By Faith, Not by Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation (2nd Edition)
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
Proponents of the “New Perspective” on Paul generally reject or minimize the concept of an ordo salutis (“order of salvation”) in his writings. Building on the biblical-theological groundwork of the Reformed tradition, Richard B. Gaffin Jr. explores Paul’s understanding of how individuals receive salvation. Even Peter acknowledged that Paul wrote some things that are hard to understand, yet the central elements of Paul’s teaching are clearly explained by Gaffin as he unfolds Paul’s focus on Christ’s death and resurrection and the essence of his ordo salutis.
Top Highlights
“Paul’s letters have their origin, their integral place, and their intended function within the organically unfolding history of revelation, and Scripture as a whole, the canon, with its own production being a part of that history, provides our only normative access to it.” (Page 10)
“Christ. Our abiding preoccupation is the revelatory word that comes through Paul, focused on Christ’s climactic, redemptive deed.” (Pages 8–9)
“especially in Galatians, is definitive for being and living as a Christian, rather than for becoming a Christian” (Page 51)
“he has restored to his fellowship and service (cf., e.g., Jas. 2:18), through uniting them to Christ by faith” (Page 87)
“Ultimately, in the deepest sense, for Paul ‘our good works’ are not ours, but God’s.” (Page 88)
Reviews
1 rating
Steve
11/12/2022
This book is death by a 1000 qualifications. Read this quote from page 16: "So it is quite wrongheaded to view biblical theology, as do many (primarily those with a historical-critical orientation), as a purely historical-descriptive task, and systematic theology as a contemporary-normative statement of Christian truth, with each discipline going its separate way, more or less independently. The result is a dichotomization or even polarization between them that continues to be widespread at present. No less polarizing in its effect and bound to lead to hopelessly confused results is the similar approach that sees biblical theology as concerned more or less exclusively with the “humanity,” or human side, of the Bible, with its historically rooted origin and contents, while leaving requisite concern with the divine side to systematic theology." Yes, that is two sentences! Richard B. Gaffin Jr., By Faith, Not by Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation, Second Edition., (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013), 17–18.
