The Word of God teaches us how we are to understand the relationship between the Old and New Testament, which relates to the relationship between the Jews and Gentiles. If we let go of certain preconceived ideas, that relationship is not difficult to grasp. “For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also …
Christ the Lord of Redemption
The gospel is not fragile. In it, the wisdom of God in Christ overthrows kingdoms, powers, principalities, egos, and various cherished doctrines. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. …
God’s Palimpsest
Let’s begin with the basic reason why it is so important to understand what the ground of our justification is — the early Reformers insisted on this (rightly) in the Pauline spirit of preventing any man from boasting about his salvation, which sinful men always want to do. The point was not that we had …
Christ the Lord of Creation
We are Christians, and this means that Christ must be central to our understanding of the created order. We cannot understand anything apart from Him, and this understanding must be bounded and guided by Scripture. Central to the Reformed faith is a right understanding of the created order, and our place in it. “Wherefore God …
Hearing the Click
In the midst of some very kind comments about my visit to Mississippi, Steven Wedgeworth said this: “This was clearly the case on imputation. He kept proposing that the imputation of Christ’s active obedience was equivalent with recapitulation. Jesus is the new Israel, so there ya go. While I can see some of this, I …
Calvinism Under Jove
Reformation Calvinism was born under Jove. It flourishes under Jove, and is spiritually healthy there. But for the last several centuries (at least) it has come under the baneful influence of Saturn. For those who dismiss my “pagan tomfoolery” — planetary influences and theology indeed — with a sneer and say that they want a …
The Complete Life Lived, Graven Images and All
Okay then. I have finished Piper’s book, and I still like it. It is well worth reading, and should be taken seriously. He emphasizes a number of things that I believe that Wright should incorporate into his broader insights, without giving up those broader insights. There are any number of places where the sweep of …
Whatever We Call It
The next to last chapter of Piper’s book (not counting appendices) returns to the question of imputed righteousness. “Wright regards the imputation of God’s righteousness as something that can be imputed to us or counted as ours as at best a category mistake” (p. 163). And of course, we need to return to a distinction …
Speaking of Second Temple Judaism . . .
There are a couple of things to be drawn out of chapter ten, in which Piper argues (and in my view, demonstrates) that there is a single self-righteous root for both “self-help moralism” and prideful “ethnic badges.” That is the first point. But the second, and the one where I want to spend some attention, …
If That’s Grace, Then We Don’t Want Any
In the ninth chapter of Piper’s book, he starts to get into the issues that make Wright’s project really vulnerable — if we take Wright’s offerings in the “take it or leave it” way he offers them. For my part, I intend to continue to learn from Wright, but that can’t be done on Wright’s …