Long Before Luther: Tracing the Heart of the Gospel from Christ to the Reformation
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Where was the gospel before the Reformation? Contemporary evangelicals often struggle to answer that question. As a result, many Roman Catholics are quick to allege that the Reformation understanding of the gospel simply did not exist before the 1500s. They assert that key Reformation doctrines, like sola fide, were nonexistent in the first fifteen centuries of church history. Rather, they were invented by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others.
That is a serious charge, and one that evangelicals must be ready to answer. If an evangelical understanding of the gospel is only 500 years old, we are in major trouble. However, if it can be demonstrated that Reformers were not inventing something new, but instead were recovering something old, then key tenets of the Protestant faith are greatly affirmed. Hence, the need for this book.
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- Presents a better understanding of Church history in relation to the gospel message
- Encourages a greater appreciation for the hard-won victories of the Reformation
- Equips readers for dialogue with Catholic friends about the presence of Reformed doctrines throughout church history.
- Part 1: The Reformers and Justification
- An Invention or a Recovery?
- Regaining Biblical clarity
- Clothed in Christ's Righteousness
- Part 2: The Church before Augustine
- Saved by Grace
- Justification: A Divine Declaration
- The Great Exchanged
- Part 3: Augustine and Justification
- A Forerunner to the Reformers?
- The Doctor of Grace
- The Church after Augustine
- Pardoned from Sin
- Reckoned as Righteous
- Coming Full Circle
- Appendix: Voices from History
This book is a balanced, winsome, easy-to-read, biblical and historical defense of the Reformation doctrine of sola fide. With meticulous documentation from primary patristic and medieval sources, Nathan Busenitz has convincingly debunked the notion that the Reformation teaching of justification by faith alone was a sixteenth-century novelty unknown to the prior 1500 years of church history.
—William Webster, pastor at Grace Bible Church, Battleground, WA and author of The Church of Rome at the Bar of History
We have long needed a book that helps us clearly understand who held to the essential gospel truths, recovered in the Reformation, before the Reformation exploded onto the scene. We now have such a book, Long before Luther by Nathan Busenitz. In every generation, God has had a remnant of faithful believers that held to the core doctrine of justification by faith alone. Here is a book—carefully researched, precisely documented, and skillfully written—that will help you discover who laid this theological landmark from the second to the fifteenth centuries. You need to know what is contained in these pages.
—Steven J. Lawson, president of OnePassion Ministries in Dallas, TX and author of Pillars of Grace: AD 100–1564
- Title: Long Before Luther: Tracing the Heart of the Gospel From Christ to the Reformation
- Author: Nathan Busenitz
- Publisher: Moody
- Publication Date: 2017
- Pages: 242
- Christian Group: Evangelicals
- Resource Type: Monographs
- Topic: Church History
Nathan Busenitz, (M.Div., Th.M., Ph.D., The Master's Seminary) is the dean of faculty and assistant professor of theology at The Master's Seminary. He holds a doctorate in church history, with a specific focus on patristic theology. He has served as a full-time member of the pastoral staff at Grace Community Church, director of the Shepherd's Fellowship, managing editor of Pulpit magazine, and as the personal assistant to John MacArthur.
Sample Pages from the Print Edition
Reviews
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Rev. Delwyn X. Campbell Sr
3/19/2018
You know, they could have simply looked at the Book of Concord and saved themselves all the trouble. Every argument that the are making was already made there. Why get a cheap imitation when you can have the original? Oh, I know - because THIS time it has John MacArthur's name on it.