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40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thought-provoking theological essays, April 10, 2007
This review is from: By Faith Alone: Answering the Challenges to the Doctrine of Justification (Paperback)
This is a very thought-provoking series of theological essays engaging the contemporary challenges to the historic Reformed understanding of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Any book of this sort, with multiple contributors, is bound to be somewhat uneven in quality - but this is one of the better books of this sort that I've seen.
Here is the table of contents, interspersed with my brief comments.
1. What did Saint Paul Really Say? N. T. Wright and the New Perspective(s) on Paul - Cornelis P. Venema
2. Observations on N. T. Wright's Biblical Theology with Special Consideration of the "Faithfulness of God" - T. David Gordon
These first two chapters engage the writings of N. T. Wright, who is probably the highest profile proponent of the New Perspective on Paul (and is also one of the most renowned contemporary Jesus scholars). Their critiques of Wright are very, very insightful and should be seriously considered. Everything really does seem to fall on Wright's embrace of a certain way of reading Second Temple Judaism (as non-legalistic) and his interpretation of the phrase "dikaiosune theou" as "the covenant faithfulness of God" instead of "the righteousness of God." This second question is adequately challanged in the second chapter of this book.
3. A Justification of Imputed Righteousness - Richard D. Phillips
4. The Foundational Term for Christian Salvation: Imputation - C. F. Allison
These two chapters address the recent controversies surrounding the doctrine of imputation. Having read Piper's defense of imputation in Counted Righteous in Christ, as well as Carson's essay in the volume on Justification edited by Husbands, I still found these chapters very helpful and persuasive (I've not yet read Brian Vicker's Jesus Blood AND Righteousness, a recent more in-depth treatment of imputation). These essays were very good.
5. Reflections on Auburn Theology - T. David Gordon
This was a little less interesting to me, probably b/c I'm not Presbyterian.
6. To Obey is Better than Sacrifice: A Defense of the Active Obedience of Christ - David Van Drunen
As I recall, this was also a good essay, defending the necessity and imputation of the active obedience of Christ to believers
7. Covenant, Inheritance, and Typology: Understanding the Principles at Work in God's Covenants - R. F. White & E. C. Beisner
Of all the essays in this book, this one stands out as the most helpful and the one that will repay several re-readings in the future. The authors set out to show why the theological construct of covenant theology (as traditionally understood in Reformed theology) is biblically-faithful and warranted from the texts (even though the language is sometimes extra-biblical). Most helpful was their contrasting the two principles of inheritance, by either personal merit or representative merit, and then tracing these two principles through the various historical covenants. This is the best thing on covenant theology that I've read so far (though my reading in this area has not been very wide).
8. Why the Covenant of Works is a Necessary Doctrine: Revisiting the Objections to a Venerable Reformed Doctrine - John Bolt
As with the chapter 7, this was a very, very helpful treatment of covenant theology, specifically the covenant of works. Bolt is an excellent and lucid writer and I finished the essay wanting to read more of his material.
9. The Reformation, Today's Evangelicals, and Mormons: What Next? - Gary L. W. Johnson
This essay was good, but seemed a little bit displaced in this volume.
Overall, this is a very good volume and worth reading for those engaged in the current debates over justification. However, if you are only going to read one book on the New Perspective on Paul, get Stephen Westerholm's Perspectives Old and New: The Lutheran Paul and His Critics. It is much more comprehensive and has been the most important book I've read on the issue.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Book of Essays, November 26, 2007
This review is from: By Faith Alone: Answering the Challenges to the Doctrine of Justification (Paperback)
This is a book of essays - nine in all (ten, if you count the introduction by Guy Waters) - responding to recent challenges to the historic Reformed understanding of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, concentrating on the New Perspective on Paul and the Federal Vision, but also engaging the classic Arminian position and Mormonism.
As might be expected from a book that consists of essays by various authors, the book is a little uneven. Some essays seem to be written with the interested lay person in mind, and others assume much more prior knowledge on the part of the reader. In addition, since the essays were originally intended to stand alone, there is a fair bit of repetition of ideas and arguments.
That means there were essays I enjoyed reading, those that were beyond me, and those I just wasn't interested in. The first two essays engage the writings of N. T. Wright. While I found the explanations and arguments in these two chapters very interesting, I don't think I know enough about the issues to judge them. I also enjoyed several essays defending imputed righteousness and the active obedience of Christ, because this is a doctrine that seems to come up in discussions occasionally, and it was helpful to see it defended from scripture. The essays related to the Auburn Avenue or Federal Vision controversy were mostly beyond me. I'm not Presbyterian, and I don't know enough about the issues to even understand the essays.
If you are like me, and a bit of a novice on these issues, you might need a little more background knowledge before you would find this book completely useful, but if you are up on these things, my uneducated guess is that you'll find this to be a valuable book.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Battle Call: Defend Luther's Doctrine Of Justification, November 17, 2008
This review is from: By Faith Alone: Answering the Challenges to the Doctrine of Justification (Paperback)
'There are those who see in this the passing of historical orthodoxy, and this is something that they mourn.' David F Wells, Foreword
David F Wells sets off to trace the origin of the smoking gun, delivering an introduction that is unputdownable. Making shrewd observations and weaving the intricacies of the post-modern attempt at upending the Reformation principle, By Faith Alone, he persuasively engineers the scope of the book. The incumbent attention to scriptural detail that follows is sure to secure the Reformation position in Scripture alone, thereby placing it beyond all doubt.
NT Wright is in the cross-hairs. The bishop of Durham, the home of strange sightings, has epitomized the latitudinarian spirit of the age. His writings are popular, thought-provoking and unconventional, yet sorely lacking a biblical approach to propitiation, imputation and justification. Ecclesiology, or the 'Sitz Im Leben', or cultural setting, is frequently seen to take precedence in his folklore of the unfolding covenants and God's renewed grace. Following the literary success of Guy Prentiss Waters' Justification & The New Perspectives On Paul: A Review & Response a renewed commitment to 'sola fide' is the best remedy.
Cornelis P Venema opens fire by challenging the obscure parentage of the New Perspective on Paul: James Dunn and EP Sanders, who substantiated a hypothesis of an intricate legalistic community in Second Temple Judaism fundamentally based on post-modern form-critical scholarship. Yet is it not just Pelagianism cloaked in a new garb? Is Paul not too clear on his position? Venema would seem to think so, making a sound refutation from Romans 1-5, and Galatians 3.
T David Gordon makes the astonishing find that NT Wright's estimation of God's wrath only goes as far back as Abraham, and thereby denies sin's origin being in Genesis 3, further denying any concept of total depravity. This fault-line wreaks havoc on the New Perspective's views of 'the righteousness of God', so beloved of Luther and the Reformation fathers.
If the imputed righteousness of Christ to saved sinners be denied, on what basis are we to be reckoned justified before a holy God? Richard D Phillips pronounces the flawed teachings of especially Arminian and the NPP academics untenable to our faith, by showing that the perfect obedience of Christ is the ground for our justification before God. Reminiscent of 'the great transaction' terminology of the Reformers, Phillips explains: 'First, we believe that our sins are imputed - that is, transferred by reckoning - to the crucified Lord Jesus. Our sins are recorded under our names before God and we have to answer for them. But God takes our debt and reckons it to Christ's account. This is imputation.' p 76
John Bolt makes perceptive expositions of Scripture, accumulating in what can only be phrased as a question: if God did not institute a creation covenant of works, why did a curse follow Adam and Eve's failure to comply?
David van Drunen restates the significance of Christ's active obedience, for which Machen was so grateful for. Denying 'cheap grace' any influence, Van Drunen takes a gospel stand. I do not remember too many instances where this has been so vividly presented as the dying Machen in a telegram to John Murray. 'Nevertheless, the biblical teaching upon which the Reformed tradition has articulated the doctrine of active obedience is clear and worthy of reaffirmation.' p 129 Here Van Drunen powerfully argues that Christ fulfilled the demands of the law by keeping it (active obedience), and went to the cross in submissive obedience to the Father's will (passive obedience).
'The law requires present and perfect obedience, as well as satisfaction for past disobedience. Christ both endured the penalty due to man for disobedience, and perfectly obeyed the law for him; so that He was a vicarious substitute in reference to both the precept and the penalty of the law. By His active obedience He obeyed the law, and by His passive obedience He endured the penalty. In this way His vicarious work is complete.' WGT Shedd, The History Of Christian Doctrine 2:341
R Fowler White and Calvin Beisner collaborate to restore a sense of pride to covenant theology. The biblical evidence for 'What is true in the covenant arrangement with the second Adam will also have been true in the covenant with the first Adam', (Meredith Kline), is presented as having its precedent in Reformed theology as the covenant of works. 'This covenant of redemption, being pre-creational, preceded and was archetypal of the covenant of works between God and Adam.' p 150 In light of the bias developed against the forensic application of Christ's righteousness to sinners (imputation) as applied in classic covenant theology, justification constituted in terms of its federal function as 'representative merit' is revisited.
Gary L W Johnson's contribution is the defining statement of this collection. 'Throughout Millet's book he seeks to make common cause with groups across the broad evangelical landscape, especially those identified with the pentecostal-charismatic wing of evangelicalism...because Mormonism insists on additional inscripturated revelation...Roman Catholics certainly believe an ongoing form of heavenly guidance comes through such means as papal encyclicals...people within Protestantism believe that spiritual gifts, such as the speaking and interpretation of tongues, is one means by which Deity communicates His will to individuals and groups.' p 199 Unafraid to state his convictions, unafraid to challenge those who insist we change our distinctive Reformational position, and unafraid to call those to stop pretending to be parading in the beautiful attire of evangelicalism, when they are, in fact, denuding the doctrines of grace. Would more of us take issue with the truth as he has!
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