The Justification Reader

by Thomas C Oden

Overview

The Justification Reader sets out the classic Christian teaching of "salvation by grace through faith." Distinguished theologian Thomas C. Oden, well known for retrieving the riches of church tradition, here gathers together the early Christian sources on the theme of justification.

Ranging broadly through Christian history and across all branches of the church, Oden cites the writings of such major figures as Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzus, and John Chrysostom in the East and Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great in the West. Although Oden presents all the relevant historical texts on justification, the book also includes his own insightful explication of the doctrine. His work shows that what these church fathers teach on justification was restated almost verbatim by the sixteenth-century Reformers and can still be confessed in good conscience by Christians from every communion. Thus this volume both provides a compendium of a central belief of the faith and demonstrates its ecumenical potential.

The first volume in a new series, this book will be an important sourcebook for readers from every tradition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802839664
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	07/29/2002
Series:	Classic Christian Reader Series
Pages:	182
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.42(d)

Table of Contents

	Abbreviations	xiv
	Introduction	1
1.	The Promise	1
2.	The Heart of the Gospel	2
A.	The Special Comfort of God's Free Grace	3
1.	The Unique Blessing of Justification	3
2.	Basic Definitions	3
B.	The Centrality of Justification in Christian Teaching	4
1.	The Decisive Baseline of Evangelical Teaching	4
2.	Why Is It a Comforting Doctrine?	5
3.	The Limits of Our Powers of Restitution	6
C.	Why a Justification Reader?	6
1.	It Provides a Model for Classic Christian Reasoning	7
2.	Why Is Justification Teaching Especially Pertinent Today?	7
3.	Simplicity	8
4.	On the Genre of the "Reader"	8
5.	Why Have These Texts Remained Shockingly Inaccessible Elsewhere?	10
6.	A Welcoming Note for Orthodox and Catholic Readers	11
Part 1	Justification
Chapter 1	The Ancient Fathers on Evangelical Justification	15
A.	Typical Misconceptions of Classic Christian Teaching on Saving Faith	15
1.	Peacemaking among the Divided Faithful	15
2.	My Simple Thesis	16
3.	Why the Classic Christian Consensus Is Not Properly Described as Either European or Western	17
4.	Why This Presentation of Evidence Is So Urgently Needed amid Uncharitable Polemics among Evangelicals, Liberals, Catholics, and Orthodox Today	18
5.	How Both Evangelical and Liberal Assumptions Have Tilted the Perception of Ancient Orthodox Christian Salvation Teaching	19
6.	Liberal Misconceptions	21
B.	The Unexplored Connection: The Fathers Were Not Ignorant of the Pauline Teaching of Justification	23
1.	What Is Meant by "Patristic"?	23
2.	The Unity of the First Five Centuries Contrasted with the Conflict of the Last Five Centuries	24
3.	Remembering the Fathers' Continuous Immersion in the Written Word	26
4.	The Practical Impact	26
5.	Why Dangerous? The Alarming Consequence of the Rediscovery of the Unity of the Body of Christ	28
6.	Why Does This Recognition Have a Painful Edge for Protestants?	28
7.	Can Christian Teaching Be Trusted If It Lacks Scriptural Grounding and an Orthodox Historical Textuary?	29
8.	Ecumenical Dialogue Needs These Arguments	29
9.	Assessing the Joint Declaration	31
10.	The Growing Hunger for Greater Evangelical Unity in the Gospel	32
11.	The Search for Balance and the Hazard of Presenting Too Little Evidence or Too Much	33
12.	Fairly Assessing the Evidence	35
Chapter 2	Justification Defined	36
A.	Rehearsing the Classic Consensus on Justification	36
1.	What Is Justification?	36
2.	The Way to Consensus	38
3.	Representative Reformed Confessions on Justification	39
4.	The Lutheran Formula of Concord	40
5.	Baptist Confessions	40
6.	Anglican Tradition	41
7.	Wesleyan Traditions	41
8.	Pentecostal Traditions	42
9.	Arguing Consensuality	43
B.	Introducing Locus Classicus Patristic Texts on Justification	44
1.	Early Eastern Voices on Justification	44
2.	Early Western Voices on Justification	45
3.	A Case in Point: Consensual Interpretation of Ephesians 2	47
4.	Whether These Voices Harmonize: Modest Objectives on Doctrinal Concurrence	49
C.	God's Costly Way of Reestablishing a Right Relation with the Sinner	50
1.	Comparing Old and New Testament Interpretations of Justification	50
2.	Old Testament Anticipations	50
3.	Why Do We So Fiercely Resist Hearing This Good News?	51
4.	While You Were Yet Ungodly	52
D.	How Divine Love Brings Sinners into an Uprighted Relation with Divine Justice	53
1.	Unpacking the Courtroom Metaphor	53
2.	The Judge and the Law	54
3.	Elements of the Courtroom Drama	54
4.	Our Advocate	55
5.	How Clemency Comes Late in the Trial	55
6.	The Acquittal	56
7.	There Is Now No Condemnation	57
8.	Behavioral Righteousness Distinguished from Juridical Righteousness	58
Chapter 3	Receiving Righteousness from God	60
A.	Justified by His Blood	60
1.	In What Sense Is Christ "Made to Be Sin for Us"?	60
2.	Expiation	62
3.	Justified by His Blood	63
4.	Much More Are We Saved by His Blood	64
5.	What Is Redemption?	65
6.	The Exchange	65
B.	How Righteousness Is Revealed	66
1.	Righteousness Belongs to God	66
2.	Righteousness Revealed in Creation and Conscience	67
3.	Righteousness Revealed in the Gospel	68
4.	Giving Account on the Last Day	68
C.	Our Appropriation of God's Righteousness	69
1.	Christ Is Our Only Righteousness	69
2.	Sin Made Apparent by the Law	70
3.	Works Righteousness Rejected	71
4.	Is the Law Overthrown?	73
5.	Neither Circumcision Nor Uncircumcision Yields Advantage	74
6.	Counting All Loss for Christ	75
7.	The Power of His Resurrection	77
Part 2	Grace Alone
Chapter 1	Why Imputed Grace Dislodges All Boasting	81
A.	Defining Grace	81
1.	Scriptural Terms for God's Unmerited Mercy	81
2.	The Wooing of Sinners	83
B.	The Nurture of Gracious Ability	83
1.	The Demeanor of Grace	83
2.	God's Own Gift of Himself	83
3.	The Gift	84
4.	Life as Unearned Gift	85
5.	Works and Grace Contrasted	86
C.	How Grace Grounds Justification: By Free Grace We Have Full Satisfaction	87
1.	We Are Justified as a Gift	87
2.	Four Related Metaphorical Arenas: Forgiving, Pardoning, Accounting, and Reconciling	87
3.	Forgiving and Pardoning: Are They Distinguishable?	88
4.	Distinguishing Pardon and Justification	89
5.	Only God Can Justly Forgive Sin	89
6.	Who Can Pardon?	90
7.	Forgiveness as Given	90
D.	Imputed Righteousness	91
1.	The Bookkeeping Analogy	92
2.	Discharging Sin and Crediting Righteousness	92
3.	The New Accounting	93
4.	Remission of Debt	94
5.	Summarizing the Confluence of Biblical Metaphors	94
E.	The Fathers Teach the Unmerited Grace of the Triune God	95
1.	The Grace of the Triune God	95
2.	The Spirit Is the Gift	96
3.	The God of All Grace	97
F.	Receiving Grace, Growing in Grace, Living under Grace	98
1.	Receiving Grace	99
2.	Growing in Grace	99
3.	Living under Grace	100
G.	How Protestant Definitions of Grace Confirm the Patristic Consensus	101
1.	Standard Lutheran Confessions	101
2.	Reformed Confessions	102
3.	A Congregationalist Standard	103
4.	A Baptist Standard	103
5.	Anglican Standards	104
6.	Wesleyan Standards	104
7.	Contemporary Evangelicals Speak Together	105
8.	Conclusion: Whether There Is a Consensual Protestant Teaching of Grace	105
Chapter 2	Let the Fathers Speak for Themselves on Sola Gratia	107
A.	By Grace You Are Saved	107
1.	The Fathers Teach That We Are Freely Justified as a Gift	107
2.	The Fathers Teach That Faith Alone Saves	108
3.	The Fathers Teach That Grace Is Unsearchable	109
4.	The Fathers Teach That Grace Enables Freedom	110
B.	The Fathers Teach That All Boasting Is Out of Place	111
1.	No Room for Boasting	111
2.	Glorifying God, Not Human Works	112
3.	The Strength of Grace Works Precisely through Human Weakness	113
4.	The Grace of Resurrection	113
C.	Grace in Action	114
1.	How Grace Works	114
2.	Grace Can Only Be Received	115
D.	The Gift of Faith and Human Agency	116
1.	Faith Is a Gift Requiring a Response	117
2.	Grace and Active Willing	117
3.	Receptive Faith and Its Activity; Active Faith and Its Receptivity	118
E.	The Grace of Effectual Calling	120
1.	Preparing Grace Leads to Calling	120
2.	Sufficient Grace	120
F.	New Life under Grace	121
1.	Dying to Sin, Living to God	121
2.	Dead in Trespasses, Raised Up with Christ	122
3.	A Special Grace Is Given to the Humble	122
4.	Freedom Undiminished by Grace	123
5.	Using without Abusing Grace	124
6.	The Grace That Is Coming	125
Part 3	By Faith Alone
Chapter 1	Justifying Faith	129
A.	What Is Faith?	129
1.	Faith Defined	130
2.	Personal Trust	130
B.	Faith Classically Defined in Hebrews 11:1	131
1.	The Certainty of What We Do Not See	131
2.	The Simplicity of Faith	131
3.	Risk-Taking Trust Is Required to Learn of Faith	131
4.	Faith's Evidences	132
5.	Trusting beyond Sight without Doubt	133
6.	The Condition for Receiving Justifying Grace	133
C.	Justifying Grace Received Only by Faith	134
1.	The Gift Requires a Response	134
2.	Without Faith It Is Impossible to Please God	135
3.	The Power of Faith	136
D.	How Faith Is Congruent with Justification	136
1.	Justifying Faith	136
2.	Does Faith as Such Justify Apart from Grace?	137
3.	Whether Faith Is a Condition of Salvation	137
4.	Faith Requires Renunciation, Freely Resolving to Live a Life of Righteousness	138
Chapter 2	Faith in God's Righteousness	139
A.	Approaching God with Grounded Confidence	139
1.	Faith Is the Work of the Spirit	139
2.	Faith and the Means of Grace	140
3.	Gaining Confidence in Approaching God	141
4.	Confess with the Lips What Is Believed in the Heart	141
5.	Whether There Is a Patristic Consensus	143
B.	Biblical Examples of Faith	144
1.	Faith as Exemplified by Abraham	144
2.	Righteousness Was Accounted to Abraham Due to His Faith Alone	146
3.	Distinguishing Implicit from Explicit Faith	146
C.	Classic Distinctions Regarding Faith	148
1.	Saving Faith Distinguished from General Human Faith	148
2.	General Faith and the History of Religions	149
3.	The Possibility of Faith	150
4.	Faith as Believing and Believed	151
5.	Contending for the Faith	152
6.	How Saving Faith May Be Studied	152
7.	Historical Faith and Intellectual Assent	153
D.	An Act of Mind, Will, and Heart	154
1.	Faith Assents with the Mind to the Truth of the Word	155
2.	Faith Consents with the Whole Will to Surrender to the Word	157
3.	Faith Trusts with the Heart in the Living Word	157
	Conclusion	161