Book excerpt: Today much preaching and teaching throws people back upon themselves to earn their relationship with God and to try to achieve by their own efforts the kind of person that they ought to be. In The Claim of Humanity in Christ, Alexandra Radcliff counters the Torrances' critics to show the significance of their controversial understanding of salvation for the interface between systematic and pastoral theology. Radcliff then constructively extends the implications of the Torrances' work to a liberating doctrine of sanctification. The Christian life is conceived as the free and joyful gift of sharing by the Spirit in the Son's intimate communion with the Father whereby we are turned out of ourselves to reflect the reality of who we are in Christ.