Soteriology

Review: Called by Triune Grace

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called by triune grace

Called by Triune Grace (Studies in Christian Doctrine and Scripture), Jonathan Hoglund. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2016.

Summary: A monograph exploring the doctrine of effectual calling and how it is that God’s speech brings about our regeneration and conversion.

Jonathan Hoglund considers the Reformed doctrine of “effectual calling” one that has not received the kind of attention it is due in our understanding of God’s saving work in Christ. Hoglund offers this definition of effectual calling:

“The effectual call is an act of triune rhetoric in which God the Father appropriates human witness to Christ the Son in order to convince and transform a particular person by ministering, through the presence of God the Spirit, understanding and love of Christ” (p.8).

There are several important ideas in his definition that Hoglund elaborates in this work. First is the idea of focusing on calling, and the idea that just as through the Triune God’s word, creation came into existence, likewise through what Hoglund calls triune rhetoric, converting change or regeneration is brought about in the lives of individuals. One of the striking ideas this involves is that as people speak of Christ and proclaim the gospel, God’s voice is heard affirming that “Jesus is your saving Lord.”

Second is the idea that this is triune rhetoric. Using rhetorical theory, Hoglund proposes that God the Father is the ethos of this saving call that comes in the context of God’s covenantal saving purposes. God the Son is the content or logos of this saving call, and the Holy Spirit is the pathos of this effectual call in illumining and persuading effecting faith in the hearer of this call.

Third, Hoglund considers how persons are transformed. What is the converting change or regeneration that occurs in the individual whom God effectually calls? Hoglund considers how this call eventuates in faith in Christ and how one is united to Christ. Looking at New Testament testimony, one also sees an eschatological or epochal change in those who are a “new creation” and enter into the blessings of this “age to come.” The idea of “spiritual resurrection” is explored and the transformation of one’s affections and dispositions.

Along the way, after laying out the ground work in his initial chapter and the contribution of the Canons of Dort in elaborating the relationship of calling and regeneration, he proceeds to consider calling in Paul, various Reformed ideas of the content of the call before making his own proposal and a couple chapters on illumination and calling. Two chapters follow on new birth and resurrection. Then, key to his thesis, he elaborates his ideas of triune rhetoric and converting change. A concluding chapter on God’s call and the church also serves to summarize his argument.

This work builds on the scholarship of Kevin Vanhoozer and Daniel Treier around speech-act theory and rhetoric as well as connecting back to other Reformed thinkers. One of the distinctive contributions this work makes in an age of subjective experience is to affirm the truth of conversion being rooted not in our experience but in God’s persuasive communication, mediated through human witnesses. It reminds us of the tremendous privilege those of us who speak God’s message have, of the Triune God speaking in and through our words. It encourages our hearts that our awakened faith in the promises of God and our awakened love toward God are the evidence of God’s persuasive intent to call us to be his own, and not simply subjective impressions.

This is a theological monograph and calls for close reading, especially in the sections on speech act theory and rhetoric where the author is working out his ideas on effectual calling as triune rhetoric. Whether you embrace a Reformed perspective or not, I believe a close reading will reward one with a richer perspective on the work of God in conversion as people come to faith, and the privileged role human witnesses may play. It left me praising God, in the language of the book’s title, for God’s grace-filled calling of me to Himself through Christ by His Spirit and all this has meant and will mean.

Review: Paul’s New Perspective

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new-perspective

Paul’s New Perspective, Garwood P. Anderson. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2016

Summary: Argues that both the traditional Protestant perspective and the New Perspective on Paul are each partly right, based on the idea that Paul’s ideas on salvation developed as he wrote over a period of time and addressed different circumstances.

If you follow the discussions in biblical theology at all closely (something of a personal idiosyncrisy), you may be aware that since the work of E. P. Sanders over thirty years ago (and followed by contributions and modifications by James D. G. Dunn and N. T. Wright, among others), there has been what is called the “New Perspective on Paul (NPP),” It argues that the Traditional Protestant Perspective (TPP), traced back to Luther with its focus on justification not by works of the law but by grace through faith, is a mistaken reading of Paul. Beginning often with the book of Galatians, these proponents argue that “works of the law” are the defining boundary markers of God’s covenant with the Jews that kept Gentiles outside the covenant promises of God. These proponents contend that Paul’s emphasis is that by  faith (or the faithfulness of God through Christ), Gentiles are included in God’s covenant and part of God’s family apart from the boundary markers defined by the Jewish law. Those from the TPP fire back that this ignores the argument of Romans as well as passages like Ephesians 2:8-9 that focus on works more broadly, and for a forensic idea of justification where the righteousness of Christ is imputed by faith to those who believe.

Paul’s New Perspective could be a game-changer in this discussion. Garwood P. Anderson argues that the “contradictory schools of Pauline interpretation are both right, just not at the same time.” What Anderson contends against advocates of these contrary schools is that a static understanding of Paul’s thought is not the best way to understand the Pauline corpus as a whole, but that Paul’s thought developed over time and that a developmental understanding (not that Paul changed his mind) best explains the aspects of the Pauline corpus that each perspective has difficulties explaining.

The book divides into three parts. Chapters 1-3 explore the landscape of the discussion between the two perspectives as well as more recent post-NPP contributors. As part of this, in chapter 2 he considers three key passages in which Paul is seemingly uncooperative with either perspective: Philippians 3:1-11, Romans 3:21-4:8, and Ephesians 2:1-22.

In chapters 4 and 5, Anderson then contends for a particular itinerary of Paul’s ministry and the writing of his letters that lends itself to his thesis. He would contend for both an early date, and southern setting for the letter to the Galatians, next the Thessalonian and Corinthian correspondence, followed by Romans. He believes Romans is not Paul’s last work but that Philippians as well as the contested letters to Philemon, Colossians, Ephesus, and the Pastorals followed and are genuinely Pauline. While a number of critics would dissent, there is critical support for this chronology and Pauline authorship and Anderson briefly outlines the basis for these judgments, which are critical to his contention that a significant enough period of time elapsed in the writing of the Pauline corpus for Paul’s understanding of the salvation wrought by Christ to develop toward the vision of cosmic reconciliation (carefully delineated by Anderson) apparent in Colossians and Ephesians.

Chapters 6 through 8 then turn to an exegesis of the relevant passages following this developmental chronology, followed by a concluding chapter summarizing his argument. In these he shows particularly how the New Perspective gets Galatians more or less right on “works of the law” but that Paul’s use of “works” in later letters is not equivalent but reflects a developing understanding of the grace of God apart from human effort. He also argues that, while important, justification is not the center of Paul’s understanding of salvation, that the language of reconciliation informs this, and that perhaps most central is the idea of union with Christ.

I’ve tried to summarize in several hundred words a detailed argument that runs to nearly 400 pages in Anderson’s book and thousands of pages of writing over the years. No doubt I’ve glossed over many matters in both his and others’ scholarship. What I appreciated in this work is an effort to listen to the whole canonical Pauline corpus rather than to force it onto the Procrustean beds of either the old or new perspectives, either by ignoring uncooperative passages or dismissing books as pseudo-Pauline. What he proposes is not a compromise between the two perspectives, a via media, but rather a different way of conceptualizing Paul’s emerging perspective on salvation that allows for the intellectual growth of core convictions in a coherent and non-contradictory fashion.

Anderson speaks of having “friends” in both “camps.” I hope that his effort to articulate a “third way” will not result in “unfriendly fire” from both sides but rather promote the kind of theological reconciliation that would seem to be the fruit of the reconciliatory work of Christ, of which he writes, that enriches for all our grasp of the great salvation that is ours in Christ. I found that true for myself in the reading of this work, and trust it will be so for others.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher . I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.