Many who have embraced “the New Perspective on Paul” are also proposing a different slant on the doctrine of justification by faith.

When the text of Scripture is interpreted in the new light, they say, Pauline support for the principle of sola fide [faith alone], the doctrine of imputation, and the distinction between law and gospel doesn’t seem quite so strong.

We say that’s nonsense. We reject the historical and hermeneutical revisionism of the New Perspective, but regardless of how one interprets the apostle Paul, it is quite clear that Jesus taught justification by faith alone. To abandon this truth is to abandon biblical soteriology altogether.

No doctrine is more important to evangelical theology than the doctrine of justification by faith alone—the Reformation principle of sola fide. Martin Luther rightly said that the church stands or falls on this one doctrine.

History provides plenty of objective evidence to affirm Luther’s assessment. Churches and denominations that hold firmly to sola fide remain evangelical. Those who have strayed from the Reformation consensus on this point inevitably capitulate to liberalism, revert to sacerdotalism, embrace some form of perfectionism, or veer off into worse forms of apostasy.

Historic evangelicalism has therefore always treated justification by faith as a central biblical distinctive—if not the single most important doctrine to get right… (Online source)

Dr. John MacArthur

See also:

INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW PERSPECTIVE(S) ON PAUL

THE NEW PERSPECTIVE ON PAUL—PART 1

THE NEW PERSPECTIVE ON PAUL—PART 2

THE NEW PERSPECTIVE ON PAUL—PART 3

N.T. WRIGHT ON HOMEBREWED CHRISTIANITY

N.T. WRIGHT SPEAKING AT REDEEMER NYC OF TIM KELLER

N.T. WRIGHT