Best selling author of Knowing God and one of the most influential evangelical leaders of our generation, James Innell Packer, better known as JI Packer or Jim to friends, died of natural causes yesterday (July 17) at the age of 93.

He died in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he had spent the latter part of his life as a faculty member at Regent College.

In a tribute to the theologian, Regent College said Dr Packer had joined the faculty in 1979 when the non-denominational theological college was “not quite ten years old”. “Jim’s arrival helped to establish Regent as a theological destination.”

Dr Packer continued teaching at the college until he was nearly 90 years old.

The author of 47 books and co-author of 19 others, he was also an editor at Christianity Today for over 30 years and general editor of The English Standard Version of the Bible.

While named as one of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals by Time Magazine in 2005 and the author of one of the best-selling Christian books of all time, Knowing God (it has sold more than 1.5 million copies since its release in 1973), the son of a railway clerk in Gloucester, England, refused to cultivate a following. 

The humble author is said to have produced all his essays and books from a manual Oliver typewriter which he received from his parents on his 11th birthday. Even at 89, he was travelling to interviews on the bus, what was apparently his favourite mode of transport.

Christianity Today said of the Oxford-trained intellectual: “Although Packer could write specialised scholarship with the best, his calling was to write mid-level scholarship for the layperson. He was utterly devoid of careerism.

“Packer himself ascribed the fame and success that he achieved to divine providence, and it is obvious that this is the case. He did not set out to be famous. He simply did the task that was placed before him and left the outcome to God. Speaking to teenagers in a living room was as likely an assignment for him as addressing a packed auditorium. JI Packer was above all serviceable to the kingdom and its King.”

Gospel Coalition noted: “Throughout his nearly 70 years of writing and ministry, he stressed the importance of knowing and praying to and communing with the triune God. He called for the church to take holiness and repentance seriously by walking in the Spirit and fighting against indwelling sin.”

Dr Packer’s longtime friend, Timothy George, said of his meetings with Packer: “I came away thinking of him not as a great man, but as a man who had personally encountered a Great Saviour. Each time I had the deep sense of longing not to be more like Packer, but to be more like Christ.”

“God knows what he’s up to”

In 2016, editor Ivan Mesa of the Gospel Coalition interviewed 89-year-old Dr Packer after he announced that his macular degeneration had advanced to a stage where he could no longer read or write.

“God knows what he’s up to,” Dr Packer told Mesa simply. “Some good, something for his glory is going to come out of it.

“I’m not a spectacular person as far as I understand it. And I don’t think my experience of the Lord’s grace has been spectacular. I’ll say it’s been steady and I thank God for that.”

When Mesa asked him for any final words to the church, Dr Packer replied: “I think I can boil it down to four words: ‘Glorify Christ every way.’”

Local leaders pay tribute

Dr Packer’s influence in equipping generations of students with trust in the authority of the Bible extends to pastors and church leaders in Singapore, who have come out to pay tribute to the theologian who spoke with “a voice of love and reason”. 

Bishop Terry Kee told Salt&Light: “Knowing God was required reading for my Doctrine of God class at Singapore Bible College in 1980. It opened my eyes to Who God is as revealed in the Scriptures and set me on a journey of knowing Him through faith in what He has done for me in Jesus Christ.”

Rev Dr David Wong, general secretary at the Bible-Presbyterian Church in Singapore, added: “At one point in my ministry, I had to settle the issue of the absolute trustworthiness of the Word of God. Packer championed the word ‘inerrancy’ (when others were trying to find more palatable terms), which made its way into the Lausanne Covenant – the Scriptures being ‘inerrant in all it affirms’. Like a good student of God’s Word, he taught us to come under its authority rather than assert ours over it.”

Pastor Benny Ho, senior pastor of Faith Community Church in Perth and Arrows College, said reading Knowing God had a huge impact on him.

“It put me on a path to know the attributes of the God who owned us twice – first through creation, and the second time through redemption. That pursuit of the knowledge of God took me to another classic by AW Tozer entitled The Knowledge of the Holy. This caused me to realise that this is what eternal life is all about: The pursuit of the knowledge of God.”

Dr Ernest Chew, senior associate fellow at ISEAS Yusok Ishak Institute, added: “Jim Packer was like the pilgrim Valiant-for-Truth, and he inspired me and countless other pilgrims in knowing God, keeping in step with the Spirit, and finding strength in weakness – titles of some of his books which enriched our lives in Christ. He now sees the King in His beauty!”

United Bible Societies China Partnership director, Kua Wee Seng, who studied under Dr Packer at Regent College from 1988 to 1989, said: “His teaching and writing helped lay a strong theological foundation for my faith and ministry. An abiding lesson I have learned from Dr Packer at Regent College is ‘theology is for doxology’, and he used to get all of us to sing the doxology song in his classes.

“One of Dr Packer’s enduring legacies is his work as the theological editor of the English Standard Version (ESV) Study Bible, which has blessed so many of us, including the tens of thousands of pastors and preachers in China who have benefitted from the Chinese edition of the Study Bible.”

Founder of Graceworks, Dr Tan Soo-Inn is also grateful for the opportunity to have learnt from JI Packer. “One key way I will try to honour him is by trying to run faithfully my part of the race, and doing so with the same courage, theological vigour, and with the same kindness.”

Quek Tze Ming, director of postgraduate programmes at the Biblical Graduate School of Theology (BGST), who studied systematic theology with Dr Packer at Regent College, added: “’Packer by name, packer by trade’ was what he used to say, packing and organising theological concepts into clearly structured morsels of soul nourishment.

“Like his beloved Puritans, among whom he surely must be found worthy to be counted, his teaching was never only theoretical, but pushed towards the ‘which-way-to-go’ and ‘how-to-make-it’ type of questions. This traveller owes an immense debt to this fellow, elder, traveller, who has now been welcomed home by the One he spent his life honouring, loving and trusting. Thank you, Dr Packer.”

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