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Beyond Justification: Liberating Paul’s Gospel
Paul proclaims in 90 percent of what he wrote that we have been set free, resurrected, and transformed through Christ at the behest of a loving God. This gospel proclamation can be found wherever he speaks of being “in Christ.” But this gospel and its account of salvation have been captured by “another gospel,” which also lays claim to being Paul’s account of salvation. And this gospel is retributive, conditional, and ultimately damaging. “Justification theory,” as we call this false account, lays claim to just under 10 percent of what Paul wrote. The presence of both these gospels within Paul’s interpretation causes numerous acute problems. To name just a few, they create an image of Paul as someone who is fundamentally confused, frequently harsh, and unavoidably anti-Jewish.
If we reread Paul’s justification texts, however, paying more attention to the original historical circumstances within which they were composed, then they turn out to say something subtly but significantly different. Paul’s justification texts can be interpreted carefully, faithfully, and consistently, in terms of his usual gospel—our transformation in Christ. Thus Justification theory is never activated. Paul’s true gospel is thereby liberated from its long captivity to a false alternative. We can now see a kinder, gentler, and more consistent apostle.
If we reread Paul’s justification texts, however, paying more attention to the original historical circumstances within which they were composed, then they turn out to say something subtly but significantly different. Paul’s justification texts can be interpreted carefully, faithfully, and consistently, in terms of his usual gospel—our transformation in Christ. Thus Justification theory is never activated. Paul’s true gospel is thereby liberated from its long captivity to a false alternative. We can now see a kinder, gentler, and more consistent apostle.
445 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 9, 2024
46 people are currently reading
91 people want to read
About the author
Douglas Campbell
110 books2 followersDouglas Campbell's fiction has appeared in many print and online publications, including Smokelong Quarterly, Vestal Review, Fiction Southeast, The Northville Review, Short Story America, and Potomac Review. Douglas daydreams, writes, and plays his guitar in a tree-shaded bungalow in a little town in southwestern Pennsylvania.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 16, 2024
I approached this book with a lot of my own questions and uncertainties about what the authors call "justification theory." The value of this book for me was that I was able to read scholars who shared my questions and validated them, who then addressed them by following the text to a new theological paradigm. There were a few hangups I had with certain methods or assertions (e.g. framing justification texts as 10% of Paul as opposed to the other 90% was overused and to little effect in my opionion, and I noticed an apparent denial of the impeccability of Christ on one or two occasions), but my overall impression was that this book offered a perspective that makes the gospel more coherent with itself and with many scriptural texts, and more compelling given human experience.
One weakness was that there were times where opposing arguments for "justification theory" were presented in popular expressions that probably don't represent their strongest articulations. John Piper is one of the focal interlocutors in this book and there were times where something was said about his position (ie justification theory in general) that I'm confident Piper wouldn't have agreed with, e.g. that revelation is unnecessary, or that it's account of human nature is "not too deeply corrupted or incapacitated." I was still able to follow their positive arguments, but hopefully a good critique from an opposing view will make up for this lack in representation.
The prose was quite pleasant to read, and the authors really hold your hand as they guide you through the logic of their arguments, often pausing to review what's been said and anticipating where they're going next.
Overall the book really blew my mind. I'm hesitant to say the book was totally compelling for me, not because of any weaknesses in the argument but only because the conclusions are so radically different than what many in the church have believed about justification for so long, even hundreds of years. One might say it's a hot take. It's controversial and hard to swallow, but I think their argument not only makes better sense of the text, but it is much more coherent with the rest of Paul. All that to say, I need to sit with it for a while. I look forward to poring over the scriptures with this paradigm in mind and testing it's conclusions against other texts.
One weakness was that there were times where opposing arguments for "justification theory" were presented in popular expressions that probably don't represent their strongest articulations. John Piper is one of the focal interlocutors in this book and there were times where something was said about his position (ie justification theory in general) that I'm confident Piper wouldn't have agreed with, e.g. that revelation is unnecessary, or that it's account of human nature is "not too deeply corrupted or incapacitated." I was still able to follow their positive arguments, but hopefully a good critique from an opposing view will make up for this lack in representation.
The prose was quite pleasant to read, and the authors really hold your hand as they guide you through the logic of their arguments, often pausing to review what's been said and anticipating where they're going next.
Overall the book really blew my mind. I'm hesitant to say the book was totally compelling for me, not because of any weaknesses in the argument but only because the conclusions are so radically different than what many in the church have believed about justification for so long, even hundreds of years. One might say it's a hot take. It's controversial and hard to swallow, but I think their argument not only makes better sense of the text, but it is much more coherent with the rest of Paul. All that to say, I need to sit with it for a while. I look forward to poring over the scriptures with this paradigm in mind and testing it's conclusions against other texts.
January 16, 2024
This is a paradigm shifting book.
If you think you have the Apostle Paul figured out, there's a decent chance this book will lead you to reexamining that understanding. And if you give this journey a chance, it's possible that you emerge with a new appreciation for a man so radically transformed by the revelation of the Risen Christ that it upended his world.
And if there's any truth to what these authors are saying about Paul's gospel.... well that just might be Good News.
If you think you have the Apostle Paul figured out, there's a decent chance this book will lead you to reexamining that understanding. And if you give this journey a chance, it's possible that you emerge with a new appreciation for a man so radically transformed by the revelation of the Risen Christ that it upended his world.
And if there's any truth to what these authors are saying about Paul's gospel.... well that just might be Good News.
January 1, 2025
Weird detour in the middle on the Holocaust (?) but otherwise very tightly argued. Big if true. The book only came out this last year but I think it will be a massive paradigm (and culture) shift for most of American (especially Evangelical) Christianity as it filters down. Many people are going to feel threatened by it but the authors’ thesis makes way more sense of the data than typical justification theory and the “turn or burn-ism” that comes along with it really can’t die quickly enough imo.
July 18, 2024
It was fine. Some things I agreed with, some things I did not. I agree with the main premise of what they say that the gospel is but I would take more of a middle ground between this and NP.
February 19, 2026
This book is absolutely incredible in so many ways.
I highly recommend reading it in the order it’s written as each chapter builds meticulously upon the previous chapters. Once I started reading it from the beginning (instead of trying to jump ahead to the parts I was especially curious about), I was able to fly through the book within a week. If there was an audiobook with voices dramatizing the debates between Paul and the false rabbis that he was satirizing in Romans 1-3 and ch 10, that would be a great way to also make this content accessible to folks who may have driving jobs where they can listen but have limited time to sit and reading. This book would make a good audiobook as it builds in order from beginning to end, and an audio version would help give interested minds a great way to start absorbing the content through audio and then when they read the book all the pieces can click together smoothly.
The book is a tour de force and delivers on its promise to liberate Paul’s gospel from conditional mercantile false renditions of the gospel. Very helpful to understanding the apocalyptic reading of Paul in Romans and how to better navigate the biblical texts that have been used to prop up the Justification Theory.
Spoiler:
We learn in this book that the gospel that Paul proclaimed is not based on getting circumcised and following kosher dietary guidelines, nor is it based on the so-called “Roman Road gospel” (a misnomer) because a conditional God who meets out contractual rewards and punishments is the opposite of the unconditionally loving and unconditionally forgiving God that Jesus revealed. We are enfolded into this delivering God and participate in this resurrectional and unconditional gospel (that is a covenant and not a contract) through Christ’s incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and the Holy Spirit’s life in the church.
We learn how in the book of Romans, Paul is showcasing everything that’s wrong with conditional understanding of the gospel and showing a God that is infinitely bigger and better than we’ve ever dared to imagine, hope for, or expect.
I highly recommend reading it in the order it’s written as each chapter builds meticulously upon the previous chapters. Once I started reading it from the beginning (instead of trying to jump ahead to the parts I was especially curious about), I was able to fly through the book within a week. If there was an audiobook with voices dramatizing the debates between Paul and the false rabbis that he was satirizing in Romans 1-3 and ch 10, that would be a great way to also make this content accessible to folks who may have driving jobs where they can listen but have limited time to sit and reading. This book would make a good audiobook as it builds in order from beginning to end, and an audio version would help give interested minds a great way to start absorbing the content through audio and then when they read the book all the pieces can click together smoothly.
The book is a tour de force and delivers on its promise to liberate Paul’s gospel from conditional mercantile false renditions of the gospel. Very helpful to understanding the apocalyptic reading of Paul in Romans and how to better navigate the biblical texts that have been used to prop up the Justification Theory.
Spoiler:
We learn in this book that the gospel that Paul proclaimed is not based on getting circumcised and following kosher dietary guidelines, nor is it based on the so-called “Roman Road gospel” (a misnomer) because a conditional God who meets out contractual rewards and punishments is the opposite of the unconditionally loving and unconditionally forgiving God that Jesus revealed. We are enfolded into this delivering God and participate in this resurrectional and unconditional gospel (that is a covenant and not a contract) through Christ’s incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and the Holy Spirit’s life in the church.
We learn how in the book of Romans, Paul is showcasing everything that’s wrong with conditional understanding of the gospel and showing a God that is infinitely bigger and better than we’ve ever dared to imagine, hope for, or expect.
November 10, 2025
Campbell has written prolifically on Paul. I don't have the time to analyze all of the claims he makes, which would be a major undertaking for anyone, given the original proposal he makes. In this volume, he does make his ideas very accessible, so that's why I rate it as high as I do. Many of his ideas I have bracketed to margins, because I am not convinced, yet I don't like writing people off. I can appreciate his desire to understand the gospel, and our salvation, as not contractual, but unconditional. This is certainly what we see, when we look at Jesus who gave His life for us. With that being said, I found myself wanting Campbell to engage Paul's passages about people who commit certain do not inherit the kingdom, such as at the end of Galatians. Also, it would have been helpful for Campbell to define some of his terms, such as freedom. You have to Intuit his understanding from his usage, which can lead to misunderstandings. For example, the way Campbell uses "freedom" one could understand him using it in a libertine sense. A lot to appreciate, but not sure where I fall on all of his claims (epistemology, natural theology, the way he creates parodies in the text of Romans, etc). However, a conditional love does not sit well with me, and neither does it for Campbell. Chris Tilling has a book on Douglas Campbell that I have read a few chapters in, I think that would be helpful reading for anyone interested in this conversation.
May 29, 2024
A wildly ambitious book for a relatively short page-count! This title coins the term "justification theory" and summarizes it's teaching, surveys the "new perspective on Paul" landscape, critiques all of the above, and poses a response to "justification theory" with an extremely close, exegetical reading of the first chapters of Romans. Whew!
See full video review here: https://youtu.be/L1ITcxsKKWw
See full video review here: https://youtu.be/L1ITcxsKKWw
May 28, 2024
Book is excellent. However the picture of Campbell is in error. It is showing the wrong author i.e. another Douglas Campbell.
May 22, 2025
I had been looking forward to the release of Beyond Justification: Liberating Paul's Gospel ever since completing The Deliverance of God two years ago, which had proven the most scholarly work that I had ever read. I only understood probably about 60% of The Deliverance of God, but I still found the work fascinating and engrossing. So discovering that a layman’s version would be coming out naturally enticed me!
Beyond Justification succeeds in relaying the fascinating material from The Deliverance of God, while proving much more accessible. I particularly appreciate the authors’ argument for understanding “pistis Cristo” as “the faithfulness of Christ,“ as opposed to “faith in Christ;” I followed the argument much more fully in this work than in Deliverance, and I found it convincing. In fact, I easily grasped everything that the authors were communicating. Ultimately, while I do not quite concur with them that “justification theory” is as problematic as they claim that it is, and while I believe that most of the theories’ problems that they describe can be resolved if we approach justification theory (also known as Penal Substitution atonement theory) from a universalist framework and incorporate (or perhaps even emphasize) aspects of the participatory gospel that saturates the rest of Paul’s work, I do strongly suspect that Campbell and DePue are very likely correct about their theory involving the presence of a false teacher’s voice in Romans, based on contextual clues in the text of the epistle itself.
However, there are a few aspects of Beyond Justification that I wish had been done differently. For instance, I would have loved for Campbell and DePue to have spent a bit less time building up to their arguments by expounding upon their issues with justification theory and more time exegeting the actual text of Romans. While their build-up proves interesting and thought-provoking, it at times becomes slightly repetitive. And while the authors provide a detailed exegesis of Romans 1-4, I would have appreciated an even more in-depth verse-by-verse analysis. I also would have appreciated quotes from church fathers who might have noticed a false teacher’s voice in Romans, as the lack thereof persists as my primary reservation from accepting the authors’ theory wholeheartedly and without reservation.
Despite this shortcoming, I still find Campbell’s and DePue’s overall reading of Romans (and related texts) not only plausible, but probable. Thanks to these authors, I will never read Romans—or Paul in general—again.
Beyond Justification succeeds in relaying the fascinating material from The Deliverance of God, while proving much more accessible. I particularly appreciate the authors’ argument for understanding “pistis Cristo” as “the faithfulness of Christ,“ as opposed to “faith in Christ;” I followed the argument much more fully in this work than in Deliverance, and I found it convincing. In fact, I easily grasped everything that the authors were communicating. Ultimately, while I do not quite concur with them that “justification theory” is as problematic as they claim that it is, and while I believe that most of the theories’ problems that they describe can be resolved if we approach justification theory (also known as Penal Substitution atonement theory) from a universalist framework and incorporate (or perhaps even emphasize) aspects of the participatory gospel that saturates the rest of Paul’s work, I do strongly suspect that Campbell and DePue are very likely correct about their theory involving the presence of a false teacher’s voice in Romans, based on contextual clues in the text of the epistle itself.
However, there are a few aspects of Beyond Justification that I wish had been done differently. For instance, I would have loved for Campbell and DePue to have spent a bit less time building up to their arguments by expounding upon their issues with justification theory and more time exegeting the actual text of Romans. While their build-up proves interesting and thought-provoking, it at times becomes slightly repetitive. And while the authors provide a detailed exegesis of Romans 1-4, I would have appreciated an even more in-depth verse-by-verse analysis. I also would have appreciated quotes from church fathers who might have noticed a false teacher’s voice in Romans, as the lack thereof persists as my primary reservation from accepting the authors’ theory wholeheartedly and without reservation.
Despite this shortcoming, I still find Campbell’s and DePue’s overall reading of Romans (and related texts) not only plausible, but probable. Thanks to these authors, I will never read Romans—or Paul in general—again.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews