Seifrid has obviously decided not to write an apologia, he is not in discussion with any of the new perspective school. Rather by setting forth plainly a reasonably traditional reformed view of justification in Paul he hopes to commend this to us.
He does a good job at this, certainly it is a better book than John Piper on Justification - see my earlier post here. In brief, Siefrid is at least concerned to be biblical, not just reformed.
I do think Seifrid's book fails in the lack of engagement with NT Wright. He is aware of Wright's work and seems at times to be kicking against Wright, without directly engaging him. Although Wright does merit 6 referneces in the index, these are all to minor comments or footnotes.
While helpful in its own way Seifrid's book does not advance the conversation on justification, and certainly will not draw it to any kind of conclusion.
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I have been meaning to read this book since hearing Mark Seifrid in a panel discussion about NT Wright.
The panel discuss some of NT's views, an interesting point being wrights leaning on Saunders book on 1st century Judaism.
A good point of the debate was on NT's view that it was the reformers who were engaged with Justification and got it wrong, yet as Seifrid points out it was Jesus whom first begged this question by the very nature of being Christ, and as against Pharasaic (legalist) Judaism (Hope I said that right).
Anyhow, heres the link for the discussion.
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/media/nt-wright-and-the-doctrine-of-justification-a-pan/
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