John Piper Interviews J.I. Packer

[Music] dr j.i packer recently passed into glory uh 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 of three phone calls to answer various questions that i had about the puritans and specifically his thoughts on uh 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 the world of euros and studies is waiting for someone to focus on sorry on goodwin as a life's work yes all right that's packers sticking his neck out and now i must say over to you yeah excellent though dr packer thank you for your time i am uh grateful to god for your works and and all of the books that you've written over the years and god has used you in a in a mighty way in my life and i'm grateful to god for you thank you and when next you see john piper gave him by greetings and assurance though my productive days i think are over my my position on everything on 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 pecker god bless you thank you i know although dr packer's formal ministry had ended and he would uh 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 uh 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 pecker 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 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 the legacy has been significant there's another thing if you want to respond you can in just a minute there's nothing 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 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 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 uh 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 um well it's just a great joy to be talking to you now after so many years and uh realizing that all of this stays firm yeah so here's the way i want to 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 w 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 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 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 interversity 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 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've read for the first time seriously bunyan's pilgrim's progress both parts and well there were 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 recognize 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 um that's one of the things that i mean by redwoods it isn't all um the the the 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 uh yes they they became my example as they still are yeah 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 uh for instance is a very pleasant writer who did you say banyan okay um quite approaching the fact that in in my estimate at any rate pilgrim's progress is simply magnificent as christianity yeah well anyway um have i given you the idea of what i mean by redwoods yes sir and you asked about jonathan edwards right in other words he does not figure in your thinking the way he figures in my thing he's prominent they are prominent for you he did for you what john owen did for me yes that that would be he was the f um he was for you the the 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 um i mean you you 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 um 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 an answer of history uh those puritans who worked in universities and quite a number of them did for more or less time um 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 as yes well it's truly 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 their service of god 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 and but it beyond behind that and beneath that is 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 and 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 um [Music] that's what yes is for 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 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 fact 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 um scripture according to the lord jesus is precisely the word of god the word of his heavenly father the word of authority we 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 my if i'm left to choose my own phrase the divinity of the scriptures uh the gulf is deeper than it was i hoped that the result or one result of the public controversy about inherency 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 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 um along the line that you've been following right and the better i'd supposedly better idea emerges and the way they go within those who embrace the divinity inherency of scripture their emerge differences of the way they read it yes um another theme through your writings is a love for a defense of an exposition of the doctrines of grace yeah 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 first corinthians 15 yes and you take the five points soteriological communism 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 the center of the gospel if if that's even the correct way to set it up well let others be the judge of that but um 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 armenianism and if there had never been an armenian 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 in 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 saying well no no the five points are secondary no no the 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 not thinking of spurgeon who who said his robust reformed theology or maybe even warfield i think said this is the gospel in his purest form well that sounds like warfield okay but uh it's a sentiment that uh spurgeon would have well did agree with 100 percent does packer oh yes yes pecker belongs to that tribe by the grace of god [Laughter] i have nothing that i've not received and i'm just profoundly thankful that god in his providence has led me this way because this is the truth yeah and uh well ultimately the quest for truth 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 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 um 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 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 2000 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 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 within your estimate he had muddled it up a little seriously now i think the reality 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 of course we remain distinct from him in terms of personal identity but union with christ is the central category for apostolic thinking 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 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 impute 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 i have to be pictorial here i don't know any other way of saying it um cast is righteous righteousness his status that is is the one who has perfectly done the will of god please god and so is accepted by god he casts that status over us like um what shall i say a cloak with macintosh if you like covering us and shielding us from what would otherwise be ours namely the clash between our sinfulness which well it's sin it is sinfulness as well as a track record of sins the sins are the fruits of the sinfulness satan has seen to it that sinfulness runs right through our system as children of adam and eve but now 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 um i would say indeed i often have said and doubtless 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 us our our life in christ well one of 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 books or anything the phrase in christ that's a phrase of tremendously weighty meaning right so let's see saying everything about justification and everything actually about sanctification exactly which is the next so i'm gonna just keep you going by sharpening it you have written about holiness a lot yes 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 from justification rootiness 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 because i assume that's what walk by the spirit or put to death the deed to 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 for because 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 is 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 uh paragraph of packer that you pulled out of me um 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 rings the changes but of which both are vital and central one is the discipleship relation which we learn about from [Music] the gospels where we are shown how jesus started the discipleship relation going with his twelve and the other aspect of the matter is that the vital energy which operates within the person who is following christ through the specifics through the holy spirit um this uh 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 um again and again i find myself talking about the holy spirit as the executive agent that brings about the first of all the relationship in christ with christ with the father through the son when you need all those pronouns in order to get it right um and i i i talk of him as the executive agent right of the godhead um i stress that everything in creation in providence in grace comes to us from the father through the sun and then i add by the agency recognized or unrecognized specified or unspecified but nonetheless really energy the tree that's really there the energy of the holy spirit so my trinity of the three persons of the trinity they're always together right none of them ever act separately right so how are there things i do that um engage that executive influence and others walk by the spirit that's an imperative to me that's right you walk by that agency yes very practically if i get up in the morning what do i do to do that because i'm supposed to obey that command walk by that agency by that executive power yes i don't he's sovereign i'm not god i don't make him do things and yet well look i i was i was trying to say and i think i have to try again simply simply because this is a way of thinking that runs all through the new testament and which we miss means 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 the 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 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 um 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 it's god the holy spirit quite specifically to enable us to do anything right which we do right um the how can i say it the 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 proceed you devise procedures aside 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 from the book is that there is a dependence you say without you i can do nothing yes and then you turn and you get out of bed you you open your bible you turn off the television you don't click on the computer you do things you but but you've said fundamentally i i cannot do this and when you've well that i mean you're saying it absolutely the way that i wish everybody would say it and certainly the way that i the way that i try to say it and then the last bit i think all to be put into the pattern when we recognize that in measure at any rate we've done it we just say thank you for heavenly father for enabling us to do it amen say father well it was the holy spirit this this is an area of reality in which the action of the spirit doesn't impede indeed it uh str it 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 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 very helpful very helpful let me take you in a new direction i've not heard anybody ask you this and uh what two two three days ago there was a earthquake in nepal i think about 2500 people have died 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 um 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 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 good and experience god sustaining us and carrying us through and when these 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 cash that belief in terms of geology and physics well i can't do it i mean tectonic plates no i wasn't interested and so on um there are so many things in life uh where you you have that problem i mean you have a physic of 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 [Music] is used by god over and over as retributive judgment um i'm thinking here and this is just one thing there are thousands that one could bring in but i'm i'm thinking of the way that berlin got ruined and wrecked in the last days of the second world war when you know 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 and 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 you know and if for instance we continue in industrial life in a way that actually does produce major globe global warming and the way that they're warming us they're warning us it might you know um 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 um 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 out a million years and all of history is over where are we well now this is a matter not too long now no i i know but um i must begin by saying this is a matter under discussion yes i just there are learned men of evangelical persuasion bible believers bible lovers uh 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 um 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 well before we came to whatever is our final pl uh final place of 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 that's a formula i can't cash the formula i'm not wise enough i don't know enough the bible doesn't tell me enough but i think that um that is clearly yes clearly what we are intended to learn from revelation 20 and 21 and well 20 21 22. all three chapters thank you um that that is enough for you it is enough continuity is serious 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 but i have uh 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 uh you you connected it so things have intensified since then and we are in 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're implying and um though i have taken um a pretty forthright stand in black and white shall i say you uh 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 um what can i say to to give more weight to the issue than in your own personal postural devotional ministry you actually do um i'm not sure that i was laid into doing that in fact i do think that the issue is fundamental and having said spoken that preamble um i'll now try and answer your question and tell you just how um 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 the well both testaments the whole bible i was going to say is categorical black and white it is condemnation of homosexual behavior and in the old testament of course where the fundamentals of right and wrong are being taught um in the pentateuch anyway where the people of god are given the law and led into the promised land well in the pentateuch um homosexual behavior merits the death penalty and i i know that that is tough in the because in the um in the the first days of teaching the law the penalties were uh very heavy penalties for things that were 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 um i think that that's that is a fact directly connected with god's purpose for sex and the procreation of the race um 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 um a great deal of protestant thinking about sex gender marriage and so on has it wrong no i would have to defend that i know in discussion um but that's something i would be willing to do because i think it's clear from the foundational books of scripture pentateuch where all the foundations of everything are laid um moving it towards the gospel yes well the gospel yeah the gospel message and the gospel grace is intended to lead sinful human beings through the practice of discipleship and the power of 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 christ-likeness 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 i believe it is sanctioning homosexual behavior obstructs counters and messes up the work of sanctification and when we're told in debate that um some people who practice homosexual homosexual relationship are ever so christ-like in this that and the other way it's a confusion just as um 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 um well the gospel has to do with the the the 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 right and and the warrant for that would be first corinthians six nine and ten exactly yes those are the verses on which i lay more emphasis than any others although romans chapter 1 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 with um you must expect it to keep you out of the kingdom right because you're negating the gospel so the yeah so when what i was impressed gospels are unity this is the gospel is is designed at enormous price to get people into the kingdom and the apostles say this one and the others greed embracing greed and embracing idolatry will keep you out of the kingdom therefore to to try to be a gospel person and a person embracing this sin are are yes impossible incompatible and in our current culture that needs to be shouted from the house tops because of the confusion about it which infects our culture and shouting it from the housetops will be very costly let me let me yes and and of course prudence i mean saying things in the way best calculated to get them a hearing is also part of the equation here um and when i talk about shoddy from the housetops there's a way in which you could understand that phrase which i wouldn't i cannot picture jackpacker standing on a housetop show but i can hear you saying pointed appropriate well-timed powerful things engaging people's minds and keeping them engaged well you make your points let me close with this question you and i are old by standards of our culture you a little older anybody any standards okay that's true seven seven three six three score and and then by if by reason of strength is seven and that's where i am and you you you um you have along with the puritans drawn our attention to the beauties of christ the beauties of his salvation the glories of 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 like the rich young ruler for instance who thought he was a good chap until the lord jesus brought him i 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 almost directly take most interest in dare i say it that way because 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 dear i say humble no if you if you venture to claim humility in any shape or form the acts false yes you may pursue it yes yes thank you that's 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 knew 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 uh various points in the past thank you that's the best answer i can give you and if it doesn't sound exciting well i'm sorry that 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 because he's changing me in psalm 92 at the end there is a word to old people [Music] 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 want to 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 literally 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 and i would pray that john piper's ministry which you have made so rich and honored so widely in so many good ways they 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 g.i packer in vancouver in april of 2015. uh dr packer's stomach was always growling it seemed and uh you heard it a few times in this recording if you're wondering what that was what a metabolism that man had and uh 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

Channel: Desiring God

Views: 36,962

Rating: 4.9330544 out of 5

Keywords: Desiring God, John Piper, God, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Christian Hedonism, J.I. Packer, Ask Pastor John, APJ, Interview, Knowing God, Puritans, Calvinism, Ministry, The Life of the Mind, Church History, Reformed, Academic, Theology, Heaven, Death, Hope

Id: HRWaKo3lG28

Length: 76min 29sec (4589 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 28 2020