Matthew W. Bates

God has provided salvation, but when does it begin? What is required of us? Can we lose it? These and other disputed questions have divided Christians for centuries. Matthew W. Bates has already shown that the gospel is about King Jesus and that faith includes allegiance. In Beyond the Salvation Wars, he unpacks additional truths from the Bible and the early church to describe how salvation happens.Bates offers a new model, encouraging Protestants and Catholics toward long-term unity. But his proposal contains strong medicine: it doesn't sugarcoat current Protestant and Catholic errors but diagnoses with precision for the future health of the church.By using accessible writing and stories, Bates shows what Scripture teaches about baptism, election, regeneration, assurance, and justification. A companion to his previous book, Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ, this book will appeal to those who want to discover core truths about how we are saved--for their personal journey as well as for final Christian unity. A discussion guide with questions for classes and groups will be available.

God has provided salvation, but when does it begin? What is required of us? Can we lose it? These and other disputed questions have divided Christians for centuries. Matthew W. Bates has already shown that the gospel is about King Jesus and that faith includes allegiance. In Beyond the Salvation Wars, he unpacks additional truths from the Bible and the early church to describe how salvation happens.Bates offers a new model, encouraging Protestants and Catholics toward long-term unity. But his proposal contains strong medicine: it doesn't sugarcoat current Protestant and Catholic errors but diagnoses with precision for the future health of the church.By using accessible writing and stories, Bates shows what Scripture teaches about baptism, election, regeneration, assurance, and justification. A companion to his previous book, Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ, this book will appeal to those who want to discover core truths about how we are saved--for their personal journey as well as for final Christian unity. A discussion guide with questions for classes and groups will be available.

El nacimiento de la Trinidad es un libro sorprendente que se resiste a una clasificaci n simple. Es exeg tico? Es teol gico? Es hist rico? La respuesta a cada una de estas preguntas es contundente: " S , y mucho m s " Dejando a un lado las opiniones mayoritarias y mantenidas durante mucho tiempo sobre el desarrollo cristol gico o el adopcionismo, o sobre la teolog a trinitaria como una intrusi n en la fe b blica procedente de la filosof a helen stica, Bates insiste en que la alta cristolog a primitiva y la propia comprensi n cristiana de la Trinidad se cultivaron mediante la lectura dram tica de las Escrituras de Israel. Para los estudios b blicos y teol gicos por igual, ste es un punto de inflexi n convincente. -Joel B. Green, Profesor de Interpretaci n del Nuevo Testamento, Fuller Theological Seminary

In How the Spirit Became God, Kyle Hughes tells the often-neglected story of how and why the early church came to recognize that the Holy Spirit was a distinct divine person. While the subject of Christ's divinity is a popular topic in church and academy alike, the notion of the Spirit's divinity remains a mysterious yet intriguing question for many Christians today. Focusing on major pneumatological innovations from Pentecost through the Council of Constantinople in 381, Hughes examines how biblical interpretation and the lived experience of the Spirit contributed to the development of this important, and yet often overlooked, aspect of trinitarian theology. This important contribution not only explains, from a historical yet accessible perspective, the development of early Christian pneumatology but also challenges readers to apply these insights from the church fathers to engaging with the person of the Holy Spirit today.

In How the Spirit Became God, Kyle Hughes tells the often-neglected story of how and why the early church came to recognize that the Holy Spirit was a distinct divine person. While the subject of Christ's divinity is a popular topic in church and academy alike, the notion of the Spirit's divinity remains a mysterious yet intriguing question for many Christians today. Focusing on major pneumatological innovations from Pentecost through the Council of Constantinople in 381, Hughes examines how biblical interpretation and the lived experience of the Spirit contributed to the development of this important, and yet often overlooked, aspect of trinitarian theology. This important contribution not only explains, from a historical yet accessible perspective, the development of early Christian pneumatology but also challenges readers to apply these insights from the church fathers to engaging with the person of the Holy Spirit today.

Is faith in Jesus enough for salvation? Perhaps, says Matthew Bates, but we're missing pieces of the gospel. The biblical gospel can never change. Yet our understanding of the gospel must change. The church needs an allegiance shift.Popular pastoral resources on the gospel are causing widespread confusion. Bates shows that the biblical gospel is different, fuller, and more beautiful than we have been led to believe. He explains that saving faith doesn't come through trust in Jesus's death on the cross alone but through allegiance to Christ the king. There is only one true gospel and one required response: allegiance.Bates ignited conversation with his successful and influential book Salvation by Allegiance Alone. Here he goes deeper while making his acclaimed teaching on salvation more accessible and experiential for believers who want to better understand and share the gospel. Gospel Allegiance includes a guide for further conversation, making it ideal for church groups, pastors, leaders, and students.

Against the prevailing models for understanding the Apostle Paul's interpretation and use of scripture, Matthew Bates proposes a fresh approach toward developing a Pauline hermeneutic. He combines historical criticism with an intertextual strategy that takes seriously the work of the early church fathers, and in so doing fills a void in current scholarship. Bates applies his method to both oft-referenced and underutilized passages in the writings of Paul and suggests a new model for Pauline hermeneutics that is centered on the apostolic proclamation of Christ.

Jesus Creed 2017 Book of the YearOne of the Best Books of 2017, Englewood Review of BooksWe are saved by faith when we trust that Jesus died for our sins. This is the gospel, or so we are taught. But what is faith? And does this accurately summarize the gospel? Because faith is frequently misunderstood and the climax of the gospel misidentified, the gospel's full power remains untapped. While offering a fresh proposal for what faith means within a biblical theology of salvation, Matthew Bates presses the church toward a new precision: we are saved solely by allegiance to Jesus the king. Instead of faith alone, Christians must speak about salvation by allegiance alone. The book includes discussion questions for students, pastors, and church groups and a foreword by Scot McKnight.

How and when did Jesus and the Spirit come to be regarded as fully God? The Birth of the Trinity offers a new historical approach by exploring the way in which first- and second-century Christians read the Old Testament in order to differentiate the One God as multiple persons. The earliest Christians felt they could metaphorically "overhear" divine conversations between the Father, Son, and Spirit when reading the Old Testament. When these snatches of dialogue are connected and joined, they form a narrative about the unfolding interior divine life as understood by the nascent church. What emerges is not a static portrait of the triune God, but a developing story of divine persons enacting mutual esteem, voiced praise, collaborative strategy, and self-sacrificial love. The presence of divine dialogue in the New Testament and early Christian literature shows that, contrary to the claims of James Dunn and Bart Ehrman (among others), the earliest Christology was the highest Christology, as Jesus was identified as a divine person through Old Testament interpretation. The result is a Trinitarian biblical and early Christian theology.

How and when did Jesus and the Spirit come to be regarded as fully God? The Birth of the Trinity offers a new historical approach by exploring the way in which first- and second-century Christians read the Old Testament in order to differentiate the one God as multiple persons. The earliest Christians felt they could metaphorically overhear divine conversations between the Father, Son, and Spirit when reading the Old Testament. When these snatches of dialogue are connected and joined, they form a narrative about the unfolding interior divine life as understood by the nascent church. What emerges is not a static portrait of the triune God, but a developing story of divine persons enacting mutual esteem, voiced praise, collaborative strategy, and self-sacrificial love. The presence of divine dialogue in the New Testament and early Christian literature shows that, contrary to the claims of James Dunn and Bart Ehrman (among others), the earliest Christology was the highest Christology, as Jesus was identified as a divine person through Old Testament interpretation. The result is a Trinitarian biblical and early Christian theology.