Category Archives: Salvation

Spurgeon on divine predestination and human responsibility

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It is interesting that the great Baptist preacher C.H. Spurgeon placed a chapter entitled, ‘A Defence of Calvinism’ near the beginning, and not near the end, of his autobiography.  For the ‘doctrines of grace’ were not, for him, some distant climax of his faith, but, rather, its heart-beat and its foundation.

Listen to Spurgeon:-

‘That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts few can see clearly.  They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory, but they are not. 

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Justification according to Tom Wright

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I summarise and comment on Tom Wright’s new book, Justification:  God’s plan and Paul’s Vision, which is itself a response to John Piper’s book, The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright.

Preface

In his preface, Wright begins by setting out some of the main ‘pressure points’ in the debate over justification:-

1.  The nature and scope of salvation.  Wright here repeats his complaint that Christians have for a long time tended to think of ‘salvation’ as meaning ‘going to heaven when I die’. …

Tom Wright’s new book on justification

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It didn’t take Bishop Tom Wright very long to get another book out.  But then, if you have a brain the size of a small planet and the ability to write faster than most of us can read, you can produce a book while the other person is still sharpening his pencil.

This one – Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (SPCK) flopped through my letterbox yesterday and first impressons are that it’s going to be an interesting and entertaining read. …

Doug Moo on Justification

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I was interested to come across this audio download of Doug Moo speaking on ‘Fresh Thoughts on Justification in Paul and James’.

It will be of interest to anyone exploring recent debates relating to the ‘New Perspective on Paul’ and justification.

Moo’s main point is that we should be willing to apply the familiar ‘already/not yet’ to the doctrine of justification as well as to other facets of redemption.  In other words, we should not be so single-minded about Paul’s emphasis on salvation by faith alone as to miss his (and James’) stress on the necessity of works.…

Wright on Piper on Wright

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In advance of the publication of his new book, Justification: God’s plan and Paul’s vision, here is an interview with N.T. Wright from Trevin Wax.  I’m afraid I don’t think it advances the discussion very far.

Wright says:-

My anxiety about what has now been seen as the traditional Reformed view (though there are many traditional Reformed views!) is that it focuses all attention on ‘me and my salvation’ rather than on ‘God and God’s purposes’.

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Biblical foundations of penal substitution 6 – Romans

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Context

Paul teaches in Romans that the universal sinfulness of humankind provokes God’s righteous anger.  This has both a present (Rom 1:18) and a future (Rom 2:5) aspect.

Moroever, Rom 1-3 makes it clear that God’s wrath is personal and active, and not merely the impersonal outworking of some inevitable process of cause and effect, as C.H. Dodd and others have taught.  It is God’s wrath and it is from heaven (Rom 1:18).  It is God’s judgment, Rom 2:5f, 16; 3:5, and God’s verdict, Rom 2:26; 3:7; 3:19. …

Biblical foundations of penal substitution 4 – Mark

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Mark 10:45 – a ransom for many

Penal substitution is implied in the word lytron (‘ransom’), and suggested by an allusion to Isa 53 and the substitionary work of the Suffering Servant.  ‘The cup I drink’ (Mk 10:38) is, of course, the cup of God’s wrath (Mk 14:36; Psa 75:8; Isa 51:17; Jer 25:15f; Ezek 23:32-34; Hab 2:16).  This cup of wrath, according to the text just cited, is destined for the wicked, but is drunk by Jesus in their place, as ‘a ransom for many’. …

Tom Wright’s forthcoming book on justification

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I see that Tom (aka N.T.) Wright is about to publish a book-length response to John Piper’s The Future of Justification and other critics of his teaching on the doctrine of justification.

Wright’s book will be called Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision.  It will be published in the UK by SPCK in February 2009.

A sneak preview is available here.

UPDATE: IVP (America) has posted some endorsements of Wright’s book, and some of these rather predictably come from the ‘tribes’ (New Perspective people and emerging church people) who might be expected to love it. …

What St Paul really said about justification

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Before doing anything more with John Piper’s critique of N.T. Wright’s teaching on the doctrine of justification, I’m going to have a close look at what Wright himself has written.  If I were a scholar, I would study everything that he had written on the subject.  But I’m not, so I’m going to focus on the relevant chapter (7) in his book What Saint Paul Really Said.  What follows is my summary of Wright’s argument.…

Piper on Wright on justification

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I’ve just made a start on John Piper’s important book on N.T. Wright’s teaching on the doctrine of justification.

Entitled The future of justification, it is available for free download here.

A helpful chapter-by-chapter summary has been posted here.

And here’s the blurb:-

N.T. Wright, a world-renowned New Testament scholar and bishop of Durham in the Church of England, has spent years studying the apostle Paul’s writings and has offered a “fresh perspective” on Paul’s theology.

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