Men with Chests

“For the doctrine of justification by faith is like Atlas: it bears a world on its shoulders, the entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace.  …A right view of these things is not possible without a right understanding of justification; so that, when justification falls, all true knowledge of the grace of God in human life falls,  all true knowledge of the grace of God in human life falls with it, and then, as Luther said, the church itself falls. A society like the Church of Rome, which is committed by its official creed to pervert the doctrine of justification, has sentenced itself to a distorted understanding of salvation at every point.  Nor can these distortions ever be corrected till Roman doctrine of justification is put right.  And something similar happens when Protestants let the thought of justification drop out of their minds: true knowledge of salvation drops out with it, and cannot be restored till the truth of justification is back in its proper place.  When Atlas falls, everything that rested on his shoulders comes crashing down too.”

~J.I. Packer, “Introductory Essay,” in James Buchanan, “The octane of Justification: An Outline Of Its History In The Church And Of Its Exposition  From Scripture, London: Banner of Truth, 1961, pp. viii, ix