WIR -- Counted Righteous in Christ, by John Piper

Counted Righteous in Christ: Should we Abandon the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness, by John Piper, Crossway, 2002.

Get the entire book (and others by John Piper) for free online, here.

In this book, Piper is attacking a particular view of justification which is commonly held by many evangelical Christians. He argues persuasively and exegetically from the Bible and this read will be difficult for many. His audience is well-informed, studious, Biblically literate Christians.

He argues against the popular view that our faith is the basis of our salvation. Caedmon's Call adresses the same issue when they sing, "My faith is like shifting sand, changed by every wave; my faith is like shifting sand, so I'll stand on grace." He's right. Our faith does not save us. Our faith connects us to God's grace, and his grace saves us. Let's not focus on our faith, whether we have it, whether we don't. After all, most of the folks in the Bible stories that are praised for their faith also had poor faith at many times in their life. Grace leads us to faith, not faith to grace. I wish Piper would have made that more plain, but that was not his point in this rather narrowly focused, but very helpful book. Piper is always worth reading, but don't pick this one up unless you are very interested in the exact topic of the role faith vs. the role of grace in our salvation. If so, this is a great place to start.