Introduction by Kirk R. MacGregor - James Clarke and Co Ltd

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Introduction in one’s own heart the reality of God’s gracious work through one’s praxis, which could not transpire apart from one’s previous election. Chapter seven sees Francis Lyall use his unique background as a historian of law to delineate the particulars of the Pauline analogy of adoption, an analogy borrowed from Roman law instead of Jewish or Greek law, and its consequences for eternal security. Since Roman law dictated that a person could only be part of one family at a time, adoption required a change in formal legal relationship whereby someone left a previous family and became part of a new family. For male citizens, three possibilities existed for family status: sui iuris or independent; a paterfamilias who headed a family under his authority; and alieni iuris or part of a family controlled by a paterfamilias (female citizens could hold either the first or third status). When a sui iuris wished to become adopted into a family, s/he would commit the detestatio sacrorum by abandoning one’s former deities and turn to the ritual worship of the new paterfamilias; similarly, when the neophyte turns from living independently to embracing the Lordship of Christ, the neophyte departs from the idolatry of exalting selfish and nationalistic concerns to the status of ultimacy and enters a spiritual priesthood offering up sacrifices of righteousness to God the Father. The adoption of an alieni iuris spelled termination of all legal ties with the former family and placement under the absolute authority of a new father, a situation which conjures up the notion of being transported out of the household of Satan and into the household of God. In both cases, the father owned all family members, which possession involved complete provision for their well-being and total responsibility for rectifying their mistakes. Such elements are clearly mirrored in the biblical imagery of Yahweh in general and Christ in particular as the good shepherd and the interrelated doctrines of forgiveness and atonement. Lyall is careful to note that while the analogy of adoption, by itself, does not demand that God will never reject his children, for Roman law in the New Testament period lacked controls on how an adopter might behave, it strongly points in the direction of the larger Scriptural witness that God cannot disclaim members of his family. SAMPLE PART TWO: HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES In chapter eight, Brandon G. Withrow investigates the controversial relationship between grace and works in the authentic first epistle of Clement xxvi © 2011 James Clarke and Co Ltd
Introduction of Rome, whose thought is representative of a larger stream of early Church Fathers which has, for the last two centuries, largely been branded as legalistic and so foreign to the Pauline gospel. Challenging this widespread opinion as based on anachronistically viewing Clement through Reformation lenses, Withrow insists that Clement’s concept of salvation can only be understood against his first-century historical and theological backdrop. First, Withrow demonstrates that Clement was firmly entrenched in a Hellenistic Jewish tradition emphasizing moralism, as evidenced by the parallels between Clement’s prayers and Jewish liturgy and the pragmatic manner in which Clement quotes the Septuagint and pseudipigraphal texts. Second, Withrow illustrates that Clement, while not a Stoic, understood Stoicism and freely appealed to Stoic ideas with which his audience would have been familiar to make Christian theological points. In sum, Clement’s religio-historical context can best be described as a Second Temple interpretive tradition embracing a diversity of Jewish texts and Greek cultural traditions while simultaneously concerned to iron out their apparent contradictions. When explaining justification to the Corinthians, therefore, Clement works to harmonize two vital truths: genuine Christians must behave in a godly fashion and so perform good works; yet salvation is not based on these works. Due to the intersection of Clement’s belief that the Corinthians were genuine Christians with the Corinthians’ struggles with hubris, immorality, and schism, Clement naturally underscores the need for humility and obedience in his epistle, citing the faith and hospitality displayed by the Old Testament patriarchs. But this is not done at the expense of making salvation depend on works, for Clement insists that neither the patriarchs nor his believing contemporaries earn renown from their own righteousness, wisdom, or piety; rather, it is through faith that God has justified persons from the beginning of the world. Because divine justification is the wellspring from which good works flow, Clement goes on to assert that our good works do not ultimately belong to us but rather comprise the garments in which God adorns his children. In chapter nine I propose that the practical thrust of Calvin’s doctrine of predestination—to comfort and fortify believers in their salvation and thereby empower them to live righteously—should be reclaimed by the Christian tradition at large. Unfortunately, this motivation is often lost within perennial debates in evangelicalism between the theoretical consequences of Calvinism and Arminianism. In his sermons preached SAMPLE xxvii © 2011 James Clarke and Co Ltd
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Introduction by Kirk R. MacGregor - James Clarke and Co Ltd

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