Taking seriously the Gospel as a unified narrative and the Gospel's late first-century Jewish setting, John Dennis investigates the Fourth Gospel's appropriation of Jewish restoration theology. Employing John 11.47-52 as the starting point, the author argues that one of the primary functions of restoration theology in John is to interpret Jesus' death in the light of Jewish restoration expectations. A new angle on Jesus' death in the Fourth Gospel emerges from this study: Jesus' death effects the restoration of Israel, the restoration that was engendered by the Prophets and expected by many Jews of the Second Temple period. In the course of the study it is also argued that John was primarily concerned with Israel's restoration and not with a mission to the Gentiles. In this light, a fresh interpretation of the children of God (11.52) is offered.

What is the relationship between the nation of Israel, Jesus Christ, and the church? Pastors and theologians come to significantly different conclusions. The reigning systems of evangelical theology, covenant theology, and dispensationalism answer this question by stressing the continuity of the Israel-church relationship (covenant theology) or emphasizing discontinuity (dispensationalism). In more recent times, progressive covenantalism has emerged as a via media between these two theological approaches by providing a different proposal for unpacking the biblical covenants, and by highlighting that to rightly understand the people of God in biblical theology, the person of Jesus Christ must be the focal point. In Christ Jesus, the True Israel, Brent E. Parker presents the case for the importance of typology in this debate, arguing that national Israel is a type, not unlike other Old Testament types (e.g., the sacrificial system, the temple, etc.), that reaches its antitypical fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Moreover, the Israel-church relationship is also typological, but only through Christ. Parker demonstrates that the progressive covenantal approach is a viable system of theology that seeks to preserve what the whole Bible says regarding the people of God, from Israel to Christ and from Christ to the church.

In this revised BST volume, John Stott clearly expounds Paul's words, themes, and arguments in Romans and offers applications for today's readers. Deeply acquainted with the text and context of Romans and Pauline scholarship, Stott also explores the epistle's rich harmonies and broad vision, highlighting the power of the gospel.

Jesus’ Death in New Testament Thought is unlike anything written on the subject to date. It represents a radical break with the traditional models or “theories” of atonement based on ideas such as penal substitution, participation in Christ, and the Christus Victor motif, claiming that all of these ideas as commonly understood are foreign to New Testament thought. On the basis of his analysis of second-temple Jewish thought, Brondos demonstrates that, for Jews in antiquity, what atoned for sins and led people to be declared righteous in God’s sight was not sacrifice, suffering, or death in themselves, but the renewed commitment to living in accordance with God’s will which they manifested by means of their sacrificial offerings and at times their willingness to endure suffering and death out of faithfulness to that will. According to the thought of Jesus’ first followers, in accordance with a divine plan conceived of before the ages, in Jesus God had sent his Son in order to establish around him a community of people fully committed to practicing the love, justice, solidarity, and righteousness associated with God’s will for all. Jesus’ dedication to this task led to confrontation and conflict with the powers and authorities of his day, who sought to silence him by having him put to death. Because he stood firm and remained faithful to that task rather than backing down from it, he was crucified on a Roman cross. Paradoxically, however, in this way he laid the basis for the existence of the community God had desired from the start, stamping it forever as one to which no one could truly belong without assuming the same firm commitment to Jesus and everything for which he had lived and died. Those who form part of this community, living out of faith under Jesus as their risen Lord, come to practice God’s will as redefined through Jesus and on that basis are forgiven and accepted as righteous by God. Thus, by giving up his life out of love for others in faithfulness to the task his Father had given him, Jesus has attained the redemption, reconciliation, cleansing, and justification of those who now live under his lordship as members of the worldwide community of believers from all nations that God has established through him and his death, in fulfillment of the promises that God had made of old to his people Israel. In Volume 1, Brondos looks to the relevant texts from antiquity to trace the background and development of these ideas. His argument will leave the reader with no doubt that Jesus’ first followers understood the salvific significance of his death or blood in the manner just outlined, and therefore that the traditional interpretations of his death that have prevailed from patristic times to the present do not reflect faithfully their thought as we find it in the New Testament. In Volume 2, Brondos examines the formulaic allusions to Jesus’ death that we find scattered throughout the New Testament and other early Christian writings so as to demonstrate that these are precisely the ideas that lie behind those allusions. At the same time, through his analysis of the writings of Melito of Sardis and Irenaeus of Lyons, he provides clear evidence that, by the late second century, ideas that are foreign to those texts began to be read back into them, with the result that the original understandings of Jesus’ death that had developed among his first followers came to be replaced by other understandings that run contrary to their thought. In his Conclusion, Brondos argues that only by rejecting the traditional models of atonement and returning to the New Testament teaching on this central doctrine can the Christian church respond effectively to the crisis it faces today and bring about the restoration of the type of communities envisioned by Jesus and his first followers.

In John within Judaism Wally V. Cirafesi offers a reading of the Gospel of John as an expression of the fluid and flexible nature of Jewish ethnic identity in Greco-Roman antiquity.

What Do the Five Points of Calvinism Really Mean? Many have heard of Reformed theology, but may not be certain what it is. Some references to it have been positive, some negative. It appears to be important, and they'd like to know more about it. But they want a full, understandable explanation, not a simplistic one. What Is Reformed Theology? is an accessible introduction to beliefs that have been immensely influential in the evangelical church. In this insightful book, R. C. Sproul walks readers through the foundations of the Reformed doctrine and explains how the Reformed belief is centered on God, based on God's Word, and committed to faith in Jesus Christ. Sproul explains the five points of Reformed theology and makes plain the reality of God's amazing grace.

Recent studies of the Christology of John's Gospel have agreed in recognizing the centrality of the concept of messianism, but differ markedly in their interpretation of its character. Alongside the traditional understanding of messiahship in terms of a kingly role related to that of David, there is a newer understanding that is related to the role of Moses and has little or no Davidic background. Despite the broad scholarly consensus regarding the Johannine connection between crucifixion and messianism, little attention has been paid to the role of crucifixion in relation to the nature of messiahship and in particular to the possibility that this may shed light on whether or not John's messianism is decisively shaped by the kingly or royal background. In The Kingship-Cross Interplay in the Gospel of John Mavis Leung contends that the cross motif plays a major role in authenticating the royal character of messiahship in John over against views that deny or play down this element.

Although consistently overlooked or dismissed, John 8.6, 8 in the "Pericope Adulterae" is the only place in canonical or non-canonical Jesus tradition that portrays Jesus as writing. After establishing that John 8.6, 8 is indeed a claim that Jesus could write, this book offers a new interpretation and transmission history of the "Pericope Adulterae." Not only did the pericope s interpolator place the story in John s Gospel in order to highlight the claim that Jesus could write, but he did so at John 7.53 8.11 as a result of carefully reading the Johannine narrative. The final chapter of the book proposes a plausible socio-historical context for the insertion of the story.

An internationally renowned Jesus scholar rethinks our knowledge of the historical Jesus in light of recent progress in the scientific study of memory.

This book investigates the relationship between justification by faith and final judgment according to works as found in Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians within a Protestant theological framework. Benjamin M. Dally first demonstrates the diversity and breadth of mainstream Protestant soteriology and eschatology beginning at the time of the Reformation by examining the confessional standards of its four primary ecclesial/theological streams: Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, and Anglican. The soteriological structure of each is assessed (i.e., how each construes the relationship between justification and final judgment), with particular attention given to how each speaks of the place of good works at the final judgment. This initial examination outlines the theological boundaries within which the exegesis of Second Corinthians can legitimately proceed, and illuminates language and conceptual matrices that will be drawn upon throughout the remainder of thebook. Then, drawing upon the narrative logic of Paul’s Early Jewish thought-world, Dally examines the text of Second Corinthians to discern its own soteriological framework, paying particular attention to both the meaning and rhetorical function of the “judgment according to works” motif as it is utilized throughout the letter. The book concludes by offering a Protestant synthesis of the relationship between justification and final judgment according to works in Second Corinthians, giving an explanation of the role of works at the final judgment that arguably alleviates a number of tensions often perceived in other readings devoted to this key aspect of Pauline exegesis and theology. Dally ultimately argues a three-fold thesis: (1) For the believer one’s earthly conduct, taken as a whole, is best spoken of in the language of inferior/secondary “cause” and/or “basis” as far as its import at the last judgment. (2) One’s earthly conduct, again taken as a whole, is soteriologically necessary (not solely, but secondarily nonetheless) and not simply of importance for the bestowal of non-soteriological, eschatological rewards. (3) There are crucial resources from within mainstream Protestantism to authorize such ways of speaking and to simultaneously affirm these contentions in conjunction with a robust, strictly forensic/imputational, “traditional” Protestant understanding of the doctrine of justification by faith alone.