Jack Kilcrease has undertaken a staggering task: a comprehensive summary of what the Bible teaches and what the church in all her manifestations has historically confessed regarding the central article of the Christian faith: Justification. Lest you think a weighty tome (nearly 400 pages) on a complex topic meticulously researched and copiously documented can be safely ignored, I urge you to think again. The book is a tour de force in that it manages to trace the theme of justification in Scripture from the creation to the eschaton, giving fair consideration to each contrasting (and conflicting) view of justification that has arisen throughout church history. One consistent thread ties the whole magnum opus together: the power and efficacy of the Word of God. The Reformation was not about a doctrinal debate, but a crisis in pastoral care. Kilcrease argues convincingly that Luther’s revolutionary teaching on justification was not merely a correction of medieval Catholic excesses, but a rediscovery of the ground of all Christian teaching and ministry: the sacramentality of the Word. Put simply, the Word of God does not merely teach or describe, it creates. If you believe—as I do—that the true care of souls is a ministry of the Word of God and that justification is the ground of consolation and comfort for wounded consciences, this is the book for you. If not, you will still be greatly encouraged by a book so richly drenched in gospel promises.

Luther has often been made into a hero of modern subjectivity, as if it's all about having faith. Jack Kilcrease corrects the record: it's all about the gracious Word of God, which gives us faith in the heart and every other good gift in Christ. For the Gospel word has the same effect as a sacrament: it gives what it signifies. Kilcrease's book pushes us in the direction of this word-centered path, which is the great gift of Lutheran theology to the larger Christian tradition.

Given its relevance, it is therefore rather strange that the teaching of justification has recently been downplayed and sidelined in Christian theology and ethics. Commendably, Jack Kilcrease attempts to rectify that deficit in a wide ranging, systematic, ecumenical study from a Lutheran perspective for pastors and teachers to engage with people in their quest for personal validation and acceptance. He argues that justification is forensic, proleptic, Christological, Trinitarian, and verbal. It is forensic in that it is the gracious acquittal of guilty people by God in his court of justice. It is proleptic in that their present acquittal anticipates their pardon in God’s final judgment and so secures their eternal salvation. It is Christological because that verdict is based on the death of Jesus for their sins and his resurrection for their justification. It is Trinitarian because their acceptance by God the Father is received as a gift through the faith in his Son that is produced by the Holy Spirit. It is verbal because they are justified by God’s efficacious, sacramental word that not only declares them righteous but also makes them righteous. Through God’s word the pardon that Christ won for them is delivered to them and received as they put their trust in his word rather than in anything they do or feel or are.

Too many Christians wring their hands over whether their faith is authentic and thus saving. Instead of looking to Christ alone, as Scripture teaches, they seek instead to assess the genuineness of their feelings or the extent to which their behaviors are changed. Jack Kilcrease tackles this pastoral problem head-on through a sweeping survey of Scripture, early Christian thinkers and medieval theologians, and the thought of Martin Luther along with his disciples and detractors. The upshot: views of justification which fail to honor the truth that God’s word not only describes reality but also conveys reality and gives Jesus Christ for faith to grasp, fall short of a scriptural view of the doctrine of justification. Kilcrease’s affirmation of the sacramentality of the word is a perspective that contemporary Christians need to hear.