deTheos

My favorite author John Piper has come out with a new theological and exegetic book, The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright. In it he, among other things, champions the biblical doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer on the basis of faith in Jesus. He deals primarily with the Bible in responded to the Bishop of Durham Tom (N.T.) Wright, a champion of the “New Perspective on Paul” position. I look forward to reading parts of the book soon (as a reference), since some of the parts are not as germane to my studies and daily battles as others.

Best part? The book is now available online for free, as a PDF here. (In print for $10 from DG for a limited time, and elsewhere for a bit more.)

Some advice from Desiring God (Piper’s teaching ministry and theological aides) on reading this new book:

• Look at the table of contents. This will give you an overall picture of the book and a familiarity with it if you need to reference it in the future.
• Read the introduction. Here you’ll see what’s at stake in the book. This will prove especially helpful for those who’ve never heard of Wright.
• Read chapter 11, entitled “That in Him We Might Become the Righteousness of God.” This chapter is Piper’s effort “to give biblical foundation to the doctrine of the imputation of God’s righteousness in Christ through faith alone, now and for eternity.” If you only read one section of the book, make it this chapter and the short concluding chapter that follows.
• Browse the appendices to see if anything grabs your interest. These weren’t written to interact with Wright specifically, but they’re included “to give…wider understanding of justification and related exegetical issues.”

Those interested in some reviews can check these out:

• Timmy Brister
• Discerning Reader
• Adrian Warnock

Also, one may want to listen to some of short interviews segments with Piper related to the book (each is very short and helpful, with a transcript):

• Part 1, Who is this book for?
• Part 2, Who is N. T. Wright?
• Part 3, What do you believe about justification?
• Part 4, How is Wright’s view of justification different than yours?
• Part 5, What’s the problem with Wright’s view of imputation?
• Part 6, What damage could Wright’s view cause to the church?
• Part 7, Where are you trying to keep the doctrine of justification from going?

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 10th, 2007 at 5:00 am and is filed under Blog, Books, Gospel, Justification, Reading, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.