The Radical Resurgence

In this most interesting book, Judged by the Gospel: A Review of Adventism, Robert Brinsmead calls Adventism to consider the gospel. This book reflects the author’s personal spiritual pilgrimage, and was “written to bring my own faith under further judgment of the gospel” (p.8).

I gather, therefore, that Judged by the Gospel is designed to lovingly challenge those in “traditional Adventism.” However, its appeal, I believe, extends beyond Adventism to all evangelicals: “the gospel is a clear and certain light which must call all that we teach and do into serious and radical question” (p.7).

In my remarks on this work, I will pursue matters in the order that they appear in the book, sometimes letting Mr. Brinsmead’s words speak for themselves.

What Lies Behind the “Central Article” of Protestantism?

Brinsmead (hereafter, RDB) states, “Luther declared that justification by faith is ‘the article on which the church stands or faIls’” (p.7). However, the significance of justification by faith can only be properly comprehended on the presupposition of a biblical anthropology. This is borne out in the order Paul follows in Romans. Before opening up justification by faith (3:2lff.), he first discloses the awful plight of mankind in sin (1:18-3:20). Thus, Luther’s remark above must be connected with the sentiments he expressed to Erasmus at the conclusion of his ‘The Bondage of the Will’:

‘Moreover, I give you hearty praise and commendation on this further account — that you alone, in contrast with all others, have attacked the real thing, that is, the essential issue. You have not wearied me with those extraneous issues about the Papacy, purgatory, indulgences and such like — trifles, rather than issues — in respect of which almost all to date have sought my blood (though without success); you, and you alone, have seen the hinge on which all turns, and aimed at the vital spot’  (trans. by Packer and Johnston [Fleming Revell, 1957], p.319).