The “four views” here represented are those of a proponent of non-Lordship salvation (Robert N. Wilkin, Executive Director of the Grace Evangelical Society), a Calvinist (Thomas R. Schreiner, professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), a biblical scholar wary of exegesis steered by systematic interests (James D. G. Dunn, Emeritus Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at Durham University), and a Catholic (Michael P. Barber, Professor of Theology, Scripture, and Catholic Thought at John Paul the Great Catholic University). The work’s editor introduces and concludes the volume with summaries of the issues and positions and a call for graciousness and understanding in the midst of disagreements.

Robert Wilkin is at significant odds not only with the other three contributors, but also (in his own words) with both Calvinists and Arminians, the latter category here said to include Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and “many types of Protestants” (p. 26). Crucial for his understanding are texts in John’s Gospel that promise eternal life to those who “believe.” Insisting that the texts say nothing about a need for perseverance (the present tense of the verbs goes unnoted) or obedience, and taking the belief in question to mean intellectual agreement (no “commitment” is required [p. 49]), Wilkin finds here a guarantee of eternal salvation regardless of the subsequent conduct and even beliefs of the one who (at least for the moment) “believed.” Convinced on this point and, hence, that no biblical text, rightly interpreted, can contradict it, Wilkin provides inventive explanations for the myriad of texts that appear to speak differently. The “Great White Throne Judgment,” at which unbelievers are judged and condemned, is here distinguished from the appearance of believers before the “Judgment Seat of Christ,” where rewards, not eternal life, are said to be the issue. Of the unfaithful servant who (according to Matt 24:51) was “cut in two” and assigned a lot “with the hypocrites,” with “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” Wilkin explains that he will be “verbally cut up at a future judgment,” and that “weeping and gnashing of teeth” refers to “grief and pain” occasioned by the loss of rewards, not that of eternal life (pp. 35–36). The unfaithful servant “cast . . . into the darkness” in Matt 25:24–30 is said to be excluded merely from “the joy associated with ruling with Christ”; no threat to salvation is intended (pp. 37–38). Suffice it to say that the distinctive interpretations given to these and a host of other texts are unique to his particular variety of dispensationalism and that the pastoral implications of setting aside the texts’ more obvious meaning are unsettling.

Other contributors all insist that perseverance in faith and obedience is required of those who will enter eternal life. Thomas Schreiner ably represents the Calvinist position, affirming both that salvation is a gift of God’s grace to those who believe, and that grace, so given, is effective in transforming the lives of believers so that they (necessarily) produce “good works.” These (divinely empowered) works can thus rightly serve as “the necessary evidence and fruit of a right relation with God” (p. 97), even though that relationship itself (and, with it, the gift of salvation) is granted by grace and received by faith.

Two emphases emerge from James Dunn’s contribution. First, salvation is a process, beginning with the justification of the ungodly but not ending until the believer is acquitted at the final judgment. A number of passages in Paul’s writings, Dunn believes, clearly indicate that fulfillment of the promises of salvation that attend initial justification is in fact conditional upon perseverance in faith and obedience, and that apostasy is a real danger to which converts may succumb. (Schreiner disagrees, claiming that God’s elect cannot fail to persevere and that scriptural warnings of apostasy are precisely God’s means of keeping them from apostatizing.) Put differently, we may say that while initial justification grants to the ungodly the status of being righteous, acquittal at the final judgment will be granted only to those who have themselves (enabled, to be sure, by God’s Spirit; Dunn speaks of Paul’s language as “synergistic” [p. 132]) produced righteous deeds. (Here Schreiner agrees that human beings must choose and act rightly, but maintains that it is God who “causes them to will and to work for his own good pleasure” [p. 153].) Dunn stresses, secondly, the danger that, in reducing all that Paul says to a coherent scheme, we may fail to do justice to the different emphases in his letters.

Michael Barber, in keeping with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, speaks of salvation both as a gift of God’s grace and as a reward for good works, while insisting that the works that merit salvation are accomplished by Christ, who lives within the believer: God, with whom “all things are possible,” renders their works meritorious (p. 162). Wilkin sees this position as legalistic, Schreiner as making works the basis rather than merely the criterion for salvation, and Dunn as the product of blending scriptural passages without taking sufficient account of their distinctive emphases. The chapter ought in any case to enable Protestant readers to better grasp Catholic teaching.

This Protestant reader is appreciative of Schreiner’s attempt (following Calvin, to be sure) to demonstrate Scripture’s coherence on a crucial point of doctrine, yet wary (with Dunn) of imposing a pattern on Scripture that distorts the clear meaning of relevant texts. In short, the book is as valuable for its illustration of different approaches to Scripture as for its lively presentation of differing views on the topic at hand.

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