Faith Alone---The Doctrine of Justification

We are coming upon the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017. It is fitting that a new series of books would highlight the five rallying cries of that movement.

Faith alone – sola fide – declares our justification is by faith alone. Schreiner shows that justification by faith alone is the teaching of the Bible and is deeply rooted in the early church writers and theologians throughout church history. He shows it also makes sense in our Christian experience. He also looks at contemporary authors on the subject.

He lays a foundation by defining terms. His historical section is not exhaustive as he looks at major theologians prior to the Reformation, major Reformation Protestants, and the Council of Trent. He covers the debate on Christ's work, whether it includes the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of righteousness or not.

He reviews what the Bible says regarding justification, beginning with Paul, then the gospels and Acts. He covers the “faith in Jesus Christ” verses the “faith of Jesus Christ” issue. He explains justification in Paul's theology, critiquing many contemporary authors. He explores the meaning of righteousness and then the eschatological nature of justification in Paul's writings.

He covers the complicated issue of whether God's righteousness is transformative or forensic. He argues for the forensic position, that is, a declaration. He shows that the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ is imputed to believers, addressing those who oppose the idea. He looks at the role of good works with respect to faith.

He lastly answers contemporary challenges to sola fide, including the Catholic dialogs, the Joint Declaration, the ECT, Frank Beckwith's return to Catholicism, and N. T. Wright's New Perspective on Paul.

I really appreciated Schreiner's argument that the verdict of justification is effective. Sinners who trust in Christ are truly righteous before God. That righteousness is not of themselves but in Jesus Christ. “They are righteous because they are united to Jesus Christ and he is their righteousness.” This righteousness is no legal fiction. Christ's righteousness has been imputed to believers. “We are truly right in God's sight by faith alone!”

This is a very good introduction to justification by faith, including an exploration of the doctrine. Those looking for a review of the topic, including history, the Bible, and theology will appreciate this book. It is a bit academic, with tons of footnotes, but serious laypeople will be able to follow the text well. There is an extensive Bibliography included for those who would like to study the subject further.

I highly recommend this book to those who want to know what justification by faith alone really means and how it affects their spiritual life.

You can watch a book trailer here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYRQ0Onyc9g

My rating: 5/5 stars.

Thomas R. Schreiner (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament and associate dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. The author of numerous books, he is the preaching pastor of Clifton Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

Zondervan Academic, 288 pages.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher for the purpose of an independent and honest review.

This is such a great series! To start the series off Thomas Schreiner opens it up with a historical, biblical, exegetical look at the doctrine of Justification and it just gets better from there!

One of the most fundamental tenants the christian faith is the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. That remains to be one of the sweetest promise and doctrine that God has offered to the world. As such, it should deservedly be proclaimed and defended with zeal and vigour. That is exactly what Thomas R. Schreiner has done in this book.

Initially I was skeptical whether a book solely on faith alone would be something worth reading. I have been steeped in the reformed tradition and having read ‘Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace’ by James Montgomery Boice, I was not sure if it was a topic that had warranted a book for it. Having read this book, I have to say that this book certainly deserves wide reading.

Schreiner starts by giving a brief introduction to the doctrine of justification by faith alone and some objections that have been raised against this doctrine. Next, Schreiner tackles the first objection against the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Schreiner shows convincingly that justification by faith alone is not a 16th century discovery, rather it is doctrine that has known since the earliest church has exist. Schreiner then skilfully trace this doctrine through history and highlights several nuances of a few key christian leaders.

Next, Schreiner shows readers how the bible teaches us justification is by faith alone. Within this section Schreiner goes to the original languages and highlights and explains key words. Schreiber demonstrates that a faithful reading of scripture will no doubt lead readers to the justification of faith.
Lastly, Schreiner brings the readers up to date on contemporary arguments against justification by faith. Crucially Schreiner gives brief answers against N. T. Wright’s New Perspective on Paul. Pastors who are new to the topic can have a quick overview on this issue through reading this book, but they will be wise to consult other book length responses written by the same author.

All in all, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. He has accomplished what a good theological book should do, give readers a biblical and historical understanding of the topic and engages the readers with contemporary issues. Schreiner has set a very high standard for this series and I certainly look forward to the other 4 books in this series.

Rating: 5 / 5

Disclaimer: I was given this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Wordpress: http://wp.me/p4izrp-v7 Blog will be posted on 11 Feb 2016

This is the first book in “The 5 Solas Series” that is being published by Zondervan. The book articulates and defend the classic Reformed doctrine of justification: that justification is forensic (as opposed to transformative) and accessed by faith alone (as opposed to works of the law). If the rest of the series is just as promising as this one I am definitely going to purchase them. The book is broken down into three section. The first is a historical tour of Sole Fide. This is followed by the second section which gives a biblical and theological presentation of the doctrine of justification. This is the “meat” of the book. The book then conclude with a section that examines contemporary challenges to Sola Fide. I will briefly go over the three section of the book.
I was delighted with the historical survey of the doctrine of justification throughout church history. I thought Schreiner did a good job assessing the history of this doctrine with care and he was quite nuanced. For instance in looking at the evidence from the Patristics Schreiner reminded the readers that a fully developed doctrine of justification as expressed by Post-Reformation Protestants wouldn’t be found in the records because the doctrine took time to develop. One must also remember that doctrinal refinement occur when a doctrine is attacked and justification wasn’t an issue of debate during the early church as it was later during the Reformation. Yet we must also avoid the other extreme of thinking the early church as a whole denied justification by faith alone since there are affirmations and denials of certain truth claims by various church fathers that suggests some concept of Sola Fide. I also enjoyed the book’s discussion of the views of the Council of Trent (chapter 4), John Owen, Richard Baxter (both in chapter 5) and Jonathan Edwards. I appreciated Schreiner’s discussion about Trent since so much controversies surrounds what did the Council rejected and affirmed concerning a Protestant view of justification. I thought it was helpful for myself to get some clarity. I learned from this historical survey of how Baxter’s view of justification disagreed with John Owen’s view. Schreiner also did a good job arguing that Jonathan Edwards was still within the orthodoxy of a Reformed view of justification even though at times Edwards didn’t state things as clearly as he should have and other scholars have noted that. In all the historical surveys I appreciated Schreiner’s interaction with other important secondary sources as well, even with those that he disagrees with such as Thomas Oden on the early church, the Finnish interpretation of Luther and various scholars on Edwards such as Gary Steward and George Hunsinger.
The best part of the book is section two that gives the biblical and theological survey. Schreiner is a New Testament scholar and here his gifting really enhances the book. This section has ten chapters out of the twenty one chapters in the book. Beginning with the first chapter of this section, I enjoyed Schreiner’s wonderful presentation that refuted the idea that “works of the law” or “work” only refer to the rules that separates Jews from Gentiles that is often advocated by the New Perspective of Paul and Roman Catholic. Over several chapters Schriener also discussed about the range of meaning with the Greek word righteous. I loved his defense of forensic righteousness in Scripture. From reading the chapter on forensic righteousness, it seems that Scrheiner no longer takes the righteousness of God found in Romans 1:17 to be both forensic and transformative as Schreiner believed when he wrote his commentary on Romans for the BECNT series in 1998. If so I welcome that change. The third part of the book examines some recent contemporary challenges to the classic Reformed view of justification. It was helpful to see the author interact with contemporary Catholics today, specifically with his evaluation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I personally thought the best part of this section of the book was the author’s evaluation of two joint ecumenical documents with Roman Catholics and Protestants, both the “Joint Declaration of the Doctrine of Justification and the Evangelical Catholic Together. Schreiner argues that these documents are problematic for being intentionally vague, still not being fully biblical, compromises with Protestant beliefs if one is Protestant and in the end is more agreeable with Catholicism rather than Protestantism. I think Schreiner successfully makes his case. Schreiner also devotes two chapters to N.T. Wright’s New Perspective on Paul although it was repetitive of content already found in the biblical and thelogical survey of the book. Still I think it is worthwhile to have summarizing chapters on the problems with NT Wright’s New perspective on Paul. Overall I think Schreiner modeled Christian scholarship well in this book. Schreiner’s exegetical skills are brought to bear to the subject at hand, while he also interact with opposing perspectives and is gracious yet uncompromising. This is a good book.
NOTE: This book was provided to me free by Zondervan and Net Galley without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.