Refusing to Take That Test Is Passing It

“If our justification were to be lost if we scored less than 100 percent on the justification test (administered by St. Peter at the Pearlies), every last one of us, yours truly included, would be headed for the bad place. We don’t take the justification test for our justification. Jesus took that test. And no, this should not make us want to sin that grace may abound.”

The Auburn Avenue Chronicles, p. 347

What Justified Eyes Are Seeing

“When we say that something or other is ‘necessary to justification’ . . . we have to be absolutely clear what we are meaning. Do we mean ‘that which is revealed in the Bible concerning justification,’ or do we mean ‘that which a sinner has to understand to be justified’? If we affirm the latter, then we are denying the Pauline doctrine of justification apart from works of the law.”

The Auburn Avenue Chronicles, pp. 345-346

Dikai-Decimals

“For some that naïveté is a function of having decided thirty years ago to translate all discussions of theology into the metric system, just to keep life simple. If ten won’t divide into it, then it can’t be part of the dikai-word group. For others the reason for the naïveté is more obvious—graduate school is still a fresh memory. They are just out of the egg with bits of shell on their heads.”

The Auburn Avenue Chronicles, p. 333