JUSTIFIED IN CHRIST
God’s plan for us in justification
Edited by K.Scott Oliphint. Christian Focus/Mentor. 336 pages. £11.99
ISBN 978-1-84550-246-1
Justified in Christ is a collection of eight essays on the doctrine of justification written against the background of the New Perspective. As members of the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary, the authors write in the Reformed tradition as they examine the subject from the angle of their own specialities of Scripture, church history, apologetics and pastoral studies. The final third of the book reproduces John Murray’s classic study on The Imputation of Adam’s Sin.
Sinclair Ferguson’s introductory sketch of the history behind the current crisis gets the book off to a good start. He traces how it is that, in spite of the strength of evangelical scholarship, new positions have emerged within evangelicalism which are damaging to its health. He points out that the central theme of the person and work of Christ has been largely neglected and replaced by a new evangelical agenda on ‘How to’ deal with our problems — an agenda which bears disturbing similarities to Schleiermacher’s ‘seeker sensitive’ liberal theology which sought to make the gospel relevant to his contemporaries. His brief history of the New Perspective will also be useful to those who are new to the subject.
