We’re actually reading as a staff, as a faculty, at Reformed Theological Seminary this semester. We pick a book every semester, and I attend those meetings whenever I can.
This semester, we’re reading a book by Timothy Ware called The Orthodox Church. It’s an introduction to Eastern Christianity. It was originally written in 1963 and has been updated several times. The most recent edition is from 2015.
Timothy Ware is probably the most widely read Eastern Orthodox writer of the past 50 or 60 years. He’s from the U.K. He grew up evangelical but converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. He’s a good writer, and he’s actually more sympathetic than many other Eastern Orthodox writers tend to be.
But one of the things we’ve noted in reading through this book is how almost entirely absent the word “justification” is from its 350 pages.
In fact, one source I found online went through the book and said that the word occurs only once, and it’s certainly not in the index. Only once, and even there, it’s in a quotation from someone else.
So, in a 350-page book about the history, practice, worship, and theology of Eastern Orthodoxy, the doctrine of justification is never actually discussed.
In Romans, I hope you’ve already seen that justification is one of Paul’s preeminent concerns. You cannot simply dismiss the doctrine of justification by saying, “Well, that’s a Protestant thing, or that’s a Western thing, or that’s simply a byproduct of Luther and Calvin.”
No, no, no. This was a central issue—perhaps the essential doctrine—for the Apostle Paul.
Dr. Kevin DeYoung, The Grace of God in His Counting
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