Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons^™

Desmond Ford And The Righteousness By Faith Controversy, Gerhard Pfandl

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

"Desmond Ford’s emphasis on Righteousness by Faith, as taught by Paul in the book of Romans, was a necessary course correction to the prevailing perfectionism in the 1960s, particularly in Australia, but not only there. Associated with it was an almost total lack of assurance of salvation among church members. Ford, like E. J. Waggoner in 1888, attempted to show that acceptance by God is on the basis of what Jesus has done, not on the basis of how good we are. Paul says, “He hath made Christ to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness …