Review 6: Piper's The Future of Justification

Chapter 4 is called, "The Law-Court Dynamics of Justification and the Necessity of Real Moral Righteousness"

1. Piper's preceding chapter, chapter 3, made me think. In it Piper did some good exegetical spade work. He showed that there was a connection in Paul's mind between God's glory and His righteousness (chiefly Romans 3:5 and 7). He made a case for the "glory of God" in Romans 3:23 being us falling short [of recognizing] the glory of God--at least I think that's the case he was making. I didn't end up agreeing with him on this point, but he rightly pointed out how significant the category "the glory of God" is in Paul's language.

But then I believe Piper went over the top. It is one thing to recognize God's righteousness as glorious. It is quite another to jump to the conclusion that God's righteousness is "his unwavering allegiance to uphold the worth of his glory" (e.g., 79 in recap). With a night of sleep under my belt, here is a list of exceptions I take to this jump:

a. For one, Piper has not really given us any more of a definition of what the "right" in God's righteousness any more than Wright has. I put a smiley face in the margin of my book on page 78 after he recaps his critique that Wright tells us what God's righteousness does rather than what it is. Then Piper says it "is his unwavering allegiance to do what is right." HA! Physician heal thyself.

By the way, lest anyone get the wrong impression, I don't have a horse in that race. I am not concerned to define what the essence of "right" is in God's righteousness. There's so much extraneous philosophical baggage and presupposition in Piper's whole logic here that in my mind is foreign to Paul. I am content to define God's righteousness in Paul as God's propensity not only to judge sin but to save His people and, indeed, the whole world. And yes, His righteousness is glorious. I'm sure I could improve on the definition, make it neater. But as far as accounting for how Paul uses the concept, this definition seems to account for all the ways Paul uses the phrase and concept.

b. I do not believe that Piper has shown that the key to understanding sin in Paul's thought is a failure to acknowledge God's glory. He has shown us Romans 1:23--they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the images of.... But Paul is not defining sin here. Piper has taken one aspect of human sinfulness and made it the fundamental definition of human sinfulness. He's shifted Paul's emphasis. We do much better to operate with a basic definition of sin in Paul's writings as "doing wrong" and go from there, rather than starting eisegetically with some very well developed theology of sin and reading it into all the other places where the word group is used.

Piper has shown us Romans 3:10-11--No one is righteous... no one seeks God... But Paul is not defining the nature of sin here. In fact, it's not even him freely composing these words--he's quoting the OT. The dot-dot-dot shows that Piper has taken one element in a poetic presentation of human sinfulness and in so doing has placed undo emphasis on it.

c. Piper predictably underestimates the most important part of God's righteousness in Paul's writings, namely, God's propensity to save His people. Yes, God's righteousness also involves His wrath and justice... oh, and it is glorious. But Paul is not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation (Rom. 1:16). You see, he says, the gospel reveals the righteousness of God (Rom. 1:17).

2. With Piper having gone over the top in chapter 3, I found myself unable to find anything helpful at all in chapter 4. This is the first chapter where this has been the case. In all the other chapters I have at least partially agreed with him or found something of exegetical merit. Not chapter 4.

Piper's subconscious knew what people like me would say (or else one of his many proofreaders pointed it out to him). He protests on p.76: "This question is not driven by logic."

It is. In fact, the entire chapter is driven by Piper's reasoning rather than by anything Paul has to say. And I'm going to have to start counting the number of times he mentions the 1500 years thing. Are we at 3 or 4 times now. The discussion just can't have been that off track for 1500 years (80 n.5)! Celibacy of priests and purgatory, anyone?

His reasoning is this:
1. Judges can't give a verdict of "not guilty" when the defendant is guilty. They can show clemency, but this is not what it means "to justify."

2. Since God is omniscient, He knows the true status of the defendant.

3. Therefore, God can only justify the human defendant if He finds true moral righteousness in him (or her, Piper predictably assumes the defendant is a him but no doubt would on follow up admit that there are also female defendants as well).

4. This true moral righteousness results from the imputation of Christ's righteousness to the defendant.

There's not much Scriptural argument in this chapter. It is rather a presentation of Piper's theological reasoning. I don't think Paul would recognize most of it.

Point #1 reflects Piper's extreme understanding of penal substitution. God just can't pronounce someone not guilty if they're guilty. He's not sovereign enough to do that (note to those who didn't recognize this sentence as sarcasm: this sentence was sarcasm).

The primary Pauline Scripture that Piper brings into discussion in this chapter is Romans 4:6-8:

Just as also David speaks of the blessedness of the person to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

Blessed are those whose lawless acts have been forgiven
And whose sins have been covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not reckon sin.

There is no mention of Christ in these verses. Indeed, it is faith in God that Paul consistently discusses throughout this chapter, not faith in Christ. Similarly, Christ does not do anything in this chapter. God does it to Christ--God raises him up for our justification.

Note: God doesn't deliver him up for our justification!!! God raises him for our justification. Piper would of course want to word it differently: God sacrificed Christ so that he could justify us.

The mechanism of righteousness in Romans 4 is not Christ's imputed moral righteousness--where is THAT in this chapter? It is human faith in God, faith in a God who justifies the ungodly (4:5), gives life to the dead (4:17), and who raised Jesus from the dead (4:24). That faith is reckoned for righteousness (4:5).

Paul does use penal imagery, sometimes. But it is not even the dominant image in his logic. We skew Paul's logic elsewhere when it is not a part of his argument and we make it a part of his argument.

Piper has already shown us in an earlier chapter the parallel between "reckoning righteousness" in 4:6 and justification in 3:28. Here in 4:8 Paul thus explains what justification means in negative terms--not to reckon sin. To find the defendant "not guilty" or "innocent." Nothing is said of Christ's innocence being necessary in the process.

As I've said in other contexts about other things, Piper would not have written Romans 4 this way. If his understanding of imputation was as important to Paul as it is for him, it would be here as part of the argument.

So Piper has not read this chapter at all on Paul's terms but has instead foisted his foreign theological baggage on Paul.

Without his first point, the rest of his argument is irrelevant. Chapter 5 to come...