Mark Dever conducted an interview with J.I.Packer in which he discusses the introduction he wrote to John Owen's book "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ." You can find the full interview at www.9marks.org.
In it they discuss true preaching of the Gospel and the problem of false conversions when the full Gospel is not preached.
I had transcribed a portion of the interview for my own edification, but since the guys are going to start working through Owen's book "The Mortification of Sin" I thought this was a good opportunity to share it with you.
Enjoy!
MD- You note the change that has happened in the presentation of the Gospel- you were writing this in the late 50’s I think….”
JIP- Right
MD-You say “From this change of interest has sprung a change of content, for the new gospel has in effect reformulated the biblical message in the supposed interests of “helpfulness.” Accordingly, the themes of man’s natural inability to believe, of God’s free election being the ultimate cause of salvation, and of Christ dying specifically for His sheep, are not preached. These doctrines, it would be said, are not “helpful”; they would drive sinners to despair, by suggesting to them that it is not in their own power to be saved through Christ. (The possibility that such despair might be salutary is not considered; it is taken for granted that it cannot be, because it is so shattering to our self-esteem.) However this may be (and we shall say more about it later), the result of these omissions is that part of the biblical gospel is now preached as if it were the whole of that gospel; and a half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth. Thus, we appeal to men as if they all had the ability to receive Christ at any time; we speak of His redeeming work as if He had done no more by dying than make it possible for us to save ourselves by believing; we speak of God’s love as if it were no more than a general willingness to receive any who will turn and trust; and we depict the Father and the Son, not as sovereignly active in drawing sinners to themselves, but as waiting in quiet impotence “at the door of our hearts” for us to let them in. It is undeniable that this is how we preach; perhaps this is what we really believe. But it needs to be said with emphasis that this set of twisted half-truths is something other than the biblical gospel. The Bible is against us when we preach in this way; and the fact that such preaching has become almost standard practice among us only shows how urgent it is that we should review this matter. To recover the old, authentic, biblical gospel, and to bring our preaching and practice back into line with it, is perhaps our most pressing present need.
I trust you remember writing those lines?
JIP- Yes, I do and if you are wondering, I agree still %100 with everything I wrote here. I don’t believe anything has changed here over the last 40 years I think that still too frequent altogether that people diminish God by suggesting that he is not sovereign in the conversion of us sinners and i think it is all too frequent that we exalt the human individual and think of him or her as having much more power, including the power to respond to God’s gospel, than, in fact, any of us have. I think that the biblical gospel sends us down lower in our own extimate- humbles us lower- and raises God higher in our estimate- exalts Him more- than is usually appreciated by preachers or by writers and so the true impression is not given.
MD- Jim, if people are hearing some other gospel than this, are they being converted truly to God by some other gospel than this?
JIP- Only God knows. God blesses His truth to the conversion of souls. There is no conversion- that is to say there is no regeneration or new birth , no change of heart issuing faith’s response to the message apart from truth that God blesses to that end. And when the truth is mixed up with error or distorted with error, it is beyond us humans to say what is or what is not happening in individuals under the ministry of that muddled message. So, I’m not surprised, and I’m not bothered when I hear, as I do from time to time and I’m sure that you do as well, that this or that preacher that preaches the modern gospel rather than the authentic or biblical one has been widely used in the conversion of souls. That may well be true. But that doesn’t alter the fact that what God blessed to the conversion of those people was the truth, not the error- not the mixture as a mixture- but the truth that was there which God caused to lodge in the mind, the memory, that matter of thought and the catalyst of realization which brought people to the reality of conversion, where I think you can say conficdentaly that in every single case the person will be at the end of their own personal tether they will, in a relative sense, at the end of themselves, tey will know that there is no hope for them, save as they respond to the God through Chrsit who is coming to them , calling them telli that they are lost and hopeless and helpless, and they bleive that and, then saying ont that basis Christ does say to tour hearst, “Recieve me and the forgiveness and the new life that I bring.” That is the Holy Spriit at work. And that is the best way to preach the Gospel is the way that leads people to coming to the end of themselves and their own natural hopes in that way and focusing most directly on teh Chrsit who comes and in His Sovereign Lordship says, “LEt me bring you the new life.”
MD- Let me ask, sort of, the other half of the question. Lets say the Gospel is being fairly faithfully preached. Do you think it is common, in Evangelical churches to have false conversions- that is people who appear to be converted but who genuinely aren’t?
JIP- I think that is a commoner effect than one would like to admit. Because to the extent that the Gospel is falsified or distorted in the preaching, to that extent you are creating possibilities of misunderstanding and, experience I thikn shows that God doesn’t always overrule that and cut the errors out of what people hear. I mean by that is that what lodges in people’s minds is precisely the error- and then they act on the error and it goes something like this in many cases- the preacher says, mistakenly, “If you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, you will be forgiven, justified and saved. The hearere says “Oh, well then that is what I have to do.” Then teh preacher offers him the wording of the sinners prayer and he prays it and he goes out of the church believing he is a Christian and nothing has been said to him about repentance, nothing has been said to him about saying goddbye to the old life of self centered self indulgence, nothing has been said to him about the fact that, henceforth, he has a new life, given him by the Lord and he belongs to the Lord who has given him a new life by the Lord and he belongs to the Lord who has given him a new life- he’s bought with a price, he is not his own- and therefore, his whole business in life (I say he, but I mean she as well) is to glorify God in the way that they live their life day by day. Where those things are not said you have an in adequate presentation of the gospel and you are simply asking for false conversions, that is people believing that they have become Christians when, in fact, they haven’t. No one becomes a Christian who hasn’t repented. No one becomes a Chrsitain who isn’t conscienteiously saying goodbye to the old life and welcoming the new one.
MD- So what should a poastor do if he is concerned about false conversions growing up like mushrooms in his congregation?
JIP- Take great care to preach the whole of the real gospel which involves a lot of preaching calculated to…I was going to say to drive people to dispair, but that is not the way quite to put it, at least to humble them with the awareness that they cannot save themselves, and that nobody is saved that is not actually brought into a new life through a change in heart. And then, with that, the reality of regeneration itself, that is the new heart, the new life the must be preached about and taught in a way that nobody can miss the radical quality of the change. Andmcuh must be taught abou the way in which Jesus Christ, through Holy Spirit comes to people ,presents himself to people and draws out of them by his grace, the response of faith and repentance both. In the technicalities of theology, its faith that channels the power to repent, that is- it is those who have received Christ, who then find that they are able to turn from the old life to the new life, just as now they know that they are bound, they’re obliged, they’re required to turn from the old life to the new life.
MD- It is only because Abraham perceived God’s promise that his foot could go toward the promised land, that faith, that perception of the promise had to be there before the action.
JIP- I believe that is so.
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