I just recently came across a very well-researched paper by Philip R. Gons, a conservative Reformed Protestant, "When Did Abraham First Savingly Believe?" It refutes an important lynch-pin of modern Protestant (esp. Calvinistic) apologists on the topic of justification who argue that Abraham was once-for-all justified in Gen 15:6 (e.g., James R. White, The God Who Justifies: The Doctrine of Justification [2001]). I refuted this position in my paper, "Does Genesis 15:6 prove Reformed Soteriology?"
He concludes his paper thusly:
He concludes his paper thusly:
[V]irtually all the commentators and theologians that I have come across who deal with the issue are in agreement that Abraham was justified by the events recorded at the beginning of Genesis 12. Luther, Calvin, Brakel, and Spurgeon defend a Genesis 12 justification, as do O. Palmer Robertson and Brian Vickers . . . The view that holds that Abraham was not saved until Genesis 15 finds virtually no support at all throughout church history (at least not that I have been able to find in hours of research in scores of commentaries and hundreds of journals)
