“In the Box” posts highlight new books I’ve received in the mail.
I periodically showcase new titles that arrive at my doorstep in posts like this. Today’s post highlights two theology books. The first one is directed at a more popular level, while the second one has the academic reader in mind.
Paul vs. James: What We’ve Been Missing in the Faith and Works Debate by Chris Bruno (Moody Publishers)
Now this book has the best cover I’ve seen in a while. And the title is catching: Paul vs. James: What We’ve Been Missing in the Faith and Works Debate. On the back cover the book sets in juxtaposition these two statements: “One is justified by faith apart from works of the law” – Paul; “A person is justified by works and not by faith alone” – James. Christians at all stages of their spiritual growth have grappled with this apparent contradiction. I’m looking forward to reading how Chris Bruno clears up the matter. I am also drawn to this work since Chris Bruno has some fundamentalist roots (having taught at Northland and Cedarville) and now teaches at Bethlehem College and Seminary (founded by my former pastor John Piper). Look for my review of this title in the next month or two.
Trinity without Hierarchy: Reclaiming Nicene Orthodoxy in Evangelical Theology edited by Michael F. Bird and Scott Harrower (Kregel Academic)
This book intrigues me because I have benefited from some of the authors who are critiqued in this work. Complementarian authors like Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware have used the relationships between the persons of the Trinity (specifically the headship of the Father and subordination of the Son) in defense of their positions. (Complementarians defend the traditional view that husbands are the chief authority figure in marriage, fathers in the home, and only men should be elders or pastors in the church.) New to me is the term “eternal functional subordination (EFS)” which Grudem and others argue for. This book brings together both complementarian and egalitarian Evangelical scholars who together present a case from the Bible, historical theology and systematic theology to defend the historic orthodox view of the Trinity. The editors do not claim that Grudem and Ware are heretics, they go out of their way to appreciate “Wayne Grudem’s [clear and persuasive] description of the deity of Christ” and “Bruce Ware’s [effective and forceful] refutation of Open Theism” (p. 12). But they deny that Grudem, Ware and others are “at liberty to dispense with eternal generation, nor to substitute roles of authority for Nicene terms for articulating the relationships between the divine persons” (p. 13). I am merely an observer of the debate at this point and look forward to digging in and learning more. Expect my review in a few months.
To learn more about this book or to pick up your own copy, check out the book’s product page at the following sites: Amazon, Christianbook.com, or direct from Kregel Academic.
Disclaimer: My thanks go out to both Moody Publishers and Kregel Academic for review copies of these titles.
500 years ago the Reformation was transforming Europe. Politics and nation-states would be affected, but the relationship of the average Christian to the Church was forever altered. Protestant Evangelical Christians look back on the Reformation with gratitude. The Reformation recovered the Christian Gospel of grace after all. But the contemporary Church has wandered far from the faith of its fathers, and more than ever before calls for denominational unity and even ecumenical togetherness with Rome are hitting home. Secularism is a threat to Catholic and confessing Protestant alike, so why not band together? How big, after all, are the points that separate us? Didn’t the Roman Catholic Church reform in the wake of the Reformation too?
It is these questions and this concern that D. G. Hart addresses head on in his recent book Still Protesting: Why the Reformation Matters (Reformation Heritage, 2018). Hart expertly unfolds the history of the Reformation and evaluates key evangelical truths (including the important “5 Solas”) as compared to the historical Roman Catholicism of that day. He goes on to examine whether the Roman Catholic Church has truly changed in its stance on these points over time. In his case against Rome, Hart also finds liberal Protestantism and lackadaisical evangelicalism at fault as well. He argues that the Reformation is still needed and a return to the faith of our fathers may well help American Christianity as it faces its own cross-roads.
An intriguing feature of the book is his examination of conservative political theory in America in relation to “anti-Catholic” sentiment. Historically, Protestants looked at the “golden age” of America as an advance in the history of the West (almost a postmillennial viewpoint) and lauded the rise of democracy and liberty. However “Roman Catholics saw those same developments negatively, as declension from an ideal time when church, government, society, and culture coexisted harmoniously under the sacred canopy of Christian influence” (p. 152). As progressive politics moved on to promote social change and “progress” in general – Catholicism’s opposition to unfettered equality and freedom became more in-step with conservatism’s resistance to progressive politics. For those who have wanted to “dissent from the logic and momentum of progressive politics” more help is found “for political conservatism in Roman Catholic sources” (p. 159). This leads to the pain-point that Hart is addressing: many political conservatives today claim that to be a true conservative, you must become a Roman Catholic. In response, Hart points to Abraham Kuyper (an evangelical leader and Prime Minister of The Netherlands) and J. Gresham Machen (founder of Westminster Theological Seminary) as examples of Protestant contributions to conservatism.
What sparked my interest in that section of the book was his point that American Protestantism had developed a “form of patriotism that unhealthily equated the faith with democracy and liberty” (p. 159). Protestantism’s fight against Catholicism mirrored democracy’s fight against the Monarchy. The founders of our country very much fit in with this patriotic version of faith. Indeed, this patriotism must have enabled the onset of the “social gospel.” Today’s patriotic, “God and Country” version of evangelical “faith,” which is “unhealthy” and unbiblical, has a long history indeed.
Those well-versed in the Reformation are sure to find new insights and connections in the pages of this book. Readers less familiar with the Reformation will also be helped. Anyone interested in what really separates Protestants from Catholics will find this book useful. I highly recommend it.
Disclaimer: This book was provided by the publisher. The reviewer was under no obligation to offer a positive review.
About Book Briefs: Book Briefs are book notes, or short-form book reviews. They are my informed evaluation of a book, but stop short of being a full-length book review.
Need a primer on eschatology? Or better yet, want a devotional treatment of what the Bible says on the end times (and how it applies personally)? Look no further than this great book from William Boekestein. You can win a free copy of it here, by filling out the entry form below.
Have you ever read something in a footnote that was just too good to leave there? If you are like me, you can get “lost in a good footnote.” This post focuses on another great footnote.
Conservative evangelicals share the traditional position of the Church down through the centuries with respect to a literal Hell. Universalism (the belief that all people will be eventually be saved) has had its proponents but has always been a minority position in the Church. The Bible teaches that there is a literal Hell where the unbelieving will endure conscious torment in punishment for their sins. Such torment is never-ending (Matt. 25:46; Mk. 9:43,48; 2 Thess. 1:8-9). While we don’t know exactly what Hell will be like, the pictures painted in Scripture aren’t pretty. And there is little basis for the annihilationist position either (the belief that the lost will have their existence mercifully ended rather than suffer continually). Jesus spoke more of Hell than of Heaven, and evangelicals traditionally have included a warning of Hell along with their appeals to believe in the gospel.
The idea of eternal torment is hard to stomach in our contemporary world, and it seems unjust by human standards. This makes the doctrine of Hell something that believers have always grappled with. Alongside a belief in Hell stands the assumption that the Bible also teaches that the majority of humanity will end up there. Such a belief is widespread in Christian circles, and many former Evangelicals condemn Christianity for it. They rejoice in denouncing as harmful a religion they see as teaching that a spiteful God gleefully consigns most of humanity to Hell.
But does the Bible explicitly teach that most of humanity will ultimately miss out on salvation and an eternity with God in heaven? Many Christians will point to the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus’ explanation that a wide road goes to destruction with many are on that road; but a narrow road leads to life and few are the ones who find it (Matt. 7:13-14). To this is added the common experience of the Church over the years as being a “remnant” and a marginalized slice of society.
Other Reformed theologians have been even more optimistic: on the basis of God’s electing grace, “we have reason to believe…that the number of the finally lost in comparison with the whole number of the saved will be very inconsiderable. Our blessed Lord, when surrounded by the innumerable company of the redeemed, will be hailed as the…Savior of Men, as the Lamb that bore the sins of the world.”17 “In the lack of people is the downfall of a prince” (Prov. 14:28). Will God have such a problem? Will He not be honored by a multitude?
…The diverse and often unexpected ways God has fulfilled past promises “should render us modest in our interpretation of those predictions which remain to be accomplished; satisfied that what we know not now we shall know hereafter.”18
(p. 93-94, bold emphasis added)
This hints that it is possible that more than just a few will be saved. I was interested in hearing more and found the following footnote quite instructive:
17 [Charles] Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:879–80. B. B. Warfield also affirms that “the number of the saved shall in the end be not small but large, and not merely absolutely but comparatively large; …to speak plainly, it shall embrace the immensely greater part of the human race.” “Are They Few that Be Saved?” in Biblical and Theological Studies, ed. Samuel G. Craig (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1968), 349. In this essay Warfield argues that the texts (e.g., Matt. 7:13–14) frequently adduced to sustain the argument that the total number elected are few, in fact merely reflect the situation of pervasive unbelief current in Jesus’s day. Most pointedly, they urge the hearers not to prognosticate about the proportion of the elect but that “salvation is difficult and that it is our duty to address ourselves to obtaining it with diligence and earnest effort.” He adds, “We can never learn” from these texts “how many are saved” (338). On a related text, Matthew 22:14, Calvin recognizes that while the apparent ratio of saved to unsaved persons varies throughout the ages, Jesus’s words, “For many are called, but few are chosen” ought not prompt us to “enter… into the question about the eternal election of God.” Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 2:175. 18 Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:850–51.
(pg. 94, bold emphasis added)
I then found that the essay from B.B. Warfield is available online. It is a relatively quick read, you can find it here: Are They Few That Be Saved?
Warfield gives a treatment of the three passages most often claimed to support the idea that few are saved: Luke 13:23, Matthew 7:13, and Matthew 22:14. His treatment of Luke 13:23 and its immediate context is quite convincing, and serves to provide the background for his treatment of the other passages. His case is bolstered by appeal to others who agree with his position. His main point in the essay is to point out how weak the basis is for the doctrine that only few will be saved. Such a position “crumbles when subjected to scrutiny” (p. 10).
While Warfield does not make a case for why we should believe that the majority of mankind will be saved, he does offer some brief thoughts: “Christ must reign until He shall have put all His enemies under His feet—by which assuredly spiritual, not physical, conquest is intimated” and Christ came “to save the world [and] nothing less than the world shall be saved by Him” (p. 10). Earlier in the essay he does look to the Kingdom parables of the mustard seed and the leaven as pointing toward a world-wide conquest of the Gospel as well.
Now this doesn’t answer all our questions around Hell, but it does underscore that the question about how many shall be saved has not been explicitly addressed in Scripture. We can trust in God, whose wisdom is exceedingly above our own. He will right all wrongs and settle all scores – and we can trust in His goodness and kindness.
UPDATE: The Gospel Coalition just published an article today (3/13) by William Boekestein on this very subject: Are Only Few People Saved? This is an expanded treatment of the topic I bumped into while reading his footnote. Go read his whole post!
Everyone knows what conversations to avoid at a family gathering: discussing religion or politics will surely cause trouble! When it comes to church potlucks, however, the surest path to controversy is to start talking about your view of eschatology (the study of last things).
In his new book, The Future of Everything: Essential Truths about the End Times, William Boekestein points out three ways that Christians typically go wrong when it comes to end times theology. They “are tempted to engage in speculative eschatology,” they champion “argumentative eschatology,” or they simply avoid eschatology altogether (p. 3-4). As for why people avoid thinking about the end times, many find it complicated while others fear contemplating such weighty matters as death and the hereafter. In contrast, Boekestein sees eschatology as a vital doctrine with very practical benefits:
With God’s help eschatology can chill our blood at the thought of sin and judgment, and it can warm our hearts with God’s gracious work of redemption… The way Scripture and the church’s historic confessions teach eschatology is much more like gazing upon a dazzling sunset than analyzing and describing the chemical properties of the sun. (p. 5)
The Future of Everything is an accessible study on the end times that provides a helpful introduction to eschatology and examines a variety of themes related to the topic. Death and the intermediate state, heaven and hell, the return of Christ and the millennium, the resurrection and the judgment — all these and more are covered. The book wraps up with an application of eschatology to the theme of God’s kingdom, and to the mission of the Church.
The book presents a Reformed amillennial position on the end times. Other views (particularly traditional dispensationalism) are interacted with but there is no extended argument or defense of the position. The bulk of the work offers a conservative evangelical position in its approach to hell, annihilationism and the resurrection.
Practical application abounds in this book, and a wide variety of helpful asides are also provided. Thought is given to contemporary funerals and the question of cremation, for instance. Boekestein also laments that people today don’t speak frankly about death (p. 31). A brief discussion of purgatory (and its roots in the Roman Catholic doctrine of penance) is offered (p. 40), as is a helpful explanation of the Hebrew word sheol. He also presents Warfield’s intriguing position that the saved will outnumber the lost, in his chapter on Hell.
The author is a pastor in a Reformed church and that comes through both in the volume of quotes from Reformed catechisms, confessions and authors, as well as from the quoting of several hymns that the typical evangelical would not be familiar with (p. 30). The following quotations provide a sense of what you will encounter in this helpful book:
[Our] view of the millennium is not our eschatology but merely an aspect of it. Our apprehension of the last things should be much richer and broader than how we understand the relationship of Christ’s return to this thousand years. (p. 57)
[We] must resist the temptation to hyperliteralize the Bible’s descriptions of hell, as if orthodoxy demanded a commitment to the most ghastly interpretation of the verses in question. (p. 91)
Any vision of an intangible heaven ill-suited to fully embodied humans radically underestimates the vision of Scripture. (p. 105)
In Scripture, wrote Richard Baxter, “heaven is set open, as it were, to our daily view” for our encouragement, that we might long for the city of God (Heb. 11:10) and enter therein. This longing for glory does not distract us from godliness but infuses in us the kind of hopeful disposition necessary to follow God and rejoice in the hope of His glory (Rom 5:2). (p. 111)
This book encouraged me to look at eschatology differently. It challenged me to apply the big, indisputable end-time truths to my soul rather than chase after the best arguments for my preferred position on the questionable points. The study questions included for each chapter would make the book ideal for use by a small group or Sunday School. Consider picking up a copy of this book for yourself or as a gift for others. I highly recommend it.
Book Blurbs:
“This is definitely a book I’d give my friends who want to understand the end times from a biblical perspective. Grounded in Scripture, The Future of Everything is immensely practical — at least for everyone who will die one day. I heartily recommend it!” ~ Michael Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Theology, Westminster Seminary California
“A brief simple book on the end times? Is that possible? You have it in your hands, and with just a little effort you can soon have it in your head and heart. It will not only prepare you for the end
but also equip you to prepare others for eternity.” ~ David Murray, professor of Old Testament and practical theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary
“William Boekestein’s The Future of Everything is a gem of a book. This is a ‘once-over’—a survey of the whole field of eschatology — yet it doesn’t treat the topics lightly. In addition to discussing our Lord’s return and the millennium, Boekestein addresses death and dying, the intermediate state, as well as the nature of heaven. He includes a very helpful discussion of the kingdom of God as well when he addresses how our views on eschatology should inform our understanding of the church’s mission. I highly recommend it for personal use (and even devotions) as well as church study groups interested in the topic. Well done, Rev. Boekestein!” ~ Kim Riddlebarger, senior pastor at Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim (URCNA), co-host of the White Horse Inn, and visiting professor of systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California
“This volume succeeds admirably in presenting biblical teaching on the end times for a broad readership yet without sacrificing substance. It rescues ‘eschatology’ from becoming an abstract word by emphasizing throughout the relevance and practical implications of what will take place at Christ’s return for the present life of Christians and the mission of the church in the world. The series of questions that accompany each chapter make it ideal for individual and group study.” ~ Richard B. Gaffin Jr., professor emeritus of biblical and systematic theology, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia
“In the Box” posts highlight new books I’ve received in the mail.
