Nathan Busenitz answers the charge that justification by faith alone was a sixteenth-century invention, tracing the doctrine through the earlier church. Read more.
Long Before Luther addresses a common Roman Catholic objection: that the Reformers invented justification by faith alone and that the church held no such doctrine for fifteen centuries. Nathan Busenitz works through the patristic and medieval evidence, quoting the fathers and later writers at length, to show that the substance of the doctrine was taught well before Luther, while acknowledging where terminology developed and where it was obscured.
The book suits Protestants asked to defend the historical pedigree of their doctrine, pastors answering questions from converts or inquirers, and students of the Reformation. Busenitz teaches at The Master's Seminary, and his strength here is documentation rather than polemic, with the sources quoted so readers can weigh them directly.
