Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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31 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, a book on covenant theology!, October 7, 2000
By A Customer
If you are a Christian layman in the Reformed tradition, say, a member of a PCA,OPC,ARP congregation or some other evangelical calvinist denomination, then you know that the word "covenant" is kicked around an awful lot, yet all the books aimed at persuading laymen of Reformed distinctives are either about predestination or infant baptism. Only these latter actually bother to mention the covenant and then only as a means to an end.
This is one of the most important books that could be written because Shepherd has given us an easily accessible introduction to the covenant. It is about time! And this is a really good book for those outside the Reformed tradition as well. Anyone interested in the controversy over recent attempts by Evangelicals and Roman Catholics to come to a concensus will want to read this book. Anyone struggling for the first time with questions about God's predestination and human resonsibility will also want this.
Also anyone wanting to get past the way Reformed people typically downplay the importance of the church, the sacraments, and God's offer of mercy to all who hear the gospel (because of an unbiblical obsession with predestination, regeneration, and conversion) will find this book a gem.
Finally, a note on various naysayers:
I don't mind people disagreeing with Shepherd, but the shrillness and extreme language is simply unjustified. Anyone can go buy Bullinger's "On the One and Eternal Covenant of God" translated in _Fountainhead of Federalism: Heinrich Bullinger and the Covenantal Tradition_ by Charles S. McCoy, J. Wayne Baker, Heinrich Bullinger, and see plenty of Reformation precedent for what Shepherd is saying. Indeed, Shepherd appears quite tame in comparison. One can read _The Binding of God_ by Peter Lillback and see how Calvin and Bullinger were offering one consistent covenantal theology. One can read Zacharias Ursinus or Francis Turretin on the Covenant or on salvation and see obvious precedent.
Perhaps Shepherd is wrong, but if so, then the entire Reformed Faith was a huge mistake. There is nothing of significant novelty in this book. One can disagree with details of this book, but it is what it claims to be, a helpful introduction to Reformed Covenantal Theology.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A More Corporate and Covenantal Perspective (High View of the Church)!, January 12, 2007
Norman Shepherd's book The Call of Grace has aided to the current controversies within the Reformed faith regarding justification. It is provocative to many Reformed, in my opinion, not because it is unbiblical but because it ceases to be a part of any one particular camp. It really is a book that seeks to be both orthodox and ecumenical. It teaches covenant theology from a more rational and corporate perspective, rather than the individualistic and rhetorical perspectives that many teach through today.
Norman Shepherd, in the beginning of the book mentions how "there have been long standing differences between adherents of the historic Lutheran and Reformed confessions." He goes on to say that there are significant difference in the doctrine of the law. No problem there, right? Reformed pastors teach the moral law to be valid after conversion, but Lutheran believe in a more "spiritual" law, or a law that is not still mandated by the Old Testament.
These types of disagreements have caused many to teach a law-gospel dichotomy; that the law is a type of detour sign that shows us the gospel. The law is said to be part of a "covenant of works" that no man could tackle and then so the detour aspect comes in to play to show "grace" to the recipient. Then, after conversion, depending on your denomination, a type of new law comes in to help guide the Christian.
But Norman Shepherd proposes something different. He says that the Abrahamic covenant was a covenant of grace (with conditions of obedience) and the Mosaic covenant was also a covenant of grace (with conditions of obedience).
Many Reformed teach that there was a covenant of works with Adam (Westminster Confession mentions this term but does not say it is a "meritorious" covenant). And yet some Reformed even teach, as the dispensationals do, that the Mosaic covenant was yet another covenant of works. This then leads to that law-gospel dichotomy, that the law was completely separate from grace, and that only the new covenant was a covenant of grace.
If the covenants of old were covenants of works then, at best, they were covenants of grace disguised as covenants of works. In other words, God would have had to be deceiving the people since, according to Paul, even the OT saints were saved the same way we were (Romans 4). Why would God lie? Or, why would Moses propose a false promise?
So Shepherd goes on to say that the OT covenants were full of promise and grace. This then leads to the proposition that Christ did not come to morally earn a covenant of works, as many men teach (what is known as "active obedience").
Shepherd moves on through this little book to teach us that we should view election through covenant rather than viewing covenant through election. He says that when we view covenant through election we attempt to become "as God."(p.83)
Please allow me to comment a bit more: Ever since I became a pastor I have believed that we should teach election through covenant. To me it was the only way out of being tried as one who is judgmental. The accusations against Calvinists have been that they do not evangelize because they believe it is a waist of time to preach to reprobate, and that God will draw the elect. But we do not know who the elect are, as Shepherd proposes, and so we make a covenant assumption when evangelizing, hoping that all who we come in contact with are God's elect. Subliminally we know this is likely not true, since God has told us there are people going to hell. But we don't presuppose things based on what God knows but based on what we know; based on what God had revealed to us. And God has not revealed to us who the elect are and are not. So the debate narrows to that epistemological question: Do we act on what God knows or what we know? Which is reality to us on earth: the invisible or the visible?
Many Reformed do not understand the implications of epistemology and polemics within theology. The study of knowledge and the art of debate have come a long way since the Reformation. We certainly need to learn how to apply the great doctrines of grace in a more concise and logical way to where God's righteousness and God's mercy (law and grace) do not oppose one another to create the confusion of today's many divided camps. We need to know when the more Platonic philosophy is important and when the Aristotelian philosophy is important (two camps that have created harsh and unreasonable dichotomies).
The new covenant, as Shepherd teaches, brings clarity. It is based on the same promises in the old covenants but with that final fulfillment of the cross and resurrection. Christ is that living sacrifice that lives out his mercy and righteousness in our lives. Christ is obedient in us (p. 104); which is probably one of his harder statements to swallow, if you are a modern Reformed. But suffices to say, the doctrine of sanctification and its very reason of existing (see Shepherd p. 62) is very seldom taught or written on in the Reformed world. This lack of knowledge has fueled and even ignited this whole controversy, in my opinion. Certainly Christ's works are not infused like the Roman Catholics teach but his works must indeed have an eschatological outcome of some sort.
The Call of Grace is packed with clear teaching if you are willing to break down the walls of today's theological reductivism. And at only 105 pages, you should be able to read it in only a few nights.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but Incomplete, January 15, 2007
Dr. Norman Shepherd is a good theologian and pastor in the denomination in which I serve. We have called upon him more than once to preach the Word in the local church which I serve and his preaching has always been faithful to the Word.
That is why I say that this book is good. And it's good in terms of his emphasis on the promises of God and the responsibility of men in the covenants which God has entered into in the history of redemption.
What is lacking is the word of assurance to the contrite believer. Yes, we are called to faithfulness, of living out our faith in obedience and holiness. There's no doubt about this.
The contrite believer needs to be constantly re-assured of a great truth that does not shine through in this book: Repentance (like faith) is a gift of God. (see Acts 11 & 2 Timothy 2) All the good we do is proof that God is at work within us. (Philippians 2, Hebrews 13).
Believers need to know that even their holiness is not their own. It is the work of God within. This could stand to shine through. Even our holiness is a work of God's grace. This is only glanced at in a reference to Ephesians 2:10 and at the end: "The Christ who was obedient for us is the Christ obedient in us." This should have been developed far more than it was.
It's a good book, but an incomplete one. Three stars.
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