Book Review: In My Place Condemned He Stood

Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement by J. I. Packer and Mark Dever.

The publication of this book resulted from the collective reasoning of Ligon Duncan, Al Mohler, Mark Dever and C.J. Mahaney,  who all agreed that it would be useful to have three classic essays on the atonement by J.I. Packer included in one book. These three pieces—The Heart of the Gospel, a chapter from the classic book Knowing God; What Did the Cross Achieve?: The Logic of Penal Substitution, originally a Tyndale Biblical Theology Lecture; and Saved by His Precious Blood,  the well-known introduction to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ—along with Mark Dever’s article, Nothing but the Blood, first published in Christianity Today, make up the heart of In My Place Condemned He Stood.

Since this book is a collection of essays, I’ve decided to go through it chapter by chapter, giving a short summary of each and, when I think it’d be useful, my evaluation of it.

Click to read more ...

Stopping on Yellow

I spied a few arnicas in bloom on last night’s dog walk, so it’s time to repost another of the wildflower posts.

 

These are two of the yellow coloured wildflowers you might see if you visited the Yukon. On the left is a little arnica flower. As you can probably tell from the photo, arnica is closely related to sunflowers and asters. Yes, this is yet another member of the largest family of flowering plants, the composites. This particular variety of arnica grows throughout the western mountains of North America from the Yukon down through northern Mexico.

From a web search for information on this wildflower, it’s easy to see that it is best known for its use in herbal medicine. It is one of those “external use only” plants, rubbed on the skin in hopes of soothing all manner of owies—scrapes, bruises, sprains, muscle pain, chapped lips, irritated nostrils, acne, burns, sores, and eczema. What’s more, applied to the scalp, arnica makes hair grow, so look out, Rogaine! It has the potential, however, to be a cure that is worse than the disease. With a warning lable that says, “May produce severe inflammation,” you may want to think twice before using it, especially for your irritated nostrils.

On the right is another yellow wildflower. I know it doesn’t look yellow in the photo, but those pods in the photo were flowers just a little while ago. They looked like this, and that’s why it’s called the yellow dryas. I don’t know what you think, but I like them better as a little hairy fruit than in yellow flower form.

It’s when they’re dressed in their light lavender silky threads and golden crowns that the name dryas seems most appropriate. Dryas, as you know if you’re up on Greek mythology, was the son of King Lycurgus. A right royal myth prince was he. Unfortunately for prince Dryas, one day his father went a tad loony and mistook his own royal offspring for a patch of ivy and killed him. It’s in this young prince’s memory that someone named these little whippersnappers dryas. I suppose that’s because it would be next to impossible to mistake them for ivy unless you were loony.

 

 Previous wildflower posts: 

• Lavender Charm
• Into the Wild Blue
• The Blue Belles

Theological Term of the Week

 

Moving on to the fourth of the five solas. The previous solas were sola scriptura, solus Christus and sola gratia.

 

sola fide
Literally, “faith alone.” The reformation slogan meaning that faith—that is, complete trust in Christ and his saving work—“is the alone instrument [or means] of justification.”¹  

• From Galatians 2:16:

  [Y]et we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. (ESV)

• From The Heidelberg Catechism:
  

  Question 60. How are thou righteous before God?

  Answer: Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; so that, though my conscience accuse me, that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil;  notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor committed any sin: yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart.

  Question 61. Why sayest thou, that thou art righteous by faith only?

  Answer: Not that I am acceptable to God, on account of the worthiness of my faith; but because only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, is my righteousness before God; and that I cannot receive and apply the same to myself any other way than by faith only.

• From Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem, page 730:
  

  Scripture never says we are justified because of the inherent goodness of our faith, as if our faith has merit before God. It never allows us to think that our faith in itself earns favor with God. Rather, Scripture says that we are justified “by means of” our faith, understanding faith to be the instrument through which justification is given to us, but not at all an activity that earns us merit or favor with God. Rather, we are justified solely because of the merits of Christ’s work. (Romans 5:17-19)
  
  But we may ask why God chose faith to be the attitude of heart by which we would obtain justification. Why could God not have decided to give justification to all those who sincerely show love? Or who show joy? Or contentment? Or humility? Or wisdom? Why did God choose faith as the means by which we receive justification?
  
  It is apparently because faith is the one attitude of heart that is the exact opposite of depending on ourselves. When we come to Christ in faith we essentially say, “I give up! I will not depend on myself or my own good works any longer. I know that I can never make myself righteous before God. Therefore, Jesus, I trust you and depend on you completely to give me a righteous standing before God.” In this way, faith is the exact opposites of trusting in ourselves, and therefore it is the attitude that perfectly fits salvation that depends not at all on our own merit but entirely on God’s free gift of grace. Paul explains this when he says, “That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendents” (Rom. 4:16) This is why the Reformers from Martin Luther on were so firm in their insistence that justification comes not through faith plus some merit or good works on our part, but only through faith alone.

• Augustus Toplady describes the kind of faith that is the means of our justification in the hymn Rock of Ages:

  Nothing in my hand I bring,
  Simply to Thy cross I cling;
  Naked, come to Thee for dress;
  Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
  Foul, I to the fountain fly;
  Wash me, Savior, or I die.

Learn more:

1. J. I. Packer: Sola Fide: The Reformed Doctrine of Justification
2. James White: The Empty Hand of Faith
   
3. Joel Beeke: Justification by Faith Alone: The Relationship of Faith to Justification
4. John McArthur: Jesus’ Perspective on Sola Fide
5. Brian Schwertley: Justification by Faith
6. R. C. Sproul: Sola Fide (audio)
7. Michael Ross: Sola Fide: Faith Alone, Part 1 and Part 2 (audio)

Related terms:

• five solas
• justification
• saving faith
• sola gratia
• sola scriptura
• solus Christus
• soli Deo gloria

¹Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 11, Section 2 

Filed under Reformed Theology.

Have you come across a theological term that you don’t understand and that you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

 

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.