weighty meaning, saying everything about justification and everything, actually, about sanctification. >> Exactly, which is the next, so I want to just keep you going by sharpening it.

You have written about holiness a lot. >> Yes, it's true. >> You care about personal holiness and corporate holiness, and your book, "Keep in Step with the Spirit," was a profoundly helpful book to me. So here's my simple question to keep us going from justification, rootedness in Christ, identity in Christ, to walking by the Spirit.

That's a biblical phrase, walk by the Spirit. Now, that's a very paradoxical phrase, or Owen, on put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit. >> Yes. >> So how does a human being act with his will in such a way that it can be said, the Holy Spirit has acted?

'Cause I assume that's what walk by the Spirit or put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit means. There's something I do, and yet it is not I, but Christ, or something. So can you just describe the dynamics, and I mean as practically and as personally as you can, 'cause I personally find it strange language that I have to adapt to, it's biblical language, for me to act by the Spirit or walk by the Spirit.

What does that look like? How do you do that? >> Well, the starting point as far as I'm concerned is where we were in the last paragraph of Packer that you pulled out of me. The starting point is the relation that the apostles express in the phrase, in Christ.

It's a relation of union without identity in the sense of one person being absorbed into the other. It's a relation actually in which the human partner becomes more fully a person than ever he or she was before, because that's one of the things that resurrection life in Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit working within us brings about.

And there isn't to my mind any obvious analogy that one can use to express it. One simply has to talk all the time about two things between which one moves, on which one brings the changes, but of which both are vital and central. One is the discipleship relation, which we learn about from the gospels where we are shown how Jesus started the discipleship relation going with his 12.

And the other aspect of the matter is that the vital energy which operates within the person who is following Christ through specifics, through the Holy Spirit, this energy is, it's the energy of Christ's risen life in us and through us. And that energy is mediated by the Holy Spirit who indwells us.

When I'm teaching the Trinity, again and again I find myself talking about the Holy Spirit as the executive agent that brings about first of all the relationship in Christ, with Christ, with the Father, through the Son. You need all those pronouns in order to get it right. And I talk of him as the executive agent of the Godhead.

I stress that everything in creation, in providence, in grace comes to us from the Father through the Son. And then I add by the agency recognized or unrecognized, specified or unspecified, but nonetheless really energy that's really there, the energy of the Holy Spirit. >> So my question-- >> The Trinity, the three persons of the Trinity, they're always together.

None of them ever act separately. >> Right, so are there things I do that engage that executive influence? You know, this walk by the Spirit, that's an imperative to me. You walk by that agency. Very practically, if I get up in the morning, what do I do to do that?

'Cause I'm supposed to obey that command. Walk by that agency, by that executive power. I don't have, he's sovereign, I'm not God, I don't make him do things, and yet. >> Well look, I was trying to say, and I think I have to try again, simply because this is a way of thinking that runs all through the New Testament and which we miss.

I mean, some things are so big and so clear that we overlook them. I regularly illustrate this from the letters Pacific Ocean on a map of all that water between Asia and America. We look at the map and we see the names of dozens of islands. It's a big map and all the islands are there.

And while we're focusing on those details, we miss the big words Pacific Ocean. And when it's a matter of walking in the spirit, by doing things by the spirit, putting the deeds of the body, that is the habits, the bad habits, of our sinful system, that's how I like to explain it, or verbalize it, putting the bad habits of our sinful system to death, that is draining the life out of them so that they don't operate anymore.

When that's what we're talking about, well, what's involved is knowledge of what we ought to do, dependence. I don't think, frankly, that by and large in our evangelical teaching these days, we make enough of the truth that we really are dependent on God, God the Holy Spirit, quite specifically, to enable us to do anything right, which we do right.

The, how can I say it? The way to proceed, it seems, seems to me, is to look to the Lord and tell him, in effect, all of this depends on you. I can't do it, I can't break a sinful habit, I can't form a new pattern of obedience without your help.

And having thus prayed and made it clear that it all depends on God, then it's up to us to make plans and procedure, devise procedures, decide what we're going to do as if it all depends on us. We are used, I think, in some other places in our discipleship and our theology, to the thought that we pray, acknowledging that it all depends on God, and then proceed as if it all depends on us.

>> That's what I remember from the book, is that there's a dependence, you say, without you I can do nothing, and then you turn and you get out of bed, you open your Bible, you turn off the television, you don't click on the computer, you do things, but you've said, fundamentally, I cannot do this.

>> And when you've, well, I mean, you're saying it absolutely the way that I wish everybody would say it, and certainly the way that I try to say it. And then the last bit, I think, ought to be put into the pattern, when we recognize that in measure, at any rate, we've done it, we just say, thank you, Heavenly Father, for enabling us to do it.

Say, Father, well, it was the Holy Spirit. This is an area of reality in which the action of the Spirit doesn't impede, indeed, it strengthens and animates our action. But we don't think of our action as, in any way, self-generated or self-sustained. We know very well that the things we do that are right have been done by the Spirit, because we were walking by the Spirit, and they wouldn't have been done otherwise.

And so we certainly feel that we are doing it. We know we are. But at the same time, we know by faith we're being enabled to do it. We started in asking to be enabled, and we shall finish by saying, thank you, Lord, for enabling me. >> That's very helpful.

Very helpful. Let me take you in a new direction. I've not heard anybody ask you this, and what, two, three days ago, there was a earthquake in Nepal, I think about 2,500 people have died. So you and I are lovers of people and lovers of the sovereignty of God.

How do you articulate God's role in that earthquake? >> I go right back to the beginning and say, with all due respect to Christians who think otherwise, I don't believe this world was ever intended to be our final dwelling place. I believe that it was always God's intention that His human creatures, having been tested and disciplined and so drilled into full-scale godliness in this world, would be taken, like Enoch was taken, into a world beyond.

I applaud the title of a sermon that Martin Lloyd-Jones preached and that was published and circulated widely as a tract, titled, and you can see from the title that all of this was being expressed in the sermon, it was, the title was God's Preparatory School. That was how Martin Lloyd-Jones was urging us all to understand our present life.

Now, this world has been messed up as a result of sin in a way in which it wouldn't have been had sin not happened. And it's beyond me to say whether there would have been the tests of living through earthquakes in a world where sin had not entered in the way that there is now, in the world as it is.

I believe that all these circumstances, however drastic and traumatic, are in fact to be understood by believers as so many tests in which we practice faithfulness to our God and experience God sustaining us and carrying us through. And when these cosmic traumas bring about an early death, well, that now is God's will for the person who, or the persons who undergo that death.

And we can only say, God remains in charge and he knows what he's doing. And if you ask me to cache that belief in terms of geology and physics, well, I can't do it. I mean, tectonic plates-- >> No, I wasn't asking that. >> Or tectonic plates and so on.

There are so many things in life where you have that problem. I mean, you have a physical order of things, which it seems has always been out of man's control. It's an order of things which now in this sinful world is used by God over and over as retributive judgment.

I'm thinking here, and this is just one thing, there are thousands that one could bring in, but I'm thinking of the way that Berlin got ruined and wrecked in the last days of the Second World War. When Russia from one side and the Allies from the other side they advanced on Berlin, and just because of everything that was centered in Berlin, they messed up Berlin real good, if one may put it that way.

I'm sure that there were German believers in Berlin who lived through it, and all they could say is, well, God has done it, and they may have added, I'm beginning to suspect that we all deserved it. And if, for instance, we continue in industrial life in a way that actually does produce major global warming in the way that they're warning us it might, well, that will mean certainly more storms, more natural disasters, more violence in the natural order, and there'll come a time when we shall have to whisper to ourselves, well, we brought it on ourselves, and in that sense we must accept responsibility for it.

But it's still under God's sovereignty, and the bottom line for every believer then, like the bottom line for every believer now must be, Lord, you know what you're doing, what you do is right. If I fully understood it, I should see that. I don't fully understand it, so I walk by faith in your goodness and your wisdom, and step by step I seek to please you, starting, as it were, from now.

>> Just a brief-- >> You can't go further than that. >> A brief clarification. It may be the most controversial thing anybody would say you've said so far is the belief that we were not intended to live our eternity on this earth. Relate that to the teachings of the new heavens and the new earth in Revelation or in Isaiah 65.

When you foresee, when you see a million years and all of history is over, where are we? >> Well, now, this is a matter under-- >> Not too long now. >> No, no, but I must begin by saying this is a matter under discussion. >> Yes, I just want to know Packer.

>> Yes, learn, yes, all right. But there are learned men of evangelical persuasion, Bible believers, Bible lovers, taking different positions on this one, and I can't guarantee, this is what I wanted to say, I can't guarantee that I am properly wised up on the matter as yet. I don't know whether I know enough, and that's what I would prefer to tell the world rather than to pontificate on one side or other of this question, but now, I think the thing that is certain from scripture, and that one way or another, both brands of evangelical scholars are trying to catch hold of at the same time, is that in some form, there will be continuity.

>> Okay. >> And having said that, I want to go on and say, I certainly believe that in all sorts of ways, it will be an enormously different order of things from that which we know now. But then, putting my weight on the other foot, you see, I want to say that I am equally sure that in all sorts of ways, there will be perceived continuity, we shall never forget what this world was like, and we shall never forget our walk through it before we came to whatever is our final place of abode.

And what I can't say, though, is how we shall remember the past when things are so different in the present. Now, that's a formula. I can't catch the formula, I'm not wise enough, I don't know enough, the Bible doesn't tell me enough. But I think that that is clearly, yes, clearly, what we are intended to learn from Revelation 20 and 21, well, 20, 21, 22, it's all three chapters.

>> Thank you. >> That is enough for you. >> It is enough, continuity is-- >> How curious. >> Continuity and discontinuity is pretty much all I, that's all I know, too. We go, we're almost done, we're almost done, but I have one or two more. One of the most painful issues today, and you have been significantly involved in it, is homosexuality.

You took a stand that implied, and pretty explicitly stated, to bless a union, an ordination of a union, or just to bless, or celebrate, or embrace an active homosexual partnership was a gospel issue. As I read your article in Christianity Today, you connected it. So, things have intensified since then, and we are in a more aggressive situation of being asked to embrace, and celebrate, and endorse.

How should we think about the importance of that issue and its relation to the gospel? >> Well, this is a hot potato, just as you were implying. And, though I have taken a pretty forthright stand in black and white, shall I say, you affirm that, you're quite right, indeed I have.

I was put in a situation where I was forced to do that, because I was in an ecclesiastical structure that, in my estimate, was being led into major sin by totally disregarding what the Bible says so clearly about homosexual behavior. And, well, in any situation of controversy, you have to speak as strongly as upholding the truth requires which may mean that you speak so strongly that you appear to be, how can I say it, to give more weight to the issue than in your own personal, pastoral, devotional ministry you actually do.

I'm not sure that I was led into doing that, in fact. I do think that the issue is fundamental, and having spoken that preamble, I'll now try and answer your question and tell you just how. It seems to me that the procreation and continuance of the race was clearly the will of the creator when he made the first couple, made the world for them to live in.

And homosexual sex, whatever else one may say about it, doesn't do that. It misdirects the order of creation in a fundamental way. Then, well, both Testaments, the whole Bible, I was going to say, is categorical, black and white, in its condemnation of homosexual behavior. And in the Old Testament, of course, where the fundamentals of right and wrong are being taught, in the Pentateuch, anyway, where the people of God are given the law and led into the promised land.

Well, in the Pentateuch, homosexual behavior merits the death penalty. And I know that that is tough, 'cause in the first days of teaching the law, the penalties were very heavy. Penalties for things that would always be wrong, but they were very heavy penalties. And that partly, I'm sure, was God teaching his people to have a conscience about things which the world around them didn't have a conscience about, and which they wouldn't have had a conscience about had he not shot them, shaken them, by insisting that in the fellowship of Israel, this behavior is intolerable.

I will not have it. Well, I think that that is a fact directly connected with God's purpose for sex and the procreation of the race. I am talking about procreation incidentally with a consciousness that too much discussion about sex these days never gets around to discussing procreation. God's wise plan was procreation with pleasure.

But the context of the pleasure is intended to be the purpose of procreation. At this point, I think the Catholic tradition has it right, and in the separation of procreation and pleasure and focusing exclusively on pleasure, a great deal of Protestant thinking about sex, gender, marriage, and so on has it wrong.

I would have to defend that, I know, in discussion. But that's something I would be willing to do because I think it's clear from the foundational books of Scripture. Pentateuch were all the foundations of everything are laid. >> Moving it towards the gospel. >> Yes. Well, the gospel message and the gospel grace is intended to lead sinful human beings through the practice of discipleship and the powerful action of the Holy Spirit enabling us to do things right that we've been doing wrong before.

It's intended to bring us into the moral and spiritual image of Jesus our Lord. Christlikeness isn't primarily physical. It's primarily personal. It has to do with character. It has to do with outlook. It has to do with mindset. It has to do with the practice of love in all relationships.

Well, love and justice and wisdom. All right, well, if that is so, and I believe it is, sanctioning homosexual behavior obstructs, counters, and messes up the work of sanctification. And when we're told in debate that some people who practice homosexual relationship are ever so Christlike in this, that, and the other way, it's a confusion.

Just as one has to speak strongly when one's up against radical error and asked to sanction it, so one has to speak strongly when one's confronted with confusion and needs to sort out lines of thought that have got tangled. That's what I think we've got here. Well, the gospel has to do with the whole process that's involved in finding sinners, restoring them to fellowship with God from whom they've, on Him they've turned their backs, and renewing them in the image of Christ.

At this point, any sanctioning of homosexual behavior, any attempt to fit homosexual behavior in any form into the pattern of Christian discipleship is, seems to me, very radical confusion. And the warrant for that would be First Corinthians 6, 9, and 10. Yes, those are the verses on which I lay more emphasis than any others, although Romans chapter one in the middle comes pretty close.

But yes, the apostolic witness against homosexual behavior is absolutely categorical and strong. And there in First Corinthians 6, 9, and 10, Paul says, "If you embrace it, "you must expect it to keep you out of the kingdom "because you're negating the gospel." So the, yeah, so the, what I was impressed with is-- The gospel's a unity, and this is-- The gospel is designed at enormous price to get people into the kingdom.

The apostles say this one-- And out of sin. And the others, greed, embracing greed and embracing idolatry will keep you out of the kingdom. Therefore, to try to be a gospel person and a person embracing this sin are impossible. Yes, impossible, incompatible. And in our current culture, that needs to be shouted from the housetops because of the confusion about it, which infects our culture.

And shouting it from the housetops will be very costly. Let me-- Well, yes, and of course prudence, I mean, saying things in the way best calculated to get them hearing is also part of the equation here. And when I talk about shouting from the housetops, there's a way in which you could understand that phrase, which I wouldn't.

I cannot picture J.I. Packer standing on a housetop shouting, but I can hear you saying pointed, appropriate, well-timed, powerful things as you just-- Well, it's engaging people's minds and keeping them engaged while you make your points. Let me close with this question. You and I are old by standards of our culture.

You, a little older. By any standards. Okay, that's true. Seven, three score, and then by reason of strength, seven, and that's where I am. And you just outstripped it all. Yes. You have, along with the Puritans, drawn our attention to the beauties of Christ, the beauties of his salvation, the glories of God.

As you contemplate seeing him remarkably soon, what aspects of his person, character, are strengthening, bringing peace, joy to you now? What a good question. Goes right to the heart and to the depths of the heart. Yes. Well, let me answer it as best I can. I don't think of the Lord in terms of anything physical because I know that at that level, I can't focus him.

It's beyond me. I think, try to keep thinking, of his wisdom. Wisdom means a great deal to me. His wisdom in seeing to the heart of those, everyone, with whom he's engaged. Speaking to the heart, often introducing the person with whom he's engaged to him or herself in a way that they never yet have met themselves.

Like the rich young ruler, for instance, who thought he was a good chap until the Lord Jesus brought him, well, really brought him down in flames at that point. Made him realize that discipleship is what it's supposed to be about and discipleship is something which, at heart level, he hadn't begun.

Well, I think of the Lord Jesus as the searcher of my heart. And whatever he, how do I say it, without seeming flip, whatever he looks like when I see him face to face, what I shall still, I think, value most, focus on most directly, take most interest in, dare I say it that way?

Yes, I think so, is that he knows me through and through. He knows my heart. And just as it's humbling, to know that you can't hide anything from him, it's very salutary to know that. And I hope that the awareness that he is the searcher of my heart will keep me, dare I say, humble.

No, if you venture to claim humility in any shape or form, the ax falls. >> Yes, you may pursue it. >> Yes, pursue it, yes, thank you, that's helpful. I pursue it, but no, the Lord knows me better than I know myself still, although I think that through his ministry to me, I now know myself a great deal better than I did.

What shall I say? Well, it is actually 70 years ago when it started, and then I have known myself various points of the past. That's the best answer I can give you, and if it doesn't sound exciting, well, I'm sorry, I can't be exciting about the Lord searching my heart.

I just tell you that as far as I'm concerned is central to what it's all about, 'cause he's changing me. >> In Psalm 92, at the end, there is a word to old people. The righteous will bear fruit in old age. They will remain, be full of sap and green to testify that the Lord is upright.

So I wanna close by thanking you for 70 years plus of declaring that the Lord is good, the Lord is sovereign, the Lord is sufficient, the Lord is beautiful, the Lord is the searcher of our hearts, and that the Lord is upright. You've been a faithful witness, and we thank God for it.

>> Thank you for the kindness with which you say that. Yes, I was reading Psalm 92 only two days ago, or was it three, very recently anyway, and finding much encouragement, actually, in those very words that you quoted. >> Thank you. I've enjoyed our conversation, and if you've enjoyed it too, well, let us praise the Lord together.

>> Father, thank you for Dr. J.I. Packer, and the manifest delight he has in you, your ways, your work, even your humbling searching of his and our hearts. Bless his remaining days. Fill him with energy, health, wisdom, insight, love, joy, hope, and use him mightily as you have in the past, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

>> Amen. And I would pray that John Piper's ministry, which you have made so rich and honored so widely in so many good ways, may continue, continue in strength for many years yet as he leads disciples to desire you, to love Christ, to love their fellows, to stand for the truth, and to practice all the aspects of the discipleship to which you call us in your word.

Thank you, Father, for John Piper and his ministry. Bless it greatly in years to come. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. >> Amen. >> Amen. That was John Piper interviewing Dr. J.I. Packer in Vancouver in April of 2015. Dr. Packer's stomach was always growling, it seemed, and you heard it a few times in this recording if you were wondering what that was.

What a metabolism that man had. And what a precious gift from God he was to us, a desiring God as well. We will miss him. And by now you likely already know that on the morning of July 17th, Dr. Packer met face-to-face the Savior who knew him better than he knew himself.

Dr. Packer was 93. Thank you for listening to this special long-form episode of the Ask Pastor John podcast. Pastor John and I will see you next time. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)