Part One is largely occupied with tendencies prominent within the New Perspective on Paul as well as on the Judaism of his day—tendencies that, on the one hand, accent continuity between Paul and that Judaism to the point of obscuring crucial differences, and on the other hand, stress discontinuity between Paul’s teaching on justification and the Reformation doctrine to the point of denying that the latter is true to the former.

Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ, by Michael S. Horton. Louisville/London: Westminster John Knox, 2007, xi, 324 pages, $16.99.

This, the third in a projected four-volume series, continues Dr. Horton’s reflections on systematic-theological topics in light of the covenant theme. The first treated eschatology, the second Christology and the fourth is to be on ecclesiology. This book deals with soteriology, understood as matters primarily concerning the application of redemption.

Evident again is the wide reading and ongoing interaction with a similarly wide spectrum of viewpoints, past and present, that mark the earlier volumes. There are two major sections, “Covenant and Justification” (11-125) and “Covenant and Participation” (128-307). The concern pervasive throughout is to demonstrate the relationship, understood covenantally, between justification and union with Christ, between the forensic/legal and the participatory/relational/effective in salvation.

The full magnitude of the undertaking this book represents precludes doing justice to it in a relatively brief review so I will have to limit myself selectively to highlighting several matters.

Part One is largely occupied with tendencies prominent within the New Perspective on Paul as well as on the Judaism of his day—tendencies that, on the one hand, accent continuity between Paul and that Judaism to the point of obscuring crucial differences, and on the other hand, stress discontinuity between Paul’s teaching on justification and the Reformation doctrine to the point of denying that the latter is true to the former.

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Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, is Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology, Emeritus at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Ordained Servant, March 2009.