Fuller on the Law

Some time ago, John Robbins put my name in a list of theologians influenced by Daniel Fuller and John Piper. (I was in the good company of John Frame, Dick Gaffin, and others, so I was actually honored.) The funny thing was, that I had read almost nothing of either Fuller or Piper. So I could live up to Robbins’s charge, though, I decided to read Fuller’s work on gospel and law.

Having now read a chunk of Fuller’s book, I’ve found it stirring. I don’t agree with everything in Fuller’s chapter on Paul’s view of the law, but in many respects I found it wonderful. His point that our salvation is not by our works because God is the Workman is one of those insights that leaves you breathless, both with the obviousness of it and with its infinite ramifications. Dittos for his point that the Mosaic law, just as much as Paul, urged Israel to produce the “obedience of faith.” And his unpacking of how faith is implicated in all obedience to the commandments of God is superb.

All of which is to retroactively admit that I suppose I belong on Robbins’s list after all.