JUSTIFIED - Monergism Books

INTRODUCTION
Getting Perspective
RYAN GLOMSRUD
Compared with the “Battle for the Bible,” sola fide has not loomed large as
a topic of conversation in evangelical circles in the past. The formal cause
of the Reformation, Scripture alone, captured evangelical attention from
the 1950s more than the formal cause, justification by faith alone. And yet, one of
the many flashpoints in evangelicalism in recent years has been between leading
Baptist minister John Piper and Anglican Bishop N. T. Wright who are very
much at odds, not on Scripture, but on the substance of biblical soteriology or the
doctrine of salvation.
Wright has produced several volumes of biblical-theological work at the lay
and academic level, many of which are controversial in their own right; but the
rising public dispute began with Piper’s The Future of Justification: A Response to N.
T. Wright (Crossway, 2007) and continued with Wright’s rejoinder, an elaboration
of key Pauline teachings in Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision (IVP, 2009). Neither
book pulls any punches and in places the side discussion is harsh: for Piper,
biblical orthodoxy is at stake, and Wright returns fire by comparing critics such
as Piper to flat-earthers, even Pharisees. 1
Ironically, Wright and others are critical of overly “introspective” Protestants
for having cast themselves in the role of “Paul” and the medieval church doctors
as “Pharisees” at the time of the Reformation; yet Wright now has little trouble
placing himself in the apostle’s shoes against his “old perspective” agitators.
“Someone in my position,” he writes, “is bound to have a certain fellow-feeling
with Paul in Galatia. He is, after all, under attack from his own right wing.” 2
Within broader evangelicalism, however, the fever-pitch at which this debate is
sometimes argued is not, one suspects, because of either Piper’s or Wright’s intense
argumentation and escalating rhetoric, but because the topic is keenly felt
to have been at issue well before the clash of these two evangelical leaders. In
other words, the justification debate in evangelicalism actually goes back much
earlier than the arrival of the New Perspective on Paul.
The five “solas” of the Reformation were at one time the consensus of Protestantism.
Converging in the doctrine of justification, we are saved by grace alone
(sola gratia) through faith alone (sola fide) because of Christ alone (solus Christus)
all for God’s glory alone (soli Deo Gloria), a message of good news that is revealed
to us in Scripture alone (sola scriptura). Over the past number of years, unfortunately,
evangelicals have been divided on these otherwise unifying truths, tending
to associate what was once the lifeblood of the evangelical movement with
merely “getting saved.” While some evangelicals, including many teachers and
high-profile pastors, have directly attacked the old Protestant consensus, undermining
specifically the doctrine of justification, other rank-and-file believers have
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