Justin Taylor's Blog, page 353

J. I. Packer's Questions

J. I. Packer has some questions for those who think that once in hell, God still ultimately saves and restores all people:

Why, in that case, does God leave multitudes who know the gospel to go to hell as unbelievers before he calls them to faith?

And more searchingly, why do Christ and the apostles give no hint that God intends to lead every member of this fallen human race from the cradle to the crown, via hell if need be?

And why do they speak instead, with such strong emphasis, as if each person's decisions made here determine their state hereafter, so that unbelievers face irremediable eternal loss?

Is not the New Testament viewpoint on this issue clearly expressed, consistently maintained, and constantly enforced?

Is there not then something heretical about the universalist account of God's plan of love, which parts company with the Bible so radically?

(And no, Dr. Packer is not "just asking" questions.)

—Hell Under Fire, p. 194.

Hell Under Fire

Here's a book I highly recommend if you want serious engagement with exegetical issues related to the doctrine of hell: Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment , edited by Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson (Zondervan, 2004).

Here are the chapters with contributors:

1. Modern Theology: The Disappearance of Hell (R. Albert Mohler Jr.)

2. The Old Testament on Hell (Daniel I. Block)

3. Jesus on Hell (Robert W. Yarbrough)

4. Paul on Hell (Douglas J. Moo)

5. The Revelation on Hell (Gregory K. Beale)

6. Biblical Theology: Three Pictures of Hell (Christopher W. Morgan)

7. Systematic Theology: Three Vantage Points of Hell (Robert A. Peterson)

8. Universalism: Will Everyone Ultimately be saved? (J. I. Packer)

9. Annihilationism: Will the Unsaved Be Punished Forever? (Christopher W. Morgan)

10. Pastoral Theology: The Preacher and Hell (Sinclair. B. Ferguson)

A Sentence that Changed My Theology

In 1996 I read this sentence by R. C. Sproul,and God used it to snap my resistance to some of his revealed truths:

You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true.

—Chosen by God, p. 12.

The Active and Passive Sides of God's Love

From a lecture by Gordon Fee, recounting the morning that he sat in his study to work on 1 Corinthians 13:4 for his commentary:

I remember the morning when I came to this passage: "Love is patient, love is kind."

It's actually a verb: "Love does patience." Or better yet, the KJV: "love suffers long."

Patience is what you show when your computer doesn't work.

Long-suffering is what you show when people don't work, and you've been around them a long, long time. That's what it means to suffer long.

And I looked at those words and then realized that Paul was here describing God's character. Those are exactly the words he uses of God back in Romans 2 [v. 4].

Then it dawned on me:

the first (long-suffering) is the passive side of His love;

the other (kindness) is the active side of His love.

And then I started to cry for a long time. It took me a long time to return to my computer. What if God was not like this toward us?

HT: Tony Reinke, via David Sunday

Free Audiobook: The Holiness of God

ChristianAudio.com is making available for free in March R. C. Sproul's classic book. I highly recommend reading or listening to this book. Its message is always timely and needed.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Dr. Lloyd-Jones, one of the great preachers of the twentieth century, died 30 years years ago today: March 1, 1981.

Here is a 10-minute biographical video overview of his life:

For free audio and audio that can be ordered, see the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust.

For biographical resources, see:

Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, 1899-1939
Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith, 1939-1981
Iain Murray, Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace

Crossway continues to publish numerous titles by Lloyd-Jones, mainly drawn from his sermons.

Here is J. I. Packer on D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, from a 1985 essay:

What a fascinating human being he was! Slightly built, with a great domed cranium, head thrust forward, a fighter's chin and a grim line to his mouth, he radiated resolution, determination, and an unwillingness to wait for ever. A very strong man, you would say, and you would be right. You can sense this from any photograph of him, for he never smiled into the camera.

There was a touch of the old-fashioned about him: he wore linen collars, three-piece suits, and boots in public, spoke on occasion of crossing-sweepers and washerwomen, and led worship as worship was led a hundred years before his time.

In the pulpit he was a lion, fierce on matters of principle, austere in his gravity, able in his prime to growl and to roar as his argument required.

Informally, however, he was a delightfully relaxed person, superb company, twinkling and witty to the last degree. His wit was as astringent as it was quick and could leave you feeling you had been licked by a cow. His answer to the question, posed in a ministers' meeting, 'Why are there so few men in our churches?' was: 'Because there are so many old women in our pulpits!' (Americans, please note: that was no reference to female preachers! In Britain an 'old woman' is any dithery man with a gripe.)

In 1952 he complained to me of the presence at the Puritan conference of two young ladies from his congregation. 'They're only here for the men!' said he. 'Well, Doctor,' I replied, 'as a matter of fact I'm going to marry one of them.' (I had proposed and been accepted the night before.) I thought that would throw him but it didn't at all. Quick as a flash came the answer, 'Well, you see I was right about one of them; now what about the other?' That's repartee for you! He did not suffer fools gladly and had a hundred ways of deflating pomposity. Honest, diffident people, however, found in him a warmth and friendliness that amazed them.

For he was a saint, a holy man of God: a naturally proud person whom God made humble; a naturally quick-tempered person to whom God taught patience; a naturally contentious person to whom God gave restraint and wisdom; a natural egoist, conscious of his own great ability, whom God set free from self-seeking to serve the servants of God.

Packer goes on to write:

Nearly forty years on, it still seems to me that all I have ever known about preaching was given me in the winter of 1948-49, when I worshipped at Westminster chapel with some regularity. Through the thunder and the lightning, I felt and saw as never before the glory of Christ and of his gospel as modern man's only lifeline and learned by experience why historic Protestantism looks on preaching as the supreme means of grace and of communion with God. Preaching, thus viewed and valued, was the centre of the Doctor's life: into it he poured himself unstintingly; for it he pleaded untiringly. Rightly, he believed that preachers are born rather than made, and that preaching is caught more than it is taught, and that the best way to vindicate preaching is to preach. And preach he did, almost greedily, till the very end of his life. . . .

Two Questions on the Rob Bell Blog Post

Kevin DeYoung has a helpful post about whether or not (1) I needed to go to Rob Bell first before airing public criticism, and (2) I needed to remain silent until Rob Bell's book is published.

Interpreting Interruptions

"When I hear a knock at my study door, I hear a message from God.

It may be a lesson of instruction;

perhaps a lesson of patience:

but, since it is his message, it must be interesting."

—John Newton, in Works I:76.

Holy Love Wins

Thanks to Trevin Wax for this quote from Timothy Stoner's The God Who Smokes: Scandalous Meditation on Faith (p. 30):

The love that wins is a holy love.

The love that won on the cross and wins the world is a love that is driven, determined, and defined by holiness.

It is a love that flows out of the heart of a God who is transcendent, majestic, infinite in righteousness, who loves justice as much as he does mercy; who hates wickedness as much as he loves goodness; who blazes with a fiery, passionate love for himself above all things.

He is Creator, Sustainer, Beginning and End.

He is robed in a splendor and eternal purity that is blinding.

He rules, he reigns, he rages and roars, then bends down to whisper love songs to his creatures.

His love is vast and irresistible.

It is also terrifying, and it will spare no expense to give everything away in order to free us from the bondage of sin, purifying for himself a people who are devoted to his glory, a people who have "no ambition except to do good".

So he crushes his precious Son in order to rescue and restore mankind along with his entire creation.

He unleashes perfect judgment on the perfectly obedient sacrifice and then pulls him up out of the grave in a smashing and utter victory.

He is a God who triumphs . . .

He is a burning cyclone of passionate love.

Holy love wins.

Till Death Do Us Part

In 1990 Robertson McQuilkin resigned his post as president of Columbia Bible College and Graduate School, in order to care for his beloved wife Muriel, who stopped recognizing him in 1993 and went to be with the Lord in 2003 at the age of 81.

Here are two Christianity Today articles by Dr. McQuilkin about caring for his wife:

"Living by Vows" (October 8, 1990)
"Muriel's Blessing" (February 5, 1996)

And here is an interview he did with Stan Guthrie upon Muriel's death (February 1, 2004).

Someone had a tape recorder at his resignation speech, and you can watch a portion of it below. May God make us men like this: