Carson and Zaspel: Rest in the Gospel or Strive Unto Holiness?

Ryan Kelly:

During the recent Together for the Gospel conference, Kevin DeYoung delivered an excellent message, "Spirit-Powered, Gospel-Driven, Faith-Fueled Effort." My prolific friend and fellow Council member for The Gospel Coalition also has a book coming out on the subject, The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness. Anyone attuned to the reformed evangelical blogosphere will know that Kevin's sermon and book spring in part from lively in-house discussions over the last year about the nature of sanctification: its relationship to justification, the gospel, effort, and so on. (If that's news to you, start here.)

Those who have been tracking that ongoing discussion might be interested to know that many of these sanctification-related issues were recently addressed by D. A. Carson and Fred G. Zaspel at Clarus '12, a TGC regional conference.

The 83-minute video of our panel discussion is now online. What follows is an edited, partial transcript of a few of the juicier parts (e.g., Dr. Carson's use of the technical theological category, "scuzzball").

Read and watch the rest.