"The most heavenly-minded man I've ever met passed into eternal glory Friday morning." J.I. Packer entered into his eternal reward five days shy of his 94th birthday. Packer loved to read John Bunyan and C.S. Lewis because he said they were especially clear about heaven, clear because heaven had remarkably gripped their hearts.

He celebrated all the English Puritans for this reason, it seems, but especially Richard Baxter, the most heavenly-minded Puritan of them all. Heaven captured Dr. Packer's heart, too. In his now classic book, Knowing God, he wrote, "What will make heaven to be heaven is the presence of Jesus and of a reconciled, divine Father who loves us for Jesus' sake no less than he loves Jesus himself.

To see and know and love and be loved by the Father and the Son in company with the rest of God's vast family is the whole essence of the Christian hope." This God-centered, heavenly-mindedness marks Packer's entire legacy. His role was to remind us of an eternity he has now entered.

Pastor John, we are left behind now to celebrate his homecoming by thinking back on his life and memories of meeting him, talking on the phone with him, receiving faxes from him, and of course the many ways that his writings have impacted so many of us. We are intruding into your vacation, Pastor John, but what comes to mind when you think of Dr.

Packer, the person, the figure, the writer? Well, I'm happy to come off of vacation to do this with you, Tony. This is a high, high and precious moment and not a sacrifice. The Lord has remarkably set me up for this. I knew he was close to the end. I didn't know when it would come, but I've been reading a biography by Ian Murray of J.C.

Ryle. Just wanted to go to Ryle again. I've already read about Ryle and written about Ryle. Bishop of Liverpool 130 years ago. And Packer really esteemed Ryle. And maybe it was a confluence of those things that set me to reading this. And I came to the end of reading it yesterday as I got the news that Dr.

Packer had gone to be with Jesus. And at the end of that biography, Murray tells about, and he actually has a photograph of the tombstone of Ryle and his wife, Henrietta. And I noticed under Henrietta's tombstone data, this statement, 2 Kings 4, "Say unto her," this is Elisha sending his servant to the woman who lost her son, "Say unto her, 'Is it well with thee?

Is it well with thy husband?' And she answered, 'It is well.'" That's what's on her tombstone. Wow. It is well. It is well. One of us is dead. One of us is alive. And it is well with the wife. It is well with the husband. Romans 14, "If we live, we live to the Lord.

If we die, we die to the Lord." I just thought, what a beautiful statement that catapults me into thinking about the preciousness of leaving behind a wife kit like he has. You know, when you get to be my age or his age, he's 20 years older than I am, but I feel old.

Good grief. We wonder, you know, who's going to go first and how will the other be taken care of? And then to top it all off, I was taking that tombstone saying and mailing it in an email to a missionary friend of mine who has a week to live in Brazil.

She spent the last half her life there. She's going to die in Brazil. She's going to be buried in Brazil. And I just wanted to encourage and quote this to her. And so I've been thinking a lot, even before that text came from you that he had passed away.

I was immersed in the last chapter of Pilgrim's Progress where Ian Murray quoted again that Mr. Honest had come to the end and was ready to cross the river into heaven. And the land is called Beulah, which is married. And Mr. Honest says in his last words, "Grace reigns." And I thought, Packer has just walked through that river with a flag flying over his head.

Grace reigns. Grace reigns. And the reason it seems appropriate to say this at the beginning of our conversation here is that Ryle, Bishop Ryle was precious to Packer because he represented latter day Puritans. You know, I don't know of another person that Packer took the time, maybe Richard Baxter would be that person, but another person that he devoted an entire book.

He wrote a half of the book is biography called Faithfulness and Holiness. And the other half is Ryle's book on holiness. He really esteemed Ryle very highly. And the reason he did gets at the key to who he was and why he made an impact on me. He said that, and this is in his book on Ryle and then in his book called Quest for Godliness, which is one I'd recommend for everybody besides his classic Knowing God.

He said that the Puritans and Ryle included as a latter day Puritan were the very best kind of Christian that has ever existed. I mean, that's incredible. Now, let me just, I mean, not everybody knows what I mean when I say Puritans. He mentioned Richard Baxter, John Owen, Richard Sibbes, John Flavel, Thomas Brooks, Thomas Manton, Thomas Watson, Robert Trail, William Bridge, Thomas Goodwin, Stephen Charnock, Jeremiah Burroughs, John Bunyan, William Gurnall.

That's 16th and 17th century band of brothers who loved the sovereignty of God, were thoroughly reformed in their theology, and yet were the most pastoral, penetrating, personal, effective, prayerful, pious kind of people there were. And so he actually says, this is a quote, "This type was in Ryle's view, as in mine, the best type of evangelical that the world has seen." And that meant quite simply, the best type of Christian, close quote.

I mean, just think of what he's saying. He thinks that band of brothers is the quintessential appearance on earth after Jesus of the best kind of Christians. He called them the Redwoods. He said the rest of our generation is a pygmy generation compared to the Redwoods of these Puritans.

And I thought, I mean, I've always known he had that high view. But here's the key that links Packer with the impact he had on me, and I think thousands. He said, this is another quote, "The Puritans made me aware that all theology is also spirituality. That is, it should have an influence on the recipient's relationship with God.

If our theology does not quicken the conscience and soften the heart, it actually hardens both." And then he adds this staggering statement, which explains his entire ministry. He says, "It seems to me in retrospect that by virtue of this Puritan influence on me, all my theological utterances from the start on whatever theme have really been spirituality.

That is, teaching for Christian living. And that I cannot," this is the most amazing statement, "I cannot now speak or write any other way. Am I glad? Frankly?" You can hear him saying it. He would query himself and then he would say, "Frankly? Yes." Yes, it is a happy inability to suffer from.

He is saying, people wonder, why didn't Packer ever write a major, great, systematic theology, you know? Like the other great systematic theologies, which he intellectually certainly could have. And I think right there he's saying, "I can't write any other way than pastorally and spiritually." And the reason that is so relevant and impactful for me is this.

I didn't come to reform theology through J.I. Packer. I came through serious exegesis of Paul, Daniel Fuller, and Jonathan Edwards. That was my pathway in. But once I was in and felt the majesty and the greatness and the glory of this sovereign God, I now was, well, I was in my late 20s, mid 20s, and I began to look around.

Where is this? Where can I find somebody to be my father? Where can I find a help? Where is somebody who embodies this? And that's where Packer came in. And with him came the Puritans. I didn't read the Puritans in seminary. I started reading the Puritans later in graduate school and then later in the pastorate.

And I read them because Packer kept pointing to them as the key to these Redwood kind of Christianity. And so Packer, you know, I was just thinking this morning of the people in my life who have been alive, not dead like Paul and Edwards, but rather have been alive in my life who've influenced me most.

And even including my parents, I would put Packer in the top five, at least, if not the top four or three who've made such an impact on me. And it's this combination of great theology, great Redwood-like theology of a magisterial God working a massively glorious salvation, having a purpose for the entire universe that's worthy of our devotion and our worship, combined with a tender, pastoral, loving, practical heart.

I mean, I got out my old copy last night of Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. Just the title says so much, right? I mean, how many theologians write about evangelism? How many great theologians write a little book helpful about evangelism? And I went through the book and I noticed there were two kinds of ink.

I've read this book twice in print. I remember listening to it at the YWCA, working out with my wife a few years ago. So I've been through this book three times. And I remember places where he's talking about how to behave on an airplane. Are you kidding me? One of the greatest theologians of the 20th century is giving practical counsel about a guilty conscience of whether you should speak to somebody on an airplane or not and how it relates to the sovereignty of God.

Oh, my goodness. So he just was an enormously effective model for me. And he did that for so many people. I mean, he was a servant. I put up an article today at Desiring God on his servanthood as a theologian. And I think back, oh, my goodness, one, two.

Let me just mention two maybe concrete examples. You know, when I wrote my very first non-academic book, namely Desiring God, I wrote it from '83 to '86. It was published in early '87. I thought to myself, I want this book to be called Desiring God. You know, Tony, why I wanted to be called Desiring God?

Because the two books, yep. I wanted to piggyback on knowing God. I wanted to piggyback on loving God by Chuck Colson. I wanted people to see my book and think, oh, maybe it's like J.I. Packer's book, Knowing God, since it's called Desiring God. That's exactly what I wanted them to think.

And we did the front cover with a big G-O-D. And if you know the first edition of Knowing God and Desiring God, they look very much the same. Big sign on all three. That's not an accident because I love the man. I thought any association between me and him would be a real boon to me and a tribute to him.

And lo and behold, I write him. I send him a copy of the book and I write him. I mean, this is before it's published. And I said, would, if you like it, I mean, I had no idea if he'd like this book all about Christian hedonism. And he wrote the blurb on the back of the book.

And when I got the book in January of '87 and took it out of the envelope, and I didn't know that they had accepted a blurb from him. And I read his blurb. I cried like a baby. I thought, I can't believe he did this for me because I'm just this no count pastor in Minneapolis and had never met him.

And he didn't know me from Adam as far as I could tell. And he wrote, "The healthy biblical realism of this study in Christian motivation comes as a breath of fresh air. Jonathan Edwards, whose ghost walks through most of Piper's pages, would be delighted in his disciple." And I thought, are you kidding me?

Wow. "My father, who's dead, would be delighted in me, according to my father who's alive, namely J.I. Packer." And you know, you know better than I do, Tony. He wrote those kinds of blurbs for hundreds of books. He did. And someday somebody's going to put a book together of Packer blurbs because they're all so thoughtful and clever and helpful and winsome.

And here's the other personal thing that showed his servant heart toward me. You know, when I was looking around in the late 80s, like '85, '86, '87, where can I find fellowship in this reformed Christian hedonism that I have come to love, which is my life? And Packer comes so close to embodying it in a veteran theologian pastor type.

Where can I find it? And it was in a few pockets of places. But I thought, let's have a conference and gather people together who are serious about worship, serious about mission, serious about evangelism, serious about theology and our reform through and through and care about serious joy. And how could I bring guys together?

Well, I need a Packer or somebody like that. And I wrote him and said, "I have no idea whether anybody will come to this conference, but I'm going to have a little conference at our church. I'm going to invite the people that I'm aware of in my denomination. And would you come?" And he came.

He came and he spoke to the first group. There were about 80 pastors there in April of '88. And that conference has existed for 32 years without stopping. And its origin and its catapulting into existence is owing to the servant heart of J.I. Packer. And just a little side note that I mentioned in the article that's at DG today.

When he came to dinner that evening, along with the other speakers, we always had the speakers over in those early days and Noel would make spaghetti. And I love her spaghetti. And he took a great interest in Noel and said, "What do you read?" And she said, "Come and I'll show you." So she took him into her study.

I've got my study upstairs. You've got hers downstairs. And showed him her collection of mystery novels. Oh, yeah. Well, Packer is an avid reader of mystery novels. And they disappeared for... I don't know how long they were gone. And later, about a year later, he writes me a little postcard with his handwriting on it.

I think it's dated 19... Here it is. It's dated December 18, 1990. And he had come to the conference in '88. And he said, "Creep up behind your wife and whisper in her ear, 'Alice Peters, Elizabeth Peters, Andrew Greeley, Ralph McHenry, William Kienzel, Charles Merrill Smith,' and see how she reacts." I didn't know any of those guys.

And women. They're all mystery novelists that he and she had enjoyed talking about. So there's a taste of how broad his heart was in interests. I mean, he had jazz. What was his instrument? Saxophone. Yeah. Was a great interest of his. And mystery novels and Puritan theology. And thinking about the breadth of his heart, I remember back in the '80s and '90s, I was struggling with the third wave of the charismatic movement, the John Wimber types.

And I had looked at history, and I looked at what was happening around the world, and how the church was exploding in the global South. And most of that was charismatic. And the question I was raising to myself was, "Why does God bless all over the world? He seems to bless, that is, use people to save sinners whose theology is defective." And in his book, "Keep in Step with the Spirit," Packer has this great quote that ever since then has been a real sweet, humbling help to me.

He said, "God loves to bless the needle of truth in a haystack of error." And that's not a slight, because Richard Baxter was probably as close as anybody to a hero for Packer, largely because Baxter's pastoral orientation on life made Packer a pastor as well as a theologian. And he says, "Theologically, he was something of a disaster." >> Something of a disaster.

>> So, what does that mean? That means that Packer had the breadth and had the graciousness to find usefulness, riches in Baxter, and he could just take the disaster on certain points and set it aside and benefit from what he saw. And so that was a great help to me, and it's been a great inspiration.

And I keep learning things from Packer everywhere I turn in his— And I suppose the reason for that, as you would know as well as I do, is because under it all was his absolute allegiance to and love for an inerrant Bible. He was part of the battle for the Bible in the '70s, and the capstone of his career, I've heard him say, was his leadership or editorship of the new translation called the English Standard Version, the ESV.

And so we would be amiss not to pay tribute to Packer's deep, solid, heartfelt devotion to the infallibility and truthfulness and authority and pervasive usefulness of the Bible. That's what's going to make Packer durable for decades, perhaps centuries to come. >> That's good, yeah. Packer once said of—speaking of Baxter, he said, "Richard Baxter was a gifted theologian, more stimulating in his mistakes than many lesser men in their orthodoxy." >> I've never heard that.

>> So there's the praise side of the critique. >> Oh, my, my. >> But so much of Packer's legacy was him celebrating other people, historic voices, even writing endorsements for current writers. But in 2012, I was able to interview Dr. Packer in Vancouver. We traveled up there, and one of my favorite clips from that interview is—I think it's called "Advice to Aspiring Writers." And there he talks about why J.C.

Ryle is such an important voice. He said, "J.C. Ryle was a wonderful communicator. Most of his work is written up in sermons, but even when he's just doing historical studies and not writing sermons at all, he never lets the reader off the hook. You always feel he's talking to me." His idiom is very 19th century, and I'm not saying imitate that, but see what he's doing with words to get into the minds and hearts of his readers, and then do that in the 21st century terms.

>> Wow. That's good. That is so good. And that's true. That's true. >> It is. Yeah. >> I just—you know, just finishing that biography, every time Murray quoted Ryle, I felt, "Yeah, that's it. That's it." It's like Billy Graham. The Bible says, and he's looking right at you with his finger pointing in your face, and you don't take offense at it.

You feel like, "That man's real. That man's real. He's not playing games." Maybe it would be good to draw this to a close with a comment on his style, his way of communicating and writing, and then a last comment on substance. I've been affected by and love his style.

Now, I'm an American. He was British. I mean, the way I'm talking right now, he would never talk this way, all right? Piper is animated. He gets loud. He gets soft. He talks fast. He talks slow. All of that's very, very cultural, very personality-driven. He wasn't that way at all.

He embodied serious, joyful. He had a twinkle in his eye. I was just looking last night on one of the little videos that Justin Taylor put up, and I looked at his eyes, and I thought, "What a beautiful communication of delight is in those eyes." He was articulate. He was steady.

He was slow. He was deliberate in his speech. Nobody in America talks like him. Nobody, I mean, N-O-B-O-D-Y, nobody talked like J.I. Packer. He was not chipper, silly, joking. He was not spontaneous. Now, by that, I mean he didn't start talking quickly. He reflected. He pondered. He considered. And then he opened his mouth, and out of his mouth, at a very slow and deliberate pace, came complete sentences.

Not half sentences where you have to start over again because you're just blathering away because you didn't know what you were going to say before you opened your mouth. And every one of them makes sense. And if you think he's pausing between words because he doesn't know where he's going, the next thing out of his mouth makes you think, "Oh, yes, he knew where he was going." So that model for me, I just loved it.

I don't want to be silly. I don't want to be a typical American entertainment-shaped, entertainment-driven communicator that feels like every podcast or every sermon or every conversation has to begin with some silly comment or some joking. Why do we have to be that way? Packer wasn't that way. And while we know we'll never be the kind of British, careful, slow, deliberate speaker he was, we certainly can benefit from the style of serious, joyful, articulate, deliberate speech that's full of, and this is my second thing, substance.

So that style—here's my last comment on it. When I say substance, I mean this. Packer was a Reformed theologian. And at a point in life 50 years ago, when some of us had just found our way into the biblical reality of God's majesty and greatness and glory and purpose and sovereign grace in salvation, we looked around to find representatives.

And thousands of us stumbled onto his little pamphlet called "The Introduction to the Death of Death in the Death of Christ." And all it was supposed to be was an introduction to John Owen's book, but it took on a life of its own. And the reason it did is this.

Packer showed in that little booklet that what is sometimes called Calvinism or TULIP—T-U-L-I-P—Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, Perseverance of the Saints—that was not a peripheral, ancillary addendum to the gospel. But rather was the gospel in its fullest, richest, deepest form. Man is dead and hopelessly unable to create faith.

God sent Christ into the world to shed his blood to purchase a new covenant by which the heart of stone would be taken out, sins would be forgiven for God's people, and they would be kept forever. The omnipotence of grace would be poured out by the Holy Spirit, and he would open the hearts and grant faith to his elect.

And that wasn't an afterthought. It was planned in eternity, and those whom he thus calls and creates he keeps forever. That's the gospel. And it's also Calvinism when it's understood in its fullness and completeness biblically. And I'll tell you, those of us who long to be pastors, who long to meet people's needs, who long to see people saved in the mission of the church advanced, that was like a breath from heaven to hear that this great and glorious truth called Calvinism was nothing other than the sweetness and preciousness and depth and fullness and richness of the gospel of Jesus Christ that saves sinners and keeps them forever.

So he showed me, along with John Owen, he showed me how to love the gospel, preach the gospel, and have a free offer, a free offer. Come, come to the waters. You who have no money, come buy and eat. Why would you spend your money on what is not bread and that which does not satisfy?

So I love J.I. Packer. I love what he stood for. I love the kindness he showed to me. I love his allegiance to the Bible and his appreciation of the majesty of God and how utterly practical he was in everything he wrote. I'm very sorry to lose him. Amen.

Lots of praise for Dr. Packer. Lots to be thankful for. Any misgivings that you have? And maybe before you get into that, I mean, I know he loved the idea of Christian hedonism, but he didn't really care for the name. Did you guys ever talk about Christian hedonism, the name?

You know, I can't remember. Okay. That's no evidence that we didn't. John Piper's memory today is not what it used to be. So I frankly, I can't remember. We did a long interview. We're going to show some of those, I think, of Desiring God Eventually. But I cannot remember.

I should remember, but I don't. But I do know that I get a mixed message when I read him. Because I wish we had talked more, because I frankly think that we would have seen eye to eye if we had had a chance to talk about it. You said, "Do I have any misgivings?

Is there anything I want to point to in Packer that I would caution?" And so I'm not going to end on a negative note, because I'm going to turn this to positive, but it'll sound negative at first. He had a view of motivation, even though he commended Desiring God and said it was a great study on Christian motivation.

He didn't see the inconsistency that I see between what he said and what I wrote there. He said this, "From the plan of salvation, I learned that the true driving force in authentic Christian living is, and it must ever be, not the hope of gain, but the heart of gratitude." That's the end of the quote.

"The true driving force of authentic Christian living is not the hope of gain, but the heart of gratitude." Now, if he were sitting here right now, I would say, "Either I don't agree with that, or I don't know what you mean." And he might mean by the hope of gain, something materialistic and worldly.

But it sounds like he really is saying the backward glance of the Christian to the cross and to the call of God in our conversion and to the demonstration of God's grace and mercy in history. We feel an overpowering sense of thankfulness, and then we turn that thankfulness into motivation to return to God for what he's given to us.

I don't think that's the way the New Testament or the Old Testament talks. Jesus, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross. Jesus was motivated to complete the obedience on the cross for the joy, the gain that was in front of him, namely being with his Father in a redeemed people.

Or Colossians 1, 5, "The love you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven." Hope for heaven was where love came from. Or Matthew 5, "Rejoice when you're persecuted, for great is your reward in heaven." It's the thinking about the greatness of the reward in heaven that enables us to endure persecution and persevere in love.

Or Paul saying, "Forgetting what lies behind, I strain to what lies ahead toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ." That drove Paul, "I want to make it to the end and get the prize, which is Jesus. He's more precious to me than anything." Or Hebrews 11, "By faith, Abraham obeyed." And what is faith?

Faith is the substance of things hoped for. It's the glory of the future, the better reward, the beulah land with Jesus that sustains us and motivates us in our obedience. So I would say, "Dr. Packer, what did you mean when you said that the driving force in authentic Christian living is not the hope of gain?" I don't think that's right.

And he might say, "Well, I think perhaps I should reconsider that half of the statement." I'm congratulating myself. Here's the way we should close, Tony. When I say that, I say it with tears in my eyes that if I can nitpick at a statement of Packer that I wouldn't say, and then point to the precious Bible that he taught me to love and die for, there's a great affection in my heart.

And maybe he would understand if I said, "Well, Dr. Packer," I never could call him anything other than Dr. Packer, "Dr. Packer, you taught me that God loves to honor the needle of truth in a haystack of error. You will then perhaps be merciful toward me if I find a needle of error in the haystack of your life's work," which is not a haystack because hay is going to be burned up.

Yours is made of gold and silver and precious stone, and I stand in awe of your life's work and will draw from it till I'm home with you. Yeah, wonderful. And we're actually going to release an interview that you did with him, a 70-minute interview on all sorts of things.

We're going to release that as a special APJ episode here in the next week or so. It's never been released. I'm sure you remember that. Yeah, I do, I did. Was that recorded in Vancouver? I think so, yeah. Okay. The whole thing is coming soon. It's never been released.

Pastor John, Dr. Packer, talking about the gospel, Christian life, 70 minutes coming up here in about a week. Pastor John, thank you for coming off of vacation to talk with us. What a privilege. Well, back in 1990, Packer wrote an especially interesting editorial for Christianity Today titled "Why I Like My Pie in the Sky." He wrote, "When persons suffering loss of memory cannot recall where their earthly home is, we pity them.

But Christians who forget that heaven is their true home and never think positively about heaven at all are much more to be pitied. This, it seems, is how most of us proceed most of the time." So what is the problem, he asks? "Why are there so few Christians these days who can honestly affirm that they have anchored their hearts in heaven and are continually excited about it?

Worldliness, alas, is the cause. Secular materialism, preoccupied with the present, and Marxist mockery of a pie in the sky when you die, combine to make Christians feel embarrassed about their hope of glory, as if having it is somehow bad manners. So they do not talk about it, and soon they stop thinking about it.

Rarely in today's Christianity does excitement about heaven break through. When did you last hear a sermon on the subject?" Poignant. And then Dr. Packer signed off with an aspirational plea to his readers. See you in heaven, I hope. "This heavenly-minded man dear to so many of us, J.I. Packer, passed into the joyful presence of his Savior on Friday morning at the age of 93." "He was a man of great wisdom, and a man of great courage.

He was a man of great wisdom, and a man of great courage. He was a man of great wisdom, and a man of great courage.