Primer

All 12 issues of Primer, published by the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, have been made available for free as pdfs.

From the website:

‘Primer was born out of a desire to help church leaders to stay theologically sharp. Sometimes, pastors train for ministry at a theological college but then find it hard to maintain further study after moving into ministry […]

‘[E]ach issue of Primer takes one topic of theology and expands on it six or seven long-form articles.

‘Each issue looks at what’s been said about the topic historically, and how the church is engaging with it today. There are often reviews of helpful books to encourage further reading as well as chapters focused on how the topic shapes pastoral ministry. There are even interviews now again with ministry leaders.’

The following volumes were published:

Issue 01: True to His Word – on the trustworthiness of Scripture

Issue 02: How Far We Fell – on the doctrine of sin

Issue 03: True to Form – a biblical approach to gender and sexuality

Issue 04: A Place to Stand – on justification by faith

Issue 05: Coming Soon – on the end times

Issue 06: Newness of Life – on sanctification

Issue 07: Show & Tell – on apologetics

Issue 08: How Great a Being – on the doctrine of God

Issue 09: All Being Equal – on the Trinity

Issue 10: This World with Devils Filled – on the devil, demons, and spiritual warfare

Issue 11: A Little Lower than the Angels – on the doctrine of humanity

Issue 12: In the Flesh – on the incarnation

See here for more information, and to download the issues.

The Master’s Seminary Journal 32, 1 (2021)

The latest Master’s Seminary Journal has been posted online. The essays are centred around the topic of justification by faith, and especially imputation, as John MacArthur makes clear in the editorial: ‘Just as justification by faith is the centerpiece of soteriology and the very marrow of the gospel, the principle of imputed righteousness is the necessary center and soul of the doctrine of justification’.

A pdf of the issue can be downloaded here.

John MacArthur

Editorial

J.V. Fesko

Imputed Righteousness: The Apostle Paul and Isaiah

The Heidelberg Catechism asks the question: “How can man be righteous before God?” To answer this question, most would refer to New Testament passages, likely in Romans or other Pauline epistles. But the New Testament writers developed their understanding of justification by reading their sacred texts – what is now referred to as the Old Testament. While the doctrine of imputation can be found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, there are few texts as clear and rich as Isaiah 53 – the song of a coming Servant, “the righteous one” who would “make many to be accounted righteous” (53:11). This article contends that when Paul was writing critical New Testament passages on the doctrine of imputation, he was likely doing so while pouring over Isaiah 53.

Tom J. Nettles

Imputation and Its Images in the Preaching of Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The cross was ever at the center of the preaching of Charles Spurgeon. He was fixated upon the reality that “as the Lord looked upon Christ as though he had been a sinner, though he was no sinner, and dealt with him as such, so now the Lord looks upon the believing sinner as though he were righteous, though indeed he has no righteousness of his own.” And as a result of that dark day upon the cross, God sees the one in whose place Christ stood and “he loves him, and delights in his perfect comeliness, regarding him as covered with the mantle of his Redeemer’s righteousness, and as having neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing.” This is the beauty of the doctrine of imputation. And it pervades the thinking and preaching of Charles Spurgeon, as will be demonstrated in this article.

Peter Sammons

In My Place Obedient He Lived: Imputed Righteousness in Romans 5:18–19

The overwhelming majority of Christians would readily affirm the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. But when pressed as to the substance of this righteousness, many would point to the transmission or imputation of an attribute of God or merely the forgiveness of sins alone with no positive imputation. These are misguided responses which produce a truncated gospel. At the center of this question is the person of Christ, who claimed to have come to “fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:15). This article will contend that the righteousness that is imputed to believers is Christ’s human righteousness – which is His lived-out, practical law obedience. This reality is captured in the words of Isaac Watts when he wrote: “Come naked, and adorn your souls / In robes prepared by God, / Wrought by the labors of his Son, / And dyed in his own blood.”

James M. Renihan

God Freely Justifieth…  by Imputing Christ’s Active… and Passive Obedience

This article traces seventeenth century debates surrounding the doctrine of justification. The united testimony of Reformed writers, the common consent of the English Puritan confessions, and even the startling testimony of a most important Roman apologist together provide a powerful argument: justification comes solely from the work of Christ the mediator. These debates helped to produce the beautiful words of the Second London Confession: “Christ by his obedience, and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are justified; and did by the sacrifice of himself, in the blood of his cross, undergoing in their stead, the penalty due unto them: make a proper, real and full satisfaction to God’s justice in their behalf: yet inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his Obedience and Satisfaction accepted in their stead, and both freely, not for anything in them; their Justification is only of Free Grace, that both the exact justice and rich Grace of God, might be

glorified in the Justification of sinners.”

Nathan Busenitz

The Substance of Sola Fide: Justification Defended from Scripture

in the Writings of the Reformers

The doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone (sola fide) stood at the center of theological controversy during the Protestant Reformation. Men such as Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, and Chemnitz were willing to lose their lives over the doctrine of justification, for to misunderstand this doctrine was to misunderstand the very essence of the gospel. The Protestant church appreciates these men and their convictions, but many may wonder what sola fide actually means. This article seeks to express three core components to the doctrine of sola fide: (1) that justification is forensic, not formative; (2) that justification is distinct from sanctification; and (3) that the basis for justification is the imputed righteousness of Christ. These men were convinced that it was upon these articulations that the church stood or fell, and the church today would do well to remember the urgency of this doctrine.

Tom Hicks

Benjamin Keach’s Doctrine of Justification

Many Christians would recognize the name of the pastor and author Richard Baxter. Likely fewer would recognize the name of the seventeenth-century Baptist pastor Benjamin Keach. This article follows the thinking and articulation of Keach as he defends the orthodox, Reformed position of the doctrine of justification and imputed righteousness against the errant views of Richard Baxter. This article is a window into the necessity to defend this doctrine that rests at the center of the Christian faith.

Sam Waldron

Paul’s Use of Genesis 15:6 in Romans 4:3

This essay examines (1) the relevant uses of Genesis 15:6 and references to Abraham in a large group of ancient Jewish sources; (2) the immediate context of Romans 4:3; (3) the analysis of the Old Testament context of Genesis 15:6; and (4) the way in which Paul interprets and utilizes Genesis 15:6 in Romans 4:3. Paul’s use of the text is a reaffirmation of themes original to Genesis 15:6 in its OT context, and his careful use of the OT contrasts with contemporary Judaic tendencies to read the OT as supporting a soteriology of human achievement or “the works of the law.” This conclusion undermines the central premise of the New Perspective on Paul, while supporting the traditional doctrine of justification, sola fide.

E.D. Burns

Contending for Doctrinal Language in Missions: Why Imputation and Sola Fide Are Good News for Karma-Background Christians

The frontlines of missions are where theological error has a tendency to fester. New missional movements draw distinctions between the helpfulness of the Bible and theology, affirming the former and disregarding the latter. The mission field has become a place of embarrassment regarding many of the doctrines that the church fathers lived and died over. Specifically, the doctrine of imputation has been practically neglected amongst many of the frontline missional efforts. And the consequences are and will continue to be devastating. This article is a call for missionaries to reach the unreached with the beautiful and historic doctrines of the Christian faith.

Reviews

So Great a Salvation #4: The Cross and the Law Court

I wrote this week’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus... If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Romans 8:1, 31-35

Paul could hardly say it any more clearly. Read it again if you need to: ‘there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.’

And that little word ‘in’ is all-important.

What’s the central thought of Paul’s letters? Is it justification? Reconciliation? Adoption? As important as they are, what’s most central is Jesus. The prior, primary, foremost, fundamental reality for Paul is our union with Christ, being in Christ. And all the benefits of salvation flow from that union – our justification for sure, but also our adoption, redemption, sanctification, glorification, and our being joined to each other in the church, the body of Christ.

It’s on the basis of our union with Christ – in his death and resurrection – that we are declared right with God, free from the penalty of our law-breaking. As Paul has made clear earlier in his letter to the Roman Christians, what flows from being justified is ‘peace with God’ – not through anything we can bring to the table, but ‘through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (5:1).

Moreover, since God has declared us right in the present, that verdict will stand on the last day. We can look forward to the future with confidence, because it’s a future that Christ himself has secured for us. Being counted righteous in God’s sight, even now, brings hope as well as peace.

But more than a legal declaration of our status before God, justification takes us to the heart of the covenant relationship between God and his people. Like Abraham himself, all those who stand in right covenant relationship with God do so through faith, and on the basis of Christ’s death on the cross, whether they be Jew or Gentile. Here is how God makes good on the promises made to Abraham that all nations would be blessed through him.

As if this was already not enough, at the bottom line of it all, and the ultimate basis of Paul’s confidence, is God’s love – not merely shown to us, but ‘poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit’ (Romans 5:5), a sign of his ongoing commitment to us. It’s a love, Paul says here, from which nothing can separate us.

If any of this was down to us, we’d have room for doubt. As it is, our assurance lies elsewhere. Peace, hope, blessing, love – and all through Christ.

A Definite Maybe?

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Romans 5:1-5

Samuel Goldwyn, the movie producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was known for his malapropisms – amusing statements resulting from the use of incongruous or contradictory words. A story goes that when someone urged him to come to a decision about a project, Goldwyn replied: ‘True, I’ve been a long time making up my mind, but now I am giving you a definite answer. I won’t say yes and I won’t say no, but I am giving you a definite maybe.’

Whimsy aside, that’s perhaps the best that can be offered to us on a whole host of issues these days – a definite maybe.

In some cases, lack of certainty on our part can be bound up with personal insecurity or a self-worth that has been undermined in damaging ways. But these days, even assertive, self-confident people find it hard to be sure, or at least say they are. For that smacks of intolerance, doesn’t it? The entire drift of our culture makes it unacceptable to say ‘I am sure’, particularly when it comes to issues of faith.

Read again Paul’s words at the start of Romans 5.

Just what is it that flows from being justified? Not merely some vague, warm ‘spiritual’ experience, but peace with God, access to God. And how has this come about? Not through attainment to a higher level of consciousness or through anything we can bring to the table (as Paul has made clear in the previous chapters of Romans), but through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Since God has declared us ‘right’ in the present, that verdict will stand on the last day. Even in the face of suffering, then, we have hope. Here, as elsewhere in the Bible, hope is not some vague wish-fulfilment. Hope involves looking forward to the future with confidence, because it’s a future that Christ himself has secured for us.

At the bottom line of it all, and the ultimate basis of Paul’s confidence, is God’s love – not merely shown to us, but ‘poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit’, a sign of his ongoing commitment to us. It’s a love, Paul will say later, from which nothing can separate us (Romans 8:37-39).

If any of this was down to us, we’d have room for doubt. As it is, our confidence lies elsewhere. Peace, hope, love. Not maybe, but definitely.

A Definite Maybe?

I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Romans 5:1-5

Samuel Goldwyn, the movie producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was known for his malapropisms – amusing statements resulting from the use of incongruous or contradictory words. A story goes that when someone urged him to come to a decision about a project, Goldwyn replied: ‘True, I’ve been a long time making up my mind, but now I am giving you a definite answer. I won’t say yes and I won’t say no, but I am giving you a definite maybe.’

Whimsy aside, that’s perhaps the best that can be offered to us on a whole host of issues – a definite maybe.

In some cases, lack of certainty on our part can be bound up with personal insecurity or a self-worth that has been undermined in damaging ways. But these days, even assertive, self-confident people find it hard to be sure, or at least say they are. For that smacks of intolerance, doesn’t it? The entire drift of our culture makes it unacceptable to say ‘I am sure’, particularly when it comes to issues of faith.

Read again Paul’s words at the start of Romans 5.

Just what is it that flows from being justified? Not merely some vague, warm ‘spiritual’ experience, but peace with God, access to God. And how has this come about? Not through attainment to a higher level of consciousness or through anything we can bring to the table (as Paul has made clear in the previous chapters of Romans), but through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Since God has declared us ‘right’ in the present, that verdict will stand on the last day. Even in the face of suffering, then, we have hope. Here, as elsewhere in the Bible, hope is not some vague wish-fulfilment. Hope involves looking forward to the future with confidence, because it’s a future that Christ himself has secured for us.

At the bottom line of it all, and the ultimate basis of Paul’s confidence, is God’s love – not merely shown to us, but ‘poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit’, a sign of his ongoing commitment to us. It’s a love, Paul will say later, from which nothing can separate us (Romans 8:37-39).

If any of this was down to us, we’d have room for doubt. As it is, our confidence lies elsewhere. Peace, hope, love. Not maybe, but definitely.

Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies 1.1 (2016)

The Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies (JBTS) is an academic journal ‘focused on the fields of Bible and Theology from an inter-denominational point of view’, which is ‘concerned with presenting high-level original scholarship in an approachable way’.

Several of the essays from the first issue deal with issues related to Paul, the law, and the New Perspective, along with some interactions with Charles Lee Irons’ important work on ‘righteousness’ language in Paul.

Individual essays are available from here, or the whole issue can be downloaded as a pdf here.

Aaron O’Kelley

Paul’s Doctrine of Justification: Ecclesiology or Soteriology?

The new perspective on Paul places the doctrine of justification primarily in the category of ecclesiology, as a declaration of covenant membership that is common to Jews and Gentiles alike. However, Paul’s use of key terms in the realm of “righteousness” terminology, as well as the phrase “works of the law” indicates that Paul’s doctrine of justification belongs in the category of soteriology, referring primarily to the standing of individuals before God. Nevertheless, this traditional Protestant understanding of justification has significant implications for the doctrine of the church, which the new perspective has rightly pointed out.

David Burnette

The Cruciform Shape of Paul’s Kingdom Theology

Unlike Jesus, Paul is not often associated with the theme of the kingdom of God. While some scholars have claimed that the kingdom is insignificant for Paul, most have simply failed to examine it closely. This article highlights the significance of the kingdom by demonstrating that it is a foundational component of Paul’s proclamation of the cross. This thesis is based primarily on a close examination of 1 Corinthians 4:20, a verse in which Paul contrasts the talk of certain leaders in Corinth with the power of the kingdom. Based on the way Paul uses the term power (δύναμις, dynamis) in 1 Corinthians 1-4, this article contends that the power of the kingdom mentioned in 4:20 is a reference to the power effected through the word of the cross. Other Pauline kingdom references are cited to support this kingdom-cross connection, including Colossians 1:13 and Galatians 5:21. As with the Gospels and Scripture as a whole, Paul’s theology of the kingdom is bound up with a message that cuts against the grain of the world’s wisdom – the message of Christ crucified.

Joshua M. Greever

The Righteousness of God as “The Gate to Paradise”: A Review Article of the Righteousness of God by Charles Lee Irons

John Frederick

A Critical Review of Charles Lee Irons’ The Righteousness of God 

Charles Lee Irons

Response to Two Reviews of The Righteousness of God 

Book Reviews

Snapshots and David A. deSilva on Transformation

I’ve just received what looks like the inaugural volume in a new series – ‘Snapshots’ – edited by Michael Bird and published by Lexham Press:

David A. deSilva, Transformation: The Heart of Paul’s Gospel (Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2014).

The blurb for the series doesn’t give away too much...

‘The Snapshots series, edited by renowned scholar Michael F. Bird, engages significant themes in contemporary biblical and theological scholarship, making them accessible to busy students of the Word and applicable in the life of the church.’

However, deSilva’s book looks interesting, with the chapter titles providing what looks like the flow of the argument:

Introduction: Hearing the Whole of Paul’s Good News

Chapter 1: Foundations for a Broader Understanding of Paul’s Gospel of Transformation

Chapter 2: The Gospel Means the Transformation of the Individual: You Are Free to Become a New Person in Christ

Chapter 3: The Gospel Means the Transformation of Community: You Are Free to Relate to One Another in New Ways

Chapter 4: The Gospel Means the Transformation of the Cosmos: You Are Free from the World’s Rules to Witness to God’s Rule

Credo Magazine 4, 1 (January 2014)

The current issue of Credo is out, this one devoted to ‘Justification’.

According to the editorial blurb:

‘With over 2,000 years of church history in our rear view mirror, it appears that sola fide is a doctrine that comes under discussion in every generation. Our generation is no exception. Much dialogue continues over the New Perspective on Paul, Protestant and Catholic statements of agreement, and the relationship between justification and the Christian life.’

Among other items, the issue contains a long piece by Thomas Schreiner on N.T. Wright on justification now that the latter’s two-volume set on Paul has been published.

The magazine is available to read here, from where also a 37 MB pdf of the whole issue can be downloaded.

Credo Magazine 3, 3 (July 2013)

The current issue of Credo is now out, this one devoted to ‘Born Again: God’s Sovereign Grace in the Miracle of Regeneration’.

According to the editorial blurb:

‘While doctrines such as election, justification, and sanctification typically receive all of the attention in theological conversations, the doctrine of regeneration is often forgotten. Yet, it is this doctrine that undergirds the entire order of salvation. It is the initiatory change in regeneration that results in everything else, from faith and repentance to justification, sanctification, and perseverance. All of these other doctrines owe their existence to that first moment when God breaths [sic] new spiritual life into the sinner’s dead corpse.’

The magazine is available to read here, from where also a 41.7 MB pdf of the whole issue can be downloaded.

Essays for D.A. Carson

Andreas J. Köstenberger and Robert W. Yarbrough (eds.), Understanding the Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of D.A. Carson on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 400pp., ISBN 9781433507199.

D.A. Carson’s 65th birthday is being honoured with this publication of essays, which includes a section on ‘New Testament Studies Around the World’.

Andreas J. Köstenberger’s essay (‘Lifting Up the Son of Man and God’s Love for the World: John 3:16 in Its Historical, Literary, and Theological Contexts) is excerpted here, and Douglas J. Moo’s contribution (‘Justification in Galatians’) is available here.

Scot McKnight on Jesus vs. Paul

Christianity Today carries a long-ish piece by Scot McKnight (beginning here) on the perennially-vexing question of the relationship between Jesus and Paul on ‘the gospel’

He begins:

‘Many biblical scholars and lay Christians have noted that Jesus preached almost exclusively about the kingdom of heaven, while Paul highlighted justification by faith—and not vice versa. Some conclude that they preached two different gospels. Others argue that really they both preached justification; still others say it's all about the kingdom. What gives?’

He notes that his own early experience of reading the gospels as they are ‘filtered through Paul's theology’ is not unusual for evangelicals, and he also thinks the Reformation and the Great Awakenings and revivals of the 18th and 19th centuries largely led to a ‘Paul-shaped movement through and through’. And yet, increasingly, he says, there is an ‘unmistakeable shift among many evangelicals from a Pauline-centered theology to a Jesus-shaped kingdom vision’.

‘It is not exaggerating to say that evangelicalism is facing a crisis about the relationship of Jesus to Paul, and that many today are choosing sides. I meet many young, thinking evangelicals whose “first language” is Jesus and the kingdom. Yet despite the trend, perhaps in reaction to it, many look to Paul and justification by faith as their first language. Those addicted to kingdom language struggle to make Paul fit, while those addicted to Paul’s theological terms struggle to make Jesus fit.’

According to McKnight, attempts to make the one fit the other only end up reducing the gospel – either it gets equated with the kingdom or it becomes a synonym for justification by faith.

Instead, leaning on 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (in which, McKnight notes, there is not a word about ‘kingdom’ or ‘justification’), he says:

‘The gospel is first and foremost about Jesus. Or, to put it theologically, it's about Christology. Behind or underneath both kingdom and justification is the gospel, and the gospel is the saving story of Jesus that completes Israel’s story. “To gospel” is to tell a story about Jesus as the Messiah, as the Lord, as the Son of God, as the Savior.’

After some more elaboration of this point, he concludes:

‘My contention, then, is simple: If we begin with kingdom, we have to twist Paul into shape to fit a kingdom vision. If we being with justification, we have to twist Jesus into shape to fit justification. But if we begin with gospel, and if we understand gospel as Paul does in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, then we will find what unifies Jesus and Paul – that both witness to Jesus as the center of God’s story.’

Catalyst 37, 1 (2010)

The latest issue of one of my favourite online journals – Catalyst – is now up, with the following pieces:

Bryan E. Beyer

Building an Old Testament Library: Genesis-Ruth

Dennis Hollinger

Good Sex: Its Meaning and Morals

Andy Johnson

Navigating Justification: Conversing with Paul

Henry H. Knight III

Consider Wesley

Marc Cortez on the Evangelical Theological Society 2010 Meetings

The 62nd Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, recently concluded, provided an opportunity to consider ongoing debates on justification by faith, with the help of three plenary speakers – Tom Schreiner, Frank Thielman, and N.T. Wright – all of whom have published extensively on the topic.

Bibliobloggers have been summarising sessions – especially the key ones on justification. I’ve particularly benefited from Marc Cortez’s reflections over at Scientia et Sapientia, and have linked to his summaries of those papers (as well as some others) below.

Jason Sexton

The State of the Recent Evangelical Trinitarian Resurgence

Tom Schreiner

Justification: The Saving Righteousness of God in Christ

Gregg Allison

Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Promises and Pitfalls for Evangelical Appropriation

Frank Thielman

God’s Righteousness as God’s Fairness in Romans: The Oldest Perspective on Paul

Megan DeFranza

Sex and the Image of God: Dangers in Evangelical and Roman Catholic Theologies

Jonathan Morgan

Christus Victor Motifs in the Soteriology of Thomas Aquinas

N.T. Wright

Justification Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Three posts – here, here, and here.

Sung Wook Chung

Calvin on the Church as the ‘Mother’ of Believers

More on the Wheaton Conference on N.T. Wright

I’ve already linked (here) to the video and audio of presentations at the recent Annual Wheaton Conference on ‘Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N.T. Wright’.

There are many reports and reflections on the conference now available online, including by the following:

William B. Evans (at Reformation21)

Michael Gorman (five posts, beginning here)

Nijay Gupta (two posts on Day 1, beginning here)

I read the news earlier today – and by now everyone will probably know – that Wright is moving from Durham to take up a post at the University of St Andrews. It’s reported on here (from the Durham perspective) and here (from the St Andrews perspective).

Trevin Wax on N.T. Wright and John Piper on Justification

Trevin Wax, ‘The Justification Debate: A Primer’, Christianity Today (June 2009).

Although I continue to follow the issue with interest, I haven’t had the will or managed to muster the energy to blog about the ongoing debates surrounding justification, particularly as they are centred around the respective positions of John Piper and N.T. Wright.

However, I am happy to draw attention to this handy summary statement, by Trevin Wax, of the approaches taken by the two ‘pastor-theologians’ on the problem, the law, God’s righteousness, first-century Judaism, the gospel, how justification happens, and future justification.

A 4.56MB pdf, preserving the original look of the magazine pages is available here.

A related piece – ‘Not an Academic Question’ – features some pastors’ reflections on the significance of the debate for ministry.

Ecclesia Reformanda 1, 1 (2009)

Yesterday I received a copy of the inaugural volume of this journal. The website blurb reads:

‘Ecclesia Reformanda is a new print journal for pastors, theological students, and scholars, that seeks to serve the Church in its ongoing reformation according to God’s Word. The editorial board believes that historic Reformed theology offers the best expression of the theology of Scripture, and so the journal is confessionally Reformed. However, a genuinely Reformed theology is always looking for God to shed new light on his Church from his Word. It is therefore always reforming. Ecclesia Reformanda is distinctively Reformed, with a contemporary cutting edge. It presents some of the best in British Reformed thinking and writing to serve the Church, her teachers, and her Lord.’

The contents are as follows:

Matthew W. Mason
Editorial

R. S. Clarke
The Maximalist Hermeneutics of James B. Jordan
James B. Jordan’s maximalist hermeneutic seeks to read the Bible in a way that allows the depth and richness of its meaning to be discerned. The relationship between special and general revelation is important, as the world teaches us how to understand the Bible, and the Bible shows us how to interpret the world. The reader of the Bible should learn to be sensitive to all its literary tropes, in particular its rich symbolism and typology. Controls on this maximalist hermeneutic are not found in externally imposed rules but in theological and ecclesiastical traditions which themselves derive from the Bible.

Sarah-Jane Austin
The Poetry of Wisdom: A Note on James 3:6
James 3:6 presents complex exegetical difficulties and is often declared textually corrupt. However, since James was probably influenced by Hebrew wisdom literature, and since this is typically poetic, a consideration of Hebrew poetic parallelism may help to make sense of the text as it stands. Viewed in the light of Berlin’s analysis of parallelism, James 3:1-12 is particularly rich in poetic devices, and this suggests that in 3:6 poetic function overrides the requirements of normal syntax. A reading is proposed which arranges the verse in three balanced couplets and situates it in the overlap of two major groups of metaphors.

Matthew W. Mason
John Owen’s Doctrine of Union with Christ in Relation to His Contributions to Seventeenth Century Debates Concerning Eternal Justification
In 1649, Richard Baxter accused John Owen of teaching eternal justification, whereby the elect are justified from eternity, rather than when they believe in Christ. More recently, Hans Boersma has also argued that Owen taught justification prior to faith. Through an historical examination of Owen’s doctrines of justification and union with Christ, I demonstrate that he distinguishes various types of union with Christ: decretal, forensic, and mystical. He is thus able to maintain a mainstream Reformed Orthodox doctrine of justification by faith, whilst also maintaining that faith is a gift of God, purchased by Christ, and applied through Christ.

Matthew Roberts
Thinking Like a Christian: The Prolegomena of Herman Bavinck
This article outlines the main contours of Herman Bavinck’s Prolegomena. Bavinck’s insight was that theological method must be grounded in the substance of theology itself, specifically in its Trinitarian and covenantal aspects. Theology is to be understood as a critical part of the image of God, as he is reflected in the believing consciousness of men in the Church, in response to God’s revelation in Christ. This concept is tightly integrated with Bavinck’s central understanding of the gospel as God fulfilling his creation design in Christ. In this way Bavinck derives a robustly Christian account of knowledge and certainty.

Book Reviews