A newly-rediscovered recording of acclaimed Welsh preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones reveals a rare, extended debate with leading evangelical theologian J.I. Packer on knowing God.
Last month, en reported that several recordings, not previously available anywhere in the world, had been obtained by the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Trust, which is committed to preserving and distributing the teaching of the famed Westminster Chapel pastor, who lived 1899–1981.
The recording, from a Puritan Conference, sees him engaging with J.I. Packer, the English-Canadian theologian (1926–2020) who was an Anglican. The Trust describes the recording as “luminous” and “a moment of evangelical self-examination”.
The discussion would have taken place prior to July 1970. In July that year, Lloyd-Jones broke fellowship with Packer over his cooperation with Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England. This was contra Lloyd-Jones’s public plea, made in 1966, for evangelicals to leave denominations, including the CofE, that he believed had become compromised on core evangelical beliefs such as the inerrancy of Scripture. “On July 7, 1970, Lloyd-Jones wrote a letter to his friend telling him of his decision to separate from him. The two never ministered alongside each other again. However, neither questioned the integrity, the motivation, nor the salvation of the other,” website g3min.org explains.
Speaking of the newly available recording, Greg Jones of the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Trust writes: “Packer’s message situates communion with God at the very heart of Puritan faith – ‘the end to which both creation and redemption are means.’ Drawing especially on John Owen, he insists that communion is a Trinitarian reality: from the Father we receive love, from the Son grace, and from the Spirit comfort – ‘distinguishing, not dividing’ the persons. Puritan religion, he urges, was ‘experimental’ and God-centred, not technique-centred.
“Packer contrasts this with a modern evangelical tendency to take communion for granted, to talk methods rather than God Himself, and he calls for ‘order and method’ in corporate worship and private meditation.
“Then the discussion turns – and sparks. Dr Lloyd-Jones warmly affirms Packer’s thesis yet presses it further. Evangelicals, he warns, often retreated from liberalism into ‘experience’ detached from doctrine, producing a ‘God too small.’ At the same time, he refuses a merely notional piety: ‘We must not stop at that.’ Beyond the ordinary, mediate work of the Word, there are ‘immediate and direct’ seasons when the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit make themselves known to the believer. Hence his provocative assessment: ‘I have learned much more about communion with God from Whitefield than from John Owen… Owen stops on the threshold.’
“The Doctor laments how little many today know of ‘the child of light walking in darkness,’ desertion, or the fear of the Lord – notes that once deepened the church’s joy and holiness. True joy, he argues, is not pursued as an end but ‘added’ as believers seek God Himself. Packer replies by reading Owen on the Spirit giving ‘unspeakable raptures of mind’ immediately – evidence that even Owen allows for more than bare rational illumination.
“For evangelicals, the tape lands like a summons: don’t settle for talking about God; seek to know God – Father, Son, and Spirit – in lived communion. The MLJ Trust (www.mljtrust.org) has released the recording to listeners, with more reels reportedly in the wings.”
