BOOKS RECEIVED (Books received from the publishers for mention and/or review –John Vander Ploeg) DEATH BEFORE BIRTH by Harold O. J. Brown: 168 pages; Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers; $5.95: “a book which looks at all sides of the abortion problem . . . .” THE SHAKING OF ADVENTISM by Geoffrey J. Paxton; 172 pages; Baker […]

GRACE UNLIMITED. Edited by Clark H. Pinnock. Bethany Fellowship, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1975, 264 pp., $4.95, paper. Reviewed by Rev. Johan D. Tangelder. This symposium was written explictly against Calvinism. Each essay supports one variety or another of the Wesley-Arminian tradition. The contributors are Clark Pinnock who wrote the Introduction and “Responsible Freedom and the […]

In his Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul made an in–depth study of man‘s relation to God and His law. Not by his own righteousness can man meet God‘s demands. It is only by the God-given righteousness of faith that a confrontation with God is safe for man. He is saved, renewed, through Christ, […]

Arnold H. De Graaff: THE EDUCATIONAL MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH. A Perspective. (Doctoral dissertation, Free University, Amsterdam. December, 1966) 175 pages, paper-bound. Printed at Delft, the Netherlands, by Judels and Brinkman, 1966. In the first chapter of this dissertation, entitled Orientation, the author discusses the concept “religious education,” and considers especially the nature and place of […]

As we come to the end of this five hundred anniversary year of the Protestant Reformation, I’d like to delve into a crucial theological issue that is so practical for us. If you have your Bible you can turn to Paul’s letter to the Romans. One of the doctrinal issues that is clear in Romans is that what he declares us to […]

With this article, I am beginning a brief series of articles on the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone. These articles are adapted from two public addresses given at a Banner of Truth Conference in May, 1998.1 Though they have been edited for The Outlook, they still retain something of their character […]

Any evaluation of the new perspective on Paul faces a number of daunting challenges. Since a considerable part of the argument for a new approach to the teaching of the apostle Paul rests upon E. P. Sanders’ historical reconstruction of the pattern of religion known as “second temple Judaism,” some evaluation of this reconstruction is […]

Part 2 WHAT IS MEANT BY THE “WORKS OF THE LAW”? Within the richness and complexity of Paul’s use of the language of the law, the most pressing question raised by the new perspective is: what is the meaning in Paul’s epistles of the expression, “the works of law,” and of a more general, but […]

Part 3 “WORKS” AND “WORKS OF THE LAW” IN ROMANS The book of Romans also uses the expression, “works of the law,” as well as the general term, “works,” but in a way that quite clearly goes beyond the limitations of certain boundary marker requirements of the law. Even though it is plausible that the […]

‘Works of the Law’, Human Inability and Boasting In my previous articles, I noted that, in order to evaluate the claims of the new perspective regarding the interpretation of the apostle Paul, we need to begin by considering three distinct, though related, questions: First, what does the apostle Paul mean by the language of “works […]