Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ

Simply the most comprehensive and profound treatment of Covenant and salvation. Horton has complete understanding of all the arguments and should be considered an original reformer. He shows how profound the reformers were in their understanding of Salvation and Union with Christ. Hortons teratment of Speech Acts and the clear distinctions in essence -energies is so solid. This really is a repudiation of the medieval and modern (equal) processes of salvation.

Michael Horton, professor of apologetics and theology at Westminster Seminary California, is truly a "fresh voice" in theology today, as David Kelsey has said. Steeped in the wake of the Reformation and Reformed confessional theology, Horton's third volume (with the fourth on its way) is similar to the first two (" Covenant and Eschatology: The Divine Drama " and " Lord And Servant: A Covenant Christology "). Volume three, "Covenant and Salvation," is an exploration of soteriology broadly speaking and the ordo salutis narrowly speaking.Horton argues well for "treating justification as the legal ground of mystical union" (p. 203). In the first part of the book, Horton deals with covenant theology, setting forth the historical Reformed understanding of the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. Horton also interacts exensively with the current controversies on justification, highlighting the biblical foundation of the confessional Reformed position. The New Perspective(s) on Paul is evaluated in amazing depth; Horton knows the ins and outs of the NPP and makes some compelling arguments against it. Several times, Horton even points out some stark inconsistencies within the movement.The second part of the book is about the other "parts" of the ordo salutis, including adoption, sanctification, and glorification. Of course, union with Christ is also emphasized and related to justification and the rest of the ordo. This second part of the book was most exciting, as Horton works to move Reformed theology away from the medieval notion of infused habits (habitus), arguing for a covenantal ontology rather than a (neo)platonic scale of being. The Eastern Orthodox distinction of essence and energies is also utilized well, highlighting what Reformed theologians call the creator/creature distinction.Overall, this book was hard to set down. Horton has done his research; this is not just another reformed systematics. He weaves in the themes of drama, covenant, law/gospel, speech-act, imputation, analogy, effectual calling, and so forth throughout the book.The "goal" of volume three in Horton's words, is "to define justification and participation in the light of the interpretive framework of this four-volume project, and to relate these themes specifically to the loci commonly treated under the ordo salutis" (p. 309). In this reader's opinion, his goal has been accomplished.

I had been reading my way through a lot of the literature surrounding the New Perspective on Paul. I was fascinated and confused and had read a lot of writing in support of and against the NPP. Then I came to this book. I was shocked, this is the third books in Horton's series and this work lays out the way salvation fits in the big picture of God's divine action and revelation. It cuts through all of the rhetoric and gets down to the core biblical issues. This book simply makes sense, and helped me to truly understand salvation within it's biblical theological context.I highly recommend this book for all Christians who want to truly understands what the bible thinks, and to gain insight in current debates surrounding justification and the relationship between the covenants.

This is one of the most aware and hopeful accounts of Reformation Theology that the reader will ever see. It is incredibly relevant to the current world of theology. Horton begins with the presupposition not only that "the Reformation tradition" contains a huge amount of "unexploited potential" for engaging this current world, but that this potential is found within the framework of Covenant Theology.Horton traces the two covenants, "the covenant of Law," given to (and broken by) both Adam and Israel, and the "covenant of Promise," given to Noah, Abraham, David, and ultimately fulfilled in Christ. He distinguishes these two covenants, based on research done not only by Reformed biblical scholarship, but also "from Jewish and Roman Catholic traditions" (including the work of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) that has found two ancient kinds of covenants: a "suzerainty" treat, often given from a stronger king to a weaker king in the form, "do this and you will live," and a covenant of Promise, given in the form of "a royal grant," which took the form of "an outright gift of a king to a subject.""The covenant at Sinai certainly bears the marks of a suzerainty treaty. In fact, the exact form is followed in Exodus 19 and 20 as well as in Deuteronomy 5: Yahweh identifies himself as the suzerain (preamble), with a brief historical prologue citing his deliverance of the people from Egypt, followed by the Ten Commandments (stipulations), with clear warnings (sanctions) about violating the treaty to which they have sworn their allegiance." (pg 13.)The covenant with Noah, Abraham and David is given in "a completely different form," a "one-sided promise on God's part with no conditions attached (see Genesis 9). "The point is this: the deepest distinction in Scripture is not between the Old and New Testaments, but between the covenants of law and the covenants of promise that run through both" (pg 17).From this point, Horton engages all of the many theologies that are being presented today, beginning with the "New Perspective on Paul," (the "covenant nomism" of which takes into account the covenant of Law, but not the covenant of Promise,) but along the way, he engages not only Sanders, Dunn and Wright, but also Rahner and Von Balthasar, Barth and Hunsigner, Milbank and Ward, Tillich, Moltmann, and a host of others. Along the way, Horton brings home with power and dignity the genius of the Reformers, and he shows how the genius of the Reformers is not only relevant in today's thought climate, but ideal.This is a thoughtful, erudite, and masterful work.

It is a great pity that a book of such good value is printed in small words that can hurt any human eyes in reading over 10 minutes.