Wow,

Yet another blogger who doesn’t understand Wright, or the New Prespective. Don’t get “help” on the New Perspective here.

This is especially shameful:
“We’re saved by faith, the New Perspective says, but we remain saved by obeying the covenant law.”

This is precisely what N.T. Wright does not teach, and he has made it clear time and time again. Your confusing the covenantal nomism of first century Judaism with N.T. Wright. Not only that, but you’re conflating several different doctrinal discussions into a generalization about the New Perspective and making a mess of the whole issue.

Sorry about the misspelling of you’re. I hate it when I do that. Ha. Seriously, read N.T. Wright for yourself. Also, try on Richard B. Hayes. (P.S. I’m not a hip “emergent” evangelical)

Thanks for pointing out my error Adam. Since there are really many New Perspectives and Wright’s is one expression of it, I get confused on who said what at times.

Also, my point about help on the New Perspective was not that I would offer it but rather pointing to Hansen’s post. I was just trying to explain some of what the New Perspective was all about. In no way did I mean that the ONLY way Wright and the NPP came to the mainstream was through the Emergent Church.

That said, I thought that at least Dunn and I thought I’d heard Wright (by I could be mistaken) taught covenantal nomism and that’s why Carson published Varigated Nomism. Paul wasn’t supposed to have been arguing against covenantal nomism but was focused more on the issue of boundaries.

Have I confused Wright and Dunn? And if Wright doesn’t teach covenantal nomism, what is his take on justification?

Tim,

You might find Alastair Roberts’ brief treatment of Wright’s views on justification helpful.

Also, I found this introduction to Wright very lucid.

I do think you have misrepresented Wright in this post, and I think you ought to try to clear things up with your readers as much as possible. However, I understand that such misrepresentations are easy to commit given the complex nature of the whole NPP discussion.

God bless you on your journey.

Hiya Tim,

It is true that Wright gets very sad when people accuse him of saying that his musings on Justification drift notably off the plantation.

But his defensiveness about the matter is belied by his own words and his own ideas. He manages to tie in obedience to the covenant to Justification. Below is a quote from the aforementioned article from Alistair Roberts:

“Wright’s doctrine of justification relies heavily on the work of the Holy Spirit in the convert (both in present and final justification).”

I think that this says it all. This isn’t denying this or that doctrine. This is semantic juggling of the sort that leaves people who are accustomed to these words meaning something floundering and picking up their theological dictionaries to make sure that they know what the word means at all. Present and final? Declaration or declarations? Did God not Justify the first time? Whenever I read Wright, I thinkof Indigo Montoya saying, “I do not think that you know what it means.”

Wright uses “Justification” to refer to several points on the timeline. Now, if he would just choose to define his terms a little better, I don’t think I would be so troubled. But his inexactitude in making Justification matter of declarations and not a declaration by God and his work is indeed blurring the lines in the matter of the once for all efficacy of the work of Christ on the Cross and the temporal work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer and the Church.

But I realy think that the source of his intentional inexactitude has more to do with his philosophical revulsion to the wrath of God. One looks in vain for consistent, clear explanation and exegesis regarding exactly what Jesus saved people from. And so the necessity of a clear declaration by God that we are his or not his is muted.

Now I think assurance is a secondary concern in this matter. I believe that the primary concern is maintaining the efficacy of the work of Christ on the Cross, which will certainly upset the Wright-o-philes, but his repetition of covenant faithfullness on the part of the Body involved in Justification implies this conclusion: in Justification, we do stuff that we should be doing, and that plays a part in our Justification. And he uses the word this way in dealing with Justification and Sanctification. Wright vociferously denies this, but if you repeat over and over “covenant faithfulness” (not God’s, ours) in close proximity to critiques of Reformation theology and Justification, the denial seems quite hollow.

What makes me most sad is that in literally hundreds of matters his work has blessed me greatly. But the same can be said of the Davies and Allison Matthew commentary, and I wouldn’t have taken spiritual advice from those guys.

Thank you for that Jason. Though I haven’t read Wright myself, this is the critique from scholars I know who do.

The first article Justin linked to contained an interesting turn of a phrase:

[For Wright] Justification is understood in the context of the question of how God sets men to rights, rather than primarily in the context of the question of how men can get right with God.

This is set in opposition to the Reformed definition. I don’t know of any Reformed theologian who articulates justification in terms of how men can get right with God, but rather how a holy and righteous God can declare sinful men good. In other words, this article is pitting Wright against a strawman.

This entire debate gets very confusing very quickly. I’m grateful that Piper is the one responding to Wright. It was encouraging to hear that Wright responded and then Piper interacts with it. This could actually prove helpful!

Again, good comments everyone. I am still learning on this important issue.

Tim,

If you want to hone in on justification I would read a summary from the horse’s mouth. Honestly I don’t think you will find much that is controversial (I didn’t).

Jason’s claim that, “Wright uses ‘Justification’ to refer to several points on the timeline,” I think is true. However, I personally don’t think this is any different than the classical “already but not yet” doctrine that is taught so often in Reformed denominations. Wright only uses “justification” this way because that is how he believes Paul uses it (read the article for specific Scripture references).

Such usage is not without precedent today. Cannot the term “salvation” also be used to refer to several points on the timeline? We have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved.

I am sure we all agree that Christian doctrine is highly nuanced. Semantics matter (Wright clearly states this in his rejoinder). I readily agree with Jason that Wright’s usage of key terms sends people running for their dictionaries, but I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing. I have been helped a great deal by the investigation his articles have sparked.

I’m not sure I understand Jason’s assertion that Wright has a, “philosophical revulsion to the wrath of God.” It is true that Wright views the christus victor model of the atonement as the primary, but he in no way denies penal substitutionary atonement. He actually has some quite compelling arguments for it.

Much of this whole discussion is based on short articles and books that Wright has written over the years. I, for one, am holding out much of my judgment until I can get a hold of his forthcoming volume in his Christian Origins series which I believe is fully dedicated to Paul. I hope that books like Piper’s will make the volume ever more sharp.

Justin and Tim,

I appreciate this forum and I also appreciate how it is being handled. I am excited to address this in ever growing detail.

Justin, first, may I address the idea that running for the dictionaries is a bad thing or not a bad thing. If I go to get my car fixed and there is something wrong with my alternator, then the mechanic addresses the alternator. He doesn’t address the whole car. If I think something is wrong with my car as a whole, not one specific part, I will never get it fixed and neither I nor anybody else will have any idea what I am talking about.

Secondly, salvation is a very broad rubric, true and refers to multiple different things, systematically and doctrinally speaking. The “already/not yet”, “in, but not of” issue is indeed one that needs to be stressed in many aspects of Christian living and doctrine, and I appreciate and applaud you for your concern in this matter. Under salvation one can have election, calling (as in effectual), adoption, regeneration, and most importantly for our discussion, justification, sanctification and glorification. I understand that people don’t like such a clinical look at this, and God doesn’t do things only on a temporal timeline. But we are using these words to refer to something, and so to have the conversation at all there needs to be commonality in definitions.

The need for an understanding of what a word actually means, coupled with your assertion of what justification means, leads me to believe, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, that you are unclear as to what “Justification” refers to in historic Reformed doctrine. And as much ink has been spilt by Wright in the matter of Luther and Calvin and he feels that their focus was too narrow, I am convinced that Wright does understand what Justification means in Reformed Theology and he thinks that it is wrong. Now matter how many times he doubles back to attempt to defend his purportedly reformed roots, he never speaks of Justification, as the doctrine, in any way similar to Owen, Edwards, Warfield, Machen, etc. In the above authors and in Reformed doctrine, Justification has never been taught as an already-not yet. Salvation and Holiness through sanctification have been taught from this point of view, but those are also words which also have an independent meaning, systematically speaking.

When Wright asserts that part of the problem has been the various tenses of the dik word group, he is correct, but the context of the use of the different tenses is what is essential, obviously. For instance, an omission in Wright’s citations in the paper above is Romans 5:1. The passive aorist participle is the reason the Christians to whom Paul was writing had peace with God. Sure someone could say that I am prooftexting, which is just avoiding the point. At that point in Paul’s highly linear defense of the truth of Christ and what He accomplished, after going through the reasons for God’s crediting Abraham with righteousness (propitiation, another doctrine which Wright says is incorrect per his assessment of 2 Corinthians 5:15-21) he summates what has come to that point be saying to Christians, “You were Justified, completed action, not imperfect tense, not ongoing Justification.” The process of being transformed and pursuing holiness is the aspect that is ongoing. My point is that, in Reformed Christian doctrine, as in the Westminster confession which Dr. Wright signed on to, Justification is used to refer to a specific action, a declaration of righteousness by God towards a sinner on the basis of the work of His Son, Jesus Christ, and it does not refer to an ongoing thing in the life of a believer. One can correctly say that the certainty of Justification occurred on the Cross, and I would agree with that, but that is still a specific point in time which God chose. And that specific point in time is not sanctification, which is a different word which has a different meaning in circles of Christian scholarship. It does not refer to the “final” Justification in which all those who have repented and trusted in Christ alone, that is glorification, which, again, is another word. Now maybe we need to make different words, but whatever we come up with, they need to mean something. Otherwise, conversation is useless.

I would be very interested to read Wright’s arguments for penal substitutionary atonement. He asserts, in denying propitiation, that righteousness is not a gas which can be sent down a pipeline, to which I respond, and how is sin and unrighteousness any different in Wright’s analogy? How can penal substitution occur if guilt and righteousness cannot be imputed on the basis of the work of Christ because they cannot be moved around like a substance? If you could direct me to that defense I would really appreciate it.

And actually, no, much of this argument is not based on snippets here and there of his work. It seems strange to me that you would assert that my critiques are basically prooftexting Dr. Wright. Throughout everything I have ever read by him, Christ of the Covenants, Jesus and the Victory of God, Paul, what St. Paul Really Said, Who is Jesus, and I have only made a cursory reading of Simply Christian and The Gospel of Judas, this thread of, as you correctly say, we were saved from Satan and ourselves, but not the righteous wrath of a Holy God, and the profound inexactitude in matters of what the word Justification actually means, is running throughout everything he writes.

I’m sorry to Tim, and to Justin for this being so long. I will neither be surprised or hurt if this is deleted. I am going to take up Dr. Wright’s article on my own blog, however.

Thanks,

Jason

Excellent post Jason, I would never delete it! No post limits on this website! :)

A few comments.

When Wright asserts that part of the problem has been the various tenses of the dik word group, he is correct, but the context of the use of the different tenses is what is essential, obviously.

This is abundantly true! Word studies can sometimes be worse than useless. We need to consider the word in its context. Well said and an apt warning.

Carson, in his analysis of Wright and the New Perspective given at RTS, makes mention of this issue. I’ll give it a listen and see if I can capture his thoughts and reproduce them here.

Later, I might post a link to them if I can find it. I know they are in the RTS section at iTunesU.

I would be very interested to read Wright’s arguments for penal substitutionary atonement.

As I understand it, and I could be wrong again, Wright denies penal substitutionary atonement.

Jason, in regards to dictionaries, Wright makes the same point (with almost the exact same analogy) as you. It seems to me that his goal is to be clear on these terms. I find that his article does just that, albeit it in a very tight summary.

Jason, you said:

The need for an understanding of what a word actually means, coupled with your assertion of what justification means, leads me to believe, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, that you are unclear as to what “Justification” refers to in historic Reformed doctrine.

I did not realize I had made an assertion about what “justification” means. If I did, I did not mean to. I was only intending to explain what I thought Wright meant by “justification.”

I take no disrespect from your comment. Although I do consider myself “reformed,” I did not grow up in a reformed tradition so I readily admit that I may not understand the way the reformers defined “justification.” I have not read many of the reformers. Rather, I read a lot of guys like Piper and Wright (academic, pastoral types).

As far as Wright’s “reformedness,” I buy his assertion that he is. In my mind the clearest definition of “reformed” doctrine is the Five Solas. I find that Wright hits all five. Further, I don’t particularly understand why whether he is “reformed” or not is often a topic of debate. However, as I said, I didn’t grow up in a reformed tradition so it is probably a bigger deal to them than it is to me. I’m not saying that it shouldn’t necessarily be a topic of debate, I just don’t understand why.

Your next, and longest, paragraph confuses me the most. Wright does not advocate “ongoing Justification,” and in my opinion he clearly affirms, “a declaration of righteousness by God towards a sinner on the basis of the work of His Son, Jesus Christ.” However, Wright nuances “justification” to convey a 3-fold idea – an idea that has past (in God’s justification of Jesus after His death), present (in God’s justification of believers on the basis of Christ’s work as they are united to him in faith), and future (in the upholding of those in the final judgment who have already been justified) components . He outlines all this in his article. Wright admittedly contrasts this with the historic, reformed understanding of “justification,” but he does so on exegetical grounds.

You said:

[Wright] asserts, in denying propitiation, that righteousness is not a gas which can be sent down a pipeline, to which I respond, and how is sin and unrighteousness any different in Wright’s analogy?

If I am mistaken please correct me, but I think you mean “imputation” and not “propitiation.” There is controversy around Wright’s view of imputation, but I am unaware of any regarding propitiation.

It is true that Wright objects to the historic, reformed understanding of “imputation.” However, he maintains the substance of (i.e. the benefits of) imputation in what he calls “union with Christ.” This concept also answer your question about how sin and unrighteousness are different in his analogy. I presume you are referring to “original sin” which is “passed” on to every person from Adam. I believe Wright would object to those semantics, but again he would maintain the substance of that statement with “union with Adam.” In other words, every man is “in Adam” upon birth and that is why we are depraved (i.e. “originally sinful”). However, when we put our faith in Christ we are united to Him – we are “in Christ.” When I first heard this I was dubious, but it didn’t take much research to see that union with Christ is a major theme in the New Testament, perhaps the most common Pauline analogy of the believer’s relationship to Jesus. As far as how Wright thinks this works with PSA, I do not know.

Tim, these are Wright’s own words in affirmation of substitutionary atonement:

There are some ways of preaching and expounding penal substitution which do indeed reduce it to the crude terms of God demanding that someone suffer and not caring much who it is. This is an attempt to put the vast ocean of God’s saving love into the small bottle of one particular category. When you track penal substitution from its NT statements (Mark 10.45, Romans 8.3, etc etc) back to its roots in Isaiah 53, you discover that in its proper form it is part of a much larger theme, which is God’s vindication of his justice and saving love and his demolition of pagan power and authority. Sometimes evangelicals haven’t wanted to embrace or even notice the larger themes and so have falsely accentuated the sharp edge of penal substitution in isolation from them. I think Steve is reacting to that kind of skewed presentation. Think of it like this. In a musical chord, the ‘third’ (in a chord of C major, this would be the note E) is the critical one that tells you many things, e.g. whether the music is major or minor, happy or sad. That E is vital if the music is to make the sense it does. But if the player plays the E and nothing else, the E no longer means what it’s meant to mean. Likewise, substitutionary atonement is a vital element in the gospel. Miss it out, and the music of the gospel is no longer what it should be. But if you only play that note you are in danger of setting up a different harmony altogether…(emphasis mine)

Clearly, this affirmation is nuanced. As I said before, Wright would emphasize christus victor (however slightly) over PSA, but he does not deny PSA’s vitality in our overall understanding of the cross. As before, I think much of the controversy over Wright regarding this issue has been exaggerated because of miscommunication regarding semantics. For Wright’s own view of the controversy surrounding him at this point see this article.

Jason, that article mentions the argument Wright has made concerning the themes of Isaiah 53 and Jesus self-proclaimed vocation (i.e. penal substitution). That was the defense of PSA to which I was referring in my earlier comment. At this time I cannot give you anything more specific than that, but it seems clear to me that Wright does not in any way deny, “the righteous wrath of a Holy God.”

Jason, you said:

…much of this argument is not based on snippets here and there of his work. It seems strange to me that you would assert that my critiques are basically prooftexting Dr. Wright.

I don’t mean to split hairs here, but I never used the word “snippets” or “prooftexting.” I said, “short articles and books,” and I stand by this statement as accurate to my knowledge. Wright has not given Paul nearly the published treatment that he has given to Jesus or the Gospels. He has 3 large volumes on Jesus and the Gospels. By comparison he has a few small books (Paul: In Fresh Perspective, What Saint Paul Really Said, and The Climax of the Covenant) on Paul augmented with some articles here and there. If I recall correctly he has even indicated in talks that I have heard him give that he has much more to say on the subject and encouraged us to wait for his upcoming volume. I did not mean to imply (and certainly did not explicitly say) that you have no basis for your arguments.

Wright has earned my respect just as men like Piper, Sproul, Edwards, etc. have. All of these men have helped me understand Scripture better. For that reason I aim to do my best to understand them on their own terms, to hold judgment until I have a full picture, to honor them in how I represent their own views, etc. I may come to disagree with Wright on a number of issues, but even then I would be quite thankful for him and the thoughts and conversations he has sparked.

P.S. See this blog post for an example of how easy it is to get semantics mixed up on these issues – even among careful theologians like Piper, Gathercole, and Wright. I think the author does an excellent job of elucidating the issue.

P.P.S. Sorry for the length!

You’ll need iTunes to get this, but I believe this is the link to the Carson’s lectures on the NPP. They are excellent if you haven’t heard them. Excellent as in “worth downloading iTunes if you haven’t already done that” kind of excellent.

Tim,

I posted a rather lengthy comment last night, but it appears the spam filter caught it (I got a message saying as much). Could you look into this?

Indeed it was Justin. I pulled it out of the Spam bin and you’re back in business. It wasn’t the length, it was the IP address from which it was posted.

Thanks, Tim.

Awwww yeaaahh, this is great.

Thanks so much for the detailed response, Justin, and, if it’s OK, Tim, I’m gonna keep going.

First, zowie, my analogy and his analogy from the article…man I must have heard that someplace else or maybe I had read it a while ago, but I thought I hadn’t read this article…weird.

Though he says that he wants to be clear, I think that his article, and others, which you helpfully cited, are quite clear in areas which are not in dispute, but in the areas of dispute, as muddled as ever. I’ll explain, I’m just gonna move through your response.

You write:

“I did not realize I had made an assertion about what ‘justification’ means”.

OK, our responding in this matter is kind of stream of consciousness, I understand. When you said: “I personally don’t think this is any different than the classical “already but not yet” doctrine that is taught so often in Reformed denominations.” I thought you were telling me what you thought the doctrine was. Additionally, I thought you were telling me your understanding of the doctrine when you went on to use salvation as an analogy and it mimicked Wright’s ongoing – but not – but kind of – presentation of justification very well.

Regarding “reformedness”, I am not in a position to assess such a thing, and I didn’t mean to give the impression that I was. I was just approaching your assertion that Wright’s justification doctrine, as he lays it out, or doesn’t, is of a classical reformed formulation. Which it isn’t. I certainly don’t care what he says he is, I’m just reading his stuff to see if it lines up. I go to school with buckets of Classical Arminians and the way they understand Justification is nearly the spittin image of the Westminster confession. I think you are correct, wrangling over what a person is is useless, however, wrangling over what a person says…

Wright’s exegetical basis for his three fold argument is puzzlingly weak in even a brief defense of his statements and especially in light of the fact that he is defending himself against a scholar of the stature of Barnett. First of all, Romans 2:13 is in the process of saying that the law doesn’t save unless you do the whole thing. In fact, throughout Romans 2:1-16, there isn’t one explicit reference to anyone being upheld. This would be a good example of what I tried (and failed!) to say clearly in the long paragraph which you found confusing. Wright cites the dik word group used in 2:13 in the midst of a passage that says “do it all or yer out of luck” and then he externally implants people being “upheld”. Just one “chapter” later Paul goes on to say that no one can do this. Nobody is being vindicated in this passage (vindicated from what).

Next he cites Galatians 3 and Romans 4 in dealing with the “future”. Wow, I have no idea how he thinks he can do this and not get called on it. There is absolutely nothing about the “future” as Wright lays it out in these “chapters” apart from 4:16-18 and all that Paul is handling there is that those in the future who are in Abraham’s spiritual family will believe God as he did and will be credited righteousness in the same way that Abraham was. Now, this occurred during Abraham’s lifetime so, again, the parallel of some eschatological variation is not an accurate assessment of the flow of this passage. And the “Logizetai” is best translated “credited” or to put into an account, because that is the contrast that Paul is making, wages, what is earned, what is given, what is or isn’t due. This is imputation. To say that it means to consider or reckon does not do justice to the negative/positive comparison of passages 4 and 5. In fact his whole implanting of “future” on these chapters is nothing short of eisegesis.

And then the shell game really begins. He writes: “This double declaration will take the form of an event.” What double declaration? He states it like anyone should just be following his train of thought. He says this as if he has established that, from these passages, Justification is clearly a future event. Not from these passages. Not at all.

Lastly, Luther’s “correction” of the Vulgate was the difference between us earning some merit through penance and us turning from our sins and towards Christ alone. No secret in text criticism circles that Jerome’s error is a real laugher. But the doctrine of Justification is a systematic rendering of hundreds of passages which collectively draw a picture of justification whether or not dikaioo is in the sentence. Wright is not doing what Luther did. Wright is redefining how we use the word extrabiblically, not how Paul used it in God’s word.

Anyway, getting back to what you were saying, Justin, you are correct to correct me regarding my flippy-floppy of imputation and propitiation. His strangely narrow misreading of 2 Corinthians 5:15-21 (only talking about the Apostles?!) is all about his problem with imputation. Sorry about that.

However, propitiation as I understand it is unavoidably tied in to imputation. It isn’t just the taking the punishment of expiation, it is also the extension of favor towards the one who’s deeds were forgiven. Which again just screams out the question: If righteousness cannot be moved from here to there, how can unrighteousness be moved from here to there? When it says he bore our burdens or when it says he who knew no sin was made to be sin on our behalf, then the unrighteousness of our sin was transferred to him. So what Wright’s problem with crediting righteousness? I haven’t been able to find an answer.

You write:

“It is true that Wright objects to the historic, reformed understanding of “imputation.” However, he maintains the substance of (i.e. the benefits of) imputation in what he calls “union with Christ.”

If this is correct, then this is Wright having his historic reformed understanding cake and eating it, too. I am going to make a conscious effort to avoid getting into the debate over what Romans 5:12-21 means, but kind of, yes, I am thinking of original sin. There is a considerable problem in getting the benefits of the clarity of the imputation while yet avoiding it as a reality. Now that’s a legal fiction.

The next paragraph you cite from Wright has him saying that he thinks that “substitutionary atonement is a vital element in the gospel”. This is similar to him saying he’s reformed, man, I just don’t care if he says he buys into it if the ways it works out in his theology and teaching avoids or denies it. It reminds me very much of reading Brian McLaren. Brian will say “Oh, I certainly believe doctrine X, and I think it’s very important….but…” and then goes on to say quite the opposite. If Wright really believes this then how is it even possible that so many incredibly astute scholars say that, according to what he writes, he doesn’t? His description is not nuanced. If something is nuanced, you can still derive a point, it just has more sharp, pointy corners. He only blurs things in that quote. You are right to say that it is possible that much of the disagreement is miscommunication over semantics, but having read Wright, I am comfortable saying that he is at least one the chief miscommunicators.

I appreciate your citation of Wright’s use of Isaiah 53. But, again, if he is seeing this as affirmation of what he understands to be penal substitutionary atonement, but yet he denies imputation, then how do our burdens and our unrighteousness get moved to Jesus if doing the same with righteousness is “a legal fiction”?

You write:

Wright does not in any way deny, “the righteous wrath of a holy God.”

NT Wright has written over 3000 pages on what happened on the cross and what it meant and means. As he goes on and on about God being vindicated, he totally avoids that it is God who justly condemns sinners and that Christ took that just condemnation on himself. Yes God demonstrates his righteousness at the cross, but only in that wrongs must be punished and God is the standard and the executor of the justice that we long for in this stinky world. Paul may be perceived as having done his own thing, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, the words we read are God-breathed and aspects of the same and only gospel. Wright has had more than enough chance to deal with this. This forthcoming book may be a retraction or a considerable filtering of material, or not, whatever. But over and over he has reiterated the fact that, in the matter of Justification, he has his own, new ideas. I will probably own the new book, but for the same reason that I own E.P. Sanders, Bultmann, Schleiermacher, etc., to deal with the fallout.

The reason I think this is such a big deal is not because I am obsessed with arcane details. If justification is “3-fold”, which either means that God declares it 3 times or needed three shots at it to get it right, then the promises of God in the gospels are hollow. We have nothing we can count on. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m a slimeball, and if I can’t count on Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Then I can’t count on Romans 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And I am not thinking of it in the ridiculous caricature of once-saved-always-saved. I am thinking of it in terms of God promising to uphold me as I go forward. If I feel myself sliding spiritually I can call upon the promises of God and he will deliver, though it probably won’t look like I thought. My perseverance comes from God persevering me, not from me thinking that I will persevere. I will not. God will.

But not if I am not justified.

How do you tell people that they can count on God to uphold them if the biggest knot in the rope is not really, or mostly, or someday will be there? If I am not justified, completed action, then it follows that I do not have peace with God.

Now that knowledge brings people to repentance, but Paul is talking to believers. He is telling them there is no condemnation. He is not telling them that there is no condemnation if they hang in there, baby. He says, there is – now – no condemnation.

But if I am not justified I am a viper fleeing the wrath to come. I am condemned.

This is how important this is!! If you have listened to Carson’s lectures on this then you have heard the story of an Australian (I guess it could have been Barnett) who asks Wright what he would say to a person who doesn’t know Jesus and has a few minutes to live, and Wright responds, “That’s a good question, I’ll have to think about that one.”

If a person is elect, they are called, they are justified. It does not not happen (I meant that). If we can’t count on it then the hope we have in us is a wish list and nothing more.

Of course it’s okay to keep going! You guys are doing all the work for me. :) It is going to take me a while to catch up with you two, though.

It is too bad that Aaron hasn’t returned to comment yet. I hope he didn’t just do “drive by theology”.

Tim,

By “Aaron” do you mean “Adam”? I suppose I will give you a reply, but first I need to read each comment in order to offer an honest response. I have not read any of the comments so I will withhold said reply at this time. However, let me say that I have been reading Wright for several years and I’ve read nearly everything he has written, regarding the New Perspective, which is easily accessible in his books and papers. I’m sure there are some papers he has written which are not as easily accessible, and these I have not read. I have also listened to several of his lectures on Romans, the New Perspective, and Pauline Theology in general. Wright has made it clear that he believes that Justification is a forensic declaration, calling it a “verdict which God pronounces” when we pass “from idolatry, sin and death to God, Christ and life”. In other words, when the Spirit of God does His work in us to bring us out of sin and death to Christ and his life, God pronounces us (as a judge in a law court) just. One of the accusations against Wright is that he denies forensic justification. However, Wright has made it clear that he is in agreement with the Reformers on this point.

“The language of vindication (justification), the dikaioo language, is as we’ve seen law court language.”

According to Wright “[Justification] is the anticipation in the present of the verdict which will be *reaffirmed* in the future.” The Bible clearly teaches that the FINAL JUDGMENT is yet to come. At this final judgment a final verdict will be given – that is what a “judgment” is all about. God will pronounce a verdict on each and every person who has ever lived. Everyone who, in “this” life, has been justified, will have that justification reaffirmed at the final judgment. It won’t be as though one received two separate justifications, but that one received one justification declared both in the past and in the future. Scripture is clear regarding past, present, and future justification, so I’m frankly sick of hearing people’s protests. Do a little word study and look at the tense.

I can pull up several quotes from our Reformed and puritan fathers who said this exact same thing – that there is a final justification. Do a google search for final or second justification.

With regard to the issue of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, Wright writes:

“Paul’s doctrine of what is true of those who are in the Messiah does the job, within his scheme of thought, that the traditional protestant emphasis on the imputation of Christ’s righteousness did within that scheme. In other words, that which imputed righteousness was trying to insist upon is, I think, fully taken care of in (for instance) Romans 6, where Paul declares that what is true of the Messiah is true of all his people. Jesus was vindicated by God as Messiah after his penal death; I am in the Messiah; therefore I too have died and been raised. According to Romans 6, when God looks at the baptized Christian he sees him or her in Christ. But Paul does not say that he sees us clothed with the earned merits of Christ. That would of course be the wrong meaning of ‘righteous’ or ‘righteousness’. He sees us within the vindication of Christ, that is, as having died with Christ and risen again with him. I suspect that it was the medieval over-concentration on righteousness, on iustitia, that caused the protestant reformers to push for imputed righteousness to do the job they rightly saw was needed. But in my view they have thereby distorted what Paul himself was saying.”

I agree with N.T. Wright here; he happens to take a more Lutheran view of imputation – although Luther had his merit theology as well. That is, that it is more about “union” with Christ than about receiving a platonic ‘merit’ from Christ without reference to union, as most modern evangelicals have it. Christ’s righteousness is not about “merit” points as the Catholics had, during the medieval period, spoke of it. Christ’s righteousness is in his covenant faithfulness – he was faithful to the covenant and received the promised resurrection, and that resurrection is the key. We are in Christ, and thus we two are found by God to be faithful to the covenant by virtue of His faithfulness.

I might as well add that Wright, and Sanders (Who was an unbeliever), were both correct in asserting that, “justification, for Paul, is not (in Sanders’ terminology) how one ‘gets in’ to God’s people, but about God’s declaration that someone is in.” This actually fits in with the typical ordo-solutus of most modern reformed folks. The first part of our salvific experience is not justification, but regeneration. Typically, most view the next steps as repentance, forgiveness, and then justification. There is great debate over the ordo-solutus. I believe that some Biblical language used to describe the “history of salvation” have been used, wrongly, to describe the “order of salvation”. In fact I personally have a different view of Justification than that of Wright.

In my view Paul simply was not talking about how to “get saved” through justification, he was talking about how one could be justified as a faithful member of the covenant , by faith, during a time of God’s judgment. See, justification language through out the Old Testament is used to a describe vindication in times of judgment for folks who were already in the covenant. We see this same pattern in the New Testament. Paul is writing to a Church made up of Jew and Gentile Christians, where the gentiles believers were not being “justified” by the Jews because they had not come under the “law”. The Jewish Christians could not think it possible that God would “justify” (of vindicate/declare righteous) these Gentile Christians without them first coming under the “law” as experienced in the Old Covenant – particularly the law of circumcision. Thus the Jews were unwilling to view the Gentiles as full and justified members of the covenant. With the judgment that Christ spoke of on the horizon (the Judgment of a.d. 70), and the re-shaping of the people of God, these Jewish Christians new that these Gentile Christians would need to be Circumcised in order to be justified, because circumcision was the method of conversion for Gentiles in the Old Testament. However, Paul counters that by saying that faith itself has always been the key, and that circumcision was a sign of that faith. Circumcision brought one into the Covenant, and faith vindicated them as faithful members of the covenant. (We know that faith without works is dead, so often times the fruit of faith, which is works, was used by God as a determining factor in judgment.) With Paul, Baptism brings us into the covenant [Rom 6] (that is, into Christ himself) and faith vindicates us under God’s judgment. Thus, God has proven to be faithful in the Covenant by judging his people faithfully in accordance with it. (Which is the whole point of Paul’s letter to the Romans: the vindication of God’s righteousness) This is an extremely ‘light’ explanation of my take on Romans, but it will have to do given this context.

Jason, I honestly appreciate the energy that you have put into our discussion. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to continue it. More than that, I don’t have an inclination to continue it either. I am not Wright’s defender by any means.

My main goal in discussing these issues with you was to give Tim an appreciation for the subtlety and nuance of the discussion. I believe that Tim misrepresented Wright in his original post, and I personally believe you have missed some of Wright’s nuances as well, Jason. I normally consider it improper discussion etiquette to make a statement like without supporting it with well reasoned argumentation, but that would simply continue the debate.

Wright has earned my respect so when I read and listen to him I give him the benefit of the doubt. I readily admit that Wright can be confusing, but I don’t believe that’s because he has “puzzlingly weak” exegetical arguments. Rather, I believe it is because he is coming at things from a very different angle, and I don’t quite fully understand that angle. I believe he is orthodox. I believe he is reformed despite the fact that I believe he has some valid challenges to classical, reformed systematics. I also believe much more evaluation is needed, and I don’t consider myself a “Wrightophile” (not sure where that unhelpful label came from). I am very eager to read Piper’s upcoming book, and I am hopeful that it will move the whole debate forward to greater understanding by all involved.

God speed to you both as we all journey to Christ-likeness.

sure

Yah, that’s not quite the post I wanted.

Sure Wright is a great defender of the historicity of the faith. And he has truly been a blessing in many ways. In the process of this discussion that often gets lost. One thing that I really appreciate is that he has both intentionally and inadvertently brought a much needed correction to existentialist Christianity, how each person is their own “Body” and, as Aaron…um…Adam pointed out, the Westernized caricature of us getting in, as opposed to that which God does. If a person believes for their entire Christian life that the Cross was about getting them “saved” I would be concerned about that person and considerable discipling would be in order.

But my issue, again, lies with that which you don’t think I understand, Justin. Aaron…err…Adam helpfully posted two of Wright’s definitions of Justification. One deals with with future, one deals with present, which is just another reason to wonder what he is talking about. In the typical ordo salutis, as a systematic formulation not to be mistaken for God’s word, as Adam said justification follows calling but preceeds Glorification and even Sanctification, and I am not just referencing Romans 8:30, I am also thinking of John Murray and Leon Morris. And the way with which these words are used in systematics does indeed lend itself to a clinical nature with hard edges. But, again, to use a word is to have it mean something. The word-thing fallacy in matters of word studies with the dik word group is best exemplified in Wright’s use Romans 2:13 in the short reply he wrote to Paul Barrett, which is indeed puzzlingly weak and eisegetical. In order to make his point, Wright takes this passage completely out of the flow of the argument. which unavoidably connects being justified (Rom 3) with the fact that we are not upheld by what we do (Rom 2). And all of that applies in the life of the believer, and not in a “justifiedness” fashion (apologies to Colbert). Wright’s language has occasionally drifted into territory which hints of ongoing justification merging with sanctification. But I don’t think he is trying to say that. I think, but I’m not sure, that he is trying to put a healthy emphasis on the fact that the one who endures to the end will be saved, even for those who were, in the past, justified. I think that this is wise discipling as long as the terms are clear. Which they are not.

This lack of clarity is why a Roman Catholic apologist and a few Auburn Avenue guys like Wright’s language on Justification. The reformed doctrine of justification, as a formulation of systematic theology, seems to be sliding off the radar screen of what’s important, and this from supposedly one of the most prominent defenders of the Westminster confession. I think these guys are wrong, but the fuzziness does not help. It’s also why Sanders thought that the Council of Trent was right on the money. Justification and sanctification merge in the “nuance”.

Yah, that’s not quite the post I wanted.

Sure Wright is a great defender of the historicity of the faith. And he has truly been a blessing in many ways. In the process of this discussion that often gets lost. One thing that I really appreciate is that he has both intentionally and inadvertently brought a much needed correction to existentialist Christianity, how each person is their own “Body” and, as Aaron…um…Adam pointed out, the Westernized caricature of us getting in, as opposed to that which God does. If a person believes for their entire Christian life that the Cross was about getting them “saved” I would be concerned about that person and considerable discipling would be in order.

But my issue, again, lies with that which you don’t think I understand, Justin. Aaron…err…Adam helpfully posted two of Wright’s definitions of Justification. One deals with with future, one deals with present, which is just another reason to wonder what he is talking about. In the typical ordo salutis, as a systematic formulation not to be mistaken for God’s word, as Adam said justification follows calling but precedes Glorification and even Sanctification, and I am not just referencing Romans 8:30, I am also thinking of John Murray and Leon Morris. And the way with which these words are used in systematics does indeed lend itself to a clinical nature with hard edges. But, again, to use a word is to have it mean something. The word-thing fallacy in matters of word studies with the dik word group is best exemplified in Wright’s use Romans 2:13 in the short reply he wrote to Paul Barrett, which is indeed puzzlingly weak and eisegetical. In order to make his point, Wright takes this passage completely out of the flow of the argument. which unavoidably connects being justified (Rom 3) with the fact that we are not upheld by what we do (Rom 2). And all of that applies in the life of the believer, and not in a “justifiedness” fashion (apologies to Colbert). Wright’s language has occasionally drifted into territory which hints of ongoing justification merging with sanctification. But I don’t think he is trying to say that. I think, but I’m not sure, that he is trying to put a healthy emphasis on the fact that the one who endures to the end will be saved, even for those who were, in the past, justified. I think that this is wise discipling as long as the terms are clear. Which they are not.

This lack of clarity is why a Roman Catholic apologist and a few Auburn Avenue guys like Wright’s language on Justification. The reformed doctrine of justification, as a formulation of systematic theology, seems to be sliding off the radar screen of what’s important, and this from supposedly one of the most prominent defenders of the Westminster confession. I think these guys are wrong, but the fuzziness does not help. It’s also why Sanders thought that the Council of Trent was right on the money. Justification and sanctification merge in the “nuance”.

I wrote a paper a while back on Nestorius. After reading what he had said and written, the equal slipperiness of the language of his accusers, and the issues he was addressing in context, I came to believe that he wasn’t a heretic, he just didn’t know when to shut up and kept using words in many different ways with unclear meanings. If we make the mistake of looking at the various forms of dik without considering what the reformed doctrine of justification articulates, then we will drift into language that sounds as though from the point at which the Holy Spirit makes the person a new creation, to the point at which that person dies the first death, there is a constant necessitous reaffirmation of justification going on in the throne room. This is exactly what the reformers didn’t mean. Romans 8:28, for instance, is very exclusivistic and it draws it’s line where the reformers thought “justification” (“this man went home justified – today salvation has come to this household – Abraham believed God – Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” justification; how the work of Christ assures and makes a new creation of a sinner in the flow of contemporary time) existed under the much broader rubric of Salvation which, yes, runs from pre-creation election to glorification. This language is to reflect the point at which a sinner in the temporal is made to be a new creation, and it can be clear as long as we don’t slide into word-thing fallacy.

It’s too late for cutting and pasting.

Sorry.

I think this is the quote that concerns me the most from Lusk’s review of Wright’s Romans commentary (sorry if you have already mentioned it):

For Wright, justification is an issue precisely because we will all someday stand before God’s judgment seat. Will we be a part of the people who are acquitted or condemned? Final acquittal comes to those who have kept the law. Taken out of context, Wright’s comments on page 440 may seem problematic: “Justification at the last, will be on the basis of performance, not possession [of Torah].” But this is not a raw legalism. Wright is simply holding together the two poles of Paul’s justification theology: future justification is according to works, while present justification is by faith alone. Future justification is granted to the doers of the law precisely because they are ones who are in Christ, and who therefore share in the verdict the Father passed over him, and because they are the ones who possess the Spirit, enabling them to fulfill Torah’s righteous requirements.