The Race Set Before Us Now into Its 7th Printing

Today, I received word from InterVarsity Press that The Race Set Before Us is now into its seventh printing. With this new printing, InterVarsity has altered the cover slightly, giving the book a fresh look. The face print is crisper and the background is whiter. See the difference.

Let Go and Let God? Prepublication Order Opportunity

Let Go and Let God? A Survey and Analysis of Keswick Theology

Keswick theology—one of the most significant strands of second-blessing theology—assumes that Christians experience two “blessings.” The first is getting “saved,” and the second is getting serious. The change is dramatic: from a defeated life to a victorious life, from a lower life to a higher life, from a shallow life to a deeper life, from a fruitless life to a more abundant life, from being “carnal” to being “spiritual,” from merely having Jesus as your Savior to making Jesus your Master. So how do people experience this second blessing? Through surrender and faith: “Let go and let God.”

Second-blessing theology is pervasive because countless people have propagated it in so many ways, especially in sermons and devotional writings. It is appealing because Christians struggle with sin and want to be victorious in that struggle—now. Second-blessing theology offers a quick fix to this struggle, and its shortcut to instant victory appeals to genuine longings for holiness.

This book’s thesis is simple: Keswick theology is not biblically sound. This book tells the story of where Keswick theology comes from, explains what exactly it is, and then refutes it while building a case for a biblical alternative. No other book surveys the history and theology of second-blessing theology like this and then analyzes it from a soteriologically Reformed perspective.

For numerous impressive endorsements by a list of who's who among America's evangelicals, click here.


For endorsements, table of contents, and Tom Schreiner's foreword, click here.


If you would like to get a preview/overview of Andy Naselli's critique of Keswick Theology, you may do so by exploring the following. In March 2008 Andy presented the following materials at Detroit Seminary.


1. Handout (five-page PDF)


2. Power Point presentation as a PDF (eighty slides with lots of pictures) [12.1 MB]


3. MP3s:

• A Historical and Theological Survey of the Early Keswick Movement (1:10:32)
• A Theological Analysis of the Early Keswick Movement – Part 1 (57:20)
• A Theological Analysis of the Early Keswick Movement – Part 2 (with Q & A) (49:24)

Unfortunately, the book will not be published on paper, at least for now. See the explanation here.

For a free core engine for Logos 4, see here.

Do You Own the Libronix System? Here's a Free Download of a New Book

Finally Alive

A Brief Tribute to Some Who taught Me but did not know They taught Me

As maturity has begun to sneak up on me, I find myself engaging in more protracted reflection. With reflection comes insights and wisdom that would have served me so well when I was younger and in need of such sagacity that we rarely acquire apart from experiencing life's exigencies. Not that any of you readers should think that I have anything of great profundity to impart, but I do want to open a window upon my own learning, at least a crack, to help others reflect upon how grateful we ought to be for others who have gone before us for imparted knowledge and understanding, beliefs that have become deeply integrated convictions in our own hearts to such an extent that we easily forget how the seeds of these convictions first got planted into our hearts.

Because we live incrementally, we learn incrementally. Because we learn incrementally, often, we are not self-consciously aware how much insight, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and belief we acquire from those who bequeath to us their time, devotion, depth of understanding, breadth of wisdom, keenness of insight, and strength of belief whether from conversations, from the lectern, from the pulpit, from books, or from passing remarks. Such has been the case with repeated frequency for me within recent years. An exchange of comments here has triggered another episode of reflections and of gratitude for me. I post this principally for Andrew, but open it for all my readers.

Routinely, people who have not come to know me very well falsely assume that my beliefs concerning biblical soteriology, particularly concerning justification, derive from the so-called New Pauline Perspective. Because I articulate convictions that at times intersect with things that N. T. Wright expresses in lectures, sermons, talks, and books, many folks are inclined to suppose that Wright is the source of my theological expressions. This is not so, though indeed there are several points at which our beliefs do intersect.

It is time for me to declare myself plainly and forthrightly. I do so in part in a comment that I posted to Andrew when I made the following statement:

Here, again, it is not Wright that shaped my understanding but Geerhardus Vos and Richard Gaffin have both influenced me considerably. Thus, when I wrote my dissertation concerning Gal 3, several years ago now, I recognized the vast interplay between justification and life in Paul's argument in Gal 3. In other words, this perspective is hardly a "new perspective on Paul" as some might suppose. I have held this understanding since I read The Centrality of the Resurrection: A study in Paul's soteriology when it was published in 1978, 31 years ago.

I owe much of my learning and understanding to others. I am grateful for what I have been able to glean from N. T. Wright and other contemporaries. However, the formative years for me predated the era of the New Pauline Perspective. Richard Gaffin, Herman Ridderbos, George Ladd, Geerhardus Vos, and Anthony Hoekema all have played and continue to play major roles in (1) posing the necessary questions, (2) inciting the crucial deep thinking, (3) nagging my mind and heart with biblical evidence, (4) forming my own critical faculty, (5) convicting me of misguided notions, and (6) requiring my own heart to come to rest on bedrock biblical propositions of abiding and enduring conviction.

In this tribute to my major mentors I cannot currently take time to provide evidences of how each one has influenced me. So, I offer the following from one of only two of the above named men whom I have met in the flesh, Richard Gaffin. Consider the following and see how these theological articulations bleed through my expressions.

All soteric experience derives from solidarity in Christ's resurrection and involves existence in the new creation age, inaugurated by his resurrection. As Romans 8:30 reflects, the present as well as the future of the believer is conceived of eschatologically. This understanding of present Christian existence as an (eschatological) tension between resurrection realized and yet to be realized is totally foreign to the traditional ordo salutis. in the latter, justification, adoption, sanctification (and regeneration) are deprived of any eschatological significance and any really integral connection with the future. Eschatology enters the ordo salutis only as glorification, standing at a more or less isolated distance in the future, is discussed within the locus on "last things."

Nothing distinguishes the traditional ordo salutis more than its insistence that the justification, adoption, and sanctification which occur at the inception of the application of redemption are separate acts. If our interpretation is correct, Paul views them not as distinct acts but as distinct aspects of a single act. The significant difference here is not simply that Paul does not have the problem that faces the traditional ordo salutis in having, by its very structure, to establish the pattern of priorities (temporal? logical? causal?) which obtains among these acts. Even more basic and crucial is the fact that the latter is confronted with the insoluble difficulty of trying to explain how these acts are related to the act of being joined existentially to Christ. If at the point of inception this union is prior (and therefore involves the possession in the inner man of all that Christ is as resurrected), what need is there for the others acts? Conversely, if the other acts are in some sense prior, is not union improperly subordinated and its biblical significance severely attenuated, to say the least? The structure and problematics of the traditional ordo salutis prohibits making an unequivocal statement concerning that on which Paul stakes everything in the application of redemption, namely union with the resurrected Christ. The first and, in the final analysis, the only question for the Pauline ordo concerns the point at which and the conditions under which incorporation with the life-giving Spirit takes place. . . .

Unlike the traditional ordo salutis Paul explicates the inception of the application of redemption without recourse to the terminology of regeneration or new birth understood as "a communication of a new principle of life." As I have tried to show, above, the passage in Ephesians 2:1ff., usual appealed to in support of this conception, has in view rather an experience with which faith is associated instrumentally. . . .

[W]ithin the resurrection soteriology developed by Paul, as Romans 1:4 and especially I Corinthians 15:45ff. make clear, the present experience of the believer is not only eschatologically conceived but cosmically qualified. It is existence in the new creation, the age-to-come (The Centrality of the Resurrection, 138-140).

Gaffin's book was reprinted under the title, Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul's Soteriology. Recently Richard Gaffin has given his latest expression concerning these matters in another form under the title, By Faith Not By Sight. I believe that this was first presented as a series of lectures at Oak Hill College, London.

German Translation of The Race Set Before Us

Today I received word that Betanien Verlag (Oerlinghausen, DE [Germany]) will be publishing a German translation of The Race Set Before Us. The book should be available in the autumn 2009.

See the announcement here.

Thomas Schreiner / Ardel Caneday
Mit Ausharren laufen. Gibt es Heilsgewissheit ohne Heiligung?
Originaltitel: The Race Set Before Us.Paperback, ca. 340 Seiten Stand der Bearbeitung: In Übersetzung seit Dezember 2008 bis vorraussichtlich
Sommer 2009.
Erscheint vorraussichtlich Herbst 2009.

Generally, the above may be translated:

Running with Endurance: Is there any certainty of salvation without sanctification?
Original title: The Race Set Before Us. Paperback, approx 340 pages
State of processing: In translation since December 2008 until early summer 2009.
Appears early autumn of 2009.

Tom Schreiner Published Run to Win the Prize

Tom Schreiner's new book, Run to Win the Prize: Perseverance in the New Testament, is now published by IVP in the United Kingdom. The title of his new book is the original title we had given to our jointly authored book. Our editor with InterVarsity suggested the title The Race Set Before Us. We gladly accepted his suggestion.

The Christian life is like a marathon race set out before us. There is a reward in running well, but particularly in finishing. Christians agree that this is a consistent pattern of New Testament teaching.

However, is the prize a reward for having finished well? Or is the prize salvation itself - and can it be lost? Is everyone who started the race guaranteed a share in the prize? Do the warnings in Scripture tell believers that it is up to them to succeed or fail in the race? If so, is there no assurance of salvation? Or can we affirm that 'once saved, always saved', and that only a difference in rewards awaits us?

Thomas R. Schreiner's study, based on his lectures at the Twelfth Oak Hill Annual School of Theology, explores the nature of admonitions and warnings in New Testament theology, their role in relation to perseverance and assurance in practical Christian living, and their pastoral implications. He offers clarification of some controversial issues, and responds to misunderstandings.

Read an excerpt from the book here.

Crossway Books will publish Run to Win the Prize in the U.S.A.

False Antinomies & False Synonyms

Trevin Wax regularly does all of us a great service. Once again, Trevin has done so with his two-part interview with Timothy Stoner, who wrote, The God Who Smokes: Scandalous Meditation on Faith. The book represents an even-handed critique of the Emergent Movement. (See the reviews at Amazon.com.)

Particularly helpful are two lists that Tim Stoner offers. One consists of the Emergent Movement's false antinomies; the other of Emergent's false synonyms.

The Emerging Church’s false antinomies (driving a wedge between concepts that only appear to be opposites):

1. The Gospel is about a person, not a message.
2. The Gospel is an event to be proclaimed, not a doctrine to be professed.
3. The message and its interpretation is fluid, not static and solid.
4. The Gospel is about behavior, not belief.
5. The Gospel is primal/elemental (ancient), not European/sacramental (antiquated).
6. The Bible is a human book, not an utterly unique, divinely inspired revelation from God.
7. The church is for the lost, not the found.
8. Life is about searching (pioneer), not finding (settler).
9. Evangelism is about saving the world, not individual souls.
10. The Bible is about stories (indicatives that describe), not prescriptions (imperatives that prescribe).
11. God cares about the boardroom, not the bedroom.
12. Jesus came to set an example, not appease the wrath of God.
13. God is a God of love, not judgment (because He loves He does not hate).
14. Those who teach or believe other “stories” need to be respected, not converted.
15. We are to love the “world”, not hate it.
16. Our posture toward culture is to affirm it, not critique it.

But then, as if to counter its imbalance, it careens off track by over-compensating, for it brings together things that are not the same. Its false synonyms (equating concepts that only appear to be similar):

1. Anger with abuse.
2. Authority with authoritarian.
3. Confidence with smug.
4. Fundamentals with fundamentalism.
5. Judgment with judgmentalism.
6. Correction with criticism
7. Power with oppression.
8. Fervor with fanaticism.
9. Militancy with militarism.
10. Uncertainty (ambiguity, doubt) with humility.

Long I have contended that few people can make necessary distinctions and do so with proper propotionality. Tim Stoner captures this well in his two lists.

I intend to secure a copy of the book and read it.

I'm sorry that I have been far too busy to keep this blog active for the past two months. I will strive to do better as we begin a new year. Happy New Year!

Steve Fernandez Finally Published His Book

 Today, I happened upon a comment on Justin Taylor's blog, Between Two Worlds, that indicates that Steve Fernandez finally published Free Justification: The Glorification of Christ in the Justification of a Sinner of which he had published the planned initial chapter titled, Free Justification: A Hill to Die On, on the internet.

The reason I mention this book is that I had written and published a response to his first chapter in which he criticizes The Race Set Before Us.

Shortly after I published my response to Steve Fernandez's unwarranted, wrong, and sloppy crtique of Tom Schreiner's and my work in The Race Set Before Us, I removed it, as I explain here. Both Tom and I made several attempts to contact Steve Fernandez to discuss his twisted critique of what we wrote in the book. We even appealed to him through mutual acquaintences/friends, all to no avail.

Steve Fernandez's interaction with our beliefs was so flawed, so wrong, and so misrepresenting that I felt as if to answer him would be to engage in an unsavory and offensive exercise. Now, if Steve Fernandez has actually published Free Justification: A Hill to Die On not just on the internet but as the first chapter of his book, as he initially indicated he would, and especially after failing to receive our efforts to contact him to offer corrections, this would be very troubling.

To my comment above, I might add one of my favorite quotes from Thomas Sowell. Although I am ready to defend what I have said, many people expect me to defend what others have attributed to me.

I cannot and will not defend the view that Steve Fernandez attribues to me and then critiques, since it is not my belief. I also know that it is not Tom Schreiner's belief.

Nevertheless, now that I have ordered his book, it may be that I will need to post my response to his false claims about The Race Set Before Us, if he persists in misrepresenting what Tom and I say and mean.

Steve Fernandez is President of The Cornerstone Seminary, Senior Pastor of Community Bible Church, Vallejo, California, and host pastor of the Exalting Christ Conference sponsored by Exalting Christ Ministries.

The Propriety of Christians Invoking God's Wrath and Curses upon Evildoers

Finally, someone has written and published a book that does not attempt to mute or to mollify the Bible's imprecations--imprecatory psalms, imprecatory prayers, and imprecatory interjections. No contemporary author has addressed the issues with such clarity, candor, and correctness as John N. Day has done in his Crying for Justice: What the Psalms Teach Us About Mercy and Vengeance in an Age of Terrorism.

John Day writes,

A few modern treatments can be found of the imprecatory psalms and the problem of their relation to biblical theology and to what is in some circles called the "New Testament believer." These treatments, however, have been, in large measure, cursory, and the proposed solutions have been largely inadequate theologically. The imprecatory psalms have been unsatisfactorily explained in three ways: (1) as evil emotions--whether to be suppressed or expressed [C. S. Lewis & Walter Brueggemann]; (2) and old covenant morality inconsistent with the new covenant church [Carl Laney & Meredith Kline]; (3) words appropriately uttered solely from the lips of Christ and consequently uttered only by his followers through him and his cross [James E. Adams & Dietrich Bonhoeffer].

In contrast, I propose to recover the proper use of the imprecatory psalms for the New Testament church. First, these psalms root their theology of cursing in Torah. Authorization to cry out for God's vengeance is strongly set out in the Song of Moses (Deut. 32), the lex talionis (e.g., Deut. 19), and the covenant of God with his people (e.g., Gen. 12). Second, this theology is carried through essentially unchanged to the end of the New Testament canon (e.g., Rev. 6:10; 18:20), buttressing its applicability to believers today. Some Old Testament and New Testament passages appear to contradict the cry of the imprecatory psalms, but texts through Scripture also confirm the right of God's people to plead for justice (pp. 10-11).

Why do so few Christians embrace biblical imprecations? Why do so few pray imprecatory prayers? Why do so few call upon the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to frustrate, to curse, and to destroy evildoers? Why do so many scowl when they hear us who preach imprecatory psalms as properly and rightly belonging to us as Christians? Why do so many scold us who do pray imprecations upon evildoers, including evildoers who claim to be Christians? Why do so many rebuff and rebuke us who instruct and admonish believers to follow in the apostle Paul's steps who interjects, "If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!" (1 Corinthians 16:22), and to join those souls in heaven when they pray, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" (Revelation 6:10).

I have long made the case that besides being poorly taught concerning the Scriptures by inadequate preachers and teachers, the principle reason Christians reject any proper use of imprecation for themselves or by other believers is that those who object are immature and falling short in godliness. Day agrees and cites J. W. Beardslee, "The Imprecatory Element in the Psalms," Presbyteriand and Reformed Review 8 (1897): 504 who agrees with both of us. Day summarizes Beardslee, by saying, "as the soul comes to stand where God stands, as it becomes progressively conformed to the image of its Creator (Col. 3:10), it will feel as God feels and speak as God speaks. Thus, not only will there be a deep abhorrence of sin, but there will also be a righteous indignation against the willful and persistent wrongdoer" (p. 125).

Why are we so loath to invoke imprecations against evildoers, whoever and wherever they may be? Do not be deceived, my friends. It is not because we have become godly and devout. It is because we are not godly enough. It is because we are not yet enough like God. It is because we do not yet sufficiently have God's abhorrence of wickedness and of those who do wickedness. If we do imitate God and invoke imprecations against evildoers, it is not because we are vile and wicked and full of evil wrath and vitriol and mean-spiritedness. It is because God's grace has worked mightily to transform us into his likeness. Thus, we invoke God's wrath and curses upon evildoers because of his grace and mercy shed abroad in our hearts and not contrary to his grace and mercy.

It is the godly alone who can say with the psalmist,

But I pray to you, O LORD, in the time of your favor;

in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation.
Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink;deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters.

Charge them with crime upon crime;

do not let them share in your salvation.
May they be blotted out of the book of life

and not be listed with the righteous (Psalm 69:13-14, 27-28).

Don Garlington reviews The Future of Justification

My friend, Don Garlington, has written a helpful and thoughtful review of John Piper's, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright. I received a copy from Don for perusal to offer any comments. You may find the review, here, on the blog of Don's and my mutual friend, John Armstrong.

___________________

Dr. John Piper’s new book, as its subtitle indicates, is a rejoinder to N. T. Wright’s take on justification in the letters of Paul. The volume consists of eleven chapters and six appendices, all endeavouring to lay bare what Piper considers to be the shortcomings of Wright’s understanding of justification and related matters. In his Acknowledgements (11), Piper informs us of his intentions and expectations in a quotation from Solomon Stoddard: “The general tendency of this book is to show that our claim to pardon and sin and acceptance with God is not founded an any thing wrought in us, or acted by us, but only on the righteousness of Christ.” By thus framing the issue, Piper’s book functions as a broadside against any and all attempts, especially those of Wright, to introduce things “wrought in us” or “acted by us” into the Pauline preaching of justification by faith, thereby detracting from “the righteousness of Christ only.” A certain amount of hype has attended the advent of this publication, particularly the “warning” that any other than Piper’s outlook on Paul is playing fast-and-loose with the apostle’s teaching. According to Piper’s web page, “Piper is sounding a crucial warning in this book, reminding all Christians to exercise great caution regarding ‘fresh’ interpretations of the Bible and to hold fast to the biblical view of justification.”

In the Conclusion (184), Piper clarifies that the book’s title is intended to draw attention to where the doctrine of justification may be going, as well to “the critical importance of God’s future act of judgment when our justification will be confirmed.”

Read the whole review.

John Bunyan's The Heavenly Footman

Many years ago, after I had first read Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress I came upon and read his shorter treatise, The Heavenly Footman. You may read it here (HTML) or here (PDF). Below is a comment by George Offor, editor of the book, concerning the relationship between the two aforementioned books by Bunyan.

[John Bunyan] was released from prison in 1672, having been chosen in the previous year to be the pastor, or ministering elder of the church at Bedford. His time was then much occupied in re-organizing the church, after years of tempest and fiery persecution. At length, having overcome his own and his friends reluctance to publish so solemn a work on the conversion of a sinner and his way to heaven, in the form of an allegory, the Pilgrim's Progress was printed in 1678. The wonderful popularity of this book, and the great good it produced, led him again to turn his Grace Abounding into a different form of narrative, in the more profound allegory of the Holy War; this was published in 1682, and in two years afterwards he completed the Pilgrim by a delightful second part. His long incarceration, followed by sudden and great activity, probably brought down his robust constitution; and as the end of his course drew nigh, he was doubly diligent, for in 1688, before his death-day, which was in August, he published six important treatises, and had prepared fourteen or fifteen others for the press. Among these were his final and almost dying instructions to the pilgrim, under the title of The Heavenly Footman, the man whom he describes in the poetical apology to the Pilgrim's Progress, as he that

Runs and runs,
Till he unto the gate of glory comes.

More than any other Puritan that I have read, John Bunyan's view on perseverance comes closer to ours expressed in The Race Set Before Us. I have in mind, in particular, the function of warnings and admonitions. Below is a portion of the opening lines of the book.

So run, that ye may obtain.1 Corinthians 9:24. . . . The apostle, therefore, because he did desire the salvation of the souls of the Corinthians, to whom he writes this epistle, layeth them down in these words, such counsel, which if taken, would be for their help and advantage. First, Not to be wicked, and sit still, and wish for heaven; but TO RUN for it. Second, Not to content themselves with every kind of running; but, saith he, So RUN, that ye may obtain. As if he should say, Some, because they would not lose their souls, they begin to run betimes (Eccl 12:1), they run apace, they run with patience (Heb 12:1), they run the right way (Matt 14:26). Do you so run? Some run from both father and mother, friends and companions, and thus, that they may have the crown. Do you so run? Some run through temptations, afflictions, good report, evil report, that they may win the pearl (1 Cor 4:13; 2 Cor 6). Do you so run? So run that ye may obtain.

Perseverance and the Pastor

Here is an uncommon book about an ordinary pastor. D. A. Carson's most recent book is his most uncommon book. Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor is an account of his father, Tom Carson, who ministered faithfully in French speaking Canada for many years.

For all who would be ministers of the gospel, consider the urgency of this high calling, an urgency that must be engaged every day. Richard Baxter (1615-1691) once captured the urgency of preaching this way: "I preached as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men." The apostle Paul expresses the urgency of the ministry of the gospel this way: "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Timothy 4:16).