WTSBooks points out via Twitter a 5-part series (plus 2 Q&A sessions) by Richard B. Gaffin Jr. on “The Mystery of Union with Christ.” Gaffin delivered these messages at Matthews Orthodox Presbyterian in March of 2005. I’ve downloaded them and listened to part of the first one. It looks to be a very good series. They are available as free downloads courtesy of SermonAudio.com.
Richard Gaffin
By Faith, Not By Sight
Richard B. Gaffin Jr., By Faith, Not by Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation. Paternoster, 2006. 114 pp.
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I’ve been reading portions of Richard Gaffin’s new book, By Faith, Not By Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation (WTSBooks), and have found it helpful. Particularly insightful are his comments on (1) justification and the center of Paul’s theology and (2) the concept of eschatological justification.
The Center of Paul’s Theology
This selection summarizes his position well:
Carson on 1 Cor 13:8–13—What Am I Missing?
On Sunday I’m teaching our Sunday school class on the subject of tongues. I’m basically going to do an overview using the paper I wrote for Dr. Reimers’s Pneumatology class. In doing a little review, I reread Gaffin’s article in Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views and found it insightful and solid. I then decided to take a look at Carson’s Showing the Spirit since I bought it recently for my Libronix Digital Library System. Carson takes issue with Gaffin on a few points, but I’m at a loss to understand one of Carson’s objections. Maybe you can help me see what I’m missing.
Gaffin says,
It is gratuitous to insist that this passage teaches that the modes of revelation mentioned, prophecy and tongues, are to continue functioning until Christ’s return. Paul is not intending to specify the time when any particular mode will cease. What he does affirm is the termination of the believer’s present, fragmentary knowledge, based on likewise temporary modes of revelation, when “the perfect” comes. The time of the cessation of prophecy and tongues is an open question so far as this passage is concerned. (Perspectives on Pentecost, 111; quoted in Showing the Spirit, 69 n. 57)
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