Having been considered as one of the most influential evangelicals in North America,[5] Packer is known for his 1973 best-selling book Knowing God, along with his work as the general editor of the English Standard Version Bible.

His last teaching position was as the board of governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, in which he served from 1996 until his retirement in 2016 due to failing eyesight.

[7] His father was a clerk for the Great Western Railway and his lower-middle-class family was only nominally Anglican, attending the local St. Catherine's Church.

[7][6] When he was seven, Packer suffered a severe head injury in a collision with a bread van, which precluded him from playing sports, so he became interested in reading and writing.

[7] During this 1949–1950 school year, he sat under the teaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones at Westminster Chapel, who also would have a great influence on his thinking, and who he would know and interact with later.

[7] According to biographer Alister McGrath, it is widely agreed that his critique "marked the end of the dominance of the Keswick approach among younger evangelicals".

[7] The book, published by Hodder & Stoughton in Britain and InterVarsity Press in the United States in 1973, became a bestseller of international fame and sold over 1.5 million copies.

)[15] In December 2008, Packer was appointed an honorary clerical canon of St Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney in recognition of his long and distinguished ministry as a faithful teacher of biblical theology.

[16] Packer had been the theologian emeritus of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) since its creation in 2009, being one of the nine members of the task force who wrote on a trial basis Texts for Common Prayer, released in 2013, and general editor of the task force who wrote for trial use To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism, approved on 8 January 2014 by the College of Bishops of the church.

[17][18] He was awarded the St. Cuthbert's Cross at the Provincial Assembly of ACNA on 27 June 2014 by retiring Archbishop Robert Duncan for his "unparalleled contribution to Anglican and global Christianity".

[19] In 2016, Packer's eyesight deteriorated due to macular degeneration to a point where he could no longer read or write, consequently concluding his public ministry.