How does the doctrine of sanctification shape the Christian life? Offering a fully developed treatment of "accomplished" sanctification, Don Payne explains that the primary biblical focus in sanctification is not progressive growth but that which has already occurred for Christians to make growth possible, necessary, and grace-driven. As Payne explores the significance Scripture attributes to the accomplished aspect of sanctification, he helps us understand that we are already sanctified. Sanctification is not synonymous with transformation but undergirds strategies and resources related to Christian discipleship and formation.
The first of its kind, this seminal work charts the unlikely theological quest for Christian holiness by founder Charles Harrison Mason and the Wesleyan-Holiness Pentecostal tradition known as the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States. Through fresh research and critical analysis, this book challenges existing assumptions by scholars and reveals how little-known black renewal movements informed Mason's theological understanding and that of the movement. The rich theological resources of this historically marginalized movement are not primarily accessible in academic journals, position papers, or theological treatises. Instead, these resources function as "lived religion," where the theological presuppositions are embedded in primitive worship, ecstatic religious practices, and countercultural distinctives. By unpacking the "lived religion" of this self-professed sanctified church, this book explores how sanctification and the practice of Christian holiness shaped and empowered the COGIC, its people, and its practices in creative and profound ways--resulting in a radical holiness ethic that emerged from an inexhaustible exilic vitality with personal, social, and political implications. Given the challenge of Christian nationalism today, this book provides a framework that informs Christian identity and faithful living for the broader Christian community.
Often treated like the younger sibling in theology, the doctrine of sanctification has spent the last few decades waiting not-so-patiently behind ideas like election and justification by faith alone. In this volume, twelve theologians explore the meaning and significance of sanctification for contemporary evangelical theology and practice.
Why do we see so much fruitful good in unbelievers and so much evil in believers? What could it mean for a believer that the old is “gone,” especially when it doesn’t feel that way? What does it mean for humans who are simul iustus et peccator (simultaneously righteous and sinner) to be transformed in Christ and by his Spirit? We typically think of sanctification as pertaining to humans being conformed to Jesus, but what could it mean when Jesus speaks of himself as being sanctified for our sakes (John 17:19)? Jeff McSwain mines the theology of Karl Barth to engage such questions. In looking “through the simul,” he concludes with Barth that universal human transformation is a reality before it is a possibility, and that, despite our contradictory state, we may live Spirit-filled lives as we participate in Christ’s true humanity that determines ours—a humanity which never gets old.
The history of Jews from the period of the Second Temple to the rise of Islam. From 'A History of the Mishnaic Law of Appointed Times, Part 1' This volume introduces the sources of Judaism in late antiquity to scholars in adjacent fields, such as the study of the Old and New Testaments, Ancient History, the ancient Near East, and the history of religion. In two volumes, leading American, Israeli, and European specialists in the history, literature, theology, and archaeology of Judaism offer factual answers to the two questions that the study of any religion in ancient times must raise. The first is, what are the sources -- written and in material culture -- that inform us about that religion? The second is, how have we to understand those sources in reconstructing the history of various Judaic systems in antiquity. The chapters set forth in simple statements, intelligible to non-specialists, the facts which the sources provide. Because of the nature of the subject and acute interest in it, the specialists also raise some questions particular to the study of Judaism, dealing with its historical relationship with nascent Christianity in New Testament times. The work forms the starting point for the study of all the principal questions concerning Judaism in late antiquity and sets forth the most current, critical results of scholarship.
The author of these sermons has had a feeling for a long time that the great need in our churches in this day is systematic indoctrination. He put his theory into practice last winter in his own church, and these sermons are the result. We were having a great many accessions to our church. In the two years of the church's history we had had something like six hundred accessions to the church, and every month considerable numbers of new members were being added. While many of these came by letter from other churches, many of them were new converts and had had practically no systematic instruction in the fundamental truths of the Christian faith, so we announced a series of sermons on The Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Faith. There was immediately a large increase in the attendance at the services where these addresses were given, and this increase has kept up until on the last Lord's Day we had much the largest attendance we have ever had, excepting on Easter Sunday. Many have testified to the blessing received from these sermons, and there has been a great demand that the sermons be printed for general circulation. This request has come from ministers of various denominations, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and others. It is hoped that this volume will be useful to other pastors in suggesting lines of teaching in their regular pastoral work, and also that it may be used widely by pastors and others for circulation among Christians. We live in a day in which many of our church members are all at sea as to what they believe on the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. These sermons have already helped many through their delivery. It is hoped they will reach and help far more in the printed form.
In the sixteenth century the Western Church was rent asunder by the quarrel over justification. Today scholars from churches on both sides of the controversy are carefully rethinking the question. Dr. Toon shows how contemporary biblical scholarship and exegesis are attempting to resolve the thorny question of justification without compromising the integrity of either side. Provocative and far-reaching in its analysis and conclusions, Justification and Sanctification gives the student an invaluable introduction while providing the scholar a fresh look at the issue.
Books on the Christian life abound. Some focus on spirituality, others on practices, and others still on doctrines such as justification or forgiveness. Few offer an account of the Christian life that portrays redeemed Christian existence within the multifaceted and beautiful whole of the Christian confession. This book attempts to fill that gap. It provides a constructive, specifically theological interpretation of the Christian life according to the nature of God's grace. This means coordinating the Triune God, his reconciling, justifying, redemptive, restorative, and otherwise transformative action with those practices of the Christian life emerging from it. The doctrine of the Christian life developed here unifies doctrine and life, confession and practice within the divine economy of grace. Drawing together some of the most important theologians in the church today, Sanctified by Grace achieves what no other theological text offers – a shared work of dogmatic theology oriented to redeemed Christian existence.
