One is the pleasant memory that this was a gift given to every student in my bible college course by a generous benefactor. That alerted me at the time to the fact that this gift giver placed a lot of cred in this book to give away so many copies - it must have cost him or her a bundle!
The other is of my Tasmanian friend pointing out at the time that the author had a deadly squint even with incredibly thick glasses. Shame on you Paul! (I did laugh a lot at that one - actually I laughed a lot at Paul's comments in general).
Getting back to the point...of the four academic volumes, this is the slowest read. I'm kind of embarrassed by this, as this volume covers the real core beliefs of the Christian faith with chapter titles including 'The Trinity and the Gospel', The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ', and a well-known essay of his called 'What Did the Cross Achieve?'. The last essay mentioned was tough going. Packer discusses penal substitution in 40 pages or so, but could it have been edited down by a good 15 or so to produce a razor sharp argument and concise piece? Maybe it was just when I read it - at mid-afternoon after a nice lunch? I dunno. The next essay called 'Sacrifice and Satisfaction' was concise at 12 pages and addressed many of the same ideas. So there you go.
As I said above, this book is a collection of lectures, essays and articles for magazines and conferences on the theme of God's saving work. It covers topics such as justification, trinitarian theology, Christology, justification, and the Holy Spirit. Many of the articles are apologies (ie written defences) for a reformed evangelical position on these important tenets of our Christian faith. He also has an excellent essay on universalism, outlining its arguments and giving a very helpful biblical reply. Although the slowest read of the four, it's still well worth being in your collection, dear pastors.
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