the-art-of-self-justification-september-october-2007

SELF-JUSTIFICATION ❘ THE NATURE OF FAITH ❘ SOLA FIDE

MODERN REFORMATION The Art of

Self-Justification

VOLUME

16, NUMBER 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007, $6.00

MODERN REFORMATION Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Executive Editor Eric Landry Department Editors William Edgar, Why We Believe MR Editors, Required Reading Eric Landry, Common Grace Diana Frazier, Reviews Starr Meade, Family Matters Staff | Editors Ann Henderson Hart, Staff Writer Alyson S. Platt, Copy Editor Lori A. Cook, Layout and Design Ben Conarroe, Proofreader Contributing Scholars S. M. Baugh Gerald Bray Jerry Bridges D. A. Carson Bryan Chapell R. Scott Clark Marva Dawn Mark Dever J. Ligon Duncan Adam S. Francisco Richard Gaffin W. Robert Godfrey T. David Gordon Donald A. Hagner John D. Hannah Gillis Harp D. G. Hart Paul Helm C. E. Hill Karen Jobes Hywel R. Jones Ken Jones Peter Jones Richard Lints Korey Maas Keith Mathison Donald G. Matzat John Muether John Nunes Craig Parton John Piper J. A. O. Preus Paul Raabe Kim Riddlebarger Rod Rosenbladt Philip G. Ryken R. C. Sproul Rachel Stahle A. Craig Troxel Carl Trueman David VanDrunen Gene E. Veith William Willimon Todd Wilken Paul F. M. Zahl Modern Reformation © 2007 All rights reserved.

For more information, call or write us at: Modern Reformation 1725 Bear Valley Pkwy.

Escondido, CA 92027 (800) 890-7556 info@modernreformation.org www.modernreformation.org

TABLE OF CONTENTS september/october

2007

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The Art of Self-Justification 10 Does Justification Still Matter?

Justification sola fide has fallen on hard times. The author surveys the current crisis and offers some reasons for its recovery.

by Michael S. Horton

19 Why Sola Fide is the Chief Article Is sola fide truly the center of the Christian faith? The author explains how sola fide is the center of all aspects of Christianity—Scripture, theology, history, and the Christian life.

by Steven R. J. Parks Plus: John Owen on Sola Fide

26 The Nature of Justifying Faith What is true faith? What are its characteristics? To answer these questions, the author evaluates faith according to Reformation theology and Roman Catholic theology. He also presents Scripture’s teaching of justifying, saving faith.

by David VanDrunen Plus: By Grace Through Faith: Why Prepositions Matter

31 God Is Just What is the greatest barrier to justification? The author argues that self-justification sabotages justification by grace through faith and explains how.

by Todd Wilken

35 Assumed Evangelicalism: Some Reflections En Route to Denying the Gospel What happens when the church assumes that Christians understand the gospel instead of intentionally teaching it to every generation? The author describes the dangers and symptoms of assuming the gospel.

by David Gibson Plus: Patristic Texts on Justification

ISSN-1076-7169

PHOTO BY GETTY IMAGES/PHOTODISC/ PAT POWERS & CHERRYL SCHAFER

S UBSCRIPTION I NFORMATION US US Student Canada Europe Other

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Keeping Time page 2 | Letters page 3 | Why We Believe page 5 | Common Grace page 6 Diaries page 8 | Interview page 42 | Required Reading page 47 Reviews page 48 | Family Matters page 60

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KEEPING TIME i n

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Apostles Creed Jesus Christ Victorious

325 A.D. NICENE CREED Bust of Constantine

c. 500 A.D. ATHANASIAN CREED Triquetra

1561–1619 THREE FORMS OF UNITY T.U.L.I.P.

1563–1571 THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES Cross of St. George

1580 BOOK OF CONCORD

Martin Luther’s Seal

1646 WESTMINSTER CONFESSION Westminster Abbey

1689

LONDON BAPTIST

CONFESSION Baptismal

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Wither Protestantism?

L

ast night one of the women in my church’s new members’ class asked an innocent, but perceptive, question: “If you’re not Roman Catholic, are you automatically Protestant?” The answer, unfortunately, is that Protestantism—in its classical sense—can no longer be assumed. Even those who are not members of Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy may look with equal displeasure on the Protestant Reformation and strike out on their own—Independents of a sort. This becomes especially apparent when you ask your average non-Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox Christian what they think of the Reformation solas. Very few “technical” Protestants today would have much empathy with the solas. Even fewer, perhaps, would want to confess the sola that we’re taking up in this issue of Modern Reformation.

Sola Fide—by faith alone—was the central issue of the Protestant Reformation and has been relegated to the dustbin of theological history by many of the Reformation’s heirs. Even within confessional churches, sola fide is denied or conveniently forgotten in the ever-eager quest for self-justification. To confess that salvation is by faith alone—not by a faith formed by love, or a faith supported by works, or a faith that obeys—is as foreign in many “Protestant” churches as it would be in the average Roman Catholic parish. How did this happen?

Reformed theologian and editor-in-chief Michael Horton takes up that question in his article, “Does Justification Still Matter?” Todd Wilken, the host of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s talk show, Issues, Etc., makes the question even more personal by asking us to look at how our own actions and beliefs belie our confessions of faith: our attempts at self-justification deny and hinder our enjoyment of the justification that is ours by faith alone.

Part of the problem, certainly, is that we don’t have a clear idea of the nature of justifying faith any more. Presbyterian theologian David VanDrunen takes up that issue by describing what the Bible calls faith and explaining how faith works in the process of salvation. Lutheran pastor Steven Parks adds his voice to this discussion with an explanation of why sola fide is so important as to be called the chief article of the Reformation. To underscore Mr. Parks’s point, we’re republishing David Gibson’s article on “Assumed Evangelicalism” which charts the drift in churches and individuals when central concerns of the gospel are ignored.

This issue of MR is big and full. It will take some time to work through these articles, not to mention the sidebars and departments! But it is exactly for these sorts of issues that MR continues to exist: we take up the issues which are ignored or denied, calling people back to the treasury of Reformation theology that is still relevant to the modern church. Thank you for supporting us in this endeavor. Be sure to contact us for extra copies of this issue to give to your pastor, ministry associates, or students who need to be confirmed in their understanding of the faith.

Eric Landry

Executive Editor

NEXT ISSUES: November/December 2007: Using God (Soli Deo Gloria) January/February 2008: Grace over Race

LETTERS your

In Paul Zahl’s article, “The Historical Jesus” (May/June 2007), he provided an informative sketch of the various attempts to “discover” the historical Jesus of Nazareth. The author went on to introduce the true historical (and biblical) Jesus mainly along the lines of his teaching and its marked difference with the Judaism of his day. He contrasted this Jesus with what he entitled the “Third Quest,” which emphasizes the Jewishness of Jesus—essentially a continuation of Judaism with a “light-weight” version for the Gentiles, too.

While I appreciate the author’s desire to highlight the Jesus of Scripture and not of speculation or fad, his conclusions in this area unsettled me. In all humility, I thought that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament Law and not a reversal of it. I understood that, though Christ is “the end of the law for those who believe,” the Law still does stand and that the Reformed emphasis is on the continuity of the covenants (including, of course, their fulfillment) and not their contrasts or apparent contradictions.

I would humbly appreciate some clarification in this area for myself, as the relationship between the covenants of Law and Promise are a critical foundation for my understanding of the Word of God. Mike Ivaska Vashon Island, WA

Paul Zahl responds: You picked up, in a sweet spirit, on a major issue in New Testament interpretation today.

Many conservative Bible scholars today have become part of the “Third Quest”, which was itself originally springboarded by more “liberal” interpreters such as E. P. Sanders and Krister Stendahl.

These interpreters emphasize the Jewish roots of Jesus. Now come along conservative exegetes, for whom the post-Holocaust “Jewish Jesus” sounds good from their understanding of the unity of the Covenants (a sort of big-picture of the Bible which stresses the fulfillment of the Old Testament in the New Testament and downplays Jesus’ break with official Judaism of his day).

In brief, this emphasis on the continuity of the covenants finds an unlikely ally in the Third Quest (and also in the so-called “New Perspective on Paul”). Yet never would the two groups normally make common cause in other areas of theology.

As you saw, I am arguing from a different perspective! Some people call my perspective “Lutheran” — using “Lutheran” as a word of reproach. Some people call it “antinomian” —believing that a fissure between the Old Testament and the New Testament is somehow against the Law. Many do not even recognize this perspective as a legitimate approach to the Bible. That is because the view of Jesus you described is so dominant, and increasingly dominant, in conservative circles, currently, that the more “Lutheran” approach is not even touched, or known about, except as some bizarre idea of “radical Grace.”

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I myself am saying that Jesus broke with Judaism, that the essence of Christianity is the New Law of perfect and spontaneous freedom, that the Bible is not an “instruction manual” for Christians but rather an announcement of their being absolved from it, and that absolution always engenders—counter-intuitively but actually—righteousness.

A more colloquial or pastoral way of putting this might be to say that “Judgment Kills Love” (The Law) while “Love Births Goodness” (The Gospel). These two facts have to be kept separate.

Thank you, Mike, for pointing to this crucial point. It has become “fighting words” in our circles today; and I write as someone who is at times labeled an “antinomian” because I stress the New Testament in His Blood in contrast with the Old Testament in ours.

May I add, that if “the Law still does stand” is actually true, then why be a Christian? Why not just be a practicing monotheist of the Jewish religion?

In response to Brent McGuire’s article, “Christ’s Impossible Prayer in Gethsemane” (May/June 2007), McGuire, in an otherwise thoroughly edifying piece on the atonement theory, says, “God did not have to save us. He would not have contradicted his nature had he chosen not to send his Son and left sinners to their just reward.” Is McGuire afraid of the L-word? What about God’s nature including not only justice but love? Why did God save us? The unspoken message McGuire seems to leave us with almost implies a doctrine of arbitrary whimsy rather than a doctrine of love. I have always been taught that it’s the latter that is actually classic orthodoxy and that the former belongs to more Eastwoodian theologies (“feel lucky, punk?”). Isn’t the Cross where

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“God’s relentless justice and love have been reconciled to one another?” McGuire rightly laments sop that overstates love with “God loves the sinner but hates the sin.” But could it be that “God did not have to save us” should join the ranks of sop that overstates justice and underemphasizes God as a personal Being?

Steve Zrimec Grandville, MI

Brent McGuire responds: The idea Mr. Zrimec puts forward, as he says, does have a long history.

Anselm himself sought to prove the necessity of the incarnation by sheer reason. But such approaches smack of a theology of glory that seeks to bind God—to hedge faith in God’s promise with a divine metaphysic that guarantees salvation even if the Word were not true.

The fact is that God’s love, as a sheer attribute of divinity, damns us just as surely as his justice does. We are sometimes just; we are very rarely loving. “God is love” is a message of comfort only in the light of the Gospel. When the Apostle John declares, “God is love,” he goes on to say, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:810). John 3:16, properly translated, declares that God’s love is identical with his sending of the Son: “God loved the world in this way: that he sent his only-begotten Son.” To say that God had to save us apart from and antecedent to his promise and its fulfillment in Jesus Christ is to go beyond the Gospel, indeed, to render the Gospel superfluous. According to such a view, why do the heathen need to hear the glad tidings that Jesus died for them on the Cross—they should be able to infer from the divine nature that God must have saved them.

6 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

But the Gospel is not an ineluctable deduction from the divine attributes. It is the proclamation of God’s free act of salvation in Jesus Christ. There is no “well, of course” about the Gospel. God freely saves.

I read your recent interview with Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Never mind the title of his book, Mark has sold out either because he feels he needs to be relevant or because he really loves the vulgar and debased culture of our day. In any event, by his actions and words, Mark is telling lies about the Reformed Faith and I find that disturbing. You’re probably already aware of the article John MacArthur [wrote criticizing Driscoll]. Anyway, I find Mark’s “grunge Christianity” ugly and vulgar—not at all heavenly.

I would like to think that you would not endorse Driscoll’s brand of postmodern reformation.

Daniel Taverne via email

Great issue on grace (July/ August). Couldn’t be a timelier topic.

So many of our Protestant churches preach little more than Romanism dressed in Evangelical trappings. We take the back end of the epistles (imperatives) and camp there, forgetting Paul’s labors at the beginning of his letters to carefully lay the foundation of grace (indicatives). The result is a Galatian-esque departure from our only hope in sanctification as well as justification: the grace of God in Christ (Gal. 3:3).

Russell W. Reynolds Diamond Bar, CA

Modern Reformation Letters to the Editor 1725 Bear Valley Parkway Escondido CA 92027 760.741.1045 fax Letters@modernreformation.org Letters under 200 words are more likely to be printed than longer letters. Letters may be edited for content and length.

WHY WE BELIEVE defending

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faith

The Western Heresy: Justification and Apologetics

W

hat is the Western heresy? Sophisticated observers of theological histo-

all, nothing more Western these days than cultural ry might comment that it is the filioque clause in the Nicene Creed, or relativism—and woe betide anybody from anythe prioritization of the unity of God in discussions of the Trinity. But I where who dares to contradict this. think the truth is far more mundane than either of these What has this to do with justification? Just this: the rarified points. Yet, even at the mundane level, there seem assumption by any individual or group that they are norso many Western heresies from which to choose: perhaps mative for an understanding of human nature is the archethe health, wealth, and prosperity gospel of modern contypal heresy. Since humans are actually made in the sumer society, whether in its more honest secular or disimage of God, then any tendency to make particular indihonest ecclesiastical variety; perhaps the British belief that viduals or groups normative for what humanity should be everyone speaks English and, when confronted with a foramounts to idolatry, to making God in the image of human eigner who appears unfamiliar with the language, one just beings. And this lies at the root of notions of self-justificahas to shout loud enough to break through to that univertion. If my grandfather, based on his own experience, sal Anglophone bedrock which underlies human nature; assumed that it was normative for human beings to ride a or perhaps the American belief that you can call yourbike to work, to wear a flat cap even indoors (and possibly selves winners of a “world” series when you triumph in a in bed, though I never asked my grandmother to confirm sport that your nation invented, and which is played by that), to smoke a pipe, to drink tea from a saucer, and to almost no other country on the face of the earth. spend his spare time complaining about the government, In fact, disturbing as they are, none of these can claim then you can safely assume that he probably regarded God to be the heresy of the West. So what is it? It is this: the as being somewhat similar. Further, as an intelligent man, assumption that the West is normative for humanity in my grandfather would also have assumed, therefore, that general. Increasingly, of course, one could replace “West” as long as he continued to ride his bike, wear his flat cap, in that sentence with the term America—not America as a slurp his tea, and run the country from the comfort of his geographical space, but as a set of values and aspirations. front room, then God would be very pleased with him.

From democracy and individual freedom through to The real tragedy of all this, of course, is that the heresy Mickey Mouse and MacDonald’s hamburgers, the dynamof the West at large is the heresy of everyone, wherever ics of the giant world market seem to sweep all before they may originate. There is an assumption within all of us them, such that the giant yellow arches are probably one that we and our friends are the measure of what it means of the most universally recognizable symbols on the face of to be human, that we approximate most closely who God the planet. And this marketing of America, this exporting is and of what he approves. Yet the message of the New of the West, is scarcely value neutral in motivation or in Testament stands as a brutal denial of this. As Paul declares impact: it is just that, a marketing of the West, in large part in 1 Corinthians, the foolishness of God is so much wiser driven by the creation of need by those who believe in the than the wisdom of men and women. Even at our greatsuperiority of their own product. And the result is increasest, even at the very heights of human achievements— ing conformity; not that the advance of the West doesn’t moral, technical, cultural—we do not reach the trivial bring a more diverse choice of products to buy, but the fact foothills of God’s foolishness. And, supremely, of course, is that everything ultimately has to conform to a system of that is demonstrated in the cross. Objectively, the cross commercialization, commodification, and consumerism. demonstrates to us that God is nothing like us, that his way All those things which cannot do so—be they traditional of acting is directly contrary to anything we might expect values or traditional foods—end up being eliminated from him. Subjectively, justification is, in a sense, simply because of the West’s belief that all people everywhere the outworking of the cross. As God punishes to the point should be, well, just like us. And even postmodernism, for of death his only Son as if he were a sinner, so he is pleased all of its alleged anti-Western dynamic, looks uncannily with those who, in and of themselves, are not pleasing to (continued on page 7) like the radical free-marketization of ideas. There is, after

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COMMON GRACE G o d’s

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God Loves Movies

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od loves movies. Movies are visually dramatic stories, and in the Bible, the

to New Testament, God’s favorite visual images to dominant means through which God communicates is visually dramatic sto- use for his presence seem to be thunder, lightning, ries—not systematic theology, not doctrinal catechism, and not rational argument. clouds, smoke, and fire.

Tentpole spectacular! And A survey of the Scriptures reveals that roughly thirty perno blue screen computer-generated imagery! cent of the Bible is expressed through rational propositional truth and laws, while seventy percent of the Bible is Dramatic story, vision, symbol, and narrative.1 Sure, God uses Movies are all about drama. Drama is relationship in words, rationality, and propositions to communicate his action. It is existential rather than intellectual. As we folmessage. But modernist Christianity has neglected to low characters working through their moral dilemmas and understand how much more important visual imagery, personal journeys, so we learn through them. It is one drama, and storytelling are to God. thing to rationally explain the concept of forensic justification, but the power of seeing Jean Valjean being forgiven Visually in Les Miserables embodies that truth existentially like no Movies are a visual medium. Cinematic composition, theological exposition possibly could. color, light, and movement confer emotional states and Rather than only giving sermons or lectures, God often embody symbolic meanings and ideas with deep effect. had his prophets give plays. Ezekiel was a thespian prophet. God told him to act out a battle scene as a Consider the sense of awe at the majestic panoramic depiction of good battling evil in The Lord of the Rings. prophecy, complete with miniatures.4 Then God has Remember the visual punch in the spiritual gut experiEzekiel engage in the longest-running Off-Off-Broadway enced through The Passion of the Christ as it incarnated the performance of the time in a dramatic symbolic enactment atonement imagery of Isaiah and the Gospels. for 430 days.5 And there were more episodes of the The thousands of miracles that God performed for his Ezekiel show.6 people in the Bible were not mere abstract propositions, Jeremiah is called “the weeping prophet.” But he but “signs and wonders,” sensate visual displays of God’s should have been called “the acting prophet,” because so glory.2 God’s own Temple was designed by him to be a many of his prophecies were theatrical performances.7 visually rich engagement of the senses as his people worIsaiah broke the social taboos of modesty with R-rated shiped him, surrounded by colors, images, pictures, and shocking performance art as he walked around naked as a statues of visual beauty.3 New Covenant sacraments are visual “sign and token” of Israel’s shame.8 visual pictures of grace that are not reducible to abstract In the New Testament, God uses the Lucas-like special propositions. visual effects of a picnic blanket from heaven filled with And then there are dreams and visions: God’s form of unclean animals to persuade Peter of the New Covenant television and movies. Joseph’s dreams of fat and skinny inclusion of Gentiles. God, it seems, is the original Cecil B. zombie cows, Ezekiel’s Close Encounters with spinning DeMille. Mere words were not enough for him. He wantwheels, Nebuchadnezzar’s Terminator statue, as well as ed lights, camera, action! other visions given to dozens of Old and New Testament Several books of the Bible are deliberately structured saints are all stunning high-definition, Dolby Sensurround according to theatrical conventions. The books of Job and feasts for the senses as well as the spirit. God loves movies.

Jonah are depicted in dialogues reminiscent of ancient He produced a lot of them. plays, including prologues, epilogues, and several acts.

The Book of Revelation is a theatrical orgy of visual Job’s friends function as the chorus of ancient theatrical imagery, produced, written, and directed by Jesus Christ. performances. The Book of Mark structurally resembles a The images of apocalyptic horsemen, multiple-headed Greek tragedy.ix God loves the visual, and God loves monsters running around killing people, are more akin to drama. But even more, he loves visually dramatic stories. a modern horror film or fantasy epic than a systematic theology or doctrinal exposition.

Stories God also uses visual images to reveal himself. The burnMovies are first and foremost stories. And so is the ing bush is just a trailer for upcoming releases. From Old Bible. The Bible is the story of God’s redemptive activity

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in history. The Bible is not a systematic theological textbook. It communicates doctrine and theology mostly through story. Storytelling draws us into truth by incarnating worldview through narrative. Creation, Fall, and Redemption, the elements of a worldview, are a narrative progression of events that can be seen in all movies.10 Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God mostly through parables—sensate, dramatic stories. To him, the Kingdom was far too deep and rich a truth to entrust to rational abstract propositions. He chose stories of weddings, investment bankers, unscrupulous slaves, and buried treasure over syllogisms, abstractions, systematics, or dissertations.

Jesus could do abstraction. He preferred not to.

Indeed, stories and parables may be a superior means of conveying theological truth than propositional logic or theological abstraction. As N. T. Wright suggests, “It would be clearly quite wrong to see these stories as mere illustrations of truths that could in principle have been articulated in a purer, more abstract form.”11 He reminds us that theological terms like monotheism “are late constructs, convenient shorthands for sentences with verbs in them [narrative], and that sentences with verbs in them are the real stuff of theology, not mere childish expressions of a ‘purer’ abstract truth.”12 Kenneth E. Bailey, an expert on Middle Eastern culture, explains that “a biblical story is not simply a ‘delivery system’ for an idea. Rather, the story first creates a world and then invites the listener to live in that world, to take it on as part of who he or she is … In reading and studying the Bible, ancient tales are not examined merely in order to extract a theological principle or ethical model.”13 Theologian Kevin Vanhoozer agrees that doctrinal propositions are not “more basic” than the narrative, and in fact, fail to communicate what narrative can. He writes in his book The Drama of Doctrine, “Narratives make story-shaped points that cannot always be paraphrased in propositional statements without losing something in translation.”14 If you try to dissect the parable scientifically you will kill it, and if you discard the carcass once you have your doctrine, you have discarded the heart of God. Because of our modern western bias toward rational theological discourse, we are easily blinded to the biblical emphasis on visually dramatic stories. We downplay the visual as dangerous or irrational, while God embraces the visual as a vital to his message. We elevate rational discourse as superior and dramatic theater as too emotional or entertainment-oriented, while God elevates drama equally as part of our imago Dei. We consider stories to be quaint illustrations of abstract doctrinal universal truths, while God uses stories as his dominant means of incarnating truth. God loves movies.

NOTES 1 Of course, most of the propositional content and imagery is integrated with each other, so a strictly “scientific” separation is not possible. Both are necessary to God’s revelation, but the sheer comparison of volume is revealing.

2 See Hebrews 2:4; Deuteronomy 6:22; Daniel 4:1–3; Acts 14:3; 2 Corinthians 12:12.

3 Exodus 25; 28; 1 Kings 6; 2 Chronicles 3; 4.

4 Ezekiel 4:1–3.

5 Ezekiel 4:4–8.

6 See also Ezekiel 5:1–4; 12:1–11; 17–20; 37:15–23.

7 See Jeremiah 13:1–11; 19:1; 17:19–27; 27:1–14; 32:6–15; 43:8–13; 51:59–64.

8 Isaiah 20:2–4.

9 Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, s.v. “Theater,” InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 1998. Electronic text hypertexted and prepared by OakTree Software, Inc., Version 1.0.

10 See Brian Godawa, Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films with Wisdom and Discernment (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2002).

11 N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), p. 77.

12 Wright, The People of God, p. 78.

13 Kenneth E. Bailey, Jacob and the Prodigal: How Jesus Retold Israel’s Story (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2003), p. 51.

14 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A CanonicalLinguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), p. 50.

Why We Belive (continued from page 5) him at all. To those who parade their own righteousness he shows himself angry; to those who know they have no righteousness, he shows himself gracious and loving.

The heresy of the West has manifested itself in various ways over the years: in imperialism, in racism, in the demands that all cultures conform to the mechanisms of our own economic cultures. Yet the heresy of the West writ large is the heresy of every man in miniature: the belief that God is really very like us and will be well pleased with us if we just be ourselves and make others like us, too. The wisdom of men and women is, thankfully, far inferior to the foolishness of God.

Carl R. Trueman is acting dean and professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

Brian Godawa is the screenwriter for the award-winning feature film To End All Wars, and author of Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films with Wisdom and Discernment (InterVarsity Press, 2002).

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DIARIES OF A POSTMODERN CHRISTIAN t he

c a n d i d

c h r istian

life

Ciudad Blanco

by Dwain Lee

A group of orphans in Honduras had organized a club called Ninos en Accion (Children in Action) to help others in greater need than themselves. On this particular day, Ninos en Accion were visiting a facility located a few miles outside of the capital city of Tegucigalpa for the physically and mentally disabled, the “poorest of the poor,” as the sign in front of Ciudad Blanco said. The road into the place was so obscure that even with proper directions we missed it twice.

The cluster of buildings sat at the end of the road, in a quiet clearing in the trees. The first building was for the anciaños, the old men. Another building for women and children sat across the way, along with another building for younger men. A network of sidewalks and small footbridges wound through the open space to connect the buildings. A small chapel stood to one side of the clearing, quietly overlooking the other buildings and their occupants.

In the open space, some of the residents wandered around like characters in a bad horror film.

Vacant stares. Misshapen, clouded-over eyes. Thick tongues and hideously swollen bare feet.

Ragged clothes. A few of them wandered over to me, babbling in Spanish. I wondered if what they were saying made any sense.

As our group walked up to the first building, we were taken aback by the smell of urine and sweat. The odor hung in the air; it clung to my clothing and skin. The concrete block walls were lined with dirty, confused men who probably couldn’t remember the last time they had had visitors. In one corner, a man in a wheelchair quietly wiped off placemats from their recent meal.

Another man lay tied into bed. He wasn’t violent, they explained; he simply had no sense of selfprotection. Left unattended, he would only hurt himself. With no staff to monitor him continuously, he spent most of his days—and nights—strapped down like this.

I walked around the corner, into the bathroom. Urine covered the floor. Feces coated the walls. My stomach turned as I realized that these men were living in hell. This is their existence, the poorest of the poor. The forgotten ones. I’ve lived long enough to see proof of God’s existence; the horror of the place didn’t make me question that. But as I stood there, I felt angry.

Ciudad Blanco, “The White City.” Never had a place been more inappropriately named.

We left that building and walked down the path to the building that housed women and children. Our group entered through a steel door, into a large open room with screened openings to the outside. Women and children sat around the perimeter. As soon as we had all passed through the door, one resident, knowing that the door was supposed to be locked, walked over, dutifully closed the hasp and padlocked it. A worker came over and unlocked it. Just as quickly, the woman returned to lock us in again. They repeated the routine several more times.

On one side of the room was a boy-man, no more than four feet tall. He had a boy’s body but a man’s face. His nose and ears were adult-sized, but his head was too small, even for his boy-body.

He sat in a corner, alternately smiling and crying that his head hurt.

On the other side of the room, surrounded by noise and activity, were two boys—I couldn’t even guess their ages—sitting in battered red wheelchairs against the screened window. The first one, hardly more than a living skeleton, sat motionless, staring ahead vacantly. His head rested on his left shoulder at a painful angle. As he sat there, a swarm of flies buzzed around him, tormenting him, landing on his face and in his tightly cropped hair. He was unable to do anything about it.

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I watched the boy from across the room. Inwardly, I wished that behind his empty eyes there really were no human spirit aware of his situation, the pain, the humiliation, the indignity. In a way, that possibility might have made it easier to tolerate the boy’s situation. My faith teaches me otherwise, though. Intellectually, I understand that all of creation is fallen, and that we all suffer as a result of this. But faith isn’t that clean-cut; it’s a messy combination of mind and heart. Knowing something to be true doesn’t mean I have to like it, and I didn’t like this. Simply put, I was angry at the boy’s suffering—and angry with God for permitting it. “I know,” I said to God, “that despite the fact that you love us, for now, it has to be this way. But why?” The flies continued to affront the boy’s dignity. Forget all the books I’ve read; forget long-winded theology.

It all seemed inadequate to answer why things have to be this bad.

Still angry, I walked across the room to the boy, put my hand on his shoulder, and swatted the flies away. When you can’t do much else, all you can do is swat flies away. The boy trapped inside this handicapped husk deserved at least that dignity.

Then I walked over to the other boy next to him. He was slightly more mobile than the first boy, but it was hardly much of an improvement. His arms were drawn up, mantis-like, against his chest. His legs were withered, dangling, and only half the length they should have been.

Years of neglect had caused his muscles to point his feet downward, almost parallel to his shins.

He could move his head and face a bit, but grunting was his only audible means of communicating.

Our group had brought a cake for the residents. As I stood beside the boy, someone held out a piece of cake in front of him. I heard myself say, “Oh, I don’t think he can hold that; he doesn’t have use of his hands;” and just as quickly, I thought, “Of course he has hands; they’re just not his own.”

Suddenly, in the midst of this horrible place—where I’d have least expected—I sensed being in the very presence of God. Reflexively, I knelt down and looked into the boy’s eyes. I took the cake, cut it into pieces, and held up one bite. The boy strained forward, opened his mouth, and I put the fork in. He ate each bite the best he could.

While I was feeding and talking softly with the boy, someone handed me a small cup of cola. I took it and held the cup carefully up to the boy’s lips. He tipped his head back in an awkward angle to accept it. I poured a bit into his mouth. After a few tries, I learned how much he could comfortably swallow with each sip. I alternated between serving him cake and cola, occasionally wiping the dribblings from his chin with a napkin.

When the boy finished, I remained kneeling in front of him and rubbed his back, between his shoulders. In return, he gave me a toothy, ear-to-ear smile; his eyes sparkled with love and gratitude. Looking into the boy’s eyes, I tried using my crude Spanish skills to tell him that he was a child of God. I gently whispered, “Tu eres el hijo de Dios.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized that I had actually said, “You are the Son of God.” I got up and walked away, wondering if what I told him accidentally was more accurate than what I’d intended. “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me’” (Matt. 25:40).

Dwain Lee is an architect in Columbus, Ohio, and is president of Montana de Luz, an orphanage in Honduras for children with HIV/AIDS.

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Does Justification Still Matter?

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nce upon a time, the label evangelical identified those who were committed not only to historic Christianity but to the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In our day, however, that can no longer be taken for granted.

Increasingly, evangelical scholarship is challenged by trends in biblical studies (especially the New Perspective on Paul) to abandon the Reformation’s understanding of justification. Recent ecumenical rapprochements (such as the Lutheran–Roman Catholic Joint Declaration on Justification and “Evangelicals and Catholics Together”) have revised and relativized this key article.1 Remarkably, in a new book with essays by mainline Protestants (Lutheran and Reformed) and Roman Catholics on justification, the former reject the Reformation doctrine (by appeal to the New Perspective on Paul) while leading Roman Catholic New Testament scholar Joseph Fitzmeyer demonstrates the technical accuracy of the Reformation’s exegesis of the relevant passages. In his book Is The Reformation Over?, leading evangelical scholar Mark Noll seems to be speaking for a lot of conservative Protestants in answering yes.

Outright criticism of the doctrine of justification as it is defined in our Reformed confessions and catechisms has become common even in conservative churches.

Although the church courts of these sister denominations have exhibited a heartening solidarity in standing for the confessional position and prosecuting ministers who oppose it, it is tragic that controversies over this cardinal doctrine should arise in our own circles.

Most people in the pew, however, are simply not acquainted with the doctrine of justification. Often, it is not a part of the diet of preaching and church life, much less a dominant theme in the Christian subculture. With either stern rigor or happy tips for better living, “fundamentalists” and “progressives” alike smother the gospel in moralism, through constant exhortations to personal and/or social transformation that keep the sheep looking to themselves rather than looking outside of themselves to Christ. Even in many churches formally committed to Reformation teaching, people may find the doctrine of justification in the back of their hymnal (in the confessions section), but is it really taken seriously in the teaching, preaching, worship, and life of the congregation?

The average feature article in Christianity Today or Christian best-seller is concerned with “good works”—trends in spirituality, social activism, church growth, and discipleship. However, it’s pretty clear that justification is simply not on the radar. Even where it is not outright rejected, it is often ignored. Perhaps the forgiveness of sins and justification are appropriate for “getting saved,” but then comes the real business of Christian living—as if there could be any genuine holiness of life that did not arise out of a perpetual confidence that “there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).

Of course, it’s impossible to track down all the reasons

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for the attitude toward this doctrine that lies at the heart of the gospel itself. However, in this article I will point out a couple of the dominant sources.

Culture-Christianity as Self-Help Moralism lthough it had been said in various other ways by the reformers, it was the early seventeenthcentury Reformed theologian J. H. Alsted who identified the doctrine of justification as “the article of a standing or falling church.” Yet by the next century, Protestant denominations that had sealed this confession with martyr’s blood were gradually surrendering it to various forms of moralism that were rife in the era of the Enlightenment—and in many cases worse than the distortions that provoked the Reformation in the first place. Even in pietist circles, where a vital faith in Christ was preserved, the scales increasingly tipped in favor of subjective piety and obedience, so that justification was made subordinate to sanctification.

As Arminianism gathered strength, a new legalism (identified by Reformed critics as “neo-nomianism”) entered churches formally committed to evangelical doctrine, breeding a suspicion of the preaching of election and justification as a motivation for “antinomianism” (anti-law-ism). After reading William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, John Wesley became convinced that the residual Calvinism in the Church of England stood in the way of a genuine revival of inner piety and committed discipleship. Although he eventually came to embrace the doctrine of justification, he remained concerned that it would lead to license unless it was subordinated to sanctification.

In the American colonies, the Great Awakening, under the leadership of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, heralded the good news of God’s justifying grace in Christ. However, by the Second Great Awakening an antithetical theology became the working theology of many Protestant bodies in the new republic. The church is a society of moral reformers, said its leading evangelist Charles Finney. How could there be any genuine transformation of society if Calvinism were true?

Finney’s critics charged him with Pelagianism—the ancient heresy that essentially taught that we are not born inherently sinful and that we are saved by following Christ’s moral example. Going well beyond Rome’s errors, Finney’s Systematic Theology explicitly denied original sin and insisted that the power of regeneration lies in the sinner’s own hands, rejects any notion of a substitionary atonement in favor of the moral influence and moral government theories, and regarded the doctrine of justification by an imputed righteousness as “impossible and absurd.”2 Concerning the complex of doctrines that he associated with Calvinism (including original sin, vicarious

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spread of Arminian revivalism, especially in the developing West, proved more effective in producing ordinary “results.” Doctrine in general, and Calvinism in particular, just got in the way of building a Christian America.

“Deeds, not creeds!” has a long pedigree in the movement’s history.

Americans are “pull-yourself-up-by-your-ownbootstraps” kind of people anyway. That is what accounts in part for the enormous vitality of American business and industry. However, it also became a religion. Those who worked their way from rags to riches could hardly be told that before God at least they were helpless sinners who needed to be rescued.

In today’s climate, American Protestantism on the left and the right is committed to Finney’s legacy, whether it knows it or not. It can be recognized in the “social gospel” of the left and in the moralistic jeremiads of the right; in the “how-to” pragmatism of the church growth movement and the vast self-help literature and preaching that have become the diet in the Christian subculture; and in the therapeutic obsession with inner spirituality and social activism that one finds in the Emergent movement.

Even if the gospel is formally affirmed, it becomes a tool for engineering personal and public life (salvation-by-works) rather than an announcement that God’s just wrath toward us has been satisfied and his unmerited favor has been freely bestowed in Jesus Christ.

I say all of this with deep regret at having to say it, because it is the worst thing that can ever be said of a church. Paul spoke sharply to the Corinthians concerning their immorality, but he never questioned whether it was a church. However, when the Galatian church was confusing the gospel of God’s free justification in Christ through faith alone, he warned them that they were on the verge of being cut off—excommunicated, “anathema.”

And this concern I have expressed is hardly limited to a few grumpy Calvinists and Lutherans. “Self-salvation is the goal of much of our preaching,” according to United Methodist bishop William Willimon.8 Willimon perceives that much of contemporary preaching, whether mainline or evangelical, assumes that conversion is something that we generate through our own words and sacraments. “In this respect we are heirs of Charles G. Finney,” who thought that conversion was not a miracle but a “‘purely philosophical [i.e., scientific] result of the right use of the constituted means.’”

“A revival is not a miracle,” he declared. In fact, “There is nothing in religion beyond the powers of nature.” atonement, justification, and the supernatural character of the new birth), Finney concluded, “No doctrine is more dangerous than this to the prosperity of the Church, and nothing more absurd.” “A revival is not a miracle,” he declared. In fact, “There is nothing in religion beyond the ordinary powers of nature.”3 Find the most useful methods, (“excitements,” he called them) and there will be conversion. “A revival will decline and cease,” he warned, “unless Christians are frequently re-converted.”4 Toward the end of his ministry, as he considered the condition of many who had experienced his revivals, Finney wondered if this endless craving for ever-greater experiences might lead to spiritual exhaustion.5 In fact, his worries were justified.

The area where Finney’s revivals were especially dominant is now referred to by historians as the “burnedover district,” a seedbed of both disillusionment and the proliferation of various cults.6 Ever since, Evangelicalism has been characterized by a succession of enthusiastic movements hailed as “revivals” that have burned out as quickly as they spread. Paul could as easily say today of American Protestantism what he said of his brethren according to the flesh: I can testify that they have a zeal for God, but it is not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. (Rom. 10:3–4) There are two religions, says Paul: “the righteousness that is by works” and “the righteousness that is by faith.”

While the former feverishly pursues its schemes of selfsalvation, trying to bring Christ down or raise him up from the dead, as it were, the latter simply receives the word of Christ and rests in it alone (vv. 5–8). “But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? … So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ” (v. 17).

It does not seem wide of the mark to regard Finney’s theological assumptions as Pelagian and his influence remains with us today, in both mainline and evangelical Protestantism. Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw this clearly in his visit to the United States, describing American religion as “Protestantism without the Reformation.”7 In spite of the influence of a genuinely evangelical witness, the rapid 1 2 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

[W]e have forgotten that there was once a time when evangelists were forced to defend their “new measures” for revivals, that there was once a time when preachers had to defend their preoccupation with listener response to their Calvinist detractors who thought that the gospel was more important than its listeners. I am here arguing that revivals are miraculous, that the gospel is so odd, so against the

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grain of our natural inclinations and the infatuations of our culture, that nothing less than a miracle is required in order for there to be true hearing. My position is therefore closer to that of the Calvinist Jonathan Edwards than to the position of Finney.9 Nevertheless, “The homiletical future, alas, lay with Finney rather than Edwards,” leading to the evangelical church marketing guru, George Barna, who writes, Jesus Christ was a communications specialist. He communicated His message in diverse ways, and with results that would be a credit to modern advertising and marketing agencies…. He promoted His product in the most efficient way possible: by communicating with the “hot prospects.”… He understood His product thoroughly, developed an unparalleled distribution system, advanced a method of promotion that has penetrated every continent, and offered His product at a price that is within the grasp of every consumer (without making the product so accessible that it lost its value).10 The question that naturally arises in the face of such remarks is whether it is possible to say that Jesus made anything new. “Alas,” adds Willimon, “most ‘evangelistic’ preaching I know about is an effort to drag people even deeper into their subjectivity rather than an attempt to rescue them from it.”11 Our real need, whether we feel it or not, is that we systematically distort and ignore the truth. This is why we need “an external word.”12 “So in a sense, we don’t discover the gospel, it discovers us. ‘You did not choose me but I chose you’ (John 15:16).”13 “The story is euangelion, good news, because it is about grace. Yet it is also news because it is not common knowledge, not what nine out of ten average Americans already know.

Gospel doesn’t come naturally. It comes as Jesus.”14 The evangelical faith and practice proclaimed in the Scriptures is always unnatural to us. Born in sin, curved in on ourselves, we natively assume that we are good people who could be better if we just had a good plan, environment, and examples. When visiting people on their death-bed, it is always disconcerting to encounter lifelong members of confessional Reformed churches express the hope that they have been good enough for God to accept them. We’re born Pelagians, trusting in ourselves rather than in God, and this is our default setting even as Christians. That’s why we can never assume the gospel; it has to be the staple diet not only for the beginning, but for the middle and the end of the Christian pilgrimage. When things fall apart in our personal or corporate faith, the direction is always the same: we fall back on works-righteousness.

Periods of genuine health and vitality are always the consequence of rediscovering the gospel of grace; eras of decline are always associated with the eclipse of the gospel of a one-sided divine rescue in the person and work of

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Jesus Christ. Since Satan lost the war at Golgotha and the tomb, he has turned his assault to the faith of believers in the gospel and the progress of that gospel to the ends of the earth. He knows our weak spot and he exploits it. If he cannot destroy the church by persecution, he will weaken it through heresy. And “Pelagianism”—self-salvation in all its forms—is his best-seller.

After conducting numerous studies over the last several years with his team, University of North Carolina sociologist Christian Smith concluded that the religion of America’s youth can be characterized as “moralistic, therapeutic deism.” When we interviewed him for the White Horse Inn and Modern Reformation recently, he said that there was no difference between the churched and unchurched or even between the unchurched and young people raised in evangelical churches today.

Who Needs Justification? od justifies the wicked. That’s pretty radical. It is more radical than the claim that God heals the morally sick or gives grace to those who are willing to cooperate with it or that he rewards those who try to do their best. We don’t even have to deny justification outright. It’s just irrelevant when we stop asking the most important question. Having trouble with the marriage or kids? Sure. Not living up to our expectations? Doesn’t everybody? Not really getting the most out of life and need some fresh advice? I’m all ears. But we don’t care about being “sinners in the hands of an angry God” if we have never encountered a holy God. And if we do not sense a great need, we do not cry out for a great Savior.

While Roman Catholics and Protestants used to debate how those born in original sin are saved by grace, these theological categories themselves are becoming replaced across the Roman Catholic/Protestant and liberal/ evangelical divides with therapeutic, pragmatic, and consumerist categories that seem to render gospel-speech itself irrelevant. The question “How can I be accepted by a holy God?” is replaced with the quest for self-fulfillment, self-respect, self-esteem, and self-effort. And there are plenty of preachers who will cater to our narcissism, dressing our wound as though it were not serious and telling us how we can have our best life now.

When God is no longer a problem for humanity, but a domesticated icon of either an irrelevant transcendence or a usefully immanent source of therapeutic well-being and moral causes, justification becomes an empty symbol. No longer lost, we are more like somewhat dysfunctional but well-meaning victims who simply need “empowerment” and better instructions. Our experience is remote from that of the Israelites assembled at the foot of Mount Sinai when they heard God’s terrifying voice and begged for a mediator.

The holiness of God obscured, the sinful human condition is adjusted, first, to the level of sins—that is, to particular acts or habits that require scolding and reform.

Weary of brow-beating that actually trivializes the sinful

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increasingly ceased to be even Abelardian.17 “Our increasingly feellike Erasmus good therapeutic culture is antithetical to talk of the cross” and our “consumerist society” has made the doctrine a pariah.18 “A more puzzling feature of this development as it has affected professedly confessional churches is the silence that has surrounded it. There have been few audible protests.”19 Even most contemporary theologies of the cross fit the pattern of Jesus-as-Model, but justification itself is rarely described in accordance with the Reformation pattern even by conservative evangelicals, Lindbeck suggests.

Most of them, as has already been indicated, are conversionists holding to Arminian versions of the ordo salutis, which are further removed from Reformation theology than was the Council of Trent.20 “Where the cross once stood is now a vacuum.”21 Evangelicalism today sounds a lot more like Erasmus than Luther.

“Where the cross once stood is now a vacuum.”

Evangelicalism today sounds a lot more than Luther. condition, the next generation takes a more positive, therapeutic approach, offering “tips for living” that will make life happier, healthier, and more fulfilling. Finally, the vertical dimension is all but lost. That which makes sin sinful is the fact that it is first of all an offence against God (Ps. 51:3–5). As a result, it is no longer conceivable that God became flesh to bear his own just wrath. The purpose of the cross is to move us to repentance by showing us how much God loves us (the moral influence theory of the atonement), to display God’s justice (the moral government theory), or to liberate the oppressed from unjust social structures (Christus Victor). But the one thing that it cannot be is the means by which “we have been justified by his blood [and] … saved through him from the wrath of God” (Rom. 5:9).

In fact, mainline Lutheran theologian George Lindbeck recently explored the inseparable relationship between justification and atonement, concluding that even where the former is formally affirmed, the widespread lack of interest in our outright rejection of traditional atonement language leaves it without sufficient specificity. At least in practice, Abelard’s view of salvation by following Christ’s example (and the cross as the demonstration of God’s love that motivates our repentance) now seems to have a clear edge over Anselm’s satisfaction theory of the atonement.

“The atonement is not high on the contemporary agendas of either Catholics or Protestants,” Lindbeck surmises.

“More specifically, the penal-substitutionary versions (and distortions) of Anselm’s satisfaction theory that have been dominant on the popular level for hundreds of years are disappearing.”15 This is as true for evangelicals as for liberal Protestants.16 Those who continued to use the sola fide language assumed that they agreed with the reformers no matter how much, under the influence of conversionist pietism and revivalism, they turned the faith that saves into a meritorious good work of the free will, a voluntaristic decision to believe that Christ bore the punishment of sins on the cross for me, for each person individually.

Improbable as it might seem given the metaphor (and the Johannine passage from which it comes), everyone is thus capable of being “born again” if only he or she tries hard enough. Thus with the loss of the Reformation understanding of the faith that justifies as itself God’s gift, Anselmic atonement theory became culturally associated with a self-righteousness that was both moral and religious and therefore rather nastier, its critics thought, than the primarily moral self-righteousness of the liberal Abelardians. In time, to move on in our story, the liberals 1 4 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

Justification Feeds Rather Than Starves the Passion for Genuine Renewal oday, a growing number of evangelical theologians and leaders repeat the charge of Pelagius against Augustine, Rome against the reformers, and Protestant liberalism against evangelicalism: namely, that, in the words of Albert Schweitzer, “There is no place for ethics in the Reformation doctrine of justification.”

Following evangelical theologians like Stanley Grenz, Brian McLaren and other leaders of the “Emergent church” movement explicitly challenge sola fide as an obstacle to the main point of Christianity: following the example of Jesus. While authentic living brings tribute to the gospel, the former is increasingly becoming the gospel.

G. C. Berkouwer’s observation is still relevant in our own day when he writes that “the problem of the renewal of life is attracting the attention of moralists.”

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Amid numberless chaotic and demoralizing forces is sounded, as if for the last time, the cry for help and healing, for the re-organization of a dislocated world.

The therapy prescribed perhaps varies, the call for moral and spiritual re-armament is uniformly insistent…. These are the questions we must answer. For implicit in them is the intent to destroy the connection between justification and sanctification, as well as the bond between faith and sanctification.22 Paul relates everything, including sanctification, the problems of ethics, and ecclesial harmony, to Christ’s cross and resurrection.

The other day I heard from a pastor who related to me that some of his fellow pastors expressed concern that too much preaching of grace, especially justification, was

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dangerous—especially if it is not immediately followed up with warnings to obedience. Knowing this pastor pretty well, I was surprised that they were pointing this concern at him. After all, he is perfectly sound in his theology. He affirms and preaches the third use of the law (as guide for Christian obedience). Sometimes we forget that Paul was accused of being an antinomian—that is, of inviting people to sin that grace may abound. But instead of retracting the doctrine of justification (Rom. 3–5) that he knew would provoke that question again, the apostle simply explained how the gospel is the answer to the tyranny of sin as well as its condemnation (Rom. 6). The gospel of free justification is the source of genuine sanctification, not its enemy. Yet that is counter-intuitive to us. It is gospellogic, not the logic of works-righteousness.

Like its native culture, American Evangelicalism is activistic. We’re used to being producers and consumers, but not receivers—at least, helpless and ungodly sinners who must acknowledge their salvation as a free gift, apart from their decision and effort (Rom. 9:16). Obsessed with what happens with us, evangelical spirituality has for a long time—at least in practice—obscured the good news of that which has happened once and for all outside of us.

Justification may be relevant for avoiding God’s wrath (at least where this is still affirmed), but is it really as important for the Christian life? Wouldn’t it be more helpful and practical to learn steps for victory over sin in our lives and in our culture?

In Revisioning Evangelical Theology, Stanley Grenz argues that Evangelicalism is more a “spirituality” than a “theology,” more interested in individual piety than in creeds, confessions, and liturgies.23 Experience gives rise to—in fact, he says, “determines”—doctrine, rather than the other way around.24 The main point of the Bible is how the stories can be used in daily living—hence, the emphasis on daily devotions.

“Although some evangelicals belong to ecclesiological traditions that understand the church as in some sense a dispenser of grace, generally we see our congregations foremost as a fellowship of believers.”25 We share our journeys (our “testimony”) of personal transformation.26 Thus, “a fundamental shift in self-consciousness may be under way” in Evangelicalism, “a move from a creed-based to a spirituality-based identity” that is more like medieval mysticism than Protestant orthodoxy.24 “Consequently, spirituality is inward and quietistic,”28concerned with combating “the lower nature and the world,”29 in “a personal commitment that becomes the ultimate focus of the believer’s affections.”30 Therefore the origin of faith is not to be attributed to an external gospel, but arises from an inner experience. “Because spirituality is generated from within the individual, inner motivation is crucial”— more important, in fact, than “grand theological statements.”31 The spiritual life is above all the imitation of Christ….

In general we eschew religious ritual. Not slavish

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adherence to rites, but doing what Jesus would do is our concept of true discipleship. Consequently, most evangelicals neither accept the sacramentalism of many mainline churches nor join the Quakers in completely eliminating the sacraments. We practice baptism and the Lord’s Supper, but understand the significance of these rites in a guarded manner.32 In any case, he says, these rites are practiced as goads to personal experience and out of obedience to divine command.33 “Get on with the task; get your life in order by practicing the aids to growth and see if you do not mature spiritually,” we exhort. In fact, if a believer comes to the point where he or she senses that stagnation has set in, evangelical counsel is to redouble one’s efforts in the task of exercising the disciplines. “Check up on yourself,” the evangelical spiritual counselor admonishes.34 We go to church, he says, but not in order to receive “means of grace,” but for fellowship, “instruction and encouragement.”35 The emphasis on the individual believer is evident, he says, in the expectation to “find a ministry” within the local fellowship.36 All of this is at odds with an emphasis on doctrine and especially, Grenz adds, an emphasis on “a material and a formal principle”—in other words, solo Christo and sola scriptura.37 When personal and social transformation become the main point of faith and practice, it is no wonder that the line between Roman Catholicism and Evangelicalism blurs. For Rome, of course, justification simply is sanctification: the moral transformation of the believer.

Grace is offered, but we must cooperate with it if we are finally to be accepted and renewed. In fact, with its longer and more sophisticated history of cultural influence, Rome’s superiority in the arena of world-transformation is apparent. In fact, once our interest in improving ourselves and the world has rendered justification through faith alone irrelevant (or even problematic), why should evangelicals and Mormons remain divided? No longer dividing by doctrine, the “culture Protestantism” of America threatens completely to engulf Evangelicalism as it did the mainline denominations. Perhaps the only denominations left with any distinct identity will be the Republican and Democratic parties.

According to the account thus far, justification is not the first stage of the Christian life, but the constant wellspring of sanctification and good works. Luther summarizes, “‘Because you believe in me,’ God says, ‘and your faith takes hold of Christ, whom I have freely given to you as your Justifier and Savior, therefore be righteous.’

Thus God accepts you or accounts you righteous only on account of Christ, in whom you believe.”38 Whatever other piece of good news (concerning the new birth, Christ’s conquest of sin’s tyranny and promise to renew us S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 15

throughout our life, the resurrection of our body and freedom from the presence of sin), much less the useful exhortations that we may offer, the announcement that Luther here summarizes alone creates and sustains the faith that not only justifies but sanctifies as well.

Good works now may be freely performed for God and neighbors without any fear of punishment or agony over the mixed motives of each act. Because of justification in Christ, even our good works can be “saved,” not in order to improve either God’s lot or our own, but our neighbor’s.

As Calvin explains, But if, freed from this severe requirement of the law, or rather from the entire rigor of the law, they hear themselves called with fatherly gentleness by God, they will cheerfully and with great eagerness answer, and follow his leading. To sum up: Those bound by the yoke of the law are like servants assigned certain tasks for each day by their masters. These servants think they have accomplished nothing and dare not appear before their masters unless they have fulfilled the exact measure of their tasks. But sons, who are more generously and candidly treated by their fathers, do not hesitate to offer them incomplete and half-done and even defective works, trusting that their obedience and readiness of mind will be accepted by their fathers, even though they have not quite achieved what their fathers intended. Such children ought we to be, firmly trusting that our services will be approved by our most merciful Father, however small, rude, and imperfect these may be….

And we need this assurance in no slight degree, for without it we attempt everything in vain.39 “Because of justification,” adds Ames, “the defilement of good works does not prevent their being accepted and rewarded by God.”40 Not only does such a view properly ground works in faith, it also frees believers to love and serve their neighbors apart from the motive of gaining or fear of losing divine favor. It liberates us for a world-embracing activism that is deeply conscious that although our love and service contribute nothing to God and his evaluation of our persons, they are, however feebly, half-heartedly, and imperfectly performed, means through which God cares for creation.

Even with the medieval terminology, Reformed theology can maintain the following: The renewal is not a mere supplement, an appendage, to the salvation given in justification.

The heart of sanctification is the life which feeds on this justification. There is no contrast between justification as act of God and sanctification as act of man. The fact that Christ is our sanctification is not exclusive of, but inclusive of, a faith which clings to him alone in all of life. Faith is the pivot on which 1 6 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

everything revolves. Faith, though not itself creative, preserves us from autonomous selfsanctification and moralism.41 The real question, says Berkouwer, is whether justification is sufficient to ground all of the blessings communicated in our union with Christ. “The same Catechism [Heidelberg, Lord’s Day 24] which denies us even a partial righteousness of our own mentions the earnest purpose with which believers begin to live” according to all the commandments.

It is this beginning which has its basis solely in justification by faith….

It is not true that sanctification simply succeeds justification. Lord’s Day 31, which discusses the keys of the kingdom, teaches that the kingdom is opened and shut by proclaiming “to believers, one and all, that, whenever they receive the promise of the gospel by a true faith, all their sins are really forgiven them.”

This “whenever” illustrates the continuing relevancy of the correlation between faith and justification. . . .

The purpose of preaching the ten commandments, too, is that believers may “become the more earnest in seeking remission of sins and righteousness in Christ” [Heidelberg Catechism, Question 115]….

Hence there is never a stretch along the way of salvation where justification drops out of sight.42 “Genuine sanctification—let it be repeated—stands or falls with this continued orientation toward justification and the remission of sins.”43 When we talk about sanctification, we do not leave justification behind. “We are not here concerned with a transition from theory to practice. It is not as if we should proceed from a faith in justification to the realities of sanctification; for we might as truly speak of the reality of justification and our faith in sanctification.”44 Paul teaches that believers are “sanctified in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:2, 30; 6:11; 1 Thess. 5:23; cf. Acts 20:32; 26:18). As Bavinck puts it, “Many indeed acknowledge that we are justified by the righteousness of Christ, but seem to think that—at least they act as if—they must be sanctified by a holiness they themselves have acquired.”45 “The apostle Paul,” Berkouwer writes, “preaches holiness with repetitive fervor, but in no way does he compromise his unequivocal declaration: ‘For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified’ (1 Cor. 2:2).”

Not for a moment would he do violence to the implications of that confession. Hence in every exhortation he must be relating his teaching to the cross of Christ. From this center all lines radiate outward—into the life of cities and villages, of men and women, of Jews and Gentiles, into families, youth, and old age, into conflict and disaffection, into

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immorality and drunkenness.

If we would keep this center, as well as the softer and harder lines flowing from it, in true perspective, we must be thoroughly aware that in shifting from justification to sanctification we are not withdrawing from the sphere of faith. We are not here concerned with a transition from theory to practice. It is not as if we should proceed from a faith in justification to the realities of sanctification; for we might as truly speak of the reality of justification and our faith in sanctification.46 Thus Berkouwer finds it “incomprehensible” that the Reformation view could have ever been criticized as having no bearing on sanctification or the life of holiness.

It has everything to do with it because it brings everything back to faith in Christ.47 Therefore, sanctification is not a human project supplementing the divine project of justification, nor a process of negotiating the causal relations between free will and infused grace, but the impact of God’s justifying Word on every aspect of human life. It is time to get the horse before the cart again, first of all so that the church can once again be a place where God’s saving work will be known and experienced, and also for that genuine personal and corporate renewal that can only arise out of the continual wonder of the gospel: God’s free justification of the ungodly—even Christians. ■

Michael S. Horton is the J. Gresham Machen professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California).

NOTES 1 See Michael Horton, “What’s All the Fuss About?: The Status of the Justification Debate,” Modern Reformation 11, no. 2 (March/April 2002), pp. 17-21.

2 Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1976), p. 320.

3 Charles G. Finney, Revivals of Religion (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, n.d.), pp. 4–5.

4 Finney, Revivals of Religion, p. 321. Italics in the original.

5 See Keith J. Hardman, Charles Grandison Finney: Revivalist and Reformer (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), pp. 380-394.

6 See, for example, Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982).

7 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Protestantism without the Reformation,” in No Rusty Swords: Letters, Lectures and Notes, 19281936, ed. Edwin H. Robertson, trans. Edwin H. Robertson and John Bowden (London: Collins, 1965), pp. 92-118.

8 William H. Willimon, The Intrusive Word: Preaching to the Unbaptized (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2002), p. 53.

9 Willimon, p. 20.

10 Willimon, p. 21, citing George Barna, Marketing the Church: What They Never Taught You about Church Growth (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1988), p. 50.

11 Willimon, p. 38.

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Willimon, p. 38.

Willimon, p. 43.

14 Willimon, p. 52.

15 George Lindbeck, “Justification and Atonement: An Ecumenical Trajectory,” in Joseph A. Burgess and Marc Kolden, eds., By Faith Alone: Essays on Justification in Honor of Gerhard O. Forde (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), p. 205.

16 Lindbeck, pp. 205-206.

17 Lindbeck, p. 207.

18 Lindbeck, p. 207.

19 Lindbeck, p. 208.

20 Lindbeck, p. 209.

21 iLindbeck, p. 211.

22 G. C. Berkouwer, Studies in Dogmatics: Faith and Sanctification (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), pp. 11-12.

23 Stanley Grenz, Revisioning Evangelical Theology: A Fresh Agenda for the 21st Century (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993), pp. 17, 31, and throughout the volume.

24 Grenz, pp. 30, 34.

25 Grenz, p. 32.

26 Grenz, p. 33.

27 Grenz, pp. 38, 41.

28 Grenz, pp. 41-42.

29 Grenz, p. 44.

30 Grenz, p. 45.

31 Grenz, p. 46.

32 Grenz, p. 48.

33 Grenz, p. 48.

34 Grenz, p. 52.

35 Grenz, p. 54.

36 Grenz, p. 55.

37 Grenz, p. 62.

38 Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians 1535, vol. 26, Luther’s Works, eds. Jaroslav Pelikan and Walter A. Hansen (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1963), p. 132.

39 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.19.5.

40 William Ames, Marrow of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1997), p. 171.

41 Berkouwer, p. 93.

42 Berkouwer, p. 77.

43 Berkouwer, p. 78.

44 Berkouwer, p. 20.

45 Cited in Berkouwer, p. 22.

46 Berkouwer, p. 20.

47 Berkouwer, p. 20.

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We Confess Westminster Confession of Faith (1647): Chapter XIV. Of Saving Faith.

I. The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts; and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word: by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened.

II. By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God himself speaking therein; and acteth differently, upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come. But the principle acts of saving faith are, accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.

III. This faith is different in degrees, weak or strong; may be often and many ways assailed and weakened, but gets the victory; growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith.

Belgic Confession (1561): Article 23: The Justification of Sinners We believe that our blessedness lies in the forgiveness of our sins because of Jesus Christ, and that in it our righteousness before God is contained, as David and Paul teach us when they declare that man blessed to whom God grants righteousness apart from works.

And the same apostle says that we are justified “freely” or “by grace” through redemption in Jesus Christ. And therefore we cling to this foundation, which is firm forever, giving all glory to God, humbling ourselves, and recognizing ourselves as we are; not claiming a thing for ourselves or our merits and leaning and resting on the sole obedience of Christ crucified, which is ours when we believe in him.

That is enough to cover all our sins and to make us confident, freeing the conscience from the fear, dread, and terror of God’s approach, without doing what our first father, Adam, did, who trembled as he tried to cover himself with fig leaves.

In fact, if we had to appear before God relying— no matter how little— on ourselves or some other creature, then, alas, we would be swallowed up.

Therefore everyone must say with David: “Lord, do not enter into judgment with your servants, for before you no living person shall be justified.”

Book of Concord (1580): The Righteousness of Faith For faith justifies, not for this cause and reason that it is so good a work and so fair a virtue, but because it lays hold of and accepts the merit of Christ in the promise of the holy Gospel; for this must be applied and appropriated to us by faith, if we are to be justified thereby. Therefore the righteousness which is imputed to faith or to the believer out of pure grace is the obedience, suffering, and resurrection of Christ, since He has made satisfaction for us to the Law, and paid for [expiated] our sins. For since Christ is not man alone, but God and man in one undivided person, He was as little subject to the Law, because He is the Lord of the Law, as He had to suffer and die as far as His person is concerned. For this reason, then, His obedience, not only in suffering and dying, but also in this, that He in our stead was voluntarily made under the Law, and fulfilled it by this obedience, is imputed to us for righteousness, so that, on account of this complete obedience, which He rendered His heavenly Father for us, by doing and suffering, in living and dying, God forgives our sins, regards us as godly and righteous, and eternally saves us. This righteousness is offered us by the Holy Ghost through the Gospel and in the Sacraments, and is applied, appropriated, and received through faith, whence believers have reconciliation with God, forgiveness of sins, the grace of God, sonship, and heirship of eternal life.

Thirty-Nine Articles (1571): XI. Of the Justification of Man. We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only, is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification.

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Why Sola Fide is the Chief Article

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s a faithful Roman Catholic, Martin Luther (1483–1546), the father of the Protestant Reformation, strove with all of his might to attain salvation while serving as a monk in the little town of Wittenberg. He prayed earnestly, studied tirelessly, held countless vigils, recited numerous masses, and harshly mistreated his body all with the goal of bringing his unruly flesh into submission. Yet, despite all of his efforts, peace of conscience eluded the young monk. As Luther later testified in his Lectures on Genesis, “[T]he more I sweat, the less quiet and peace I felt.”1

It was not until later in life, while studying Romans 1:16–17, that Luther finally attained the peace he so earnestly desired. Much to his surprise, it came not as a result of discovering new and difficult works to perform, but simply by believing in Christ who justifies the ungodly with his own righteousness. In recounting his discovery, Luther commented in his Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther’s Latin Writings: “Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me…. Thus that

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that he would be their king.

They knew that he would bring deliverance. They the doctrine knew that he would usher in righteousness.

They knew that he would be, quite possibly, the most important religious figure in all of history. Despite all of this, however, they missed the primary reason for Christ’s advent, which Jesus lays out as follows: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). This Jesus, to whom the Law and the Prophets testify, came “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28b).

In fact, it is this very truth with which Jesus comforts his apostles after his crucifixion. Prior to revealing his true identity to them, the Lord approaches two of his disciples who are disheartened by his suffering and death. Rather than immediately revealing himself to them in resurrected glory, Christ makes sure that they understand the importance of his redemptive work from the Scriptures: “And he said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:25–27). Jesus thereby gave the apostles, and by extension all of us today, an important lesson on the proper interpretation of the Old Testament: it bears witness to Jesus in his person and work. Peter aptly sums up the content of the Old Testament: “To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43).

In each of the above cases, the person of the Messiah is immediately linked with his redemptive work. Jesus links the quest for eternal life with searching the Scriptures which bear witness to him. He likewise links the coming of the Son of Man with seeking and saving the lost by laying down his life as a ransom for many.

Indeed, the Lord even goes as far as to say that the Christ must suffer and die, with the eventual result that “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name” (Luke 24:47).

For the apostles, the content of Old Testament Scripture determined the content of their preaching.

Thus, they were called specifically to bear witness to Jesus, to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8). Because Scripture is about Christ and his redemptive work, their sermons followed suit. Paul could therefore confidently proclaim: “[W]e preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:23). Indeed, Christ as Savior was so central in Paul’s thought, that the apostle could confess: “For I decided to know nothing among

Historically, classical Protestantism has agreed with Luther’s assessment of the centrality of of justification. place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise.”2 It should come as no surprise, then, that Luther considered the doctrine of sola fide (justification by faith alone) the first and chief article of the Christian religion.

Historically, classical Protestantism has agreed with Luther’s assessment of the centrality of the doctrine of justification. More recently, however, even some within the Protestant fold are calling into question Luther’s assessment. Thus, those who share Luther’s position are being called upon to reconsider the centrality of the doctrine of justification, particularly as expressed in the slogan sola fide.

While some may take umbrage at such contemporary challenges, heirs of Reformation theology ought to rejoice at the renewed opportunity to discuss the central article of the Christian religion: justification by grace alone through faith alone on account of the person and work of Christ alone.

Sola Fide in Scripture o say that the doctrine of justification through faith alone is the central article of the Christian faith is simply to say that Christ, as Savior, is at the heart of the Christian faith. Jesus is, after all, the true object of saving faith. Sinful human beings are not justified through faith in just anybody. Rather, faith is only as good as the object in whom it is placed. For Christians, saving faith is placed in the person and work of Christ.

Not surprisingly, then, Scripture is christological in its overall content. While the Bible addresses numerous topics it is nevertheless focused in a very unique way upon the person and work of Jesus as Savior. Even a cursory review of the Bible makes this evident.

In Christ’s own teaching, for example, he presents himself as the sum and substance of the Old Testament Scriptures. In his conflict with the Pharisees, he warns: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39). The Pharisees were indeed correct in searching the Scriptures in order to discover the source of eternal life. The problem, according to no less an authority than Jesus himself, is that the Pharisees had missed what Scripture was all about: Christ as Savior.

This is not to say that the Pharisees did not see Scripture as containing important information about the Messiah. They knew that the Messiah would be a human being born from the line of David. They knew

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you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

Indeed, when instructing Christians, the good news about the redemptive work of Christ was always delivered as of first importance (1 Cor. 15:3).

Like their Lord, the apostles regularly linked the person of Christ with his redemptive work. Thus, the New Testament Scriptures were not written simply to impart information about Christ, “but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). While John penned these words specifically about the content of his gospel, they may be applied equally to all of Scripture. Indeed, while the New Testament addresses a whole host of issues, its character, like that of the Old Testament, is uniquely christological.

But how are the benefits of Christ’s saving work apprehended? If his person and redemptive work are upheld as central throughout all of Scripture, surely the manner of appropriating the benefits of his work is no less important. Once the source of eternal life is discerned from the pages of Scripture, how is it then received? As seen above, Peter argued that forgiveness of sins is received through faith in Christ. John makes the same point, stating that belief in Christ receives eternal life. Jesus answers the question similarly: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).

In the face of the religious leaders of his day, many of whom taught that obedience to the law was a cause of salvation and eternal life, Jesus teaches that salvation is received through faith without any reference to works whatsoever. Elsewhere in Scripture, we are expressly told that works do not save, be they works of the law (Gal. 2:16) or other so-called works of righteousness (Titus 3:5–7). Indeed, the apostles proclaimed with one voice: “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Rom. 3:28). Faith in Christ, and not works, receives all of his saving benefits: forgiveness of sins, salvation, eternal life, and so forth.

Because Christ is the sum and substance of Scripture, he is said to be at the center of the Christian faith. Yet, always and in every case, his person is linked to his redemptive obedience, suffering, and death. For this reason, his work is likewise said to be at the center of the Christian faith.

Finally, the manner in which the benefits of Christ’s work are apprehended is constantly linked to both his person and his work. For this reason, justification by faith is equally said to be at the center of the Christian faith. Thus, to say that justification is the chief article of the Christian faith is not to ignore or downplay Christology (the study of Christ’s person and work) or other aspects of soteriology (the doctrine of salvation), it is rather to speak of them both as comprehended in the

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one formula: sola fide. In theological shorthand, justification by faith alone is simply intended to communicate the eminently biblical truth that sinners are saved by trusting in Christ and not in their own works. To this, all the Law and the Prophets testify.

Sola Fide in Theology n theology, the doctrine of justification through faith alone is often expressed in the slogan sola fide. Those familiar with classical Protestant theology are likely accustomed to seeing this formula grouped with other Reformation solas, such as solus Christus (Christ alone), sola gratia (grace alone), sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), and soli Deo gloria (glory to God alone). Because of this traditional arrangement, many Christians are tempted to view the solas as a set of detached intellectual propositions, each advocating a separate truth.

In reality, however, each sola serves the same purpose: to present Jesus in all of his saving mercy for the sake of helpless sinners. “Christ alone” proclaims the sole ground of justification: the person and work of Jesus alone. “Grace alone” declares the cause of justification: the favor of God alone. “Faith alone” reveals the way in which the saving benefits of Christ are apprehended: trust in God’s mercy alone. “Scripture alone” reveals the place that troubled consciences may confidently look to find the infallible promise of God’s forgiveness for the sake of Jesus: the Bible alone.

“Glory to God alone” is the jubilant cry of the justified sinner, who has been redeemed by Christ, received into God’s favor, made confident of God’s mercy, and assured of the promises of God as revealed in Scripture.

Traditionally, however, sola fide has received special attention amongst the Reformation solas. Not because it supplants the other solas or rules over them as a theological despot, but because sola fide is the crossroads at which all of the solas meet. Solus Christus proclaims the object of saving faith, but Christ and his benefits must be apprehended by faith. Sola gratia declares that God’s mercy is the result of Christ’s work, but men and women must trust in the mercy Christ won for them.

Sola Scriptura reveals the location of God’s gracious promises but individuals must have sure confidence in the promises contained in the Bible. In faith, the justified person may glorify God, assured of their redemption for the sake of Christ as revealed in Scripture. In each of these, sola fide acts as the nexus for all of the Reformation solas; indeed, for all of theology.

The doctrine of justification by faith alone, therefore, serves as the proper center of the theological universe, out of which all other doctrines necessarily flow.

Consider, for example, the doctrines classically associated with Christology: the two natures of Christ, the virgin birth, the sinlessness of Christ, the atonement, and the resurrection. Each of these necessarily relates to the doctrine of justification and are therefore intimately connected to sola fide. Why did God become man in the

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apostolic doctrine came under attack in the first century, so too, the subsequent debate throughout church history has had doctrine of justification by faith alone came some bearing on this chief article of the Christian faith. under attack. Indeed, one of the earliest person of Jesus of Nazareth? In order to redeem men ecclesiastical controversies recorded in the pages of the from their iniquities. Yet that redemption must be New Testament was over the doctrine of justification. apprehended by faith in order for sinners to enjoy its In the early church, there was a group of individuals benefits. Why was Jesus born of a virgin? To avoid the teaching that circumcision and adherence to the Law of corruption of original sin common to all humankind in Moses was necessary for salvation (Acts 15:1; 5). In order to redeem them. Yet individuals must approach opposition to these men, Paul and Barnabas maintained that redemption in the confidence that it was that sinners are justified through faith in Christ apart accomplished for them. Why was Christ necessarily from the works of the law (Acts 15:2; Gal. 2:16). In sinless?

In order to fulfill God’s righteous order to definitely settle this controversy, the church commandments in the place of those who could not. Yet convened what is commonly referred to as the that obedience must be trusted in order to benefit those Jerusalem Council. There, the church (upon the in need. Why did Christ die? In order to reconcile the testimony of Peter, Paul, Barnabas, and James) world to God by bearing their punishment in their stead. reaffirmed that sinners are not justified by adherence to Yet sinners must believe that Christ died in their place to the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. save them from God’s wrath against sin. Why did Christ Interestingly enough, the party insisting upon rise again from the dead?

To accomplish our circumcision and adherence to the Mosaic Law are never justification and definitively defeat the enemies of death accused of denying that faith was necessary for salvation. and the grave. Yet believers must apprehend the risen Rather, they argued that faith was insufficient; it had to be Christ through faith and thereby share in His supplemented by obedience to the law in order to receive resurrection victory. Each of these cardinal doctrines of salvation. In opposition to this, the church maintained the Christian faith, therefore, relates directly to the that faith was sufficient for salvation. Thus, of the two doctrine of justification, and more specifically, to the proposed means of apprehending salvation, faith and doctrine of justification by faith alone. works, only faith is necessary for salvation according to Because of its inherent organic connection with all Scripture. This, of course, is tantamount to teaching other articles of faith, the doctrine of sola fide is likewise justification by faith alone. Accordingly, the doctrine of seen as the guardian of other articles. In essence, it sola fide was championed by the New Testament church safeguards all the truths revealed by God. If Christ alone from its very inception. Beginning as early as the is the Savior (solus Christus), then individuals must Jerusalem Council, virtually every subsequent debate simply trust in his person and work for salvation, not in throughout church history has had some bearing on this their own person or work. If grace is the sole cause of chief article of the Christian faith. salvation (sola gratia), then individuals must trust in the Another famous example of the preeminent favor of God Christ won for them, not in the favor they importance of the doctrine of justification in church may seek to win for themselves. If Scripture is the sole history is the historical debate between Pelagius infallible location of God’s promises revealed for the sake (360–420), a British monk, and Augustine (354–430), of Jesus (sola Scriptura), then individuals must believe the Bishop of Hippo. Pelagius taught that salvation was the promises contained in his Word, not in their own achieved through obedience to God’s divine commands. traditions, reason, revelations, or personal proclivities. If Contrary to this, Augustine maintained the biblical truth glory is to be given to God alone, individuals must be that sinners are unable to save themselves by their own confident that he, and not they, deserves all the credit works and are reliant solely upon the grace of God for for redemption. Thus, the doctrine of justification by salvation. According to Augustine, since works are faith alone not only acts as the nexus of all Christian unable to save, grace alone must save, and that grace is doctrine (inasmuch as it is intimately connected to all apprehended only through faith. Augustine wrote: other articles of faith), but also its chief protector and “You may proclaim that ancient just men possessed ever guardian (inasmuch as proper profession of this article such great virtue, yet nothing saved them except faith in puts the others into necessary perspective). the Mediator, who shed His blood for the remission of sins.”3 Thus, Augustine championed the New Testament church’s doctrine of justification by grace through faith Sola Fide in History s noted above, justification by faith alone was apart from works. central in the teachings of Jesus and the apostles.

For this reason, many have suggested that Augustine It should not be surprising, then, that as the laid the necessary groundwork for the debates that

Beginning as early as the Jerusalem Council, virtually every

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would later grip the church in the sixteenth century. It is no coincidence that Martin Luther was originally an Augustinian monk (a monastic order dedicated to upholding the teachings of Augustine). Yet in the early 1500s, Luther began to recognize that the church had greatly deviated not only from Augustine’s doctrine of justification but also from the biblical doctrine of justification by making works a meritorious cause of salvation.

Though the Reformation initially began as a protest against the selling of indulgences (documents promising forgiveness of the temporal punishments due to venial sin) the Protestant reformers (Luther, Calvin, and others) eventually came to challenge the entire Roman Catholic doctrine of salvation by faith and works. This the reformers saw as a revival of the Judaizing tendencies opposed by the apostles and the works-righteousness opposed by Augustine and many other ancient church fathers. Though Rome taught the necessity of Christ, they denied that his death was sufficient, without human cooperation, to save sinners. Though Rome taught the necessity of grace, they denied that it was sufficient, apart from human cooperation, to save sinners. Though Rome taught the necessity of faith, they denied that it was sufficient, teaching instead that faith must be supplemented by works in order to merit salvation. Though Rome taught the necessity of Scripture, they denied that it was sufficient to function as the sole infallible rule of faith for the church. The famed Reformation solas, among which sola fide is central, therefore speak not only to the necessity of Christ, grace, faith, and Scripture, but to the sufficiency of the same.

Sola Fide in the Life of a Christian he chief reason that sola fide is said to be the central article of the Christian faith is because it addresses perhaps the most important question one could ever ask: how can I be saved? For adherents of justification by faith alone, the answer is as simple as the apostolic counsel offered to the Philippian jailer: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31).

Yes, the gospel is just that simple. No works of the law; just trusting in the one who fulfilled the law in the stead of sinners. No works of righteousness; just believing in the one who fulfilled all righteousness for fallen sons and daughters of Adam. No sacrifices; just trusting in the one who gave himself as a sacrifice for sin

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in the place of those mired in iniquity. Christ has done all of the work necessary for salvation and has secured God’s favor for the world. Christians simply trust that what Christ has done is sufficient, that God’s favor is sufficient, that the forgiveness which Jesus won for them is sufficient. Faith, then, is sufficient (which is precisely what sola fide was intended to signify: the sufficiency of faith) in receiving the benefit of all of these precious truths.

Not only the fact of salvation but also the assurance of salvation is at stake in the doctrine of justification through faith alone. If works are admitted into justification any meaningful assurance of salvation is simply impossible. Which works are necessary for salvation? What sort of disposition must believers have as they carry out these works? What motives must move Christians to perform these works? How many works are necessary? Such questions inevitably haunt those who deny the biblical doctrine of justification.

In reality, sola fide rules not only in matters pertaining to justification and the assurance of salvation, but also in matters pertaining to sanctification.

From a biblical perspective, the new life of a Christian flows directly out of justification. A Christian who believes that they have been reconciled to God and saved only through the blood and merits of Christ ceases striving to gain God’s favor by their own works.

Instead, good works are accomplished, not in order to gain forgiveness, but out of gratitude for the forgiveness freely given through Christ and received through faith alone. Indeed, truly good works flow naturally from a heart in which the gospel reigns.

This has tremendous impact upon the way in which a Christian views service to both God and neighbor. Does service to God simply become a means to seeking justification or does service to God spring out of love and gratitude for all that he has already freely given us in Christ? If the former, believers are in danger of viewing God as a miserly scrooge who only begrudgingly forgives if and when certain conditions are met. If the latter, believers are free to confidently and joyfully serve God knowing that Christ has redeemed them from sin. Does service to neighbor simply become a means toward seeking justification (after all, good works must have an object) or are believers free from compulsion in serving their neighbor and thereby freed up to genuinely love and serve others even as Christ has already loved and served them? If the former, the neighbor is in danger of becoming little more than the S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 23

been regarded as the central article of the Christian faith, as Luther testifies in his the truths of Christ alone, grace alone, Scripture alone, Prefaces to the New Testament: “[T]he true and chief article and glory to God alone come into proper biblical focus. of Christian doctrine is this: We must all be justified alone by faith in Jesus means to a self-serving end (i.e., justification). If the Christ, without any contribution from the law or help latter, the neighbor may be viewed quite simply as one from our works.”4 ■ who is in need of service, good works being performed purely for the benefit of the neighbor and not in order to merit something from God. Steven R.J. Parks is pastor of University Hills Lutheran Therefore, far from being the stuff of mere theological Church (Denver, Colorado) and contributor to Theologia et speculation, the doctrine of justification, particularly the Apologia: Essays in Reformation Theology and its doctrine of sola fide, has far-reaching implications for the Defense Presented to Rod Rosenbladt, eds. Adam S. life of the believer: (1) in how one receives salvation; Francisco, Korey D. Maas, and Steven P. Mueller (Eugene, Ore.: (2) in how one is assured of that salvation; (3) in how Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2007). one is sanctified in his or her life of faith; (4) in the motives for performing good works.

NOTES 1 Martin Luther, “Lectures on Genesis,” vol. 8, Luther’s Works, Sola Fide: The Central Article of the Christian Faith eds.

Jaroslav Pelikan and Walter A. Hansen (St. Louis: s has been previously asserted, Scripture is clear Concordia Publishing House, 1963), p. 326. in its presentation of the person of Christ as 2 Martin Luther, “Career of the Reformer, IV,” vol. 34, Luther’s central to the faith. Yet, throughout all of Works, eds. Helmut T. Lehmann and Lewis W. Spitz (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1960), p. 337.

Scripture, the work of Jesus is consistently linked to his 3 Ad Bonifactum Book 1, Chapter 21, cited in Martin person. Without his saving work, his person does Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, vol. 1, trans. Fred Christians very little good. Likewise, without his Kramer (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971), p. 506. identity as the incarnate Son of God, his work would be 4 Martin Luther, “Word and Sacrament, I,” vol. 35, Luther’s insufficient to save. Ultimately, the person and work of Works, eds. Helmut T. Lehmann and E. Theodore Bachmann (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1960), p. 363.

Christ are also linked to the reception of his saving benefits: eternal life, salvation, and the forgiveness of sins. Sola fide concerns itself with precisely this question, and thereby, becomes the central article of the faith.

The organic connection between sola fide and all of the other Reformation solas serves to highlight this truth. In the doctrine of justification through faith alone, the truths of Christ alone, grace alone, Scripture alone, and glory to God alone come into proper biblical focus. Faith looks outside of itself to the Christ who suffered and died to redeem his people and who continues to come to them in his word of promise.

Thus, as the chief article of the faith, sola fide not only puts the other solas in proper perspective, it relates to all of Christian doctrine, becoming the hub upon which all of theology turns.

This truth is illustrated in the life of the church throughout the centuries both corporately and individually. The doctrine of justification has been at the center of virtually every major doctrinal debate throughout the ages (implicitly or explicitly) and remains at the center of a believer’s life today, addressing questions such as how sinners are saved, how believers are assured of salvation, why Christians love and serve both God and neighbor, and so forth. Viewed from this perspective, it should come as no surprise that the doctrine of justification by faith alone, sola fide, has long

In the doctrine of justification through faith alone,

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The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, Through the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ; explained, confirmed, and vindicated. Part XV: Faith Alone

By John Owen (1616–1683)

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That faith whereby we are justified is most frequently in the New Testament expressed by receiving. This notion of faith has been before spoken unto, in our general inquiry into the use of it in our justification. It shall not, therefore, be here much again insisted on. Two things we may observe concerning it:— First, That it is so expressed with respect unto the whole object of faith, or unto all that does any way concur unto our justification; for we are said to receive Christ himself: “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God,” John 1:12; “As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord,” Col. 2:6. In opposition hereunto unbelief is expressed by not receiving of him, John 1:11; 3:11; 12:48; 14:17. And it is a receiving of Christ as he is “The LORD our Righteousness,” as of God he is made righteousness unto us. And as no grace, no duty, can have any cooperation with faith herein,—this reception of Christ not belonging unto their nature, nor comprised in their exercise,—so it excludes any other righteousness from our justification but that of Christ alone; for we are “justified by faith.” Faith alone receives Christ; and what it receives is the cause of our justification, whereon we become the sons of God. So we “receive the atonement” made by the blood of Christ, Rom. 5:11; for “God has set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” And this receiving of the atonement includes the soul’s approbation of the way of salvation by the blood of Christ, and the appropriation of the atonement made thereby unto our own souls. For thereby also we receive the forgiveness of sins: “That they may receive forgiveness of sins …by faith that is in me,” Acts 26:18. In receiving Christ we receive the atonement; and in the atonement we receive the forgiveness of sins. But, moreover, the grace of God, and righteousness itself, as the efficient and material cause of our justification, are received also; even the “abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness,” Rom. 5:17. So that faith, with respect unto all the causes of justification, is expressed by “receiving;” for it also receives the promise, the instrumental cause on the part of God thereof, Acts 2:41; Heb. 9:15. Secondly, That the nature of faith, and its acting with respect unto all the causes of justification, consisting in receiving, that which is the object of it must be offered, tendered, and given unto us, as that which is not our own, but is made our own by that giving and receiving.

This is evident in the general nature of receiving. And herein, as was observed, as no other grace or duty can concur with it, so the righteousness whereby we are justified can be none of our own antecedent unto this reception, nor at any time inherent in us. Hence we argue, that if the work of faith in our justification be the receiving

of what is freely granted, given, communicated, and imputed unto us,—that is, of Christ, of the atonement, of the gift of righteousness, of the forgiveness of sins,—then have our other graces, our obedience, duties, works, no influence into our justification, nor are any causes or conditions thereof; for they are neither that which does receive nor that which is received, which alone concur thereunto.

Faith is expressed by looking: “Look unto me, and be ye saved,” Isa. 45:22; “A man shall look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect unto the Holy One of Israel,” chap.17:7; “They shall look upon me whom they have pierced,” Zech. 12:10. See Ps.123:2. The nature hereof is expressed, John 3:14, 15, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” For so was he to be lifted up on the cross in his death, John 8:28, chap. 12:32. The story is recorded Numb.

21:8,9. I suppose none doubt but that the stinging of the people by fiery serpents, and the death that ensued thereon, were types of the guilt of sin, and the sentence of the fiery law thereon; for these things happened unto them in types, 1 Cor. 10:11. When any was so stung or bitten, if he betook himself unto any other remedies, he died and perished. Only they that looked unto the brazen serpent that was lifted up were healed, and lived; for this was the ordinance of God, —this way of healing alone had he appointed. And their healing was a type of the pardon of sin, with everlasting life. So by their looking is the nature of faith expressed, as our Saviour plainly expounds it in this place: “So must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him,” —that is, as the Israelites looked unto the serpent in the wilderness,— [“should not perish.”] And although this expression of the great mystery of the gospel by Christ himself has been by some derided, or, as they call it, exposed, yet is it really as instructive of the nature of faith, justification, and salvation by Christ, as any passage in the Scripture. Now, if faith, whereby we are justified, and in that exercise of it wherein we are so, be a looking unto Christ, under a sense of the guilt of sin and our lost condition thereby, for all, for our only help and relief, for deliverance, righteousness, and life, then is it therein exclusive of all other graces and duties whatever; for by them we neither look, nor are they the things which we look after.

But so is the nature and exercise of faith expressed by the Holy Ghost; and they who do believe understand his mind.

For whatever may be pretended of metaphor in the expression, faith is that act of the soul whereby they who are hopeless, helpless, and lost in themselves, do, in a way of expectancy and trust, seek for all help and relief in Christ alone, or there is not truth in it. And this also sufficiently evinces the nature of our justification by Christ.

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The Nature of

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he claim that justification comes sola fide was central to the debates of the Reformation. When the matter of sola fide is raised, however, attention tends to focus on the first of these words: alone. We remember that the reformers taught that justification is by faith alone while Roman Catholics countered that justification is by faith and good works. Thus, it may seem, both sides affirmed the importance of faith, but disagreed simply on whether anything had to be added to faith in order to secure justification. This is true in a sense—both sides did speak of the necessity of faith—but it can also be misleading.

It is potentially misleading because the reformers and Roman Catholics disagreed about more than whether justification was by faith alone. They also had different understandings of the nature and definition of faith. In other words, the Reformation diverged from Rome not only in affirming that faith alone justifies but also in defining the faith that justifies in the way that it did.

This dispute is much more than an historical curiosity.

Christians today who continue to affirm that faith alone justifies surely must take care to speak about this faith

accurately. If we are to make such lofty claims for faith we ought to be sure to understand what it is. And disagreements about the character of justifying faith remain alive. Despite some development in Roman Catholic teaching on faith that may seem to bring it closer to the Reformation’s understanding, fundamental

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differences still remain between them. In addition, in some contemporary controversies over the doctrine of justification in Protestant circles, certain writers have suggested an understanding of faith that also diverges from historic Reformation teaching. In this article, then, we will examine these different conceptions of faith and reflect upon the biblical teaching.

Different Definitions of Faith he Roman Catholic tradition tends to emphasize faith as an intellectual act, that is, as a way of knowing.

Often Roman Catholic theology distinguishes faith from reason. Reason is taken as a way of knowing that depends not upon supernatural revelation but upon what the human mind can know by its own intrinsic powers. Through reason, a person can gain true knowledge of many things about this world and even about God. Some things cannot be known by reason, however, according to traditional Roman teaching. By faith, then, a person comes to know things not by virtue of the natural light of reason but by divine revelation. Such knowledge rests upon the authority of God alone as he speaks in the Scriptures and especially in the church. Faith informs people of some things that can also be known by reason, but also of many things that are beyond the competence of reason. Some recent Roman Catholic theology, under the direction of the Second Vatican Council, has attempted to broaden this understanding of faith as a mode of knowledge, but this intellectual emphasis still remains.

For Rome, then, this faith as a mode of knowledge was deemed necessary, but insufficient, for justification. To faith must be added charity, or love. Faith that is “informed” by charity justifies while faith that lacks charity—a dead faith—cannot justify. This dead faith fails to justify not because there is something wrong with this faith in itself, but because the essential accompanying element of charity is absent. We will return momentarily to explore the significance of this fact.

In the light of this theological background, the reformers felt it was necessary not merely to insist that faith alone justifies but also to offer a different definition of justifying faith that better captures biblical teaching. They did not deny that there was an intellectual aspect of true faith. Faith certainly involves knowledge. But they were also convinced that faith is something more than this and, in fact, that this something more stands at the heart of what faith is. Three Latin terms often used to describe this enriched conception of justifying faith are notitia, assensus, and fiducia. Notitia refers to an intellectual understanding about Christ and his gospel. Assensus refers to an intellectual assent to the truth of what is proclaimed in the gospel. But beyond these crucial intellectual acts is fiducia, an act not of the intellect but of the will, which may be described simply as trust. Much more than being a mode of knowledge, faith involves a sincere trust in Christ and his gospel for salvation.

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Question and Answer 86 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism provides a concise and helpful statement of this insight. In response to the question of what faith in Jesus Christ is, the catechism answers: “Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel.”

Not only must the mind grasp the things about Christ and his gospel, but also the heart must rest upon him as the perfect Savior from sins. This character of justifying faith as trust in Christ has prompted some theologians to speak of faith as “extraspective.” The term introspective is familiar to most people: it refers to looking within oneself.

Something that is extraspective, then, concerns looking outside oneself. That is precisely what faith as trust does: it looks outside of oneself (thereby forsaking all selfconfidence) and rests upon another, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has done all things necessary for our salvation.

In light of this enriched understanding of faith, some important differences between Rome and the Reformation become entirely understandable. Because Rome tended to understand faith as a mode of knowledge, it naturally juxtaposed faith with reason. For Rome, faith and reason are two ways of knowing. In contrast, Protestant theology has much more commonly juxtaposed faith with works.

Because the heart of faith is not knowledge but extraspective trust, faith is most importantly to be distinguished from those good works that one might perform in order to merit salvation. From this perspective, faith is not a way of knowing to be distinguished from reason, but a means for attaining eternal life to be distinguished from good works. Whereas good works seek a self-achieved eternal life before God, faith forsakes all self-achievement and rests entirely upon Christ, who has achieved eternal life for us. This is why, for justification, faith must be alone. If justification required faith to be supplemented by any good works of our own then faith would no longer be what it is, a forsaking of confidence in one’s good works and complete confidence in the work of Christ.

This also helps to explain the different understandings of what a dead faith is. For Rome, as previously noted, faith is dead when it is not formed by charity, but this does not necessarily mean that there is something wrong with the faith itself. For the Reformation understanding of faith, on the other hand, faith is dead when it merely knows but does not trust. This is an important difference.

The reformers recognized that dead faith entails a defect in faith itself. Dead faith is not simply faith that lacks love or some other accompanying virtue, but a “faith” that is itself not at all true faith. Without that extraspective trust that rests upon Christ alone, “faith” that merely knows facts is unable to justify.

Before we turn to reflect upon biblical teaching about the nature of faith, it may be helpful to note another view of faith that has become popular among some people recently and also differs from historic Protestant teaching.

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with the so-called New Perspective on Paul and the Federal Vision circles, seeks to understand faith as encompassing the broader idea of faithfulness. Faith, in this view, involves not merely trust in Christ but also the range of obedient good works that faithfulness entails.

Whereas the Reformation insisted that good works must flow from faith as its fruit, while distinguishing them clearly, this other view sees both trust in Christ and covenant obedience as parts of a broader faith (or faithfulness) that justifies.

Biblical Teaching on the Nature of Faith he idea that faith entails extraspective trust in Christ can be seen in any number of biblical passages. It is important to remember that when Scripture refers to faith it does not always have exactly the same meaning of faith in mind. For instance, occasionally Scripture speaks of faith in terms of a general belief in the truth of God’s Word (sometimes called fides generalis). Paul, for example, says in Acts 24:14: “I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the prophets.”

Also, the same New Testament Greek word that is translated “faith,” pistis, can also mean “faithfulness.” And thus we can find examples of Scripture using pistis in this way (e.g., Matt. 23:23). But what is critical to note is that in contexts in which Scripture teaches about salvation in general and justification in particular it consistently uses the term faith to describe the extraspective trust in Christ described above. This is what theology refers to as a saving, justifying faith.

A first point that may strike readers as patently obvious is that Scripture emphasizes again and again that true faith is faith in Christ. But however obvious this may seem to Bible-reading Christians, it is not a truth that should be quickly passed over. It is not uncommon to hear unbelievers in times of anxiety or crisis saying things such as “you gotta have faith.” Yes, but faith in what? Biblical, justifying faith is not some general virtue by which someone retains a positive attitude in the face of uncertain circumstances but a very specific trust in something. Or, much better, trust in someone. Justifying faith does indeed believe all things written in the Law and the Prophets, as Paul states of himself in Acts 24, but even more importantly it rests in Christ himself and the promises offered in his gospel. Whosoever “believes in him” will not perish but receive eternal life (John 3:16); everyone “who believes in him” receives forgiveness of sins (Acts 10:43); the righteousness of God comes “through faith in Jesus Christ” (Rom. 3:22).

This Christ-centered, gospel-centered faith is, in Scripture, a faith of trust, of confidence in the face of every earthly reason to doubt. Readers familiar with Paul know that Romans and Galatians are his two letters that deal most extensively with justification, and in both of these letters he looks back to Habakkuk 2:4 as a central statement of the doctrine of faith that he teaches: “the righteous will live by faith.” The Hebrew word translated

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“faith” in Habakkuk 2:4 does not necessarily mean trust and, in fact, often means something different from this.

But the context in which the prophet makes this statement indicates why Paul saw this verse as expressing his gospel so clearly. In contrast to their Chaldean enemies threatening to engulf them, who are proud (1:8), rude (1:10), puffed up (2:4), and who make their own might their god (1:11), God’s people are called to live by faith.

Not self-sufficient and self-absorbed, they are to find their confidence outside of themselves—even when the figs, vines, olive trees, and fields fail to yield their produce, even when the flocks and herds are missing from the fold (3:17). Israel had no earthly reason to be confident, yet the Lord was their strength (3:19). Here is faith, an extraspective trust in the face of overwhelming earthly odds against them.

And so Paul finds Habakkuk’s brief statement about faith a marvelous summary of his gospel in Romans and Galatians. We may note how Paul describes this faith that justifies toward the end of Romans 4, in the midst of his larger discussion of justification by faith, and see how beautifully it corresponds to the sort of faith that Habakkuk commended many centuries before. In Romans 4:18–21, Paul writes concerning Abraham: In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

Like the Israelites in Habakkuk’s time, Abraham had no earthly reason to be confident about his future. He was almost 100 years old and his wife was barren—their medical odds of conceiving were zero. But Abraham was not looking to his own efforts or to earthly odds, but to God and his promises. This is indeed faith constituted by extraspective trust. Abraham was not deterred by “distrust” (the opposite of faith), but was “fully convinced” that God would do what he promised. What he could not do himself, God would do for him. This is the faith that justifies, as Paul explains in the very next verse: “That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.”

One matter that is important to note here is that faith, as extraspective trust, is different from every other righteous action that we perform. Unlike love, joy, patience, goodness, and all the other biblical virtues, faith looks outside of itself in order to rest upon and receive the work of another. Nothing else does this. That is why Scripture, and Paul especially, so emphatically and persistently draw such a sharp contrast between faith and works. Working—that is, fulfilling God’s law and earning

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everlasting life by one’s own accomplishments—and believing—that is, trusting in another to fulfill God’s law and earn everlasting life on our behalf—are two distinctive ways that one might be justified by God. Earlier in Romans 4 Paul crisply spells out this contrast. “Now to the one who works,” he writes in verse 4, “his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.” But, he continues in verse 5, “to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”

The very next verse speaks of God imputing righteousness apart from works, and Romans 5:16–19 explains that the righteousness that one receives by faith is a free gift consisting of Christ’s righteousness and obedience. Thus, here again is faith: not working or obeying the law so as to earn a reward, but believing in another and receiving from him that obedience that could never be self-attained.

It may be striking to realize just how often Paul makes this explicit contrast between faith and works, or faith and the law—at least a dozen times even by a conservative estimate. In one of these passages, Galatians 3:11–12, Paul uses the very Habakkuk 2:4 passage considered above to make this contrast. He writes: “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ But the law is not of faith, rather ‘The one who does them shall live by them.’” That Paul distinguishes justifying faith from the demands of the law, from all of those things that a person would have to obey perfectly in order to earn justification oneself, is eminently clear here: the law is not of faith! Faith alone, Habakkuk’s extraspective trust in the face of earthly adversity alone, not obedience to the law, is the means by which justification comes to sinners. Let one more familiar example from Paul suffice: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8–9).

Faith is trust. Faith is not one good work among others, but that which stands in sharp distinction from all good works in that it rests upon and receives the good works of another. Therefore, contrary to the claims of some contemporary writers, faith is not faithfulness.

Faithfulness, and all other good works, will flow from faith as we are sanctified by the Holy Spirit. But for justification, God’s declaration that we are righteous before him, one must make a choice: faith or works. Therefore only by faith alone will a sinner be justified.

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only instrument of justification. No, God declared that justification of sinners would come by faith because faith is exactly the right choice for the job. Because it looks outside of itself and rests upon the work of another, faith is supremely compatible with a salvation that is gracious, that is, not self-achieved.

Paul makes precisely this point in Romans 4:16: “That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.” Because this is a justification by faith, explains Paul, it is a promise that comes by grace. Is it conceivable that one could be justified by obedience to the law and still, somehow, preserve the gracious character of salvation? Paul denies this very thing: “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace” (Gal. 5:4).

Conclusion rom the Reformation to the present day, the battle for a biblical doctrine of justification has turned upon an understanding of sola fide. Justification comes by faith alone, but this is not just any faith.

Justifying faith, unlike any other virtue, and in defiance of every earthly discouragement, turns away from itself, places its confidence in the victorious work of Jesus Christ, and receives his perfect righteousness as an imputed gift.

By this faith, and no other—by this faith, and not love, faithfulness, or any other noble deed—the sinner stands justified before God. The gospel message continues to be: forsake all confidence in yourself and trust wholly in Christ. ■

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David VanDrunen is Robert B. Strimple professor of systematic theology and Christian ethics at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, CA). He is the author most recently of A Biblical Case for Natural Law (Acton Institute, 2006).

By Faith, Therefore By Grace ne final point may help to put this discussion of the nature of faith in perspective. As we have considered the nature of faith as extraspective trust in Christ, perhaps it has struck you how amazingly appropriate faith is as the only means by which we are justified. Faith was not some arbitrary condition for justification that God decided to impose. It is not as though kindness or patience could have substituted just as well for faith had God decided to make one of these the

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By Grace Through Faith or Why Prepositions Matter Pastors are used to hearing complaints about the big words of our theological vocabulary: words such as atonement, propitiation, and eschatology. I defend these “big words” because they carry so much good news. But it is just as important to argue for the little words of theology. After all, it was Jesus who insisted, “Until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matt. 5:18).

Some of the most important little words in the Bible are its prepositions. Prepositions are links that show the relationship between other words. We often use them spacially. In John 4, we learn that Jesus came “to a town of Samaria called Sychar,” and then was found sitting “beside the well” (John 4:5–6). When it comes to theology, prepositions define the logical relationship between terms and ideas. So giving careful attention to prepositions will help us to think clearly about the gospel.

As a classic instance, we know that grace and faith are related to our salvation. But what role is played by each of these and how do they relate? This is hardly an academic question, for our answer will say much about our practical religion. What does grace do for us? Which comes first, grace or faith? Is it grace that produces faith, or is it faith that gives us grace? We know that we must believe on Jesus to be saved, but can we trust our own faith to save us? If so, what does grace really mean? This confusion experienced by many people can be relieved by appeal to the prepositions in key Bible texts.

In one important salvation text, the Apostle Paul uses prepositions to relate grace, faith, and salvation: “For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8).

Salvation results from two things: grace and faith. So what is the role that each plays? The answer is found in the prepositions by and through.

The first preposition concerns God’s grace: Paul says we are saved by grace. This prepositional phrase is constructed by use of the Greek dative case to signify agency. “By grace” means “by the agency of grace.” This answers the question, Who saves us? Paul’s answer is that God saves us by his grace. Paul has insisted that we “were dead” in our “trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1), so that we are not able to do anything to initiate our salvation. Paul thus explains the agency of our salvation: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Eph. 2:4–5). So “by grace” means “because God graciously saved, making us alive with Christ.” This is why Paul literally writes, “by the grace you have been saved.” It is not by grace as a principle that we are saved, but by the particular grace which God has given us in Christ that we gain salvation.

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expressed by Paul’s use of the preposition dia. In the construction used here, dia refers to the means or instrumentality by which we are saved. We are saved by God’s grace—grace is the ground and agency of our salvation—through faith, which is the means by which we receive the gift of salvation. Faith is viewed as a channel, so that just as water flows through a pipe, God’s gracious gift of salvation is received through our faith.

When we line up the relationship between grace, faith, and salvation in terms of these prepositions, we discover a glorious gospel. It is because our salvation is “by grace” that we may rest all our hopes upon God. God does not and cannot change, and so his grace is completely reliable.

God’s gifts—and salvation by grace means that salvation is God’s free gift—are never taken back (cf. Rom. 11:29). If we have been saved by grace, we have been saved by God, and what God begins he always finishes (cf. Phil. 1:6). So instead of worrying about our salvation we are freed to devote ourselves to praise. By grace! By God! What praise he deserves from us!

But how do I know that I have received this grace? The answer is “through faith” in Christ Jesus. We see this teaching again in Paul’s great statement of Romans 3:23–25: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” In this longer formula, Paul adds another prepositional phrase involving through and by: “through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Redemption is the means by which God gives us grace—salvation is through redemption—and Christ is the agent who provided this redemption— redemption is by Christ. Putting it all together, we see that our justification is by God’s grace (God is the giver) through the redemption (redeeming blood is the means by which God gives his saving grace), which came by Christ Jesus (Jesus is the one whose blood is redeeming), and is received by actual sinners through faith (our faith is the instrumental means by which we receive God’s saving gift).

So what are we to trust? Are we to trust our faith? Not at all, for as Paul explains, “this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8–9). Even our faith is God’s gift, graciously given for our salvation. So does our faith matter at all?

Yes, it matters very much! For without the faith that God gives, his grace cannot be received. Through faith, we can know that God has saved us by his grace.

Thank God for prepositions! Let’s pay attention to them, for in these little words we gain big truths for our growth in Christian truth.

Richard D. Phillips is senior minister of Second Presbyterian Church (PCA) of Greenville, South Carolina.

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God Is Just In civil courts and in human judgment, issues about rights or debts are certain, and mercy is uncertain. But the matter is different in God’s judgment. Here mercy has a clear and certain promise and command from God. (Apology to the Augsburg Confession, III, 224).

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t would make a great episode of Perry Mason or Law & Order. The defendant has been caught red-handed committing murder. He has no explanation or alibi.

The prosecutor has eyewitnesses, fingerprint and DNA evidence, the murder weapon, and a signed confession.

The case is airtight.

Yet the defendant pleads “not guilty.”

Moreover, the defendant rejects his right to counsel. He insists on representing himself and taking the stand in his own defense. But he doesn’t plead the fifth; he doesn’t dispute any of the testimony or evidence against him.

Instead, his testimony consists of a long list of good deeds he has done, all carefully cataloged and recorded. His closing argument is bold, if not persuasive: Members of the jury, I am not asking for mercy or pardon. I want justice. I am demanding full acquittal. Yes, I committed the murder of which I am accused. But I’m not guilty. Members of the jury, you must consider all my good deeds—not merely as mitigating circumstances—but as reason for exonerating me. The goodness of my other deeds outweighs the crime I committed. My good deeds require a “not guilty” verdict. If justice is to be done, you must find me innocent.

We would call him a sociopath, wouldn’t we? Only a sociopath would believe that good deeds, even a life of good deeds, could offset the crime of murder.

But think about it: this fictional defendant is no more

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TODD WILKEN

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Some have taken Paul’s words, “alternately accusing or else defending them” to Self-justification is the attempt to cancel law-breaking mean that the conscience’s testimony can help the with law-keeping. sinner’s case in God’s court.

Not so. Notice that Paul’s pathological than you or I. We often approach the bar of description of the conscience is much stronger than the God’s court presenting the same case and making the same Sunday school cliché, “that little voice in your head” or argument. Call it rationalization. Call it excuse making. It “my personal sense of right and wrong.” For Paul the is every bit as perverse and pathological as our fictional conscience is “the work of the Law written in the heart.” defendant’s closing argument. And it all amounts to the What is the work of the Law? According to Paul, the work same thing: self-justification. of the Law is to produce the knowledge of sin: Self-justification isn’t a plea bargain, a plea of no contest, or a plea for leniency. No such pleas are permitted Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to in God’s court. In God’s court the only pleas permitted are those who are under the law, that every mouth may “guilty” or “not guilty.” Make no mistake about it: selfbe stopped, and all the world may become guilty justification is a brazen assertion of innocence. before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no Self-justification is the idea that guilt is cancelled by flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the good deeds. It was a concept familiar to the sixteenth knowledge of sin. (Rom. 2:19–20) century reformers. They called it “the doctrine of works.”

They considered it the primary object of their reforms: The law always accuses. So, even when the conscience testifies in the sinner’s defense, that testimony doesn’t help Heretofore consciences were plagued with the the sinner’s case. You see, when the conscience testifies for doctrine of works, they did not hear the consolation the sinner, it still does so on the basis of the law. In fact, this from the Gospel. Some persons were driven by is how self-justification works. Self-justification is the conscience into the desert, into monasteries hoping attempt to cancel law-breaking with law-keeping. there to merit grace by a monastic life. Some also Self-justification is an attempt to silence the law with devised other works whereby to merit grace and the law. But the law is not the sinner’s friend. The more make satisfaction for sins. Hence there was very we offer our law-keeping to prove our innocence, the great need to treat of, and renew, this doctrine of more we affirm the law’s standard, and thereby faith in Christ, to the end that anxious consciences unwittingly prove our guilt. Commenting on the opening should not be without consolation but that they chapters of Romans, George Meisinger writes: might know that grace and forgiveness of sins and justification are apprehended by faith in Christ.1 Chapters one and two are a terrible court room scene that leaves all men guilty, and condemned—with no Not much has changed since the sixteenth century. The help from the law. The law stands as an unrelenting sinner’s effort at self-justification is still the greatest enemy prosecuting attorney saying, “You’re guilty! And, of true, divine justification. your good works will not help. All attempts to keep rules and laws only compound sin, guilt, and In Contempt of Court condemnation.”2 here is an ancient principle of jurisprudence: Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur (“no one should be In self-justification, we try to cancel our guilt regarding punished for his thoughts”). This principle is vital in one command by obedience to other commands. But the human courts of law. We cannot judge another person’s law isn’t a series of individual commands; it is the whole, thoughts, only his actions. But things are different in seamless will of God. “For whoever shall keep the whole God’s court. God can and does judge thoughts. In God’s law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all” courtroom, the thinking of the accused—his conscience— (James 2:10; also Gal. 5:2–4). The law demands perfect is called to testify. St. Paul writes: obedience. Therefore only perfect obedience can silence the law’s accusations.

When Gentiles who do not have the Law do Just like our fictional defendant, the self-justifying instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having sinner responds to the accusations of law with what the the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show medieval church would have called “satisfactions,” or the work of the Law written in their hearts, their guilt-canceling good works. But the accusations of the law conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts cannot be silenced by our works. God isn’t satisfied with alternately accusing or else defending them. (Rom. our works, and the law written in the heart continually 2:14–15) reminds us of that. As a consequence, our contempt for

In fact, this is how self-justification works.

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God grows. Luther’s famous reflection on his conversion is a case in point: Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God.3 The accusations of the law produce hostility toward God. God has written this law on the heart. So, in the end, the self-justifying sinner must silence God himself. Realizing this, the reformers saw self-justification for what it really was: idolatry.

There is also a false worship and extreme idolatry … it concerns the conscience alone, which seeks help, consolation, and salvation, in its own works. This conscience imagines it can wrestle heaven away from God and thinks about how many requests it has made, how often it has fasted, celebrated Mass, and so on. Upon such things it depends and boasts, as though unwilling to receive anything from God as a gift. For it wants to earn or merit heaven with abundant works. The conscience acts as though God must serve us and is our debtor, and we His liege lords. What is this but reducing God to an idol— indeed, an apple-god—and elevating and regarding ourselves as God?4 Self-justification turns divine justice on its head. It turns the accused into the judge, and the judge into the accused.

The law is intended to silence sinners before God. Selfjustification uses the law to silence God before the sinner.

The law is intended to hold the sinner accountable to God. Self-justification holds God accountable to the sinner.

Self-justification is an attempt to do away with God by the law. Yet this is the only way the sinner knows how to use God’s law. It is the only defense the sinner knows against the law’s accusations. Left to ourselves, we would all go brazenly before the bar of God’s justice and make our perverse and pathological case, sinner after sinner, all pleading our innocence before God, seeking not mercy, but justice on our own terms. Left to ourselves, we would receive exactly what we seek—justice—in Hell forever.

We Find the Defendant Not Guilty o, how does God deal with sinners, convinced of their own innocence, yet apparently hell-bent upon their own conviction? Luther writes:

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God saw that the universal illusion of selfrighteousness could not be put down in any other way but by the Law. The Law dispels all selfillusions. It puts the fear of God in a man. Without

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this fear there can be no thirst for God’s mercy. God accordingly uses the Law for a hammer to break up the illusion of self-righteousness, that we should despair of our own strength and efforts at selfjustification.5 God lets the law do its work. To the sinner convinced that he can prove his innocence by the law, God answers with the Law: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev. 19:2; 1 Pet. 1:16). To the sinner who offers into evidence his own law-keeping, God responds with the Law: “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the Law” (Gal. 3:10). To the sinner who says, “Yes, I have sinned, but consider the good I have done!” God answers, “By the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in My sight” (Rom. 3:20; Gal. 2:16). In the end, the more the selfjustifying sinner asserts his innocence, the more he proves his guilt. God is just. His justice knows no leniency. God must acquit the innocent and punish the guilty.

True, divine justification is not leniency; it is not a suspended sentence or probation. God is just. In his court there are only the guilty or the innocent. God must acquit the innocent and punish the guilty. Divine justification is God’s justice. Paul writes: There is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Rom. 3:22–26) God set forth Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for sin “that He might be just.”

In divine justification, God punished the guilty. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21; Isa. 53:6). God imputed the sin of the whole world to Jesus his Son. God made Jesus responsible for our crimes.

Not only that, but Jesus pled guilty to those crimes by bearing the punishment for them. Jesus willingly accepted the verdict and sentence against us at the cross.

In divine justification, God acquits the innocent. Paul writes: What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.

(Rom. 8:3–4)

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merciful to sinners. His mercy to sinners is certain, because mercy is founded in the no charges of any kind can ever be brought against us. cross—God’s justice.

The gavel of God’s The same act of divine justice that condemned sin in Jesus, courtroom falls at Calvary. With every hammer blow that fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law in us. The nailed Jesus to the cross, God pronounces his verdict same act of divine justice that made Jesus sin, made us the against sin, and pronounces us “not guilty.” ■ righteousness of God in him. Divine justification is not divine make-believe; it is real, complete divine justice. In Todd Wilken is host of the nationally syndicated radio program, divine justification, God punished the guilty and acquitted Issues, Etc. the innocent. In divine justification, God punished Jesus and acquitted us.

The forgiveness of sins is not leniency; it is not a NOTES suspended sentence or probation. The forgiveness of sins 1 Augsburg Confession, Article XX. is nothing less than the unequivocal “not guilty” verdict in 2 George Meisinger, “Grace and Justification,” Chafer God’s courtroom. It is full acquittal, exoneration and Theological Seminary Journal, vol. 5, no. 1, March 1999, p. vindication. Again, Meisinger writes: 29.

3 Martin Luther, Career of the Reformer, IV, vol. 34, Luther’s Justification involves more than a mere Works, eds. Helmut T. Lehmann and Lewis W. Spitz (St. pronouncement of innocence. It includes imputed Louis: Concordia, 1960), pp. 336–337. righteousness. God credits to our accounts perfect 4 Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, I.22–23. righteousness and pronounces believers to be 5 Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians acquitted, forgiven, forever made right in His eyes.

(1535), trans. Theodore Graebner (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, On the one hand, then, God does a negative thing: 1949), p. 142.

He takes away our sin. On the other hand, He does 6 George Meisinger, “Grace and Justification,” Chafer a positive thing: He adds righteousness to our Theological Seminary Journal, vol. 5, no.1, March 1999, pp. accounts in the bookkeeping system of heaven.

47–48.

Thus, every accusation Satan brings against us in court, the Lord throws out. Satan’s prosecuting efforts are futile. He has not won even one case against God’s elect and never will.6

Since our acquittal in Jesus Christ is absolute,

Isn’t this exactly what Paul says in Romans 8?

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect?

It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? (Rom. 8:31–35) As in human courts, in God’s court there is no double jeopardy. Since our acquittal in Jesus Christ is absolute, no charges of any kind can ever be brought against us.

Our sinful efforts at self-justification turn divine justice on its head. We demand acquittal on the basis of our works. True justification is God’s justice. God freely gives us full acquittal on the basis of Jesus’ works. The selfjustifying sinner demands that God be just on the sinner’s terms. But God is just on his own terms, and he justifies sinners on his own terms.

In justifying the sinner, God is just. The guilty is punished; the innocent are acquitted. In exercising such justice, God is 3 4 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

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ou may have heard the story of the Mennonite Brethren movement. One particular analysis goes like this: the first generation believed and proclaimed the gospel and thought that there were certain social entailments. The next generation assumed the gospel and advocated the entailments. The third generation denied the gospel and all that were left were the entailments.1 Another story. In 1919, Trinity Great Court in Cambridge saw a meeting between Rollo Pelly, the secretary of the liberal Student Christian Movement (SCM), and Daniel Dick and Norman Grubb (president and secretary of the evangelical Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union [CICCU]). The meeting was to discuss the reunification of the two movements that had split in 1910.

Norman Grubb’s account of the meeting is infamous: After an hour’s talk, I asked Rollo point blank: “Does the SCM put the atoning blood of Jesus Christ central?” He hesitated, and then said: “Well, we acknowledge it, but not necessarily central.” Dan Dick and I then said that this settled the matter for us in the CICCU. We could never join something that

did not maintain the atoning blood of Jesus Christ at its centre; and we parted company.2 In its earliest days, the SCM believed and proclaimed the atoning blood of Jesus. The next generation assumed it but did not make it central. The following generations have rejected and denied the apostolic gospel.3 Proclaiming, assuming, denying. This description of a movement’s history is admittedly something of a caricature—any such development would always be the result of many complex factors. Nevertheless, it is a useful way of attempting to identify defining decisions that profoundly shape a movement’s evolution, and it has lessons for us about the dangers and challenges facing other similar movements.

I want to suggest that Evangelicalism—Christianity that gets its definition from the gospel, the good news—is exactly one such “movement,” and to try to examine what Evangelicalism in the middle stage, the assumed stage,

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DAVID GIBSON

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looks like. This article suggests that all who use the name evangelical, and who are therefore claiming an important commitment to the gospel, are susceptible to the very subtle drift that can take place from proclaiming through assuming to denying the gospel.

Definition ssumed Evangelicalism believes and signs up to the gospel. It certainly does not deny the gospel. But in terms of priorities, focus, and direction, Assumed Evangelicalism begins to give gradually increasing energy to concerns other than the gospel and key evangelical distinctives, to gradually elevate secondary issues to a primary level, to be increasingly worried about how it is perceived by others, and to allow itself to be increasingly influenced both in content and method by the prevailing culture of the day.

It is relatively straightforward to point to individuals, churches, movements, and institutions that are clearly either proclaiming the gospel or denying it. However, it is extremely difficult to spot Assumed Evangelicalism and to evaluate and critique it. The reason that it is so hard to evaluate and critique is precisely because it is Assumed Evangelicalism.

In other words, it acknowledges all the right things. The theology of Assumed Evangelicalism could well be faultless and, when asked to do so, is probably able to articulate itself in an exemplary way. The danger of Assumed Evangelicalism is precisely the fact that it has come from somewhere very distinct and is heading to somewhere very distinct but the in-between-ness of it makes it a lot harder to evaluate clearly. The crossing of boundaries is notoriously hard to see until you have arrived on the other side. This means at least two things.

First, it means that attempts to question people, churches, or movements and institutions that are perceived to be sliding into Assumed Evangelicalism will always risk being labeled judgmental at best and, at worst, the scare-mongering of the “fundamentalist” fringe.

Those raising the questions must be willing to accept that their judgments may be misplaced and unfair.

Nevertheless, if Assumed Evangelicalism is a reality, then it is in all our interests to be willing to discuss, with love and humility, how far its characteristics may be true of us and our institutions.

Second, it means that many assessments of Assumed Evangelicalism will be largely criticisms of potential as opposed to actual. A fundamental worry aroused by Assumed Evangelicalism is generational—if we continue down this line in this particular way where will the next generation stand on this issue? In many cases (although certainly not all), criticisms may need to be tentative and provisional, to guard against the unnecessary fragmentation of Evangelicalism and the drawing of lines before they need to be drawn. Such criticisms may be considered rude, but they show a commitment to the need to draw lines somewhere. We cannot afford to ignore the

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deceptions of our own hearts and the world in which we live. Both of these can subtly distort and truncate the biblical gospel.

If, then, Assumed Evangelicalism is a recognizable phase in which an individual, or movement, or church may find itself, what does the phase actually look like?

What are its characteristics? We can address the issue positively by asking two questions to determine which of the three stages best describes ourselves and our ministries.

Gospel Priorities?

1. To what extent does the gospel dictate our priorities in life, and the visions and strategies of our churches, movements, and institutions?

In Romans 1:1–6, Paul summarizes the gospel which his letter will unpack. Paul says that the gospel is God’s (v. 1); is in the whole Bible (v. 2); is about Jesus as man and divine king; concerns his death and resurrection (v. 3); and is confrontational (v. 5). The organizing principle or heart of the gospel is that Jesus Christ is Lord (v. 4b).

Of course, such compact sentences are not the absolutely last word on the gospel, but they at least provide a framework for the truths that are at the very center of our lives and the proclamation in our churches and evangelical organizations. The spiritual health check for Assumed Evangelicalism is to look at these key gospel truths and to ask: Are we gradually beginning to move on from these truths to new initiatives which are effectively leaving the gospel behind? Are we pouring our lives into reliving, retelling, re-believing this same gospel story? Are we doing so day after day, with increasing personal understanding and deepening joy and gratitude? Let me illustrate this further.

Imagine Soundville Evangelical Church around the corner from you. It is a typical evangelical church with a Sunday school and youth work, a midweek prayer meeting, two services on a Sunday with lively hymns, contemporary songs, and half-hour sermons. How would we know if this was a church that was beginning to just assume the gospel? There could be two symptoms: legalism and license.

Legalism It is quite possible that the gospel is preached in the life of the church, but the Christian congregation does not make the connection between that gospel and their own lives. One of the hallmarks of an assumed gospel in an evangelical church is that the gospel is regarded as being for the outsiders, the non-Christians who ever so rarely slip in to one of the services. When we limit the gospel in this way to unbelievers we begin to adopt extra ways of relating to God and to others, and they all fall under the label of legalism. This is the opposite of the gospel of grace—striving to be acceptable first of all to God and then to others by keeping rules and by outward behavior.

Churches at the Reformed or conservative end of the spectrum can be especially prone to their own set of extra

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rules: what we wear on a Sunday, how many services we attend, the version of Bible and hymnbook that we use, what must happen at which point in the service, whether we keep the pews or the organ. Churches like this are often only a generation away from extinction and from denying the gospel by losing sight of its primacy.

But in any church, legalism may also exist in much more serious forms, such as everyone constantly appearing sorted and problem-free, or preaching that constantly scolds and sets unrealistic standards. You will know your pastors are assuming God’s grace instead of daily experiencing it if they are the sort of people you would never go to with your moral failure. This kind of legalism then begins to take various forms in our lives: pride because we class ourselves as better than others and can keep some of the rules some of the time, or guilt and despair because behind closed doors we know that really we don’t keep most of the rules most of the time.

Assuming the gospel means that we regard it as what gets us to heaven but that other things are needed to make us good Christians—it is Jesus plus-something-else that is what we really need to be right before God and others.

When Paul rebuked Peter in Galatians 2:11–21 it was because he was assuming the grace of the gospel but saying Jesus plus-certain-dining-customs were essential as well.

The antidote to legalism is always to recover the sheer scandal of the gospel of grace. In this church the question to ask is: When was the last time my pulse quickened because of the wonder of God’s forgiveness of my sin that was so clearly being presented? Expounding Romans 6:1, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones had this penetrating insight: There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation than this: that some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret to mean that because you are saved by grace alone it does not matter at all what you do; you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace. If my preaching and presentation of the gospel of salvation does not expose it to that misunderstanding then it is not the gospel.4 In other words, the effect of truly grasping the gospel is to find ourselves amazed at the fact that what we do adds nothing and takes away nothing from what God has done for us in the Lord Jesus. When the church realizes that this gospel is what we need to encounter every day as Christians then it stops assuming the gospel and begins to give it center stage in every aspect of the church’s life.5 License The other symptom of assuming the gospel is exactly what we meet in Romans 6:1 and in the Lloyd-Jones quote above—license. This is thinking that because the gospel of grace is so amazing, it really does not matter how we live from now on. License means we assume the

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gospel is what makes us right with God but because of that we can now do whatever we want.

The most common form this takes is moral license—I am saved by grace so my sexual immorality or my gossiping and coveting does not really bother God. In Soundville Evangelical Church there may be some Christians who are assuming the gospel like this. They are ignoring the effect that grace really has in our lives when we grasp it properly: it is actually grace that “teaches us to say no to ungodliness … and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:12). However, there is another type of license and this is probably more likely to afflict the church as a whole: practical license.

What happens here is that the gospel is assumed as being true and important but the actual practice of the church has little to do with the structure and content of the gospel. So, for instance, a church that is just assuming the gospel in this way will begin to foster distorted spirituality. We know about the contemporary fascination with spirituality, where the word is used to mean any way which you choose to relate to the divine—whether that’s he, she, it, or yourself. We are, however, less aware of our evangelical approaches to spirituality that are distorted.

The gospel tells us that we draw near to God only by “the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body” (Heb. 10:19–20).

But we act licentiously towards a truth like that when we regard singing or “worship,” or anything else that we can think of—religious art, breathtaking scenery, a church building—as what actually draws us close to God. The fact is that we are no closer to God in the silence of a majestic cathedral than the pub. I once heard a conference speaker recommend that evangelical churches learn from other Christian traditions and deepen their spirituality by adopting the best of Catholicism, Anglo-Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and so on. This is profoundly mistaken because it is assuming that the gospel is true but we can draw near to God by other means as well. It is practical license.

Underlying this is a tendency to assume the gospel by elevating experience. Where this is happening, the church will be marked by an increasingly personalized approach to the Christian life. Christians begin to act only on what they believe God is saying directly to them, with the end result that the biblical gospel begins to seem less immediate and relevant than the latest “word from the Lord.” The subtle drift towards “personalized truth” leads to all kinds of distortions: God becomes known only in as much as we experience him; we relate to God on the basis of what we personally find helpful; we believe the right things but become reluctant to state that the opposite of those things is wrong.

Far from being innocuous, practical license is only a generation away from establishing a skewed conception of the Christian life as the accepted norm. The antidote to this kind of assuming the gospel is to reflect more deeply on the content of the gospel and to ask whether this S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 37

content is actually the substance of what we are about in the life of the church. Is our spirituality gospel spirituality—marked by the Bible, the cross, Christ as Savior and Lord? Is our experience gospel experience— marked by growing awareness of our sin and deepening experience of God’s grace? This brings us to our second question.

Evangelical Priorities 2. To what extent do the key features of Evangelicalism dictate our priorities in life, the visions and strategies of our churches, movements, and institutions?

The biblical gospel points us to an evangelical understanding of Christianity. This is theology constructed outwards from, and built on, the gospel. For example, the message of a truthful God revealing good news in the Scriptures points us to belief in an authoritative, reliable, truthful written word. That the Father’s mission in sending the Son, and the Son’s willing obedience to the Father, climaxes in the death of the Son, points us to the belief that the cross is central to biblical Christianity. And so on. This means that biblical authority, the cross, christocentricity in life and doctrine are necessary entailments of the gospel. We cannot claim we are gospel people if we are not also Bible people, cross-centered people, conversionfocused people, Christ-knowing and Christ-adoring people. This also means that a vital way to evaluate our Evangelicalism is to ask to what extent these issues dictate our priorities in life and our visions and strategies. Again let me illustrate this in two separate areas with regard to two key features of Evangelicalism—biblical authority and the cross.

Evangelical Theology and Assumed Biblical Authority n the book Letters Along the Way: A Novel of the Christian Life, the senior scholar Professor Paul Woodson writes to the young Timothy Journeyman who has just embarked on theological study: “I doubt very much that evangelicals are wise to pursue academic respectability.

What we need is academic responsibility. There is a world of difference. Elevating academic respectability to the level of controlling desideratum is an invitation to theological and spiritual compromise.”6 Academic respectability and academic responsibility adopt different approaches to the matter of biblical authority. Respectability will often simply assume that the Bible is truthful and authoritative but realizes that to draw attention to this in the academy will often bring scorn and derision. One practical outcome of this is that evangelicals then set out to study Scripture using accepted critical tools, while all along quietly assuming that the Bible is also a product of the divine mind and therefore authoritative.

What this leads to, however, is an explicitly nontheological approach to the Bible which ultimately leaves the Bible answerable to all the latest critical theories. In reality, the divine and human aspects of Scripture present themselves to us together as “the very words of God”

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(Rom. 3:2; Acts 7:38) and this means that any study of those words, in their humanness and with critical tools, must be guided by that theological presupposition.

Responsibility, on the other hand, recognizes this as our evangelical starting point and accepts that it is not a presupposition shared by the academic world at large.

Striving to be responsible though, means that the students work to the best of their ability, weigh all the options, think openly and creatively, and read widely—but are governed by the desire to remain faithful to the Bible and not the academy.

This has a number of implications. First: on a personal level, as we study theology in the now largely secular academy there is a need to make hard decisions about whether we prize intellectual respectability and prestige on the exam results board more than we cherish a desire to sit under and be mastered by Scripture. Of course, in some situations good results can be compatible with faithfulness to the Bible, but in many places they are not. However, the dangers are often more subtle than a plain choice between compromise or respect—the real temptation will be to just assume the authority of the Bible and then to expend our academic energy on other acceptable concerns. However, regularly trying to articulate biblical authority will ultimately mean that we are forced into a way of studying that is critical of the prevailing sources and criteria for theology, and that means we ask in each essay and exam: Is what I am writing compatible with the fact that I believe the words of Scripture are the very words of God? In what way is that belief expressed in my academic work and, more importantly, the way I live?

Second: for institutions such as an evangelical theological college, there is a need to actively contend for biblical authority and to appoint staff who find it liberating, joyful, and want to teach it in order to produce students who want to live by it. I would want to go as far as saying that, in an evangelical theological college, rigorous commitment to biblical authority must rank higher on the list of required qualities for a member of staff than academic qualifications—and the latter are extremely important. Of course, in such a college, fidelity to Scripture will never be explicitly displaced by academic qualifications and requirements, but when it is assumed rather than articulated, then the real esteem in which it is held is unwittingly put on display. The generational question is: How long will it be before it does not even have to be assumed?

Evangelical Movements and the Assumed Cross recently read through the magazine of an influential Christian charitable organization.

The magazine describes the organization as an evangelical Christian movement. By the time I had finished reading, the word that I had met most frequently was “justice,” along with its many applications to various sociopolitical and economic crises and the very right need for action and intervention by those able to do so. It was also clear that the word

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justice was being used in an almost exclusively social sense, with no consideration of the wider senses of the biblical concept of divine justice. In this kind of publication, what is being sidelined is a development of the theme of justice in a way that moves through the biblical literature to show how the theme reaches a decisive climax in the cross of Christ. What is being obscured is the fact that God’s justice would consume the oppressed refugee in a shanty town as much as it would consume the privileged Westerner with immediate enjoyment of all their human rights or the corrupt dictator who creates refugee crises. The storyline of the whole Bible presents us with the cross as the place where God uniquely demonstrates his justice with the result that, as one writer has put it, “What Golgotha secured for us was not sympathy but immunity.”7 I do not wish to be misunderstood here. I am not suggesting that organizations like this do not believe what I have stated about the cross. Thoroughly evangelical belief is doubtlessly enshrined somewhere in a doctrinal basis or statement of faith. However, by just assuming this truth, rather than clearly and repeatedly articulating it and letting it govern the contours of the movement’s vital engagement with social issues, there is vast potential for the next generation to deny what they have simply never had the chance to understand.

It is worth simply asking at regular intervals what role the doctrinal basis or statement of faith actually plays in the life of our movements. Does the doctrinal basis gradually find its significance in being a certificate of orthodoxy, a flag of convenience, the criteria necessary for showing that we are “sound” and truly belong in a certain constituency? The acceptable face of this approach to a doctrinal basis is that it is presented at key moments in the annual calendar, or reprinted from time to time in all the right publications. When this happens, but then is practically ignored in the day-to-day policy of our movement, the doctrinal basis is unwittingly beginning to function primarily as a boundary marker. The truth it expresses begins to be assumed rather than cherished and preached and we only retreat to it to prove our orthodoxy under challenge. Ironically, it is this kind of approach to a doctrinal basis that supports postmodern criticisms that movements like Evangelicalism really revolve around power issues—we give credence to claims like this when we simply use a doctrinal basis to paint ourselves within the correct boundaries. But it is a lot harder to sustain the power criticism when it is clearly seen that a doctrinal basis contains the source of our joy, our humility, our love, and the motivation for our ministry. We need to be constantly asking ourselves: do we find these theological truths liberating and joyful or are they beginning to seem narrow and slightly restrictive? Are they worked out in the structures of our ministry, the conferences we organize, the partnerships we pursue, the topics we preach on, and the books that we write? This sort of questioning is needed to keep the truths alight and not just assumed.

E V A N G E L I C A L I S M

Conclusion he particular examples and illustrations I have used all overlap. An evangelical church is just as susceptible to only assuming the cross; an evangelical theology student will always face the temptation to assume the gospel and live legalistically or licentiously; an evangelical movement is always susceptible to assuming biblical authority, or functioning legalistically or with practical license. If the argument of this article is valid, then it is worth thinking through what the overlap in each of these areas would actually look like.

But for each of the areas it is vital to realize that the temptations we face are often exceedingly subtle. Some evangelical biographies and histories give the impression that difficult decisions only need to be made when we reach a watershed moment, a clear-cut choice between truth and error. In reality, such crisis points come about because of daily decisions, made on a minute scale and over a period of time, either to assume evangelical distinctives or actively articulate them. Individually, every day, we face the choice whether to sit under the Bible alone, to run to the cross alone and look to Christ alone, or to begin to shift our gaze on to other things. Once we begin simply to assume these truths, then we are already beginning to stop “acting in line with the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:14). The potential consequences for ourselves are harmful; for the generation following us they are disastrous. ■

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This article first appeared in the RTSF newsletter From Athens to Jerusalem, Vol. 3, Issue 4, Autumn 2002. It is reprinted here with permission and some minor alterations.

David Gibson is a doctoral candidate at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK, where his thesis examines the exegesis of election in Calvin and Barth. He was formerly a staff worker with the Religious and Theological Studies Fellowship (part of the British InterVarsity movement, UCCF). He is editor of the Biblical Theology Briefings (www.beginningwithmoses.org).

NOTES 1 D. A. Carson, The Primacy of Expository Preaching (Tape 1).

Address given at Bethlehem Conference for Pastors, 1995.

2 Norman P. Grubb, Once Caught, No Escape, 56. Quoted in John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Westmont, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986), p. 8.

3 See Risto Lehtonen, Story of a Storm (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).

4 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Exposition of Chapter 6. The New Man Romans. (London: Banner of Truth, 1972), p. 8.

5 For more on grace in the Christian life, see ‘Legalism and its Antidotes’ at: www.beginningwithmoses.org.

6 D. A. Carson and J. D. Woodbridge, Letters Along the Way: A Novel of the Christian Life (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1993), p. 174.

7 Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ (Westmont, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p. 178.

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Patristic Texts on Justification

By Thomas C. Oden Out of an abundance of patristic texts on justification, I have selected a few typical examples from the East and a few from the West to show exemplary expressions of clear, explicit preProtestant, authentically Pauline justification teaching.

Early Eastern Voices on Justification Key textual evidences from Origen, John Chrysostom, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus show that leading eastern patristic writers anticipated standard classic Reformation teaching on justification: The leading biblical interpreter from the great school of Antioch, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, in his fourth-century commentary on the Epistles of Paul, reflected on Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith,” in this way: “All we bring to grace is our faith. But even in this faith, divine grace itself has become our enabler. For [Paul] adds, ‘And this is not of yourselves but it is a gift from God; not of works, lest anyone should boast (Eph. 2:8-9).’ It is not of our own accord that we have believed, but we have come to belief after having been called; and even when we had come to believe, He did not require of us purity of life, but approving mere faith, God bestowed on us forgiveness of sins” (Interpretation of the Fourteen Epistles of Paul).1 A thousand years before Luther.

A generation before Theodoret, John Chrysostom had expressly stated: “So that you may not be elated by the magnitude of these benefits, see how Paul puts you in your place. For ‘by grace you have been saved,’ he says ‘through faith.’ Then, so as to do no injury to free will, he allots a role to us, then takes it away again, saying ‘and this not of ourselves’…Even faith, he says, is not from us. For if the Lord had not come, if he had not called us, how should we have been able to believe? ‘For how,’ [Paul] says, ‘shall they believe if they have not heard?’ (Rom. 10:14).

So even the act of faith is not self-initiated. It is, he says, ‘the gift of God’ (Eph. 2:8c).” So writes Chrysostom at the end of the fourth century (Hom. on Ephesians 2.8).2 Luther conserved this previous tradition.

In asking why boasting is excluded, Origen commented on Romans 3:28, “For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.” “If

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an example is required,” remarked Origen, “I think it must suffice to mention the thief on the cross, who asked Christ to save him and was told, ‘Truly, this day you will be with me in paradise’ (Luke 23:43)….A man is justified by faith. The works of the law can make no contribution to this. Where there is no faith which might justify the believer, even if there are works of the law these are not based on the foundation of faith. Even if they are good in themselves they cannot justify the one who does them, because faith is lacking, and faith is the mark of those who are justified by God” (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans).3 So was justification by faith alone understood before the Reformers? The texts make this undeniable. These examples make it clear that justification teaching was rightly understood among the eastern patristic writers in a way that classic Reformation writers would have every reason to respect.

But what of the West? Equally strong in these points.

Early Western Voices on Justification Key texts from the West by Clement of Rome, Augustine, Prosper, and Fulgentius demonstrate patristic anticipations of Reformation teaching on justification, in substantial agreement with the East.

The earliest of Paul’s interpreters, Clement of Rome, 95 A.D., in his Letter to the Corinthians (32:4, 33:1), clearly struck to the root of justification teaching: “We, therefore, who have been called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, neither by our wisdom or understanding or piety, nor by the works we have wrought in holiness of heart, but by the faith by which almighty God has justified all men from the beginning, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

What, then, shall we do, brethren? Shall we cease from good works, and shall we put an end to love? May the Master forbid that such should ever happen among us; rather let us be eager to perform every good work earnestly and willingly.”4 Here Paul’s teaching is appropriated: we are justified by a faith that becomes active in love. Writing in Greek, but living in Rome, Clement can be counted as a voice from either the East or West, as can Irenaeus.

Augustine followed this same tendency of interpretation that would later appear in Luther. In his letter (186, 3, 10) to Paulinus of Nola, Augustine subtly analyzed the relation of grace and freedom: “Let no one say to himself: ‘If [justification] is from faith, how is it

freely given? (cf. Rom. 3:24): If faith merits it, why is it not rather paid than given?’ Let the faithful man not say such a thing; for, if he says: ‘I have faith, therefore I merit justification,’ he will be answered: ‘What have you that you did not receive?’ (1 Cor. 4:7). If, therefore, faith entreats and receives justification, according as God has apportioned to each in the measure of his faith (Rom. 12:3), nothing of human merit precedes the grace of God, but grace itself merits increase…with the will accompanying but not leading, following along but not going in advance.”5 We have repeatedly been told by the liberal tradition following Harnack that the ancient Christian writers had no such awareness of justification by grace through faith. Yet there it lies in the texts. “Grace is given, not because we have done good works, but in order that we may have power to do them, not because we have fulfilled the Law, but in order that we may be able to fulfill it” (Augustine, The Spirit and the Letter).6 Prosper of Aquitaine in his Call of All Nations (1, 17) stated the doctrine in much the same way Luther would later: “And just as there are no crimes so detestable that they can prevent the gift of grace, so too there can be no works so eminent that they are owed in condign judgement that which is given freely. Would it not be a debasement of redemption in Christ’s blood, and would not God’s mercy be made secondary to human works, if justification, which is through grace, were owed in view of preceding merits, so that it were not the gift of a Donor, but the wages of a laborer?”7 Hence it is incorrect to presume that patristic teaching knew nothing of justification.

That this faith constantly becomes active in love, according to the early Christian exegetes, is evident from this passage from Fulgentius of Ruspe who wrote in The Rule of Faith (1): “Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). For faith is the basis of all goods. Faith is the beginning of human salvation. Without faith no one can pertain to the number of the sons of God, because without it neither will anyone obtain the grace of justification in this life nor possess eternal life in the future; and if anyone does not walk now in faith, he will not arrive at the actuality. Without faith every human labor is empty.”8

WORKS CITED 1 W. A. Jurgens, ed. The Faith of the Early Fathers, 3 vols.

(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1970-79), 3:248-49, *sec. 2163 2 John Chrysostom. F. Field, ed. Interpretatio omnium Epistolarum Paulinarum per Homilias Facta, 7 vols. (Oxford: J. H. Parker, 1845-1862), 2:160; T. C. Oden, ed. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, 11 vols. to date (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998-), NT 8:134 3 Origen. T. Heither, ed. Commentarii in Epistulam and Romanos (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans), 5 vols.

(Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1990-1995), 2.132, 134, 136; T.C. Oden, ed. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, 11 vols. to date (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998-), NT 6:104 4 W.A. Jurgens, ed. The Faith of the Early Fathers, 3 vols.

(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1970-79), 1:9, sec. 16 5 W.A. Jurgens, ed. The Faith of the Early Fathers, 3 vols.

(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1970-79), 3:10, sec.

1446 6 J. Ballie et al., eds. The Library of Christian Classics, 26 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953-1966), 8:206 7 W.A. Jurgens, ed. The Faith of the Early Fathers, 3 vols.

(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1970-79), 3:195, sec.

2044 8 W.A. Jurgens, ed. The Faith of the Early Fathers, 3 vols.

(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1970-79), 3:295, sec.

2260.

This excerpt is taken from Thomas C. Oden’s The Justification Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) and is reprinted with permission from the publisher. All rights reserved. To purchase this book, visit www.eerdmans.com or call 1.800.253.7521.

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INTERVIEW f o r

d i a l og u e

i n

and

out

of

our

circles

An Interview with Robert Sungenis

Not By Faith Alone: The Roman Catholic Doctrine of Justification In March 2007, Michael Horton interviewed Dr. Robert Sungenis, president of Catholic Apologetics International for the past fourteen years and author of several books on Roman Catholicism, including the best-selling Not By Faith Alone: A Biblical Study of the Catholic Doctrine of Justification (Queenship, 1997).

Robert, can you give us some background on how you became Roman Catholic?

I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church even before Vatican II, as a matter of fact, and so I know the Roman Catholic faith. At age 19, I decided to leave the Catholic church because I felt it was not teaching the Bible, it was steeped in ritual, you know, the whole nine yards that a lot of people that have left complained about. And for the next 18 years I was a full-fledged card-carrying Protestant. I was in and out of, I don’t know, maybe three or four Protestant denominations at that time—Presbyterian, Baptist, Independent, Fundamentalist … so I got pretty good knowledge of Protestant theology. I’m a graduate of George Washington University and Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, so I learned from the best. Norman Shepherd created quite a stir at Westminster in 1980-1981 when I was a student there, and his emphasis was that works justify. I don’t think they ironed it out quite the way they wanted to, even back then or even now what exactly he meant by that, so there was a lot of controversy. But it did stick in my mind.

Then when I was 37, back in 1993, I came back to the Catholic church and have been back ever since.

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ing about works that are done under the auspices of God’s grace— that is, someone who has already entered into God’s grace by faith, and God can now look at those Do Roman Catholics teach salvaworks a lot differently than when tion by works? That’s often one the person was not under God’s of the things we hear on the grace. When the person was not street, in evangelical circles at under God’s grace, the Law, which least. What do you say to God would use as a stanthat? dard to judge those works I would preface it by saying would condemn him for And so in this: It’s like the question, any work that he did, “Have you stopped beating because it would never that sense, meet up to the standards of your wife?” If you answer yes, you’re going to convict God’s righteousness. But works do yourself; if you answer no, once he’s in the “system of justify. you’re going to convict grace,” as I call it in my yourself. So, it’s a question book, then God looks at you have to treat gingerly, him in a very different way especially in a theological arena and thus those works he does for where things can be misunderstood God, God can look at those works, easily. On the one hand, I would and bless those works, and give a say no, Catholic theology does not reward for those works, which we teach that one is justified by works call salvation. He in no way owes if we understand by the word the man anything; he is not legally “works” that we are doing someobligated to pay him anything for thing outside the grace of God. We those works; God just does it out of cannot give God our works and say, his benevolence. And so in that “God, you owe me salvation sense, works do justify. because of these works I have done.” The Council of Trent conWhat is the classic formulation of demned that idea in its very first the Roman Catholic doctrine of canon. It said that anybody who justification today? thinks that they can work their way If you say “classic,” then that would to God either by the law or any of be from the Tridentine doctrine, and your good works, whatever they that was the last dogmatic council are, that’s anathema. On the other we had on justification. Vatican II hand, the Catholic church does and its aftermath doesn’t claim to teach that works are salvific, that have any dogmatic statement on they do justify, but when they use justification. All it does is reiterate “works” in that sense, they are talkwhat the Council of Trent said, and

you can tell that by the footnotes in the Catechism when you read it.

Could you summarize that understanding of justification for us?

There are 32 canons in the Council of Trent. On the one hand, as I said, the first canon says that by no works of the law or any work done by man in his moral disposition can he attain justification. Justification is given by the grace of God. Faith is the beginning of the justification, and that’s in chapter eight of Trent.

That is, that’s the root of all justification. That’s where it starts. In order to get into the grace of God, you have to have faith in God. Once you have the faith—and the Roman Catholic Church says that’s a gift of the Holy Spirit as well—it’s not something that you alone generate by yourself; it’s you cooperating with God that allows you to have faith. That is, you have faith and works that are under God’s grace, and both of those are looked at by God as things that he requires you to do, and he blesses those. As long as you remain in the faith and keep doing the works, then you remain in the justification. The Catholic church also believes that if you do not do the works, that is, you sin, then you can lose your justification.

And you can regain your justification if you repent of your sin and come back into the grace of God. So, would that hold for individual sins? If I committed a sin at one o’clock, would I be unjustified until I had opportunity to confess it to a priest?

Depends on the seriousness of the sin. I like to use the example that Paul uses in Romans 4 where he talks about David. He says that David was a man who was justified by his faith without doing works, but if you look at the life of David, what we find is that David was a man of God long before he had committed the sin of adultery with Bathsheba and murder with Uriah the Hittite. So if David is saying that he repented of his sin, and

The Catholic church also believes that if you do not do the works, that is, you sin, then you can lose your justification. thereby was justified at that point in time, that means he had been justified prior to that and lost his justification, and now because he’s repented of his sins (murder and adultery), he has regained his justification. So, in your example, the sin at one o’clock would be David’s sins of adultery and murder, and then as he repents, he gets his justification restored to him.

What is the state of the debate these days in Roman Catholic circles in interpreting justification in the Greek, dikaioo/dikaiosis, and the Latin, iustificare? I’m thinking here of Joseph Fitzmyer, who says that clearly this is a legal, forensic term in the Greek, and the Latin, iustificar-, “to make righteous” is actually a misunderstanding and mistranslation of the Greek “to declare righteous.” Where is the debate now in biblical scholarship in Catholic circles?

We cover that in Appendix 2 of the book, starting on page 615. We deal with Fitzmyer’s assertion. Basically, Fitzmyer doesn’t speak for the Catholic Church because there’s been no official statement from the Catholic Church despite opinions from what we would call liberal theologians in the Catholic Church, and Fitzmyer would be one of them. Raymond Brown would be another, and there is a whole cadre of these individuals.

Is it your view, then, that the word always means “to make upright” rather than “to declare upright”?

Yes, we can prove that. We do it by a proof of, say, James 2, when James is quoting Genesis 15:6 where it says that Abraham believed and God justified him. He’s quoting the same passage that St. Paul is quoting in Romans 4:3, so that means that James and Paul have to

have the same understanding of the Greek word dikaiosune, because they’re quoting from the same passage, Genesis 15:6. And here’s where the Protestants try to change the meaning of dikaiosune—or dikaioo in James 2—because they say it means “demonstrated to be righteous” as opposed to “declaring to be righteous.” So they have a dichotomy in their own thinking on the definitions of these words. And we go through it meticulously in chapter two of the book to show that it is impossible to arrive at that position where you make a dichotomy between “demonstrated” righteousness and “declared” righteousness on the one hand, and we also show in the book that the preponderant use of dikaioo in the Greek is not a declared righteousness—and the same would be true for the Greek word logizomai which is used in the King James Bible, for example, when it translates as “imputation.” We show that the Greek word logizomai preponderantly means in the Greek that there is a reality to the thing that someone is viewing; it’s not a fiction. It’s not something that we label, not a label that we put on something, even though we know that the label is not saying that this thing is a reality of the label. We show that the Greek word logizomai actually means in the Greek that the label means what it is signifying. We go through all the uses of logizomai in the New Testament to show that.

So dikaioo and that word group never means “to declare righteous”?

No, there’s no passage we can point to that says definitively that the only meaning that can be applied here is “declared righteous.” There’s no passage we have found in the New Testament that teaches that.

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He saw the faith in Abraham, and it’s that reason that Abraham was justified.

He wasn’t justified based on some alien righteousness.

So it’s always a “making” righteous?

Always, yes.

As in Romans 3:4, when God is said to be “justified” when he speaks?

Well, when we’re talking about a soteriological context, then we’re talking about that. We’re not talking about passages that apply the word dikaioo to God himself.

OK, so the word itself, then, is more elastic than “to make righteous.”

Yes, but it’s not elastic in its soteriological sense. That’s what I would say.

That would be a dogmatic claim, though, not a linguistic claim, right?

No, that would be both. [laughter] What do Roman Catholics do with a verse such as Romans 4:4-5, “Now to the one who does not work, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due, and to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”

What would be the typical response to that in your circles?

Well, I think I already explained this at the beginning of the interview, which was when Paul is talking about works in this context, he’s talking about works that we do outside of the grace of God, and you can tell that by the word “debt” that he uses in Romans 4:4. He said if we try to work, then we’re putting God in debt. And what he means by that is, it’s like you working at a job and you say, “God, I put in my forty hours, so even though I don’t 4 4 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

like you or care for you, I did work for you, so you owe me something.”

Paul says you can’t come to God on that basis. You can’t come to God saying, “You owe me. Here’s my list of works; you have to pay me for what I did.” Paul says in order to be saved, in order to be justified, you have to have a relationship with God. And faith is that relationship.

Faith is the one thing that God can see within us where we know that we really want to know God for who he is, not for what he’s going to give us. And that’s why Paul is faulting the Jews here, because they got into a system where they were just working and said that God owed them salvation. And God says, “I don’t owe you anything. I want you to believe in me. I want you to believe in who I am.” And that’s why he uses the example of Abraham, because in verses 18-22 of that chapter he goes through what Abraham went through, an excruciating ordeal with God. God pulled every ounce of faith out of him because God wanted him to believe in God for who he was, and so, again, Catholicism really is not any different from what I think you believe here. Most Protestant commentators understand Paul’s works here as trying to obligate God to pay them with salvation for the work that they do. Catholicism, as I said, in canon one of the Council of Trent condemned that idea as well.

But there is the expectation that God will reward our works, right?

There’s still the idea of merit in Catholic faith and practice?

Well, you have to be careful with the word “merit” here, because if we’re talking about merit in a legal sense, we would say no, there is no merit in the legal sense. If we want

to use it in the gracious sense, we would say yes, of course, and in that sense we merit something with God, same as Hebrews 6:10 I think, which says, “God is not unjust when he looks at your works. He will faithfully reward you for your works.” And it’s interesting that Paul—and I think Paul wrote Hebrews, so I’ll say Paul—is using the word “unjust” there. He is saying God is not unjust. He will reward you. So in that sense, there is merit, but it is a gracious merit.

I recall our interchange on the question of justification as a “legal fiction” from within a Protestant framework. Do you still see justification as it is interpreted by Reformation theology as a “legal fiction”?

Well, it depends on who you read on this topic. I’ve got a list of probably a dozen Protestant scholars in my book that I go through in chapter five, dealing with this idea of forensic justification. What does it mean? I’m not really quite sure they do know what it means, because on the one hand, you’ll have a guy like Sproul saying, “Yeah, well, it’s not a legal fiction because it’s a real fiction,” and I even get confused reading some of this stuff. They try to put a reality on the fiction. And somebody else will say, “No, no, it’s not a reality. It is a legal fiction.” So you get quite a variance on this topic here. I would say this, though: To make a demarcation between the Catholic and Protestant view—and this goes back to my treatment of the word logizomai. It’s very important, this word, because a lot of Protestants are under the impression that this word only means something that you have a mental picture of in your mind but in reality does not exist outside your mind, and that’s not the way the New Testament uses the word.

Nor the way the reformers used it.

I don’t know, I wouldn’t be too sure about that.

I am pretty sure about that.

OK, let me ask you a question, then.

Are you saying you don’t believe in legal fiction?

No, it’s not a legal fiction because the righteousness that God demands in the law is fully present in Jesus Christ. He has fully satisfied all of the conditions of the covenant of law, so…

OK, I see what you’re saying.

Where we would differ is this: We would go to Romans 4 again, and I would point out this same passage in Romans 4:18-25, and there it says, “Abraham was fully persuaded that God was able to do this,” and it says in verse 22, “Therefore he was justified, because of that.” In other words, it’s something that God saw in Abraham. He saw the faith in Abraham, and it’s that reason that Abraham was justified. He wasn’t justified based on some alien righteousness. It doesn’t say that in the passage; it says that God justified Abraham based on Abraham’s faith, and that’s a real faith. It’s not a legal fiction. And that’s the difference, I think, between the Catholic and the Protestant view.

But then the faith in Roman Catholic understanding, correct me if I’m wrong, faith is not justifying until it is formed by love, so what you’re saying is that acceptance or justification of Abraham was based on what God saw in him, not only in terms of faith, but also in terms of charity and good works.

Well yes, you have to treat the whole ball of wax. When we’re talking about baptism, and I think that’s probably the better angle to cover this thing, the Council of Trent says that at baptism, hope, faith, and love are infused into the sinner, and at that point in time, he has all three of those virtues. So it’s not by faith alone that he’s justified; it’s by hope, faith, and love—at the moment of baptism. When you get to a case like Abraham, where you don’t have baptism involved, you

have to look at different phases of his life and then you have to join them all together and make a conclusion as to what the Scripture is teaching in the soteriological sense.

Robert, how do you comfort someone in your parish who says, “I feel God’s displeasure. I keep committing the same old sins…I go to Mass regularly, I confess my sins, but I continue to struggle with lust, pride, hate, sloth…”

How do you comfort someone like that, or if not comfort, what do you say?

Well, first of all, we would take him back to the theological basis for his complaint, and it’s the same one that Paul had in Romans 7: “I love Jesus, but I find myself lusting.”

Saint Jerome said the same thing.

He’s there translating the Bible in his cave and he says, “I can’t stop thinking of dancing women.”

I often have the same problem when I’m writing. [laughter] I just keep pictures of my wife right in front of me so I don’t have that problem sitting in front of my computer. I’ve got four pictures of her staring at me. That’s how I would comfort him. [laughter] How about the question of assurance? How about if someone came to you and said, “I am confident that I am not only now in a state of grace, but I am God’s elect child, I have all of my sins completely forgiven—past, present, and future—and the righteousness of Christ is imputed to me, therefore I know that I will be saved hereafter. I know I am one of God’s elect and I am completely forgiven.” What would you say to that person?

I would say you can be as sure as David was before he committed adultery and murder. David had to

come to a point of repentance. He was a great man of God—he slew Goliath, he became the king, he passed up the seven brothers, he was a little shepherd boy out there but Samuel chose him, because God said, “I look into the heart of man, and he’s the only one of all these brothers that I’m pleased with.” So if there’s anyone who thought he was a man of God, it was David.

And yet he sinned—terribly. And he had to be justified again. So that’s what I would tell him. That’s the example I would give him from Scripture.

So as long as I am making use of, as you called it, the system of grace, I don’t know what will be true of me tomorrow necessarily, but I can be reasonably sure that I am right now in a state of grace.

If I walk out of the confessional and I’ve confessed my sins and I go the next day and receive the eucharist, well, there’s no sin in my life that I can look at and say, “This is condemnable. I’m going to hell.” Yes, I can say I’m a saved Christian. I’m born again and I’m on my way to heaven—that day.

How do you know, and how would an average layperson know that he or she hasn’t committed a damnable sin? What would be a non-damnable sin?

Well, again, two answers to that.

One is to go back to David again.

David committed murder and adultery. Scripture itself teaches us that that was a sin whereby he lost his justification and needed to repent to gain his justification. So there’s an indication right there. If there’s any doubt as to what a mortal sin is— and that’s what David did—it was a mortal sin, “mortal” being death, in other words, that he was going to suffer the second death as it were for those sins, unless he repented.

If there’s any doubt about what a mortal sin is, then the person goes to the Church and learns from the Church, because the church is the one who has answers to these ques-

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tions. He doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel himself every day of his life and say, “Gee, I wonder if I committed a mortal sin here.” The Church teaches him because the Church has been there, and that’s why God gave us the Church—to give us answers to those questions.

Where did the Church get those answers?

From the apostles. And from the apostles, it was passed down through the Scripture and the tradition, and it was transmitted through the fathers until we have our knowledge today.

So eating meat on Fridays was a mortal sin?

Well, no more than not eating meat that was offered to idols was in Acts 15, when the church said that the Christian should not do that. If anyone transgressed that law that the church laid down, they would be in sin, and they would be condemned for it. The same as Ananias and Sapphira were condemned for not giving money to the church when they said they were. They dropped dead and were judged right there on the spot. So, you know, these things the church did judge at that time, and it continues to do so.

Robert, do you believe with Trent that Protestants who do believe in justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone should be considered anathema?

The Council of Trent says, “Anyone who says, anyone who says”—and you have to look at the verbiage it uses—“anyone who says this, let him be anathema.” But what the Council of Trent means by this is that someone who deliberately says that I know the truth but I am going to go against the truth because I believe what I want to believe, that person is anathema.

So the Catholic Church has a lot of leeway for anybody outside the Catholic Church, because the Catholic Church knows through 4 6 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

two thousand years of experience that people believe certain things because they’ve been taught that as a child, or because they’re ignorant, or because of many other reasons.

There are a lot of other contingencies why someone would believe something different from the Catholic Church. So if that answers your question…what I mean to say is, I think there is a lot of leeway as to who would be condemned and who would not be condemned.

Well, Robert, thank you for taking the time to explain some of these motifs and doctrines for us.

My pleasure.

Join the Conversation: We Need Your Voice Modern Reformation wants you in 2008. We’re looking for laypeople, pastors, and scholars to send us articles for publication.

The best articles will be those that combine solid exegetical and systematic theology with penetrating insight into a current issue or problem facing the church. What Reformation resources can you bring to bear on the issues facing your community of faith?

Is your church wrestling with issues of grace and race? Is your Bible study group thinking through issues of authority and personal interpretation? Maybe you’re talking with a nonChristian friend about the difference between Christian “culture” and the truth of Jesus. Who knows, perhaps your article will help provide answers for others in different denominations and in different parts of the country who are facing similar challenges.

For a list of topics we’re interested in, www.modernreformation.org and click “Submissions.”

visit

Articles should be no longer than 3,000 words in length. Please send along a cover letter with your article describing you, your role or expertise on the issue you are addressing, your education, and your church affiliation. Articles may be sent by email to letters@modernreformation.org. You should also mail a hard copy to Modern Reformation, 1725 Bear Valley Parkway, Escondido, California 92027.

Articles sent to Modern Reformation become the magazine’s property for one year after receipt. If we decide to publish the article, we will send you a writer’s agreement and the article will go through several levels of editing. If we decide not to publish the article, the rights to the work will be returned to you so you can pursue publication elsewhere. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

REQUIRED READING FOR 21ST CENTURY CHRISTIANS modern

reformation

m u st-r e ad s

Readings on Sola Fide What would Modern Reformation choose for you to read for further understanding of Sola Fide? “Required Reading” features books that we believe are worth your time. We hope you’ll consider adding these titles to the treasury of your mind.

Bondage of the Will

By Faith Alone

by Martin Luther (Revell) The indispensable classic Protestant treatment on the freedom of the will. Luther's seminal work puts a stark face on the need for justification by faith alone.

edited by Gary Johnson and Guy Waters (Crossway) Taking up the challenges to the Reformed doctrine of justification that have arisen from within Reformed theology, the contributors to this volume speak with passion and pastoral sensibility.

Christ, Our Righteousness: Paul's Theology of Justification

Justified by Faith Alone

by R.C. Sproul (Crossway) A "Today's Issues" booklet, designed to provide a short synopsis and helpful analysis of pressing issues in the church, this pamphlet by R.C. Sproul is a perfect starting point for those new to the Faith or to the controversies over justification and sola fide.

by Mark Seifrid (InterVarsity Press) Seifrid's voice is a welcome contribution to the volumes of work taking up the New Perspective(s) on Paul's challenge to traditional Reformational doctrine. Combining careful scholarship with penetrating analysis, Seifrid stakes out important claims for future work in this field.

See also: Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification by R.C. Sproul (Baker)

By Faith Alone: Essays in Honor of Gerhard O. Forde edited by Joseph A. Burgess and Marc Holden (Eerdmans)

Justification by Faith Alone by Charles Hodge (Trinity Foundation)

Faith Alone: A Daily Devotional by Martin Luther, edited by James C. Galvin (Zondervan) Justification by Francis Turretin (P&R)

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REVIEWS wh at ’s

b e i n g

r ead

Books That Still Matter: 15 Years in Print Each issue we’re looking at a book published during Modern Reformation’s 15-year history, with a look to why this book was and still is significant.

B

ooks are synonymous with a seminary career. After spending two years

relationship farther apart. In an era where scholarship, governopening hundreds of books and flipping through thousands of pages I ment, civil rights activists, and the like are constantly bearing down can wholeheartedly say that Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical on Christianity it is no longer plausible to conjure up typical Mind is by far one of evangelical responses. If we are to truly minister to the the most important culture around us we must recognize this involves more books I have read. In than mere social action. Christians must engage in forms an almost prophetic of study, research, and thinking that seek rootedness in way, Noll points his deep scholarship while striving to give glory to God. readers to a problem Developing the evangelical mind not only bridges the gap that has been decades between Christianity and our culture, it gives a way to in the making, the minister and further the kingdom on a multitude of levels. downfall of the evanAs the book continues Noll proceeds to brilliantly craft gelical mind. the rise and plateau of the evangelical mind by tracking To clearly underprogress through its reformation, revivalistic, and enlightstand Noll’s critique it enment periods. Through these pages we read of the negis vital to grasp just lect and its effects. “If the history of Christianity shows what Evangelicalism is. how fruitful it can be to cultivate the mind for Christ, it Noll defines also indicates how dangerous it can be to neglect such Evangelicalism as a activity” (46). As the book moves towards reflections on collection of shifting science and politics, Noll points out that Christians tend to movements and temapproach these subjects as segregated issues, causing scholporary alliances. arship in these areas to appear reactionary instead of comThe Scandal of the Simply put, “all discusplementary. Instead of teaming with modern science and Evangelical Mind sions of evangelicalpolitics, Christians have fought against such pursuits in

by Mark Noll ism, therefore, are fear that they may steer people from the common evanEerdmans, 1995 always both descripgelical filter of Scripture and its literal interpretation. In 283 pages (paperback), $20.00 tions of the way things reality it is this mishandling of Scripture and illogical really are as well as efforts within our own minds to proattempt at scholarship and government that has driven vide some order for a multifaceted, complex set of impulsmany from Christianity. Lack of scholarship and reaces and organizations” (8). tionary ideals from the Christian side has led to creationThe opening chapter sets the book on course to tackle a ism, moralism, biblicism, and populism. These “isms” seriously overlooked aspect of the large and ever present remained constant throughout the twentieth century.

American evangelical community. “Despite dynamic sucThey have shaped hundreds of Christians regarding scicess at a popular level, modern American evangelicals ence and politics. have failed notably in sustaining serious intellectual life.

As our world races towards globalization, technological They have nourished millions of believers in the simple advances, increased education, and improvements in sciverities of the gospel but have largely abandoned the unience and medicine the divide between our world and the versities, the arts, and other realms of ‘high’ culture” (3). evangelical community continues to grow. Where the Noll draws attention to the tense and underdeveloped church is quick to rise to action, it is the intellect and intenrelationship between Evangelicalism and culture. He tion of the evangelical that Noll points towards as the points to the neglect of our minds as a nail that wedges this underlying need of change. Our intentions should be to

4 8 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

give glory to God not only with our actions but with our minds. Underdeveloping the Christian mind not only does a disservice to the relationship between a Christian and his culture, but it fails to utilize an avenue in which glory and honor can be given to God. All hope is not lost for the evangelical community. As Noll points out there has been a tremendous movement and sign of renewal. Through ventures in universities, publishing companies, and individual efforts on both sides of the Atlantic we now see what Noll refers to as, “the establishment of an evangelical intellectual network within certain well-fixed reference points in the United States, Great Britain, Canada, as well as other parts of the world” (219).

So why read this book? While Noll’s book was written over a decade ago the issues he describes are even more prevalent today. The evangelical community is beginning to see a need for change. However, their attempts to bring about change have come through avenues such as shifting from Fundamentalism to postmodern Emerging methods.

These methods are still reactionary and still overlook the development of the evangelical mind. If the evangelical community is ever going to truly interact with their culture in a God-honoring way, the mind must no longer be neglected but developed. We are not in need of another creative solution or trendy quick fix. We are in need of dedicated Christians who are willing to develop their minds for the glory of God and interact with the world with the intention of making a lasting impact intellectually and thus furthering the kingdom of God. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind not only stirs the mind, it convicts the conscience. It reminds the Christian community that in order to survive we no longer need reactionary trends, we need thoughtful, intentional, and developed thinking.

Denise M. Malagari recently completed the Master of Arts program at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and lives in the Philadelphia area.

How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments

by Edmund Clowney; edited by Rebecca Clowney Jones P & R Publishing, 2007 162 pages (paperback), $12.99 This posthumous work is everything you would expect from Ed Clowney, the first president of Westminster Theological Seminary. The book is pastoral, theological, and of course very concerned with redemptive history.

The purpose of the book, expressed in the preface, fits clearly under the rubric of redemptive history: “What role does the law play in the history of redemption?” (viii). In answering this question, Clowney opens up to the reader

his interpretive approach to the Bible: “Christ not only obeyed the law, but also displayed its true meaning and depth” (2).

In the initial chapter, the case is made generally as to how Jesus, the covenant Lord, fulfills the law, which was “given to be a reflection of the divine character” (2). The Ten Commandments come to us in the context of a common ancient Near Eastern literary form in which the vassal king must be exclusively committed to the supreme suzerain ruler, who promised curse for disobedience and blessing for obedience (3). In light of the repeated failure of God’s people, the Lord brought exile and judgment. Yet, out of this slough of despond, the old things are made new in Christ (7). In insisting on the persistence of the Old Testament covenant, Jesus “fulfills the law by obeying it, but also by revealing its promise” (7, 8).

In chapters 2 through 11, the focus is on Jesus’ fulfillment of each of the Ten Commandments specifically.

Following Deuteronomy 6, Clowney makes the case that all subsequent commandments are predicated upon the first commandment, in which God establishes his identity and right to speak commandments for us to obey (12). In placing the Ten Commandments in the paradigm of the Exodus, Clowney underscores that the Lawgiver is also the Redeemer, whose “redemption is not done by proxy” (14).

In becoming our Savior, God demonstrates himself to be our bridegroom and king in the person of Jesus Christ.

Indeed, “incarnation is insufficient to redeem” and so in Jesus, our Redeemer is also the Suffering Servant and Conquering Savior. Consequently, the first commandment stresses that there shall be no other name than that of Jesus (20).

Chapter 3 presents an array of issues revolving around the prohibition of idol worship. After establishing a person as one created in the image of God, Clowney briefly chases perspectives which have sought to either overstate or understate the dignity of humanity. Resolving this tension is Jesus Christ, who is “God’s gracious gift of an anointed image, which we are not only permitted but commanded to worship” (27). The only way to avoid idolatry, spiritual or otherwise, is union with Christ.

The name of the Lord is not to be used in vain because “God himself is present in his name, and all his works reveal that name” (40). In fact the manifold names of God point us forward to fulfillment in Christ, who gives us that triune family name that we receive at baptism, our namegiving ceremony that we might honor that name (44, 45).

The Sabbath, a creation ordinance repeated in the Law, expresses God’s covenant with his people and is a sign not only of creation but of redemption (55). Thus when Jesus declares that he is Lord of the Sabbath, he proclaims himS E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 49

self as our Creator, Redeemer, and Sabbath rest (59).

Consequently, “first-day worship is part of our calling to do more, not less” (62) and finding our joy and rest in laboring for God must extend to every day of the week (151).

Chapter 6 extends to the reader a practical handling of the fifth commandment, concerning Jesus’ family values (67), imploring parents to nurture their children as those who have received the family name of God in baptism as they have (72). Thus, together we honor our family name—“Christian” (77).

The gospel approach to honoring human life avoids esteeming it more than the Creator and devaluing human life of its uniqueness in the created order (80). It is Jesus alone who “provides the very Life that can rescue us from our murderous selves” (84).

Marriage and its antithesis, adultery, are figures that describe God’s covenant love for his unfaithful people.

The command not to commit adultery ultimately looks forward to the union believers have with Christ that “lasts longer than marriage” (96). This chapter also examines, in cursory form, gender relations and Christian marriage and sexuality.

In directing our hearts to himself, the true treasure, Jesus fulfills the eighth commandment (107). This wealth is in fact the inheritance believers have in Christ. It is more than getting stuff or honor. Jesus gives himself to us, that we may be one with him (114). In abiding in Christ the believer learns not only to refrain from theft, but more importantly “to multiply our treasure by clinging to Christ alone” (120).

God has sworn by himself and his word that this witness is true. He has sent his Son Jesus, “the faithful witness.” Jesus bore witness to the Father. The Spirit now bears witness through his people throughout history.

Even to his people, Jesus continues to bear witness in inscripturating the apostolic witness of the New Testament and in giving to the Church the Eucharist and baptism in which he is spiritually present. Christ has sent his Church out, as individuals and corporately, to bear witness to himself—not by means of personal experience—but by joining “our own witness to that of the apostles and prophets” (136).

Jesus stated the tenth commandment positively when he said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33). This commandment now compels believers away from anything “that would draw us away from contentedly serving God wherever in his good providence he has placed us” (145). It proclaims a singularity of love to God alone (149) with all our heart, our soul, and exceedingly all of us.

My criticisms of this book are two. First, Clowney seems to vacillate between the claim that “Jesus fulfills the law” and that “Jesus transforms the law.” The latter statement (also the title of the book) seems problematic since Clowney claims the law was “given to be a reflection of the divine character” (2) and divine character is immutable.

Conceptually, Clowney clearly argues for the idea of fulfill5 0 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

ment of the law; however, suggesting that Jesus transforms the law might introduce unnecessary confusion.

Here perhaps Clowney would have done well to clarify that the idea of transformation is not “of the law” but of our understanding of the law in light of Christ. Second, while Clowney was able to address many weighty and controversial matters in the course of this book, the cursory handling of topics like submission, gender relations, and sexuality may leave readers disappointed and wanting more substantial discussion.

Clowney’s book, including its study questions, comes highly recommended as a helpful introduction to the role of the law in the history of redemption.

William J. Nielsen is a pastoral candidate in the Presbyterian Church in America, preaching frequently as a licentiate of the North Texas Presbytery and reflecting at http://nielsensnook.com.

Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual

by Nancy Guthrie Tyndale House Publishers, 2007 192 pages (hardcover), $14.99 I’ve been hoping for something better from evangelical Bible studies for women, and Nancy Guthrie’s 10-week study of Hebrews almost delivers. With a confident, winsome voice, Guthrie conducts the reader through a verse-byverse exposition of this epistle, combining biblical instruction with personal anecdotes and application in a very appealing way. Guthrie’s emphasis on in-depth study is admirable, and her wisdom regarding the life of faith, wrought in the crucible of intense personal loss, is sound and godly.

However, at times her teaching reflects the felt-needs and self-sanctification messages of contemporary Christian culture, and Reformed readers will notice some significant theological omissions.

Certainly much of the instruction Guthrie offers here is right and helpful. Two fundamental strands run through this study: first, the uniqueness and sufficiency of Christ; and second, the efficacy of the living Word for transforming the character and attitudes of believers. Other commendable aspects include a nicely corrective angelology, a realistic portrayal of human sin, a sensitive discussion of the fear of death, and clear explanations of theological ideas such as perseverance, revelation, and typology. With

a few minor exceptions, her exposition of the book of Hebrews is well informed and careful. A new believer (or an old believer with a new hunger for the Word) would benefit from much of this teaching, and indeed Guthrie seems to intend her book to be a kind of primer or review of the faith. An individual study guide is appended to the book, making it immediately useful for small groups.

Precisely because this attractive study could play an influential part in a believer’s Christian education, some of its underlying theological assumptions are troubling. For example, Guthrie bows to a popular trend in contemporary Christian teaching and worship when she appeals to readers’ longing for “authenticity” and “closeness” in their relationship with God. Especially in her lengthy introduction to this book, Guthrie seems to be selling her teaching as a panacea for spiritual wistfulness, a disappointingly human-centered purpose for what is generally a very Christ-centered study.

Drawing near to God will indeed be one glad result of dwelling in the Word; but if my motivation for study is just the fulfillment of my longing for intimacy, authenticity, and “new spiritual breakthroughs” (15, 17), I am merely reinforcing my love of self.

Of special concern to Reformed readers will be Guthrie’s treatment of conversion and sanctification. It is admittedly a delicate task, especially in a popularly written overview of the faith, to choose language that captures the monergistic nature of our coming to Christ and growth in grace. Judging by Guthrie’s choice of language, however, coming to faith is a synergistic process ultimately dependent on a person’s will; and our sanctification, like a good exercise program, is only as effective as we are able and willing to make it.

To her credit, our sinful state and the gospel of our justification through Christ’s finished work are presented eloquently and repeatedly throughout the book, and readers are frequently urged to examine themselves for saving faith. But Guthrie’s straightforwardness about sin begs a question that is never answered in her text: how can such rebellious creatures as we even begin to ask for saving help? Coming to Christ is depicted variously as our decision or choice to believe, “tying up our air mattress to this salvation harbor” (42), joining ourselves to God, and the like—all of which leave the impression that one may, at some level, enter into the kingdom on one’s own terms.

Reformed readers will regret that the distinctives of God’s electing call and irresistible grace are absent from her presentation. In Guthrie’s words, “The Holy Spirit will give us a taste of the richness of Christ, but he will not make us eat” (112).

It is not entirely clear from this study what role the Holy Spirit plays in the sanctification of the believer, either. The third member of the Trinity is mentioned rarely, as Guthrie prefers to emphasize that the living Scriptures—specifically, in this case, the great truths about Christ in Hebrews— will themselves transform our hearts and minds, if we remain diligent and teachable. Her focus is an admirable

SHORT NOTICES The Reformed Pastor: Lectures on Pastoral Theology

by John Williamson Nevin; edited by Sam Hamstra Jr. Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006 xxviii + 91 pages (paperback), $16.00 “The highest office with which it is possible for a man to be invested in this world is that of the Christian ministry” (3). With these words, the nineteenth-century German Reformed pastor and theologian J. W. Nevin launched into a succinct and substantive discussion of the ministry of the gospel in the Reformed tradition. Since it goes without saying that the knowledge of what a pastor is to be has become more influenced by the media than the means of grace, this little volume may help re-script those of us reeling from years of the influence of Willow Creek, Colorado Springs, and Lake Forest. After a brief introduction by Sam Hamstra, Nevin treats the principal themes of the office, calling (internal/external, prerequisites, qualifications), holiness, and motives of the Reformed pastor as well as the practical themes of the field of labor and manner of preaching, what he called the “first department of pastoral work.” To this last theme he added the second and third departments, catechesis and visitation.

Nevin’s work will instruct, edify, and correct those whose desire is nothing less than the glory of God as it is revealed in the cross of our Lord.

—Daniel R. Hyde

Abortion: The Evangelical Perspective

By Matthew Everhard BIBAL Press, 2007 128 pages (paperback), $14.95 Have you ever been in a setting where the topic of abortion came up, and you knew what you believed about this thorny subject, but you found it difficult to explain exactly why?

The purpose of Matthew Everhard’s new book, Abortion: the Evangelical Perspective, is to help the compassionately minded believer articulate a biblical stance (continued on page 53) S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 51

one, but incomplete. She leaves the reader with only a handful of disparate ideas about the Spirit, and thus an inadequate picture of how we are assisted to please God and throw off sin. Although she briefly discusses supernaturally produced spiritual fruit (113) and the God-given “want-to” (126), Guthrie generally offers little insight about what divine help is present for Christians beyond revelation, conviction of sin, Christ’s example, and, rather impersonally, the “energy” to do what is right (183).

As a result, most of her exhortations to godliness are merely appeals to the reader’s will (e.g., “Will you determine to keep on believing, no matter what?” [152]). In these moments we do not hear of our dependence on the Spirit, who personally “stirs our sluggishness, sharpens our insight, soothes our guilty consciences, sweetens our tempers, supports us under pressure, and strengthens us for righteousness,” as J. I. Packer puts it.1 Shifting between passive and active ideas, Guthrie instead explains that “the process of being sanctified means that the aim of our lives becomes to close the gap between what we’ve been declared to be in Christ and who we are in the flesh” (134). “It is our longing for him, our love for him, and our obsession with him that prod us to get moving, to enter the race, and to complete the race of faith,” she informs us (179). The overall impression here is that the bulk of this work is ours, not God’s—a lonely and depressing prospect.

I have to confess to a decided snobbishness when it comes to Bible studies written for women. You might say that, if the bookstore shelves labeled “Women’s Devotionals” were a box of chocolates, I have already nibbled enough of them to know that the next one isn’t likely to please me, either. Guthrie’s study is different: her honest, warm tone is palatable, and her elevation of Christ and the Word of God is rich and sweet. But there is a bitter aftertaste in the message that I am largely responsible for my own sanctification, and that I was the one who “tethered myself” to God in the first place. (What if I didn’t tie the knot tightly enough?) In the final analysis, I miss the flavor of a strong theology of the Holy Spirit.

Paige Britton is a member of Faith Reformed Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Quarryville, Pennsylvania.

NOTES 1 J. I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2005), p. 49.

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Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical’s Inside View of White Christianity

by Edward Gilbreath InterVarsity Press, 2006 207 pages (hardback), $20.00 Reconciliation Blues is an autobiographical look into the state of racial reconciliation in American Christianity. For over a decade, journalist Edward Gilbreath interviewed many of the key leaders in racial reconciliation. In his latest book he turns the art of interviewing upon himself.

The outcome is a compelling personal look at the way evangelicals thoughtlessly perpetuate racial inequalities, stereotypes, and prejudices. Philip Yancey’s description of Ed Gilbreath as a “gentle prophet” fits the tenor of Reconciliation Blues. This is not an angry, judgmental book that shouts at white evangelicals from a distance. If anything the author comes alongside the reader as a brother in Christ and raises the reader’s awareness of the often subtle, sometimes overt ways we continue to practice demeaning and damaging racial attitudes. Sadly, these unbiblical habits persist in our institutions, relationships, and in our souls.

Gilbreath describes what it was like growing up in Rockford, Illinois, and living in two worlds. His Sunday school teacher at Memorial Baptist Church was Mr. Kaiser, an average, working class man. “Looking back, the image of this thick, redneckish white man teaching a little nappyhaired black kid about Jesus couldn’t seem weirder” (27).

Ever since those elementary school years, Gilbreath has been interfacing with white evangelical Christianity, struggling to discern the truth and throw away the chaff, whether in identifying himself as an “evangelical,” or as a student at Judson College, or being the first African American journalist at Christianity Today. In a chapter on Tom Skinner, he recalls how a “prophet out of Harlem” rocked Urbana 70 with his message on Jesus the Liberator.

In “Waking Up to the Dream,” he explores white Evangelicalism’s ambivalent attitude toward Martin Luther King, Jr. My adrenaline surged as Gilbreath described Dolphus Weary, one of two black students at Los Angeles Baptist College in 1968, listening to the news of Dr. King’s assassination over the radio, while white students down the hall laughed and jeered as they listened to the same news. Today, Dolphus Weary is a much admired communicator of the gospel and executive director of Mission Mississippi. Gilbreath shows his even-handed

journalistic skill throughout, but especially in his chapters on Jesse Jackson, political parties, other minorities, and worship music. There is plenty of material here for thoughtful Christians to discuss. Reconciliation Blues is a consciousness-raising book, but it is also a meditation on what it means to follow Jesus.

We were meant to see people the way God sees them, as people for whom Christ died, and all those in Christ, as God’s new creation. Gilbreath explores how this relational vision gets worked out in authentic racial reconciliation.

When white evangelicals single out African Americans for special attention it comes across as patronizing. Or when they ignore the ideas and perspectives of their black colleagues it comes across as insensitive. We might wish it were otherwise, but the problem is real. Gilbreath writes, “When so many otherwise successful African American Christians still express frustration and disappointment over the state of race relations in the church, as my research indicates, something is not right. We need to listen and learn. As members of the body of Christ, we should be determined to hear and understand the concerns of our brothers and sisters” (89).

One of the issues that I would have liked Gilbreath to look at more closely is the difference between racial integration in secular and Christian institutions. Power, position, and pride have motivated persons of color to cause “racial breakthroughs in the secular world.” Racial integration in employment, education, housing, election to state and federal positions, and to some extent even marriage, has been achieved through a legitimate drive to obtain status, power, and respect. Black people have never quit the integration struggle in the secular culture, but Gilbreath devotes a chapter to black people quitting evangelical institutions. Are the motivators different in the evangelical world? Are most black people as comfortable, emotionally, spiritually, and financially, worshiping in black churches as in white or racially mixed churches? Do black people who worship in white or racially mixed churches do so based on personal preference, or power, position, and pride? I need help in understanding one of the comments that Gilbreath received from his survey of African American evangelicals: “If today’s brand of racism is financial oppression and blocking access to positions of power and authority, then the American church is guilty.”

Evangelicals may do a poor job at racial reconciliation and meaningful integration but are the real issues money, power, and status?

What I especially liked about Reconciliation Blues were the occasional reminders that our identity is rooted in something other than race. Gilbreath is right: “Some of the moments I’ve felt most keenly aware of my ‘otherness’ have had nothing to do with race” (33). His bottom line on the evangelical identity is clear: “But most of all, I want Jesus” (40). He holds up David Anderson’s experience at Moody Bible Institute in the 1980s as an example of courage and vision. The reason: “Because he did not get bogged down in the angst of being a black student on a

Short Notices (continued from page 51) on this subject. With the Supreme Court recently upholding a partial-birth abortion ban, discussions on abortion are heating up again, and believers will want to avail themselves to some reading materials on the subject.

This book helps the believer to: explore the history of the Christian church’s teaching on abortion, underscore the relevant Scriptures pertaining to this complex topic, respond to the pro-choice camp’s common arguments, and point towards several practical steps for individuals or groups. Because this book is a relatively easy read, it could be useful for a small group format, or a general adult education class for those wanting to make a challenging topic more approachable.

—Mark Van Drunen

Luther and His Katie: The Influence of Luther’s Wife on His Ministry

By Dolina MacCuish Christian Focus Publications, 1990 125 pages (paperback), $6.99 Not much has been written on Luther’s wife Catherine von Bora, the nun-turned-reformer who struggled by her husband’s side as he faced the trials of a changing religious landscape in the early 1500s—and even less on the family life of this Reformation couple.

Dolina MacCuish fails to give more than a cursory glance of this family.

Through letters written by Luther to friends, we catch a glimpse of his love for Katie, or “my lord” as he affectionately called her. As he wrote to one of his colleagues, “I would not part from my Katie, no not to gain all of France or Venice. Kate, you have a pious husband who loves you; you are a very empress; thanks be to God.” These snippets of affection are found sporadically in this short book, but it is not the in-depth study I had hoped it would be. Although Luther and Katie’s interactions are discussed, MacCuish does not delve into them beyond a few pages of general information found in letters from Luther. However, the funny anecdotes and little-known stories are worth the two-hour read this book will afford. I would recommend this to preteen children who desire to gain a very broad overview of the lives of Luther and Katie.

—Katie Wagenmaker (continued on page 55) S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 53

mostly white campus—real though it was—David was able to change hearts and open minds” (53). When the focus is race we will always find racial problems, but when the focus is Christ we will always find the way of the cross.

Gilbreath’s account of John Perkins’s closing words at a racial reconciliation summit held in Indianapolis in 2005 is especially moving. Movers and shakers from a variety of Christian organizations and institutions spent the morning reflecting on the discouraging and difficult task of racial reconciliation. Gilbreath sat in a large circle with these leaders, listening to the weariness of these wounded healers and wondering if everyone was going to leave the summit more disillusioned than when they came. But then John Perkins suddenly walked into the room. At seventyfive, Dr. Perkins is recognized by many as a modern-day evangelical prophet who has had a profound impact on the cause of Christ among both blacks and whites. He was asked by the moderator, “What is your sense of God’s message for us today?” Dr. Perkins stood in the center of the circle and began to sob. He described his profound discouragement over his son Spencer’s death from a heart attack, the very son who had led him to the Lord fortyeight years ago. He shared how he was angry with God, but that God quickly “sobered” him and brought to his mind Jim Elliot’s quote: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” After a few seconds, Perkins said, “I love Spencer, but God loves him more.”

For John Perkins to talk about the loss of his son in that context rather than as a racial setback, lifted his Christian calling above race and focused it on obedience to Christ.

Perkins concluded, What is God telling us? I feel he’s telling us Philippians 1:6—“He who has begun this good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” It is God who gave us this ministry, and he will be the one to fulfill it. We just need to continue to give our hearts and souls to loving others and living the gospel in an incarnational way, and then trust God to bring the change (186).

The reason for John Perkins’s “long obedience in the same direction” lies in his understanding of the ministry of reconciliation, that God is reconciling the world to himself in Christ. He agrees with the apostle, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Cor. 5:14–15).

Doug Webster is pastor of First Presbyterian Church of San Diego.

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Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives Robert Webber, general editor; Mark Driscoll, John Burke, Dan Kimball, Doug Pagitt, and Karen Ward Zondervan, 2007 240 pages (paperback), $16.99 It doesn’t arrive as a hipperthan-thou podcast or as a series of “txt msgs,” but it does come with a flashy blue and orange cover with a slick, mildly edgy font. Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches offers five perspectives of the Emerging church. The volume aims to give the reader a taste of varying approaches by emerging Christians to issues such as Scripture, atonement, and the exclusiveness of Christ, to name just a few doctrines.

In the introduction, editor Robert Webber discusses the relationship between the evangelical church and culture.

Webber is interested in telling the story of the rise and fall of a movement by borrowing the concept of “turnings” from sociologists William Strauss and Neil Howe, authors of The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny (1997). “Turnings come in cycles of four,” Webber writes. “Together, the four turnings of the saeculum comprise history’s seasonal rhythm of growth, maturation, entropy, and destruction” (10). For evangelicals, Webber says this means that “current evangelical diversity can be organized, since 1950, through the four turnings of high, awakening, unraveling, and crisis” (10). Evangelicals have been “bumping up against culture in each of these turnings,” but now there is a “cultural change” and it is left to the Emerging church to respond to this shift (10). Therefore, Webber has produced this volume to investigate what the Emerging church has to offer.

Each contributor—Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church, Seattle), John Burke (Gateway Community Church, Austin), Dan Kimball (Vintage Faith Church, Santa Cruz), Doug Pagitt (Solomon’s Porch, Minneapolis), and Karen Ward (Church of the Apostles, Seattle)—discusses the nature of his or her beliefs, what they have in common, and with what each takes exception to each other. Each contributor’s chapter is followed by a response from the other contributors, but don’t expect a good old-fashioned debate. This is “not fisticuffs,” as one of the contributors declares, but “more like a fun pillow fight” (86). In fact, with the exception of Driscoll, some of the responses are nothing more than a friendly pat on the back. One gets

the impression that a few contributors have the mistaken idea that a firm debate is inherently unloving, and so put on kid gloves.

While Karen Ward, for example, is often conversational and almost never critical in her responses—when speaking of Dan Kimball she notes how much she likes his hair—Mark Driscoll’s responses are often more to the point, though he unfortunately strikes the occasional low blow the others tried to avoid. In one instance, when responding to Ward, Driscoll goes jarringly off subject to question her leadership position due to her gender instead of to critique her argument.

The volume does, however, offer a few benefits. First, this book comes from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. For emerging Christians who complain (often rightly) of misrepresentation, this is likely to be a welcome expression of their beliefs—after all, the diverse collection of posts in your bloglines account may or may not get it right.

Secondly, one can legitimately see differences among the contributors, demonstrating the breadth of the Emerging movement. This shows up in their various personalities, approaches to the Christian life, and methods of expression.

But what of doctrinal differences? In one sense, there are demonstrable doctrinal differences. Mark Driscoll’s contribution, for example, is in stark contrast to the last chapter by Karen Ward. Driscoll calls his approach a “Biblicist Theology.” “Our view of Scripture matters,” writes Driscoll, “because without a proper understanding of Scripture, we cannot truly know and love the real Jesus” (26). Driscoll fills his chapter with a short summary of doctrine, covering the nature of Scripture, the Trinity, and the atonement. Of all the treatments in the volume, this is the closest to a doctrinal statement, even proof-texting (would that be “prf txtg”?) to save space. But with a mere fifteen pages on three of the most controversial doctrines of Christianity, it does not dig very deep.

Karen Ward, who describes the work of this volume as “an opportunity to share stories and swap recipes,” takes a different road (161). She gets a nod for being the most creative, with her chapter even mimicking the form of a blog post at times. It is a light, optimistic piece, but with little theological discussion, and in fact very little emphasis on Scripture at all. Ward is more concerned about community than propositional truth, noting that “we do not possess truth or seek to correct the truths of others, but we seek to live faithfully in light of the truth of God in Jesus Christ” (179). This explains why she finds Driscoll a theological heavy hitter, admiring his “no-fat, no-saccharine, no-filler approach to biblical truth” (47).

In another sense, the differences are mere shades of resistance to propositional truth, with Driscoll and Ward representing the two ends of the spectrum. John Burke’s chapter affirms the authority of Scripture: “we must submerge ourselves in the Scriptures” (63). But when speaking of world religions, he warns Christians about the “our God” or “us-them” mentality (64), and finds the moral

Short Notices (continued from page 53)

No Logo, No Space, No Choice, No Jobs

By Naomi Klein Picador, 2002 528 pages (paperback), $15.00 Gone are the days when corporations concentrated their efforts merely on manufacturing products such as clothing, shoes, or coffee, argues Naomi Klein. The last couple of decades has seen the emergence of branding, a much farther-reaching effort on the parts of companies to sell, not mere goods, but a lifestyle along with them. The results of this shift include relentless corporate advertising designed to convince us that Nike is really code for “love of sports,” or that Starbucks is synonymous with the taste for all things “earthy,” “bookish,” and “socially responsible” (campaigns with which local independent businesses cannot afford to compete). Though it falls outside of Klein’s own purview, I find a similar trend occurring within contemporary American evangelicalism.

The proliferation of megachurches and consequent emptying of smaller denominational fellowships is akin to the consolidation of power that, in the business world, is dubbed the “WalMartization” of culture (the result of which may mean greater selection, but a loss of true choice). Like Nike and Starbucks, America’s megachurches are indeed marketing a lifestyle to Christian consumers. The question, however, is whether this lifestyle is American, Christian, or simply a hybrid of the two.

—Jason Stellman

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codes of all major religions to be the same (56). Dan Kimball calls for confidence in what “Scriptures do make clear,” but also encourages greater appreciation for mystery (99).

In response to Kimball, Doug Pagitt says, “Dan holds to an authority in the Bible that I believe is better placed in the Holy Spirit” (113); theology is “always contextual” (123) and “Christians have never been intended to be a people only of a book” (126). Pagitt’s first statement embodies the issue of subjectivity raised by confessionally Reformed Christians. Whose interpretation of the Spirit— for lack of a better phrase—wins out? This is why Reformed Christianity emphasizes both the Word and the Spirit. How does Pagitt’s perspective affect core doctrines of the faith such as the Trinity or the gospel? If all theology must evolve, can there be a distinctively Christian theology? Perhaps this difficulty is why Pagitt’s chapter gives little attention to the targeted issues of the atonement and the exclusiveness of Christ, which Driscoll notes with concern in his response. What points of theology are we willing to change and according to whose interpretation of the Spirit?

The book closes with an epilogue and a suggested reading list, which itself speaks volumes. There is also an appendix on the common creeds of the church and essays on “What is the Ancient-Future Vision?” and “A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future.”

As one with friends in the Emerging churches and some sympathy for the issues raised by the movement’s leaders, I found myself wishing for some sturdy pegs to hang my hat on, less brevity in the responses, and a bit more fire.

This is, at times, just a coffee shop conversation among agreeable friends, the kind where you can leave the table for another tall iced Americano with two Splendas and not miss anything.

Brandon G. Withrow (Ph.D.) is an adjunct professor at Beeson Divinity School of Samford University (Birmingham, Alabama).

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Ancient Christian Devotional: A Year of Weekly Readings Thomas C. Oden, General Editor; Edited by Cindy Crosby InterVarsity Press, 2007 294 pages (paperback), $17.00 If I had my time again, I would probably have spent it studying patristic or medieval theologians.

The reason?

Reformed theology, at least as developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, drank deep at the wells of the early fathers and the greats of the Middle Ages; and, ironically, to understand Reformation theology one really needs first to have a good grasp of that which came earlier and which frequently stood in continuity with later Protestant developments. From understanding Christ to living the Christian life, thoughtful Protestantism never cut itself off from the wider Christian tradition. Sadly, more recent Evangelicalism has, by accident or design, frequently isolated itself from such historic sources through a sincerely intended but naively executed commitment to the notion of scriptural sufficiency. This has borne unfortunate fruit.

Over recent decades, the movement of many evangelicals to Rome or to Eastern Orthodoxy has been, in part at least, a reaction to such impoverishment of the Christian tradition within evangelical ranks. As people look for historical roots, Evangelicalism seems inadequate to meet the challenge, and such moves, though misguided, are at least understandable.

The problem, of course, is how to encourage such interest and knowledge among evangelical people. Even with the easy availability of translations of the fathers, few are going to have the time or the motivation to wade through massive tomes which frequently deal with a world of issues that have long since passed from the scene. There are important lessons of Christology and the Christian life to be gleaned from Irenaeus and Tertullian, but these are frequently hidden in a forest of ideas, polemics, and personalities which will kill the interest of most lay readers within a few pages.

This pastoral issue is one that Thomas Oden has been wrestling with for many years. Even before his move to Evangelicalism, his desire to make the greats of the Christian tradition accessible to others was evident, as in his excellent little collection, The Parables of Kierkegaard.

Since then, Oden’s evangelical ecumenism has borne great fruit especially in the area of patristics, most notably in his pioneering editorship of the Ancient Christian Commentary series. These volumes have done much to bring the great

tradition of patristic exegesis to a wider audience; but, realistically, even these books will be overwhelming to most churchgoers.

That is why this little devotional volume is such a gem.

Structured as a weekly devotional that covers a whole calendar year, the book offers helpful quotations from selected fathers, contemporary reflections upon these, and patristic prayers which drive home each chosen topic in the context of personal piety. In other words, this book offers an access point to the patristic tradition which is manageable, practical, and doxological, and which should help to inform the evangelical practice of godliness in a way that is historically and theologically enriching. Oden is not so much arguing for the relevance and usefulness of patristic theology as demonstrating the same. In our pragmatic age, this might well prove to be the most compelling way to persuade Christians of the value of early church theology. Indeed, I did not simply read the book for review, I have been using it for devotions as well and have found it to be helpful, uplifting, and challenging. I intend to recommend it to my early church class next year as an example of how patristic writers can inform contemporary practice.

Of course, the limits of the book are the limits of patristic theology. Classic Protestant distinctives, such as a robust emphasis on justification by grace through faith, and on assurance, are missing; in other words, the book needs to be supplemented with other devotional reading.

Further, the move from giving actual dates to using the liturgical calendar for the readings is a little frustrating to a hackneyed Puritan like myself who, beyond knowing the date of Christmas and the approximate location of Easter, wears ignorance of the liturgical calendar as a badge of honor. Yet it should also be noted that the book can be started at any point in the year and still prove helpful.

The church owes Thomas Oden a great debt for his tireless efforts to remind Evangelicalism of the riches of the wider Christian tradition; and this book will hopefully prove his most accessible and popular venture yet in that regard. Buy it; use it; give it away; bring it to the attention of your pastor. And give thanks that you do not have to go to Rome or Athens to connect with patristic riches, as this attractively produced book so ably demonstrates.

Carl R. Trueman is acting dean of faculty and professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

POINT OF CONTACT: BOOKS YOUR NEIGHBORS ARE READING The Children of Hurin

by J. R. R. Tolkien; edited by Christopher Tolkien Houghton Mifflin, 2007 313 pages (hardback), $26.00 J. R. R. Tolkien’s most recently released book, The Children of Hurin, takes us back to the world of elves, orcs, sword fights, and fire-breathing dragons during the First Age of Middle Earth. However, this is not the same type of adventure tale readers of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings might expect.

Episodes of this work are only loosely connected by a common character, Turin, who progresses from point to point without a clear goal. The cast of characters is much smaller than in other Tolkien tales, but the conflict of a hero battling forces of evil is a familiar one.

The book is published thirty years after the death of the author, thanks to the editorial work of his son, Christopher Tolkien, who put together various manuscripts his father had drafted over decades of his career. Tolkien began this tale before he wrote The Hobbit and picked it up again after publishing The Lord of the Rings. Full details of the editorial process are provided in an appendix, including an unsuccessful fragment of the story in the style of AngloSaxon poetry.

In this story Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, remains in his stronghold, Angband, and wages war intermittently against the elves. Following an early, decisive battle, he captured Hurin and curses his whole family with a cloud of darkness and despair: “Wherever they go, evil shall arise. Whenever they speak, their words shall bring ill counsel. Whatsoever they do shall turn against them.

They shall die without hope, cursing both life and death” (p. 64). Against this backdrop the tragedy of the children of Hurin unfolds.

How much of what happens to Turin and Nienor (the children of Hurin) is a result of the curse—or the power of the dragon Glaurung—and how much of it is their own pride and bad choices? When Turin should put all his energy into saving Nargothrond and a damsel in distress (Finduilas), the dragon casts a spell on him and tells him to go take care of his mother and sister. In fact, his mothS E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 57

er and sister are under the protection of the elves, so Turin should have saved Finduilas, who dies by the hands of the orc conquerors, while he returns to Dor-lomin on a futile quest. Is it his choice or the dragon’s spell that contributes to his doom? Just after the fall of Nargothrond, when Turin’s mother and sister look for news of him, they encounter the dragon, who casts a spell over Nienor, causing her to forget everything—her identity, her language, and her history, which ultimately has tragic consequences.

While the curse and the dragon’s spells have in part determined the fate of Turin, his pride is as much to blame for his downfall. He leaves the relatively safe world of the elves and embraces exile with outlaws by choice. In that he follows his mother’s choice to remain in Dor-lomin and take abuse from the Easterlings rather than to sue for grace from the elfin king.

Later, when threats reach Nargothrond, Turin’s pride keeps him from securing the area. Hot-headedness also has serious consequences when he mistakenly kills his friend Beleg and when he murders one of the men of Brethil near the end. Although this may give the impression that Turin is not a very heroic hero, he does have his redeeming qualities. He is a brave and skillful warrior, whose success in battle takes him from the world of the elves to the world of the outlaws and finally to the world of civilized men. In each case he is elevated to a leadership position—at first by birth but soon because of his victories in battle. In addition, his loyalty to the outlaws and his willingness to lay down arms in Brethil are admirable. But they are not enough to keep him out of trouble for very long.

Is there redemption for Turin (or any of the other characters) in the end? That’s an open-ended question that depends on how redemption is defined. There is a glimmer of light at the story’s beginning when Hurin encourages Turgon to retreat during the end of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears so that not all may be lost: “out of your house shall come the hope of Elves and Men” (58).

That promised light will come in the form of Elrond of Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings, however, and not by the end of this tale. For Turin himself, if it is a matter of weighing his good deeds against bad ones, he might come out on the positive side, but the darkness of this tale has more in common with a Shakespearean tragedy than a tale of redemption and light. If this is a Christian allegory, it is one without a God figure to rescue the hero.

The narrative structure of this tale also offers some interest: the woodsman Turin befriends as a child provides information on where his mother and sister are many years later. Turin’s experience with his sister Urwen in his early childhood is mirrored in his relationship with the elf Nellas in Doriath and his relationship with Niniel toward the end of the novel.

The names and genealogies can be a challenge; the introduction packs in more background information than is helpful in setting the stage for the tale to follow, but the maps and family trees in the back help the reader track geography of Turin’s journey and battles as well as who is 5 8 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

related to whom. In his reliance upon family relationships and genealogies, Tolkien’s style is sometimes a little too close to the Anglo-Saxon sagas for modern tastes; however, for the reader brave enough to wade through lists of names and places without context, the tale of Turin eventually becomes compelling: a hero wandering from people to people trying to make his way in a world filled with violence and injustice.

For prospective readers: if you can hang on to the story until Turin grows up and goes out on his own, the tale of his journey—his adventures and the consequences of his choices—is worth the wait.

Cynthia Doherty is dean of academic affairs administration at Harrisburg Area Community College (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania).

Modern Reformation has a new website!

Subscribers can now access our growing online archive!

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FAMILY MATTERS r e sou rces

fo r

homes

A Resource for Family Worship

I

f “Jonathan Edwards” were a dictionary entry, we might find the following as part of

Confession, church elders were charged to hold the definition: preacher of what may be America’s most famous sermon, “Sinners in every head of a household accountable for his famithe Hands of an Angry God;” leader in the Great Awakening; author of sermons and ly’s worship. Whitney cites examples of godly books that continue to inspire and influence after 300 men through the centuries who regarded family worship years; pastor; arguably the greatest thinker ever produced as their most important calling as well as one of their highin America; early president of Princeton seminary; missionest privileges. ary to the Indians. Yet, above all these things, Jonathan Chapters 3, 4, and 5 offer practical help. “Elements of Edwards’ “preeminent concern” was “care for his children’s Family Worship” gives suggestions for what to include, souls.”1 What Christian parent would not make the same with some tips on being effective. “But What If—?” claim? Whatever else we leave undone, we want to be addresses difficulties parents might face in leading worship sure that we have faithfully brought up our children “in the in their homes. While Whitney only discusses four connurture and admonition of the Lord.” Yet as Donald S. cerns, and those very briefly, he concludes the chapter by Whitney asks in his recent book, Family Worship in the Bible, making the point that no family worship situation is in History, and in Your Home, when do we actually do this? unique, but all have been overcome through the centuries Whitney reminds us that faithful Christian nurture will not by parents committed to the spiritual nurture of their famhappen unintentionally. “Without some regularity and ilies and the worship of God. “We tend to think we have structure and purpose,” he writes, “it is one of those things unique problems,” Whitney writes, “and our flesh wants that we assume we are doing but never actually do.” to excuse us from family worship on the false grounds that Recently, a home school mom told me that teaching our situation is an exception.” Chapter 5, “Start Today,” Bible to their children is one of the things most commonprovides more motivation, additional clarification, and ly neglected by home school parents. Since it is not one of practical ideas on beginning. those subjects that carries the pressure of keeping children Family Worship contains only fifty pages of actual text, up to grade level, she told me, it often gets pushed aside with plenty of white space. The book’s very smallness is with the assumption that “we can easily catch up on that part of its value. Churches can make it available in their later.” In his book, Whitney quotes statistics indicating literature racks. Pastors can hand it to fathers, even to that, although most American parents believe they are those who might not read a larger book, knowing they can responsible to impart religious beliefs to their children, the easily read it in one sitting. Family Worship needs to get vast majority of them fail to discuss spiritual things or into the hands of many, and its concisely stated message study religious materials with their families. For this reaneeds to get into many hearts. son and because, as Whitney says, “God deserves to be worshiped daily in our families,” he has written this small, quickly read book to motivate and help Christian parents.

Starr Meade is author of Training Hearts, Teaching Minds: Family Worship in the Bible, in History, and in Your Home Family Devotions Based on the Shorter Catechism (P&R, presents its outline in its title. The book contains an intro2000). duction, five short chapters, and a few discussion guide pages at the end. Chapter 1, “Family Worship in the Family Worship is also available on CD. See Bible,” quotes and briefly discusses the principal Scriptures BiblicalSpirituality.org. for details. calling parents to faithfully teach their children and lead them in the worship of God. Chapter 2, “Family Worship NOTES in the Church,” points out that both the Westminster and 1 George Marsden, Edwards’ biographer, quoted in Family the Baptist London Confessions of faith explicitly set forth Worship in the Bible, in History and in Your Home by Donald S. the duty of individual and family worship. Whitney points Whitney (Shepherdsville, Ky.: Center for Biblical Spirituality, 2006). out that in The Directory for Family Worship, produced by the Westminster Assembly in the same year it published the

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