WHERE WRATH AND MERCY MEET
Ed. David Peterson
Paternoster Press. 175 pages. £14.99
ISBN 1 84227 079 6
George Whitefield wrote in his diary for 1735 that justification by faith is 'the good old doctrine of the Church of England'. With so many doctrines and practices being re-interpreted by professing evangelicals, it was inevitable that this bulwark of Protestant evangelicalism would come under scrutiny.
We are now confronted with a 'New Perspective' on the doctrine of justification. According to J.D.G. Dunn, N.T. Wright and others, evangelicals have persistently misunderstood the theology of the apostle Paul on this subject from the time of Luther to the present day. Apparently it is not, after all, primarily about penal substitution and a legal declaration of righteousness.
