J.I. Packer - On Personal Holiness

Thank You friends for your welcome I am glad to be here it's probably the last visit that I shall pay to Trinity I'm a fairly elderly gentleman by now but I say again it's good to be here on this occasion and to have been asked to speak on the subject of my choice which enabled me as indeed the Dean said to go for that which I am thinking about caring about and concerned about the in these days when I was 80 years old and that's quite some time ago now I spoke to a conference which had been organized would you believe it under the title ji pecker in the evangelical future at the end of that conference then I spoke to those gathered and told them that as far as I could see for the rest of my working life I should be conducting a crusade for catechesis that is the revival of katha catechism type instruction in all evangelical churches what's the essence of catechetical instruction it's two things together teaching the doctrine of the Bible teaching the truths that is that we are called to live by and teaching in direct connection with that how to live by those truths how to practice in fact what we call holiness which is what I'm going to speak about this evening however it is quite some yes and I was 80 and I have got to the point where if I'm asked whether there's any crusade or emphasis that I want to major on or any time that remains to me I have got to the point where I would say I think I want to campaign for a renewal of personal holiness as a project and a focus of interest as a reality which our churches need which our country needs which the world needs at this time in its history I think that we are at a crisis time frankly for if I said the human race it would sound overly grand but it's a very great number of human beings all over I think we are at a crisis that bears down on them I think that culturally the West is coming apart I think that humanly the thing to expect about the younger world the growing world of Africa and Asia the developing developing world is that they will learn learn these disrupting attitudes and procedures from the West so that instead of global togetherness of a rich and enriching sort it will be global dissolution taking us back to the old fashioned world of tensions and sometimes actual hostilities well be that as it may and it's all in God's hands I certainly want to put my two bits into the discussion of that matter and that prospect and that is why when asked what I would like to talk about here in Eden Trinity on this occasion I said I would like to talk about holiness you may say to me what do you mean by holiness well wait a minute um let me say it tell you something which will focus the significance of holiness before I move into an analysis in my youth personal holiness was an absorbing focus of evangelical interest some of you are old enough to remember with me the heyday of what in England at any rate and I think over here too was called the Kecak movement a convention movement well it's a thing of the past now and frankly I am glad on balance that it is because I came to think that it was faulty in its doctrine and so unhelpful in its directions or holy behavior but I was going to talk to you of for a moment about Mary McShane wasn't I am a chain said some things which are very well worth remembering for instance this he was a pastor in Dundee Scotland and he said on one occasion my peoples greatest need is my personal holiness and I think that that's a word for all pastors everywhere at all times and then again he said a holy minister is an awful weapon we would say awesome to express what he was expressing when he used the word or an awesome weapon in the hands of a holy God to all who are concerned with ministry today I would say exactly the same and Mary McKeon had a prayer of which he made no secret Lord make me as holy as it's possible for a saved sinner to be and I think that all of us ministers need to make that a prayer of our own and it's with that as my background of conviction conviction that is to say as to the importance of my subject that I speak to you this evening I want us to dig a little into personal holiness as an issue as a project as a reality as a goal I may say I am still I think a little scarred by my experience straight after my conversion which was Oh nearly 70 years ago now my experience of unhelpful holiness teaching given under Kazik auspices I got it through the InterVarsity group in Oxford University who were responsible for my conversion and for my nurture thank God for them they gave me so much that was good but their stress on the Kazakh material or the Kazakh style as marking the path to holiness that was something else though I didn't realize it at the time and I had a lot of pain and anxiety in trying to follow the Kazakh formula into maximum holiness or regenerate humanity should it was it was a long story actually it lasted over two years before before I I had cleared the matter up in my own mind but to cut the long story short in the Providence of God I discovered the English Puritans who were reprinted in the 19th century in massive series of reprint volumes produced in Scotland they were pastors and what was being reprinted was sermons that they'd written out in full and treatises also which they'd written in their own lifetime and published in their own lifetime there's a mass of Puritan material for study and I found that Puritan teachers had a great deal more wisdom about personal holiness to share with me then the others who clamored for my attention on this subject and I quietly enlisted under the Puritan banner and left the other stuff behind well in the course of those two years I was somewhat scarred by the pain and a wildermann t' that the teaching I was being given in the Christian Union was generating in my mind now that's all the personal stuff that I intend to share with you when I talked to the students at lunchtime this morning I admitted to them that my age qualifies me no doubt to be referred to as a man in his anecdote age which is what they so often say about old folks like me but as I say the rest of what I have to say tonight it's not anecdote each at all it is I believe biblical truth and I want to share it with you in the hope that God will guide us all into living by the truth on this matter of personal holiness that scripture presents to us so where do we start well let me say some general things to set our subject in context first remember what Christianity is all about and you will see there that holiness ought to be a central concern to all of us what is Christianity all about well it's about God who himself is holy announces himself as holy of himself the holy one in the midst of his people the Holy One of Israel and that means that his people need themselves to be holy in order to have fellowship with him he charges them to practice holiness you shall be holy he says for I am holy we meet those words first in Leviticus and they are taken up by Peter Hurst Peter chapter 1 verse 16 in the New Testament holiness is called for so that we may have fellowship with good with a holy God then again Christianity is about sin and deliverance from sin sin is elapsed from holiness that's its very nature since so far as possible is to be overcome resisted and nullified course we can't finally do that but we can keep trying sin is to be nullified as an influence in our lives prior to conversion of course sin is dominant in us but Paul says in Romans chapter 6 cinge now that you were born again in Christ sin shall not have dominion over you because you're not under law but under grace and now we are called to live out the reality of sin not having dominion over us and then again Christianity is about repentance repentance is a theme which I think you'll agree has been under played under stressed under emphasized for quite some dickens I think I can fairly say really for the whole of my lifetime when I read the scriptures and then reflect on how often since I became a Christian I have heard sermons on repentance not very often do you folk often hear sermons on repentance I don't think any of us do I think it really is a subject to which we often refer as a reality but we don't stop on it we don't focus on it and I'm afraid we don't practice it properly as we as we should do but holiness is a matter of proper repentance and we should see it so and restore the biblical stress on repentance and that incidentally means catch up with one of the creative streams of work in the study of Reformation origins in anglia of Anglicanism does the name Ashley no mean anything to you I hope it does he has property as well he has been here I know and ministered him well good for Trinity Ashley null is the person who more than anything else has been stressing over the lust I don't know best part of ten years I suppose that repentance was a central doctrine indeed these central doctrine of practical Christianity in the mind of Thomas Cranmer and his stress on repentance comes out in our prayer book we don't always recognize the emphasis that's there and in his practical writings about Christian living it's the same repentance is fundamental well we don't make as much of repentance I think as we should but if we did make as much of it as we should well then we would be focusing on personal holiness in a way that at the moment we aren't uh well minor the final thing I would say here is that Christianity supremely is about transformation persons bearing the image of Satan being transformed into persons bearing the image of the one who created them and the one who redeemed them the image in other words of Christ holiness is about learning a path the way of becoming christ-like with a transformation that begins in the heart inside in other words and then expresses itself outwardly in the life here of course you have a pitfall which has a long history in the church a pitfall I mean of supposing that the way to teach Christian holiness Christian behavior is to drill people eres a ik style in doing this and not doing that and the expectation is that by drilling people that way we should change their hearts well the middle of the biblical perspective is entirely the reverse God in His mercy changes the heart when we come as sinners to Jesus and out of the reality of that changed heart sustained as it now is by the indwelling Holy Spirit in our heart comes the life of holiness in which the image of God is expressed the likeness of our Lord is reflected and Christians establish their identity as persons change and different from those around them the words that are translated holiness and sanctify in English and English Bible uh the words both in Hebrew and in Greek express the basic idea of separation separation in the form of contrast separation in the sense of distance one's of one thing from another and as we shall see again I think the essence of personal holiness begins by separating ourselves from the ways of the world in order to embrace the way of living that was taught by our Lord Jesus Christ so all these themes which are central to Christianity point us to the importance of having holiness personal holiness as a focus of our lives now a further point remember that Christian holiness is about Christian living and Christian living is a project to concern a reality about which it's easy to make mistakes and so I'm going now to give you five principles which are basic to the reality of Christian holiness but there all of them principles about which mistakes have been made and may easily be made again so I'm really saying watch out for these mistakes and try to avoid them principle number one oh well wait a minute before I said before I list them let me tell you they are principles which should become realities expressed in the lives of all who are as we say and as the New Testament says born-again renewed inwardly by the Holy Spirit in a way that's so radical that it is properly referred to in the New Testament as a new life the new life is based let me say this quickly the new life is based on the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ putting away our sins by his death on the cross based then on Jesus resurrection and if one asks in what way is it based on the reality of Christ's atoning death and triumphant resurrection we'll the answer is we are involved God the Holy Spirit draws us to faith in Christ faith is an embrace you know and it's an embrace of Christ that I'm talking about faith calls us to the sorry the Holy Spirit calls us to embrace Christ as our sin bearing Savior and as our risen Lord and in doing that now this is something which not everybody grasps and so I'm emphasizing it rather as I talk in that as the Holy Spirit makes moves us to embrace Christ in that way the Holy Spirit unites us to Christ so that a death blow is struck at the principle of sin in our moral system spiritual system and a an unquenchable principle of new vitality new life of a particular sort is implanted in us and the Holy Spirit indwells us to sustain that throughout life as it will be sustained in us by the same spirit to all eternity in other words we really are new inside and we have in ourselves as a result new desires what are they you ask a desire to know God a desire to love God a desire to please God a desire to serve God yes a desire um I know that preachers in their sermons are constantly encouraging us at these points out what we need to realize is that though we may need encouragement to stir these principles into more vigorous action we've we've taken through them up to this point yet they are they're just as a spring of water is there sometimes there's more water coming out of it than there is at other times but the spring of water is there Jesus put it that way actually when he was talking to the lady from Samaria do you remember the water that I will give you he says if you let me give you the water that I have to give will be in you a spring of water springing up to eternal life well you all we've all of a seen Springs of water that he bubbling up and sometimes when there's been rain they bubble up much more vigorously than they do at other times but they're always bubbling up some well that's a picture a biblical picture of the new desires the new energies the new thrust inward thrust of desire that marks Christians makes them different from all who are not Christians that's the background to what I have to say and what I was going to say and say out of term as a matter of fact I admit it about the true principles of ongoing Christian life and the possibilities of slippage in relation to each one here are those principles now principle one being is basic to doing the Pharisees never understood that they thought that the essence of discipleship to God was to keep doing things but they had it wrong the being of a transformed heart a renewed inner life these new desires and purposes and goals which are sought aeneas ly operative within us that's the fundamental reality and it's out of that being presence of those desires and energies that the doing comes real Christian behavior is doing as an expression of what you are okay and our second principle knowing is basic to acting this is one of the things that I try to emphasize when I talk about catechesis Christian life is a matter of doing what you know what you learned from your doctorate from your doctrinal instruction that you should do until you know what you should do will you won't do it obviously not so knowing is basic to acting and her skills need to understand that and make sure that they know all that they need to know about the requirements of the Christian life and then a third principle I've hinted at it in whatever what I said a moment ago God's work of salvation through new justification new birth the beginning of the new life through the power of the Holy Spirit in a relation of acceptance with God whereby though we are as guilty of sin as ever as as we thought we were we know ourselves to be we are not penal I liable that is to say God is not going to require us to pay the piper as we say for our transgressions why not because Christ has already paid for them Christ our representative I can't go into the details of Atonement doctrine at this point but I can put the essence of it in a sentence God's holiness means that he will always punish sin retribution is going to be a basic moral fact throughout his universe but now the retribution for all of us has already been inflicted lichte Don the Lord Jesus born by him at Calgary Calvary I'm so sorry and as a result we don't have to face any any possibility of condemnation you may know the two lines from one of top lady's hymns which run like this payment God will not twice demand first from my bleeding short his hand and then again from mine that's momentously assuring momentously thrilling sure you will agree with that well that's the reality the positional reality of the Christian we are justified that verdict of non punishment has been pronounced on us God is going to treat us for all eternity as righteous persons sinners though we are we are adopted into gods family we are his children sons and heirs as Paul puts it and in that relationship with God we live in peace in joy in hope and we know that we should be living that way to all eternity because our hope will never be exhausted good things will always be happening they'll never stop and that's what we as believers have to look forward to as we Groudon the fact that life down here will end yes but Christ will come and take his people to himself and their joy and their peace and their hope and their in their discovery of new glories will never stop no well that's our position and it's out of the knowledge that that's where we are in our relationship with God that there comes a natural process of mind and heart gratitude delight and a desire to show how grateful we are to our God by heartfelt obedience to him and service of him well that's the that is the fourth of the sorry that's the third truth that I want us to understand God's work of saving us underlies God's work in us in sanctification and fifth the fourth truth I'm so sorry that goes with that is that God's work in sanctification is basic to our work of obedience yes we are called to obey we are called to be faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus learning what he requires of us in order that we may do it give it but the basic reality of the power that's expressed in the doing of it that's from God and we are assured that as we look to the Lord pray for help that power will be operative enabling us to do what we are wanting to do and seeking to do and intending to do and so getting things increasingly right in the way that we live our lives and again is a basic truth in the reality of holiness Paul expresses it as a matter of fact in a verse which I think is often glossed over people don't brood on it as much as it deserves work out your salvation with fear and trembling better translation there would be work out your salvation with all and reverence and work out because means Express Express in action work out your salvation then in oh and reverence for in other words because it is God who works in you to make you will and do according to his good pleasure that's a tremendous statement and the life of personal holiness is to be built on it and the fifth truth about saying about the life of personal wholeness is this a purpose of pleasing God is basic to the purpose of avoiding sin I say that because some Christians conceived the whole of the Christian life in terms of avoiding sin whereas according to the New Testament though avoiding sin is a big thing even bigger is the practice of rejoicing and hoping and thanking and pleasing our God personal holiness is a very positive thing in other words and we shouldn't be betrayed into thinking of it in negative terms that does happen I know in churches and fellowships and Families it often happens without the person's stressing that this must not be done and that must not be done and you must avoid something else those persons don't always realize how negative is the understanding of the Christian life that they're projecting we must understand it we must remember it and we must make sure that we don't fall into the trap of reproducing it well are you getting the idea I wonder this is what personal holiness is all about and today as we seek to practice holy living well there are going to be particular emphases which it will be hard to maintain but nonetheless the principles are clear and the maintaining of these emphases let me assure you as one who has tried to maintain them over the years can be invigorating even though it may leave you isolated and sometimes with egg on your face thrown in your direction by people who dislike what you say yes it happens well may you laugh madam it is funny we all of us may probably laugh at this but it don't say oh don't but don't think of it as tragic just think of it as one of the unhappy aspects of life in a world where the powers of redemption are operative but haven't yet touched the folk who are behaving to us in this in adopting an attitude to us of this kind well what do the precise points I want to make here they are holy living is evangelical base that is to say on the doctrine of the gospel and it must oppose and reject what modern sociologist has diagnosed as the faith of most people particularly young people here in North America he is his name as Christian Smith and he's called what he diagnosis moralistic therapeutic deism you-you-you know those words deism is the doctrine that God the Creator set the world going and then simply separated himself from its ongoing life stone back and now watches it run therapeutic means that the focus is on healing what we feel to be weaknesses in our makeup we diagnose ourselves and we then look to God to do something for us about it the diagnosis is not based on Scripture it's only based on our self absorption in anything and everything in the life that we're living which isn't how shall I say it which isn't an element in perfect happiness and moralistic is a word meaning this that we recognize that there is a moral code and one day no doubt God will reward people according to whether they have kept the moral code or not but you see there's nothing there about grace nothing there about the Lord Jesus Christ nothing there about the Holy Spirit nothing there about a new life from God well we need to stress in our own thinking and our own witnessing and in our own living that personal holiness is living out the gospel living out of the gospel living out of this supernatural transformation of heart which has made us new creatures in Christ and then secondly holy living today will have to be antithetical that is to say set against the various forms of post Christianity and anti Christianity that are going the runs this is a day in which in which such such realities are riding high and term well the general assumption in our culture is that the Christian phase in the life of the world is over and as post Christians we now should be moving on to something else and leaving Christianity behind and the folk who are actually doing that are pioneers of the nuke a new culture which is slated to replace the old Christian one well the antithesis is strong just as it's clear and Christians practicing holy living must be equally strong equally firm and equally clear in rejecting the antithetical proposals which involve the denial of the finality of Christian faith in again holiness personal holiness today must be ecclesial that is to say centered on anchored in the Fellowship of the church the idea that personal holiness is best pursued in isolation from other people goes back a long way it was that idea that said what was his name Simeon Stylites on the top of the pillar in Greece where he lived for 30 years you heard about him I'm sure you have it it's an idea which has popped up in Christian thinking again and again but it's a mistaken idea God's central concern is with the church to have 1/2 for himself a new humanity and new people and that is precisely a church the body of Christ with Christ himself as its head well personal holiness must involve us in pursuing God's central purpose in the church and if we think that isolation from the church is going to help us or isolation from Christian Fellowship in all its forms is going to help us where we need to think again and then personal holiness in our time just as it must be moral taking seriously that is to say the law of God even if society around us is not taking the law of God seriously so Christian personal holiness for our time must be devotional that is to say must be an expression of love and adoration to our God because that after all is what we were made for we call it the glorifying of God that's what we are saved for we are here to exalt the God who has saved us and it's in the life of sustained grateful worship that all of us are going to find the fullness of joy in our Christian lives that isn't always appreciated but it needs to be and as we seek personal holiness in our lives today this is something that we ought to have as our as one of the goals the group of goals that we're after well there are some basic principles of personal holiness which I share with you because I believe they are the key to the life that is triumphantly different in Christ from the life of unregenerate people around us they are key principles in the life that brings people to conviction and to faith in Christ as we witness and our life backs up the witness that we give they are principals in other words which have power to change a communal life around us just as there are principles that already show that have already shown their power to change us as individuals yes these are the practical principles of personal holiness which I want to commend to you and my time is just about gone so I must pull draw the threads together and come to a conclusion there will be discussion time as you know when I stop and I am going to stop because I don't want to cut the discussion short quickly I refer you as I close to the second and third chapters of the book of Revelation where you have the Savior from his throne dealing directly through the letters and letters that John is writing at his dictation he's dealing directly with seven congregations in Asia Minor and with five of them he finds fault and we need to take seriously the faults that he finds because they are not faults confined to the churches of Asia Minor in the 1st century AD they are faults into which we can very easily fall if we don't watch out what I mean is let me just reel it off one church is is criticized for leaving its first love and that gives us the principle don't neglect your heart keep your heart loving adoring rejoicing hoping don't as I say neglect your heart and another church is criticized for moral lapses tolerating the Intolerable well we are less are sometimes called to tolerate the intolerable in the church and Allah where we are of course in the middle of a period in the church's history when the issue of tolerating the Intolerable has become a very big thing and division is has taken place over it and division will continue as long as intolerable options are being put to us you can read what the intolerable options of Revelation are you could read that at your leisure I simply say they're there and the Lord Jesus critiques the churches for tolerating the intolerable and and incidentally you will find that the intolerable that is intolerable that are mentioned include problems of sexual behavior just as they do today and then churches well one church is criticized for well being on the edge of yielding to fear don't fear since the Lord Jesus why does he say it there's need for him to say it because the church clearly is beginning to fear and fear is inhibiting fear inhibits creative action of all sorts including the creative action of loving and rejoicing in and glorifying and giving thanks to our God the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit don't fear don't be inhibited and don't indulge in self-satisfaction as the Laodicean church was doing you think that you're wonderfully well provided for you think you've got everything that you need you don't realize how needy you really are since the Lord Jesus well those are matters which I wanted to mention but I haven't time to deal with any of them properly I simply alert you to the fact that in the New Testament there they are solemn warnings solemn don'ts shall I say for us to take to heart and make sure that we don't lapse into and having said that I think that I may regard my talk is finished I've sit before you what I understand and care about at a very deep level regarding that transformed lives that disciples of Jesus Christ or to be living it's clear that the Apostles and their colleagues in the first century did live lives that were amazingly transformed and that was one of the reasons for the amazing impact that they had evangelistically on the people to whom they presented the good news of Savior well we by the grace of God need to get back to that and that's the summons with which I leave you thank you for letting me say these things and may God bless them to our hearts

Channel: TS4M

Views: 152,176

Rating: 4.855689 out of 5

Keywords: Trinity, School, Evangelical, Seminary, Anglican, Episcopal, Tradition, J. I. Packer (NNDB Person), Regent College (Organization), Anglican Church Of Canada (Church), Gospel

Id: EDnk-jSz7Z4

Length: 51min 30sec (3090 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 06 2014