not give voice to an anxious and resigned pessimism. Rather, it denotes the distinctive form of “God’s eschatological activity” displayed in the gospel, and proclaims the unrivaled and salutary divine activity that “generates what it determines” and “effects the judgment which it presents.”7 This book ventures to begin to take renewed theological responsibility for just this kind of hearing of the Christian gospel and its entailments. In this it is distinct—and in many ways even remote—from other