Book Review: By Faith Alone

Answering the Challenges to the Doctrine of Justification, edited by Gary L. W. Johnson and Guy P. Waters.

This is a book of essays—nine in all (ten, if you count the introduction by Guy Waters)—answering recent challenges to the historic Reformed understanding of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, concentrating on the New Perspective on Paul and the Federal Vision, but also engaging the classic Arminian position and Mormonism. Individual essay authors include

• Cornelis P. Venema
• T. David Gordon
• Richard D. Phillips
• C. FitzSimons Allison
• David VanDrunen
• R. Fowler White and E. Calvin Beisner
• John Bolt
• Gary L. W. Johnsons

As might be expected from a book that consists of essays by various authors, the book is a little uneven. Some essays seem to be written with the interested lay person in mind, and others assumed much more prior knowledge on the part of the reader. In addition, since the essays were originally intended to stand alone, there is a fair bit of repetition of ideas and arguments.

 

That means there were essays I enjoyed reading, those that were beyond me, and those I just wasn’t interested in. The first two essays engage the writings of N. T. Wright. While I found the explanations and arguments in these two chapters very interesting, I don’t think I know enough about the issues to judge them. I also enjoyed several essays defending imputed righteousness and the active obedience of Christ, because this is a doctrine that seems to come up in discussions occasionally, and it was helpful to see it defended from scripture. The essays related to the Auburn Avenue or Federal Vision controversy were mostly beyond me. I’m not Presbyterian, and I don’t know enough about the issues to even understand the essays.

If you are like me, and a bit of a novice on these issues, you will probably find yourself a bit lost on some of the essays, although there are those you may well find valuable to you. However, if you are up on these things, I suspect you’ll find the entire book useful and interesting.