The author begins by arguing that the contemporary perception of the doctrine of justification by faith as irrelevant is not a failure of the doctrine but rather a failure to communicate it in understandable, modern day times. After an exposition of the biblical foundation of the doctrine and its historical development, McGrath comes to the heart of the the relevance of the doctrine today. Making use of contemporary philosophies such as existentialism, he demonstrates how the vitality and relevance of the doctrine can be recovered and presented to the modern situation. An appendix presents a careful study of the place of the doctrine in systematic theology.