A Robust Sense of Evangelism

Scot McKnight, in King Jesus Gospel has, along with N. T. Wright, refocused us on what the gospel actually is in the New Testament.  Despite the embarrassment of the Gospel Coalition, whose key players for some time have been trying their hardest to plug the leaks in their sinking ship.

Sorry, the truth doesn't care. The gospel is the good news that 1) our God reigns (Gospels) and that 2) Jesus is king (Paul), 3) along with all the good stuff that entails (Acts).  It's not about how to get saved and, although our salvation is part of the good news, it is a minor part.  It is more an implication of the gospel than the focus of the gospel. In Luke, the gospel is primarily good news to the poor and the disempowered (thus the GC conference this year where they will apply all their intellect to argue that the earth is flat).

Here's the next step.  Since the gospel is God and Jesus focused--not me focused, not my salvation focused--this has implications for what it means to "evangelize" and what "evangelism" is (since it is the verb, "to proclaim the good news") and what an "evangelist" is ("someone who proclaims the good news").

An evangelist is someone who proclaims the good news that our God reigns (Gospels) and that Jesus is king (Paul), along with all the good stuff that entails (Acts).  To evangelize is to proclaim to others the good news that our God reigns, that his kingdom made its Normandy landing in the ministry of Jesus (Gospels), that Jesus is God's king over the cosmos (Paul).  That proclamation is evangelism.

True, going would seem to be part of this evangelism and, yes, such preaching aims at a response.  What response?  Confession of the lordship of Jesus, of course, since he is king (Romans 10).  Repentance and submission to the rule of God, of course (Gospels).  Such a response of course means you will be saved, but that is a consequence.  The focus is on the reign of God and his Christ, not on me.

A final word on the Great Commission.  The Great Commission is about making disciples.  Nothing is mentioned about evangelism, although evangelism certainly fits with the Great Commission.  But evangelism is not mentioned.  You make disciples by 1) baptizing them and 2) teaching them.  Baptizing does get them in, but involved a confession of Jesus as Lord and thus submission to his kingship.  Becoming a follower was thus not a matter of praying a sinner's prayer or a moment of justification.

Once we have a more accurate understanding of the gospel, then we'll have to have a more robust sense of evangelism too.

The Tendency to Become What we Fight

I was reading a little of John Piper's story today.  Interestingly, he started quite vigorously opposed to determinism, which he now interprets as being opposed to the sovereignty of God.  He was a strong proponent of free will when he went to Fuller.

What often happens psychologically when someone is so zealous for one position is that s/he becomes over-aware of the weak points of his/her position.  These have a way of eventually overcoming you to where those weak points become the centerpiece of a diametrically opposite you.  So in Piper's case, the rather unusual and atypical verses in Romans 9 came to dominate his understanding.

So beware of zeal--some of the most ardent fundamentalist zealots end up being some of the most militant atheists.  Moderation in all things is almost always the best policy.

Suffering and Sovereignty 1

I'm trying to skim a book this week as part of a potential writing project on the side this summer.  The book is Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, an edited collection with John Piper and Justin Taylor as authors.  Today I skimmed the first chapter by John Piper himself: "Suffering and the Sovereignty of God: Ten Aspects of God's Sovereignty Over Suffering and Satan's Hand in It."

I agree theologically with almost everything Piper says in this chapter--it's more his understanding behind what he says that I disagree with.  Here are his ten points in my words:

1. Satan's rule over the world is delegated.
2. God is sovereign over Satan's angels and demons.
3. God is sovereign over Satan's hand in persecution.
4. God is sovereign over Satan's taking of life.
5. God is sovereign over Satan's hand in natural disasters.
6. God is sovereign over Satan causing sickness.
7. God is sovereign over Satan's use of animals and plants.
8. God is sovereign over Satan's causing of temptation.
9. God is sovereign over Satan's ability to blind our understanding.
10. God is sovereign over the spiritual bondage Satan causes.

So I agree theologically with these comments, as well as with Piper's opening gambit: "God himself is the supreme value" (17).

Where do I disagree?  I disagree with what stands behind this comment: "In the academic classroom and in the apologetics discussion, the agency of Satan in our suffering may lift a little the burden of God's sovereignty for some; but for others... there is more security and more relief and more hope and more support and more glorious truth in... looking... to Go for the cause..." (23).

In other words, God is telling Satan what to do.  On the contrary, I believe that if this is the case, then Christianity becomes incoherent.  No meaningful understanding of God as love is compatible with him directly ordering Satan to do all the things above.  Only if God has given authority to creation to do less than his perfect will can the concept of God as love be coherent.

This comment brings me to a second disagreement with Piper.  Piper insinuates that intentional agency is involved with everything that happens, both in terms of moral agents like Satan and humans and in terms of plants, animals and the creation.  He thus has no room in his worldview for a creation that operates according to certain "laws" that generate events of pain and suffering apart from someone's will--in his case Satan.

I contend, by contrast, that Satan himself may or may not be directly responsible for all the pain and suffering that happens in the world.

Piper: Warren is my Home Boy

Thanks to Rachel Held Evans' blog and Keith Drury for pointing out this interview between John Piper and Rick Warren.  The interview makes it clear that Warren's beliefs are the same as Piper's, only that Warren has a more practical approach.

This is pretty much what I have said and why Purpose Driven Life is not really something a Wesleyan-Arminian would naturally espouse.  But in the general absence of any theological emphasis in the Wesleyan Church, it is no surprise that its pastors and leaders often unknowingly absorb these broader evangelical currents.

Evans' letter to a young Calvinist from a young Arminian...

A colleague, as well as Scot McKnight's blog, pointed out Rachel Held Evans' blog post this week: "Letters to a Young Calvinist from a Young Arminian."  She is quite right that there are many fine five point Calvinists out there whose hearts are as my heart.  I am thankful that the strident and militant ones seem oh so irrelevant to my ministry and teaching.

Delighted to be your brother-in-Christ, irenic five pointers out there.  And don't be intimidated, oh ye Arminians who believe God truly would prefer for everyone to be saved.  The entire Calvinist system deconstructs on the fact that Paul himself did not consider his salvation secure (1 Cor. 9:27; Phil. 3:11).  But if it is possible for the justified not to make it, then those who are elect are not certain to persevere (Heb. 3:6, 14), then God's grace is not irresistible in his design (cf. Heb. 10:29), then election is not unconditional (cf. 2 Pet. 1:10). The whole system falls like a deck of cards. ;-)

So who cares about Piper, Driscoll, or Mohler?  They blow away with a puff of wind, leaving the rest of us to go on trying to save everyone.

John Piper--Young Humanity, Old Earth OK

This is an interesting interview with John Piper in which he basically says that the important things about Christian belief in creation are: 1) that God created it, 2) that humanity is relatively young on the planet, but 3) he allows for a variety of views on how old the earth might be prior to humanity's arrival, presumably including the evolution of lower forms of life. He only insists that the purpose of whatever happened prior to that point was to prepare the earth for humanity.

He has been convinced by a book called Genesis Unbound. I haven't read the book, but I find the view attractive simply because it lets science be science while holding to the direct creation of Adam by God at some point in the last 6-20,000 years. As long as we only talk to other fundamentalist Christians, we never have to face the evolution issue. But if we ever find ourselves presenting Christianity to someone outside of our comfort zone, we will have to account for the fact that we (who almost always have no scientific competence in these areas) have made an all or nothing issue out of a position that is more than overwhelmingly rejected by those who are scientifically competent (both by scientists with and without faith) in a field where one makes their name on new ideas and discoveries. It seems to me this is a major truth credibility issue for fundamentalist Christianity (it is not clearly an evangelical issue) that it makes this issue not a matter of individual conscience but one of core dogma.

Piper's position here demands all the key Christian beliefs (God created Adam directly as the first true human) while considering one's position on time prior to that as tangential. In effect it says, perhaps God created the world in six literal 24 hour periods. Perhaps He directed an evolutionary process to prepare the world for humanity and then directly created Adam 10,000 years ago. It says the question of "how" before Adam is really tangential and let those competent in science debate it. If Christian scientists want to enter that debate as part of their discipline, have at it, whichever position you have come to. The rest of us scientific incompetents only know that God created the world and directly created Adam.

This approach would probably require us to take the death that entered the world through Adam as human death or spiritual death rather than the death of any living thing. This fits with Genesis where Adam has to eat from the tree of life to live forever--implying that he would not have lived forever if he did not eat, which he and Eve did not.

What do you think?

The Impact of Background Literature

I am teaching a course on "Intertestamental Literature" this semester. I do not believe you need to be able to read the New Testament in its historical context to read it as Christian Scripture and God's living word to believers today. But it seems impossible to understand what these books actually meant without some sense of this background.

Any curriculum that truly aims for its students to understand the Bible in context should significantly engage this material. It provides such depth of understanding, reveals our inconsistencies! It holds a mirror up to ourselves and exposes the extensiveness to which our varied Christian traditions control our interpretations. It is no surprise that John Piper discouraged engagement with this material in his debates with Tom Wright--it reveals the fact that Piper's Calvinist theology derives more from Reformation theology than from what the New Testament actually meant.

I'll leave it at that. Like I said, one can certainly use the Scriptures Christianly, as God's living word to believers today, without being able to read it in historical context. As long as one does this in a mature community of faith, you should not go wrong. The common Christian understanding of these texts is a stable and enduring understanding. But this reading, which we might call theological interpretation, does not change the actual meaning these texts had originally, which was largely a function of their ancient contexts. A Christian hermeneutic that cannot account for both is either not fully Christian (over-emphasis on the original meaning) or shallow (over-emphasis on the Christian understanding).

IMHO

MegaChurch Seminaries

There was a piece today in Christianity Today online about the trend for some megachurches to start in house seminaries. Very interesting. I connect it with two other trends going on right now 1) the decentralization trend, away from centralized denominations and organizations and 2) the trend toward training in a ministry context.

Oops, the second one isn't actually a trend yet but I'm strongly predicting it will be. As far as I know, while other seminaries are increasingly making it possible to stay in ministry while going to seminary, we are the only ones actually capitalizing on it by requiring our MDIV students to be in ministry and fashioning our weekly assignments around it. I'm predicting that the real leaders in seminary education will soon follow our example. If any seminaries would like us to come consult with them, we'd be glad to :-)

The first, decentralizing trend is very interesting and I'm very curious to see where it ends up. However, in a very real sense, we are enabling decentralized seminary education more than a megachurch can. We have an IT, online infrastructure (about 6000 students taking classes online) that a megachurch would have difficulty matching. I suppose most seminaries end up serving subcultures anyway.

Mark Driscoll and John Piper clearly serve a different segment of the Christian scene than we will. While we would welcome anyone from their circles who will play nice, they would have trouble at their seminaries with anything but nominal Wesleyans. Someone with more than a superficial Wesleyan theology would feel like a major fish out of water in their programs, which are predestined to offer the most extreme form of Calvinist teaching. Remember when Piper, at Driscoll's church, urged truly evangelical colleges and seminaries to expunge any Arminian faculty they might have?

And since they don't believe a woman can be a senior pastor, no woman should even have a fleeting thought of going there.

The New Perspective and the Wesleyan Tradition

If I were to write a chapter or essay on the question, "The New Perspective and the Wesleyan Tradition," it became clear to me this weekend how I think I would structure it. Here is the outline:

1. What is the "new" perspective?

• First, at this point of the game, calling the trends of this essay "the new perspective" is probably unhelpful. All that is meant by the term is 1) the re-appraisal of the nature of Judaism that took place in the late twentieth century in the light of new discoveries and, especially, some harsh political mirrors held up to the West, and 2) the re-appraisal of exactly what Paul was saying in this light.
• Hardly anyone--not even those high level scholars who resist these trends--has been unaffected. Even those who are more "old perspective" have changed. The only ones who have not changed are those who do not really read Paul with a view to what he original meant at all, but almost entirely read him through traditional glasses (e.g., John Piper, who for this reason does not completely count as a scholar of the original meaning).

2. Krister Stendahl, Paul, and Introspective Consciences

• Stendahl's (a Lutheran) main contribution was to show the falseness of the Lutheran model of Paul as so vexed with his guilty conscience that he finally turned to justification by faith alone, understood as having nothing to do with action at all. Rather, Paul had a "robust conscience" both before and after he believed on Christ. His turning to Christ was more of a call to the Gentiles than a conversion and in any case was not in his mind a conversion from one religion to another.
• Romans 7 thus was not Paul's current struggle with sin, an acknowledgement made now even by the most prominent original meaning scholars in the Calvinist tradition (e.g., Moo).
• The end result is that Paul had a much greater emphasis on a blameless life than the primary representatives of Protestantism had allowed.

3. E. P. Sanders, Judaism, and Staying In

• If Stendahl and others opened the door, Sanders gave critical mass to the recognition that Judaism almost always had acknowledged the primacy of God's grace over Jews being able to earn God's favor. The Jews did not understand keeping the Law to get them in but to be the appropriate response to God's grace and essential for staying in the covenant.
• This schema fits well with both Calvinist and Arminian understandings of post-justification righteousness. The Spirit empowers us to keep the righteous requirements of the Law after we have been justified by faith. However, it is the Arminian tradition that correctly understands the importance of blamelessness for staying in after justification by faith.

4. James D. G. Dunn, Paul, and Works of Law

• Dunn correctly has recognized that "works of Law" in Paul are not best understood as bald "works" in general. Most of the time, the phrase "works of Law" has overtones of the Jewish particulars of the Law rather than law-keeping in some general sense. This recognition significantly diminishes the Protestant polarization of faith and works.
• Dunn also has shown the lack of focus in readings of Paul that focus on some supposed absolute moral perfection being God's expectation. This is a reading of a verses like Galatians 3:10 or 5:3 that puts an artificial emphasis on "all" or "whole," as if Paul is painting a picture of God's character in which he must have justice for every last drop of sin. But God's justice is not the centerpiece or fountain of Paul's theology, or of the theology of any part of the New Testament. God's righteousness has more to do in Paul with God's proactive character in saving His people and the world, which fits very well with Wesleyan theology.

5. N. T. Wright and (Final) Justification

• Wright's primarily contribution, in terms of Wesleyan-Arminian theology, is his recognition of the importance of works in final justification, chiefly in passages like Romans 2:5-10; 14:10-12; and 2 Corinthians 5:10. Wright also correctly sees the Spirit as establishing in reality what God does on the basis of faith when one first believes on Christ. The missing piece for Wright is the importance of blamelessness for "staying in."
• Wright follows in the train of the majority who now see Romans 1:16 as a reference to God's righteousness rather than some righteousness from God, which again fits with a greater emphasis on love as the driving characteristic of God in salvation, not a drive to work around His justice.

6. Conclusion

• These developments thus support love (righteousness) as the central character of God in relation to salvation, not God's justice.
• They point out the importance of literal righteousness as a product of the Spirit, essential for final justification, that faith and works are not contradictory.
• They recognize that Romans 7 is in fact exactly the opposite of the situation of the believer. It is exactly the problem that the Spirit solves for the believer.

Tom Wright: Justification The End

And with this post we finally at long last finish our review of N. T. Wright's, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision, Wright's response to John Piper's book, The Future of Justification. I can truly understand I understand where he's coming from much better now.

The previous posts were:

Chapter 1: What's it all about and why does it matter
Chapter 2: Rules of engagement
Chapter 3: First Century Judaism
Chapter 4: Justification: Definitions and Puzzles
Chapter 5: Exegesis of Galatians
Chapter 6: Interlude: Philippians, Corinthians, Ephesians
Chapter 7.1 Romans 1:16-17
Chapter 7.2 Romans 1:18-2:16
Chapter 7.3 Romans 2:17-3:20
Chapter 7.4 Romans 3:21-26 7.5
Chapter 7:5-6 Romans 3:27-31 and chapter 4

And now, the rest.

Chapter 7.7: Romans 5-8
What is the connection between justification by faith at the beginning and justification at the end with works taken into account? "the people who are already justified by faith are the people who will live the sort of life I described earlier on, those who will have the present verdict confirmed in the future" (198). In short, "Chapters 5-8 is, in fact, a single great argument for assurrance, the Christian doctrine that 'those whom God justified, them he also glorified' (8.30). In other words, that the verdict already announced is indeed a true anticipation of the verdict yet to be announced"

I personally don't think the connection is quite so neat, but this is a brilliant escape from the potential conundrum of the tension between (initial) justification by faith and (final) judgment/justification by works.

We also find this: "the notion of 'being in Christ' which Paul develops in these chapters is rooted in, and fully dovetails with, the doctrine of justification. It is not the case, in other words, that one has to choose between 'justification by faith' and 'being in Christ' as the 'centre' of Paul's thought" (201).

I'm pretty dubious about propositional centers anyway. Tell me what part of Paul's theology we're talking about and who he's talking to and I'll tell you what I think the focus is.

This was an interesting quote to me, all in italics in the book: "It is therefore a straightforward category mistake, however venerable within some Reformed traditions including part of my own, to suppose that Jesus 'obeyed the law' and so obtained 'righteousness' which could be reckoned to those who believe in him" (205). I suspect Wright is right.

Throughout this section Wright rightly emphasizes the importance of the Holy Spirit in making what is done legally in justification by faith actual righteousness in works through the power. I've omitted some of the more idiosyncratic Wright stuff with which we are all now very well acquainted.

Chapter 7.8: Romans 9-11
He focuses first on 9:30-10:13. "The subject of this passage is God's righteousness, the righteousness of God's people, their salvation and how it might be attained, and above all the covenant" (212).

"I have no hesitation in saying that dikaiosyne in 9.30 and 9.31 must be understood in terms of membership within the covenant" (214). The problem is that I don't see the word covenant here. Yes, it clearly has implications for who God's people end up being. Maybe I'm dense. I just don't see it.

"Israel's mistake, here as elsewhere, was to imagine that the purpose of God was not the single-purpose-through-Israel-for-the-world but a single-purpose-for-Israel-apart-from-the-world" (215). "[T]he plan always was the single plan through Israel in the person of the Messiah alone, for the world" (216). "When people believe the gospel of Jesus and his resurrection, and confess him as Lord, they are in fact doing what the Torah wanted all along, and are therefore displaying the necessary marks of covenant renewal" (217).

I don't know what to say. I guess I still come closest to Sanders within the triad.

Conclusion
"What shall we say to these things? If Paul is for us, who can be against us?" (221). :-)

"Any attempt to give an account of a doctrine which screens out the call of Israel, the gift of the spirit, and/or the redemption of all creation is doomed to be less than fully biblical" (222).

quod faciendum eram feci. finis

Tom Wright: Justification 5

Before I begin, I should mention that Pete Enns' mother died last week, so let's remember his family in prayer in these days. It was not unexpected, but that doesn't take away the grief!

This is my review of the fifth chapter of N. T. Wright's, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision, Wright's response to John Piper's book, The Future of Justification.

Chapters reviewed thus far:

Chapter 1: What's it all about and why does it matter
Chapter 2: Rules of engagement
Chapter 3: First Century Judaism
Chapter 4: Justification: Definitions and Puzzles

Chapter 5 begins the second half of the book where Wright focuses on the exegesis of Galatians and Romans. I deeply appreciate this work because Wright is dealing with concrete passages and exegesis and it helps me evaluate what he's doing in my categories rather than in his general ones. It helps me see what words like covenant, eschatology, and law court justification actually do in his exegesis, how he is actually using these words in relation to how I think Paul was using them. The use of a word is its meaning.

As I continue to try to get my head around what he is saying and how I might take or not take exception to it, let me try to summarize and evaluate some key points.

1. The context of the proposition of Galatians (2:15-21) is the incident of table fellowship at Antioch.

I agree. While the situation may be a little broader in Romans, the picture in the bubble above Paul's head what he says "since we know we are not justified by works of Law" in Galatians 2 is the table fellowship issue of Jew and Gentile eating together.

And, yes, I agree Paul always has the Jewish Law in view when he speaks of the Law in this way (95, although I believe now one, now another part of the Jewish Law may appear in the bubble above his head when he uses this word).

And yes, they are not generic good works and yes, justification may entail the forgiveness of sins, but that is not what the word "justification" itself means (96).

2. Wright believes, as we have seen, that Jesus is the faithful Israelite, the one in whom God's promises to Abraham are fulfilled.

I am okay with everything in this sentence if you just take the word Israelite out, which of course is Wright's distinctive. I translate Galatians 2:20 in this way: "the life I now live, I live by faith, in the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." Yes, I know I am fairly alone to take the verse as a double entendre. But I think Paul is moving "from Hays to Dunn" in this passage.

I am part of a very small number, I think, to suggest that the phrase, "through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ" was a slogan that derived, not from Paul, but from the Jerusalem church. Paul takes it and moves it to faith as the principle of justification in general.

But in any case, I agree with Hays and Wright here that Paul does have a significant place in this passage for our incorporation into the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah.

And yes, I agree, Christ is the seed to whom the promise was given, and those who are in the seed, whether Jew or Gentile, will be blessed on the basis of faith.

My problem here is that I do not see Paul equating promises to Abraham with promises to Israel. If anything, I would rather think that Israel comes into view with the Law, while Abraham represents the broader principle which applies to both Israel (=Jew) and Gentile.

3. "The Messiah's death and resurrection reconstitutes the people of God" (100).

OK. The part of this statement that slows me down is the two letters "re-." Do I agree that those who die and rise with Christ and are thus "in Christ" constitute the people of God? Yes. These are the sons [and daughters] of God. Yes, the boundary lines of slave-free, Jew-Gentile, male-female are obliterated as far as belonging to this family.

It's the "re-" that sticks a little. It sticks because it smuggles in a lot of stuff for Wright. It smuggles in "return from exile," but I'm finding it hard to see this passage demanding that theme. Wright sees overtones of the exodus in the slave-free imagery. Again, I'm finding it hard to see the passage demanding us see that theme here.

4. "Torah must be understood within the strange single-plan-of-God-through-Israel-for-the-world, the covenantal and eschatological framework... within which the running metaphor of the 'lawcourt', always there by implication in the language of 'justification', is to be understood" (107).

One word that stuck out to me as I read this chapter is this word plan. There were a couple places in this chapter--including this one--where I began to see what Wright meant by suggesting we might start reading Paul with Ephesians. The other one had to do with Galatians 2:18 where Paul talks about rebuilding what he tore down. As I've said before, it is a dubious exegetical move to read Paul's earlier writings through the lens of Ephesians. Let each letter construct its own world.

I haven't fully conceptualized the hermeneutical distinction between Wright's "front to back" reading of Paul (which is more typical of Ephesians 1) and what I would call Paul's more normal "back to front" approach. Let me also say that this is my critique of the Calvinist reading of Paul that might logically prioritize predestination in explication of Paul's theology. Paul is dealing with an attack and he is reaching back into Scripture to respond. I do not believe he is writing the story from front to back in quite the way Wright presents him.

The difference here is that I see Paul's exegesis in Galatians 3 as less contextual and thorough than Wright does. It is not exactly ad hoc, for Paul surely has planned this letter out very well before sending it off. Nor is the word "atomistic" quite right, for the individual bits do cohere and relate to each other. But I think that Paul's argument is more atomized and ad hoc than Wright does.

5. The dikaios root implies the verdict (lawcourt) of "membership within God's family" (covenant) (112).

I don't think I'm splitting hairs to wonder if Wright has fallen prey to the same accusation he makes of Christian history. Has he confused a consequence or corollary of justification with justification itself. Yes, to be justified implies that you are a member of God's people. On the basis of faith, you are justified, and those who are "from faith" are "in Christ, sons of Abraham. What I am struggling with is whether the word justification itself means inclusion within God's people.

I do think I maybe, possibly am beginning to see Wright's point, maybe. The Law was not about getting into God's people but about staying in (Sanders, check). So the verdict in question (for those who are Jews by nature) is not about whether we are good enough, smart enough, and whether--dog gone it--people like us. The verdict for a Jew is whether we can stay in God's people. It is about responding appropriately to God's grace such that he accepts us.

So Paul comes to be saying, we do not remain in God's people because of our keeping these particulars of the Law, we stay in God's people through the faithful death of Jesus Christ. And, by the way, this is how Gentiles can also get in.

Well, thank you Tom Wright. I don't know whether I've completely understood you yet. But I think I am beginning to see what it might mean for their to be a "people of God" element to justification. I'll think on it. Could be an article.

Tom Wright: Justification 4

This is my review of the third chapter of N. T. Wright's, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision, Wright's response to John Piper's book, The Future of Justification.

Chapters reviewed thus far:

Chapter 1: What's it all about and why does it matter
Chapter 2: Rules of engagement
Chapter 3: First Century Judaism

This morning we read chapter 4: "Justification: Definitions and Puzzles"

Wright begins with a quote from Alistair McGrath's two volume history of the doctrine of justification. The thrust of McGrath's introductory quote is to say that, yes, the idea of justification as it has been discussed over the centuries is not really what Paul meant when he used the word originally... but that's OK.

I think I would ultimately side more with McGrath on this one, although I believe a "thick reading" of Paul's texts will engage the Christian consensus definition with a knowledge of Paul's definition. This is a POST-modern approach to the Bible as Scripture. Wright's approach is merely modern. Meanwhile, John Piper's is just wishful thinking.

Wright suggests three reasons not to read Paul this way: 1) you will naturally misunderstand Scripture if you simply impose the later definition on the text (Wright says "misread," but I think "misunderstand" would be less ambiguous), 2) you will miss completely what Scripture was actually talking about at that point, and 3) you will imagine yourself to have biblical warrant for your reading, when in fact you are imposing a meaning on the text.

Fair criticisms of Piper. Wright is of course addressing unknowingly reading Paul this way, not doing so as a kind of catholic reading of the text.

Basically, Christian history, especially after Augustine, came to view justification as "the entire picture of God's reconciling action toward the human race" (65). For Paul, however, justification referred to the legal acquittal part of that bigger equation.

Wright gives one of his delightful illustrations. It would be as if someone were to refer to an entire car as a steering wheel. Then eventually people get upset when you point out that, literally, the steering wheel is only one part of the car.

In the second section of the chapter, Wright gets into the beautiful complexity and ambiguity of how the relevant Greek, Hebrew, Latin, English, and American! languages operate in relation to the words in question. The Greek root dikai- can in various contexts turn out to mean "justice," "justification," "just," "righteous," "righteousness," "right," etc.

He reiterates that in the Jewish, legal setting, "righteousness" refers to "the status someone has when the court has found in their favor" (69). "To justify," therefore (same root), is not an action which transforms someone but "a declaration that grants them a status" (70). "However much the Augustinian tradition has used 'justification' to cover the whole range of 'becoming a Christian' from first to last, Paul has used it far, far more precisely and exactly" (71).

In the third part of the chapter, Wright now gets to the more controversial part, although you wouldn't know it for his patronizing confidence :-) I am open to being convinced. I just continue to get the impression that Wright is overreading Paul, that he is imposing a system on Paul from the outside. Indeed, I felt that I might actually turn some of Wright's own arguments in relation to justification on him.

What did he say earlier in this chapter? He criticized Piper by claiming that he overreads a word in Paul, that he "uses a scriptural word or concept but denotes by that word or concept something more than, or even different from, what is meant by the word or concept in its scriptural origin... it will then misread scripture at that point... such a reading will miss completely the thing that scripture was talking about at that point... it will imagine itself to have biblical warrant for its own ideas" (61).

But now hear Wright on "covenant": "Call it 'God's single plan', if you like, to avoid the concordance-bound scruples of the doubters... who complain that Paul doesn't much use the word 'covenant'. Call it 'the reason God called Abraham'. Call it 'the creator's purpose, through Israel, for the world'" (73).

You can see what Wright is dealing with here. He is tacitly admitting that the organizing principle behind his interpretation is something "between" the actual texts of Paul. "Paul quotes one part of a chapter or passage and wants the whole to be in mind. But the unknown, unrecognized art is still despised" (73), the pesher of which is--it is something you have to have eyes to see, and many do not. "Can I, or anyone else, make it clearer than we have already tried to do? Will writers like [Mark] Siefrid or [Stephen] Westerholm be able to hear what is being said, or will they once more walk me up the hill to view the sunrise?"

Let me make a bold claim. If I finally get my head around what Wright is doing here, and if I turn out agreeing with Wright, I am quite confident I will be able to express his position in a far more convincing way than he has to date. I have read Wright's position on covenant several times in several places. My reaction to him on this point is not dissimilar to my early reactions to the ontological argument, which does not bode well for me eventually agreeing with him.

I regret that I am far from ever being able to say with Thomas Aquinas that I have understood everything I have ever read. But my early self-doubt has turned to self-confidence. Usually when I don't understand something now, I end up concluding that it's just wrong.

I look forward to reading Wright's interpretations of Romans and Galatians in the second half of this book. He does give a sampling in his interpretation of Galatians 3:15-18, a passage we just translated in my Greek Galatians class. In class, I followed the number 1 rule of original meaning exegesis--do not read more meaning into a sentence than is necessary to make sense of it. Wright has found bags of meaning I didn't.

Wright: "When someone makes a covenanted will, nobody sets it aside or adds to it..."

Schenck: "No one nullifies or adds to someone's will that has been put into effect."

To me, Wright presents us with a strong candidate for the overload fallacy. The problem--a modernist problem--is that Wright seems to need there to be continuity between the use of diatheke here and its meaning of "covenant" elsewhere and more normally. Me? I told my Greek class that Paul didn't care that he was using the word in a different way than elsewhere.

Many of you know the schtick. The Hebrew berith means "covenant." The Greek word diatheke can mean "covenant" too. But it also can mean a "will," a "testament." Semantics 101 these days, as I've mentioned over and over here, reminds us that there is no necessary connection between one use of a word and the next. I think Wright, unfortunately, retains some of the tendencies toward the overload fallacy that was typical of the Kittel generation just before him.

Paul glides from diatheke as "will" to diatheke as "covenant" (Hebrews does the same in chapter 9). The transition is jarring to us, especially to original meaning scholars. To an ancient Jew, it's great exegesis.

Paul's meaning. When a will is enacted by the death of the testator, it's in force. You don't nullify it. You don't add to it. "Covenantal will" is overload because it tries to combine two distinct meanings of the word into one.

Wright: "The promises were made 'to Abraham and his family'. It doesn't say 'his families', as though referring to several, but indicates one: 'and to your family' -- which means the Messiah."

Schenck: "The promises were spoken to Abraham and 'to his seed.' It does not say, 'And to the seeds,' as for many but as for one, 'And to your seed," which is Christ."

Wright's translation strikes me as trying to make Paul's argument modernly respectable. Paul makes an argument that we simply wouldn't make today. Indeed, he doesn't make this argument in Romans 4:18-19 when he is dealing with the same passage. Did he decide the argument didn't work very well himself?

Paul makes a point out of the fact that "seed" is singular, when it is obviously a collective noun in Genesis, referring to the numberless descendants of Abraham. Those "in Christ" are thus the seed of Abraham, whether Jew or Gentile. I will question Wright below for his too easy gliding from Abraham to Israel.

Wright: "God made this covenanted will; the law, which came 430 years later, can't undermine it and make the promise null and void."

Schenck: "The Law that came into existence after 430 years does not nullify the covenant put into effect previously by God so that it cancels the promise."

Maybe I just don't get it (possible), but it seems to me that Wright glides imperceptibly from God's plan through Abraham to God's plan through Israel. Yet isn't this exactly the contrast of this verse? God's plan through Israel that came into existence 430 years after God's plan through Abraham does not nullify the covenant with Abraham, which was something different?

Wright brings the Gentiles into Israel through Christ as Israel as the seed of Abraham. But Abraham is the father of Gentiles who have faith apart from Israel and he is the father of those within Israel who are circumcised and have faith. Two distinct children, one father.

The rest of the chapter went off into Wrightland. Wrightland is a happy theological place that engages biblical elements and mentions historical items. But its organizing principles, once again, in keeping with Wright's personality, are Wright's own monolithic ideological system that he brings to text. I look forward to the exegetical parts where the questions are more concrete and less macro-ideological.

The fourth section of the chapter brings in the third part of Wright's understanding of justification, namely eschatology. I agree with Wright that there is a very important eschatological component to understanding justification in Paul, especially when we are dealing with what, for lack of a better term, we might call "final" justification.

But it sure seems to me that Wright is doing something similar with his covenantal and eschatological elements to justification that Christian history has done to justification by broadening the sense of the word. For Wright, Christian history has made justification include lots of things that are perhaps true, but just not what the word meant. I strongly suspect that Wright as well has imported important meanings that have truth to them into a word that, really, more or less, simply is a law court term and little more.

Again, rule 1: Don't see more meaning in a word than is necessary to make sense of it. Don't bring in meanings the word has elsewhere. Don't bring the meanings of related words and concepts.

The final section is on Christology--Christ as a faithful Israelite, the seed, the one in whom God's people are summed up (82-83). Again, I am open but I find this whole line of thinking peculiar.

Here it is:

1. A fair assessment of Christological terms: Christ, Son of God, and Lord.

2. Wright's understanding of the Messiah as the one toward whom Israel's history was heading, in whom God's people are summed up.

3. Jesus as the one who offers God the obedience Israel did not. I'm just hearing overload fallacy, overload fallacy. Strikes me as the kind of paper I give an A to because the student is obviously thinking more deeply than the other students and is obviously doing more work than the other students. But all the while I'm thinking that they just don't get exegesis because they're seeing way more than the text warrants.

4. The messiah stands in for the people.

5. The resurrection of the messiah is the beginning of the new creation.

6. The Spirit is poured out on God's people.

7. The messiah becomes the judge on the last day.

Tom Wright: Justification 3

I doubt I will get to Darwin's second chapter today--hopefully next Wednesday.

This is my review of the third chapter of N. T. Wright's, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision, Wright's response to John Piper's book, The Future of Justification.

Chapters reviewed thus far:
Chapter 1: What's it all about and why does it matter
Chapter 2: Rules of engagement

Chapter 3: First Century Judaism: Covenant, Law, and Law Court
It is probably my own failing, but this chapter strikes me as Wright's clearest presentation to date of the inner dynamic of his signature themes. These themes are always there in his writings, but it seems to me the inner dynamics often lurk beneath the surface. You see the surface text, the visible part of the iceberg. But these inner dynamics to Wright sometimes are not obvious on the surface if you join one of his texts in progress.

And of course that makes some of these ideas more likely to be part of the 20% where he's wrong. I have significant confidence in the consensus judgments of scholarship (not absolute confidence, obviously). It is when a scholar is doing their thing that they must be examined most carefully. This paragraph raises a number of rejoinders, I know, but I'm just going to stop there and move on.

Wright starts the chapter with a flashback, back to grad school days, while reading through Josephus. "Then and there I realized that most Jews of the time were not sitting around discussing how to go to heaven, and swapping views on the finer points of synergism and sanctification" (37). Fair enough.

I personally think it is beyond question that a lot of the questions we most debate over in conservative Protestant circles are not the issues Jews of the day were. The New Testament is not about how to get to heaven. It isn't even clear about whether heaven is the place of our eternal destiny. Fair enough.

Many Jews at the time were expecting that God would "bring Israel back from exile" at that time. They were reading Daniel 9, which they believed pointed to return from exile at about that time. As Wright says, "All generalizations are misleading," a statement which surely is meant to bring a smile to our face, given that this statement is a generalization.

If I were to critique Wright on this signature, "return from exile" idea, it is only that he perhaps overplays it. Yes, I think we have ample evidence to suggest that many Jews in Jesus' day did not believe that Israel was where it was supposed to be in the world. It was supposed to be free of foreign rule. It was supposed to be more faithful to God than it was.

At the same time, I don't want to subsume all these things under the heading "return from exile," for I think that skews the perspective. Return from exile is one way of expressing this sense of "wrongness to Israel's current status," but I strongly hesitate to make it the lens through which that "wrongness" is subsumed.

By the way, regardless of what we might debate about Wright's spin, it is hard to believe that there are imbeciles out there of the magnitude he seems to describe as his opposition. For example, are there really people trying to argue with him that the fact Israel had returned from exile physically precludes the possibility that Jews at the time didn't believe they had truly returned?

Wright sees two major implications for Pauline theology. First, Jews saw themselves as part of a narrative stretching back from earliest times and toward a climactic moment of deliverance. The ending of the story had not arrived.

OK. Yes. There is some truth to this. The question is the degree to which Wright has a far more developed version of that story than they did.

Second, Wright believes they read this story through the lens of Daniel 9. Wright claims that Josephus shows that Daniel was popular at the time. I have yet to figure out where in Josephus Wright means. He gives a couple references in the endnotes, Jewish War 6.312 and 3.399-408. It seems a thin prop for such a significant element in his agenda. What texts does he have in mind?

I'm open to being convinced, but Wright's evidence here seems rather thin to me at this point. It seems much more likely to me, to use his own illustration, that he is hearing a resonance of the first century situation and mistaking it for the central note.

Or to use my own illustration, the picture Wright is drawing uses genuine dots from the ancient world. But the most important parts of the picture he makes are in between the dots, in the lines he draws between them. You can draw a parallelogram from three dots, but the most natural picture to draw is a triangle.

I'm afraid I have the same reaction to Wright that Dunn does, of whom Wright says, he "has never been able to see what I am talking about" (43).

Wright seems to draw his central understanding of God's righteousness in Paul from Daniel 9, and Daniel 9 also provides a great picture of what he understands by covenant. When I read this section, I felt like the disciples in John 16:29, "Now you are speaking plainly." Now I can see why you make some of the distinctions you do, where it comes from.

You had this idea about Daniel 9 a long time ago and you've exported it everywhere else as you've interpreted the rest of the New Testament and Judaism. It's been there, almost beneath the surface, the x factor that explains why I've so often found certain statements a little puzzling, wondering why some particular point is so important to you.

Daniel 9 mixes for Wright with Deuteronomy 27-30, sprinkled with Sanders' covenantal nomism and voila. God had intended Israel to bring God to the whole world. But they have not been faithful to God's plan. They had never returned from exile for their sin, but they were about to. God was about to be faithful to his covenant with Abraham and Israel and thus restore His people. And it was all happening right now.

A lot of true elements here, but the picture has so much of Wright in it that I think he falls prey to imposing too much system on the biblical texts.

Part 2 Where Wright thinks Piper is wrong.

Wright doesn't think that Piper is massively wrong. But he does have these points:

1. Piper ignores the massive literature on the phrase "the righteousness of God." Piper does have a strange understanding of the righteousness of God here: "God's concern for his own glory." That's just bizarre. Wright's "covenant faithfulness" is on track, but I think it is, again, dubious methodologically to introduce the covenant word when it is not generally used in the OT texts in direct use.

God's propensity to be faithful to His relationship with His people and the world is, in my opinion, a more circumspect definition, with all the caveats Wright makes about not misinterpreting the word relationship in modern categories. Relationship is how two things relate to one another (47).

2. It is not at all clear how Piper's idiosyncratic definition of God's righteousness works out with his desire for God, the judge, to impute his own righteousness to us, the defendants.

Yes, this is nothing short of bizarre on Piper's part.

3. Piper's attempts to distance the righteousness of God from the idea of covenant faithfulness fails to convince.

Here Wright pushes his own more idiosyncratic ideas about the importance of Israel being supposed to be the conduit of God's blessing of all the nations. I'm open, but Wright has not yet convinced me that Paul understands Israel to be the linchpin of God's plan to bless the nations and that Israel has failed to do its job.

I hate to say it, but I find Sanders more likely than Dunn or Wright here. Paul in his writings seems to be working back from the solution to the problem, than planning from the beginning Wright's new systematic narrative. It seems to me that Wright is doing exactly what the Reformers and Augustine did in systematizing Paul. It's just they did it with propositions and he's doing it with narrative.

4. Piper tries to downplay the importance of the law-court metaphor.

Being justified is not about moral righteousness or virtue. It's about a not guilty verdict. The judge doesn't transfer his (or her) righteousness to the defendant.

5. Piper has God's righteousness going in the wrong direction. The emphasis is not on God glorifying himself in some narcissistic way but in "God's overflowing, generous, creative love" (51). "It isn't that God basically wants to condemn and then finds a way to rescue some from disaster" (52). "God's righteousness is that quality or attribute because of which he saves his people." Now there's a definition I can live with.

Here, here.

Part 3
This third section seems to affirm Sanders' key idea that keeping the law for the Jews was not so much about "getting in" as in "staying in." Wright mentions Variegated Nomism again, saying this: "The essays in large part support Sanders' overall case more than (we may suppose) the editors had hoped when they commissioned them" (55).

In conclusion, "the key question facing Judaism as a whole was not about individual salvation, but about God's purposes for Israel and the world" (56-57). "Israel will be vindicated, will inherit the age to come -- but it will be Israel that has kept Torah, or that, through penitence and amendment of life... has shown the heartfelt desire to follow God's ways and be loyal to his covenant" (57).

To me, this seems a fair enough description of the form of Judaism that constitutes the backdrop of the early Christian movement.

Next installment will probably be Saturday...

Tom Wright: Justification 2

I won't be doing one of these every day, but I did have a chance to read Wright's second chapter of Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision. The second chapter is titled, "Rules of engagement."

My summary/review of the first chapter is here.

The thrust of this chapter is to say that exegesis of biblical texts is messy, but it is a core value for evangelicals. Its product is not systematic theology. The goal is the sermon, not a tidy system.

This sentence ironically summarizes Wright's critique of Piper well: "Proper evangelicals are rooted in scripture, and above all in the Jesus Christ to whom scripture witnesses, and nowhere else" (34).

Part 1
Again, Wright is thoroughly modernist in this chapter. In that sense I believe his hermeneutic is incomplete. He is right insofar as he is reminding us how to determine what the text meant originally. And thus he is right insofar as he critiques Piper, whose exegesis often qualifies as pre-modern, unaware of how read a text in its original context. To that extent, the metaphor of Piper trying to show Wright that the sun goes around the earth is apt.

Wright again gives great illustrations. He tells one about a woman who came to church the Sunday after Princess Diana died. But the pastor decided to follow the lectionary and preached on Mary, the mother of Jesus. After the sermon, the woman was in tears of puzzlement and grief. "Can you help me get the sermon's point?"

This woman, Wright means to say, is like Piper and others who come to the biblical text for answers to questions the text never addressed in the first place. "The history of the reading of Paul is littered with similar mistakes -- not always quite so obvious, but mistakes none the less: texts pressed into service to address questions foreign to the apostle, entire passages skimmed over in the hunt for the key word or phrase which fits the preconceived idea" (25).

One fun ironic move Wright makes in the first half of this chapter is to note that individuals like Piper, although they would fight tooth and nail for Paul as the literal author of Ephesians, still generally ignore it when they are reconstructing Paul's theology. He suggests that Piper would be much more accepting of the "new perspective" if he had begun there (28). "No wonder Lutheran scholars have been so suspicious of it. But why should that apply to conservative readers for whom it is every bit as much Holy Writ as Romans or Galatians."

Fun, although I don't think a person should start their theology of Paul with Ephesians. Then the skewing just goes in the opposite direction. Ephesians is distinct from Paul's other writings, regardless of affirming Pauline authorship. In my opinion, Wright, Johnson, and others are guilty of sloppy exegesis here, although they are popular at that point for the same reason Piper is--they come off as more traditional.

Wright ends the section with some very sound thoughts on distinguishing traditional interpretation from original meaning. He rightly points out again that "when faced with both the 'new perspective' and some of the other features of more recent Pauline scholarship, 'conservative' churches have reached, not for scripture, but for tradition, as with Piper's complaint that I am sweeping away fifteen hundred years of the church's understanding" (28).

I must point out, that he is referring to conservative Calvinists and Lutherans here. We Wesleyan-Arminians are quite carnally delighted to find out that our understanding of Paul fits much more nicely with these turns in scholarship than the Reformation mafia's does. The theology that the Reformers rejected has become the head of the corner... :-)

Not that Wright is Wesleyan-Arminian. Certainly Dunn is not. Sanders I think is, in background, although it won't do me any good politically to claim him. :-) Strong (foreign) Calvinist elements remain in some of Wright and Dunn's interpretations, I believe.

The reason I believe the return to reading Paul in his Jewish context--which is really what the new perspective is about--favors Arminian theology is because I believe the Jewish focus on concrete behavior remained in Paul's theology much more strongly than allowed for in Calvinist or certainly in Lutheran theology.

Wright rightly points out that doctrinal statements, not just those of Nicaea or Chalcedon, are a product of their time. Anselm did not unfold his spin on penal substitution in a vacuum, nor was the Westminister Confession created in a bubble. Piper and the neo-Reformed treat the WC the same way older Roman Catholics might have treated Trent. [I'm embellishing Wright a little, although not too much here]

Wright smiles on our esteemed fellow blogger Mike Bird, as well as J. I. Packer, for the fact that--while they affirm the idea of the imputation of Christ's righteousness theologically--they recognize that Paul never explicitly states it. The bottom line for Wright: "when our tradition presses us to regard as central something which is seldom if ever actually said by Paul himself we are entitled, to put it no more strongly, to raise an eyebrow and ask questions" (30).

Part 2
In the rest of the chapter, Wright rightly takes Piper to task for his feeble attempt to deny (that the earth goes around the sun) that the way to know what Paul meant is to read his words against the backdrop of the way words were used in Paul's day. This section, really, reveals what is really going on with Piper. Basically, contextual interpretation has caught him with his theological pants down.

What do you say when all of a sudden someone points out the obvious--uh, these words probably had a meaning to the people they were actually written to... and that meaning probably is a function of the way people used words at the time. What do you say? You're pants are down. It's embarrassing.

So Piper responds, "No they're not."

Wright: "Yes they are."

Piper, "Come back you lily livered coward. I'll bite your knees off."

Piper's feeble response is, we have to go with the obvious (to me given my schooling in the Calvinist tradition) meaning of the text without bringing in "dubious" information from the ancient world. Or in the words of early 1990's Saturday Night Live skit Cave Man Lawyer, "Your tall buildings frighten me."

Wright: "it is clear that what he [Piper] means is 'Please do not be seduced, by N. T. Wright or anyone else, into imagining that you need to read the New Testament within its first-century Jewish context'" (31).

By the way, Wright gives a good side critique of just one of D. A. Carson "My pants aren't on fire" projects, Justification and Variegated Nomism (another would be his Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament). These are nothing but the dying gasps of the Ptolemaic scientists who feel threatened by a heliocentric universe.

I have dipped into Variegated on various Early Jewish literature and have been puzzled almost every time. I have been puzzled because I haven't really found much to object to--nor have I found material that drastically undermined new perspective views on Judaism.

Here is Wright's comment: "To the extent that the essays there [in Variegated] are fully scholarly, they do not make the case their principal editor claims they do; to the extent that they appear to do so, they are themselves subject to question as being, to put it mildly, parti pris" (31-32).

The chapter ends with a critque of the NIV that, again, superbly fits things I have long said, although perhaps some of Wright's statements are a little extreme. While Wright was initially enthusiastic about the translation, "I discovered that the translators had had another principle, considerably higher than the stated one; to make sure that Paul should say what the broadly Protestant and evangelical tradition said he said" (35). "I do know that if a church only, or mainly, relies on the NIV it will, quite simply, never understand what Paul was talking about."

:-)

The TNIV has since corrected many of my issues with the NIV translation, just as the current generation of evangelical scholars are much better at reading the Bible in context than the first, American generation of evangelicals was (British evangelicals like F. F. Bruce and R. T. France have generally been superior to their American counterparts).

Tom Wright: Justification 1

Forasmuch as I have blogged through John Piper's The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, it seemed good to me also, having received in the mail my copy of Tom Wright's rejoinder, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision, to write unto thee in order, most excellent lover of Pauline theology, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein Piper and Wright have instructed.

Chapter 1: "What's all this about, and why does it matter?"
Illustration 1: learning the earth goes around the sun
Wright begins with a beautifully patronizing introduction, as we might expect of a Brit (or a blogger). Actually Wright is fairly civilized about it, as Piper was also very civilized. These are both good men, godly people, I think we can agree, both of which are very convinced they are correct. I agree significantly more with Wright than with Piper, but they are both good eggs.

Wright calls Piper "friend" (5) and says of his work, "he has been scrupulously fair, courteous and generous in all our exchanges" (11). Wright notes that he writes as a pastor just as Piper does (11). Wright suggests there develop a "Christian ethic of blogging" (10) in relation to some of the more vituperous attacks on him online (physician heal ourselves).

By the way, although Wright obviously wrote this chapter before it happened, the response to Scot McKnight's blurb on the back was an example of the "neo-Reformed" attacks. The blurb goes like this: "Tom Wright has out-Reformed America's newest religious zealots -- the neo-Reformed -- by taking them back to Scripture and to its meaning in its historical context. Wright reveals that the neo-Reformed are more committed to Tradition than to the Sacred Text. This irony is palpable on every page of this judicious, hard-hitting, respectful study." For some of the McKnight fall out, see here.

Anyway, Wright's opening illustration is about someone who comes to your house to stay the night and who has never heard the idea that the earth goes around the sun. The person listens politely to your ideas with some alarm, then takes you out in the morning to show you the sunrise and tell you that you really should not pay too much attention to new theories and such but go with the tried and true of experience.

Delightfully patronizing, but he goes on in softer tones. It really doesn't come off as in your face as you move on. Here is a great quote: "I used to tell my students that at least 20 percent of what I was telling them was wrong, but I didn't know which 20 per cent it was" (4). I'm sure the rest of us would be glad to tell him :-)

His main points with this starting illustration are these:

1. The kinds of things that Piper is telling us are safer to stick with than Wright's new fangled theories are, in fact, traditions (6). "The greatest honour we can pay the Reformers is not to treat them as infallible... There is considerable irony, at the level of method, when John Piper suggests that, according to me, the church has been 'on the wrong foot for fifteen hundred years'. It isn't so much that I don't actually claim that. It is that that is exactly what people said to his heroes, to Luther, Calvin and the rest. Luther and Calvin answered from scripture, the Council of Trent responded by insisting on tradition" (6-7). I critiqued Piper similarly.

2. We are not the center of the universe (7). To treat the doctrine of justification of ME by faith as the center of things is to get things out of focus.

As the first half of this first chapter comes to a close, Wright reminds his detractors that the "new perspective" actually entails quite a bit of diversity within it, from Sanders, to Dunn, to Wright, to others. There is no monolithic enemy to shoot at.

Illustration 2: taking all the puzzle pieces out of the box
Wright's second illustration is less patronizing... until he gets to the East German secret police. He talks about a test you had to take to be part of the Stasi. You had to fit blocks into the appropriate holes. "When the test was complete, all the blocks were slotted into the frames; but it turned out that, while some of the ex-Stasi officers were indeed quite intelligent, most of them were simply very, very strong" (15). :-)

So Wright notes the absence of Romans 2:25-29 and 10:6-9 in Piper's book, very important pieces for Wright. He mentions the importance of participation in Christ for Paul, consideration of echoes of the Old Testament that go beyond the actual quotes Paul makes, and Wright gets to his signature idea, Paul's understanding of the story of Israel as key.

Illustration 3: mistaking a resonance for the actual note played
Wright ends the chapter with one of those illustrations that tells you right off he's a smarter person than you are. He talked of how when you play, say, a low A on a piano--if you have the loud petal down--you will hear resonances of the A an octave up, then the E above that, then the next A, and so forth...

Clearly he means to say is that the Reformation giants heard true resonances of Paul but occasionally mistook the resonance for the key note. He ends the chapter with words like these: "There is no such thing as a pure return to the Reformers. They themselves have been heard and re-heard repeatedly in echo chambers that they would not have recognized" (20).

The solution? "[W]e return to history... It's time to get back to reading with first-century eyes and twenty-first century questions" (20-21).

Herein Wright reveals that he is still modernist, all too modernist. As a Christian reader, this approach does not, in my opinion, get him where he thinks it gets him. Nevertheless, it does, as he says, get him more toward the historical meaning of the text than Piper's method does.

Romans 9

Now for the missed Romans class on Tuesday. I can't possibly go through the whole text of Romans 9-11, so what follows are some thoughts on verses of particular interest (at least to me :-). Below give 1) at least a 100 word comment reaction to some of the specifics of my post and 2) at least 2 responses to the comments below. Let's set Tuesday midnight as the deadline.

This is part 1 of three.
_______
9:2 ... it is a great grief for me and a constant sorrow in my heart [for my Jewish kinsmen who have not believed]...
Romans 9-11 are not an afterthought or a later insertion into the text of Romans (an interpolation). The issue that has been driving Paul's argument is the question of how the Gentiles can be included, accepted by God, without having to enter into God's covenant with Israel?

Or perhaps to put it the other way around, how can Paul take seriously God's relationship with Israel in the Scriptures (remembering there was only the OT as the Scriptures at this time) if, as Paul claims,

1) the Law does not in any way make the Jews right with God and
2) the Jews are justified the same way as the Gentiles, apart from Law?

It seems to throw out the window all the Scriptures and depict God as "divorcing" the wife of His youth for a younger Gentile.

There is also the further question--how can Jesus be the Messiah when the majority of Jews have not believed in him? Since the audience consists of believers, this question seems less at issue, although we can see it poking its way through the text.

So Romans 9-11 addresses God's election of and covenant with ethnic Israel. Someone might see Paul as saying that God has suddenly changed His mind and plans with regard to Israel and the OT Scriptures. What's up with that, Paul?

9:5 ... belonging to whom are the fathers and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, the one who is over all, God, blessed forever, Amen.
This is a highly debated verse. The question is whether it should read:

1. "Christ, ... who is God over all, blessed forever," or
2. "... flesh. The One who is over all, God, be blessed forever."

I personally wonder if Paul intended some ambiguity here, some blurring of Christ into God the Father in the train of thought. In general, however, Paul maintains a fairly sharp distinction between God in reference to God the Father and Christ as Lord. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the word "God" only refers to God the Father.

And it would be unlike Paul to speak of Christ as over all things. Romans 11:36 for example only speaks of God (the Father) when it says that "from Him and through Him and for Him are all things. To Him be the glory, forever. Amen." Similarly, after all things are subjected to Christ in the future, then Christ will turn the kingdom over to God (Paul never seems to need to say, "the Father," God always or virtually always refers only to God the Father). He will do this "so that God might be all things in all things" (1 Cor. 15:28). The subjection of all things in the creation to Christ is always ultimately, "to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:11).

So while I would not be surprised if Paul means to blur the two together, I don't think there would be any question in his or the Romans' minds that 9:5 ends up being about God the Father and that therefore, while it perhaps does not capture the entire meaning of the verse, the best translation remains, "... belonging to whom are the fathers and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh. The One who is over all things, God, be blessed forever."

This verse is, however, one of those where an original meaning reading and a theological reading perhaps can legitimately go their separate ways. The Christian reader is allowed, along with most Christians throughout Christian history, to see in this verse a full affirmation of Christ's divinity, even though it is not exactly what Paul himself was thinking.

9:6 And it is not that the word of God has failed, for not all those from Israel are Israel.
A number of interpreters in the Calvinist tradition (Moo might be Lutheran, anyone know?) see Romans 9-11 as primarily being about "the justification of God" (e.g., John Piper, Tom Schreiner). Certainly that subject is in play. But I think the underlying issue is Paul's Gentile oriented gospel. If the question in Romans 9 has to do with whether God is to be blamed, this issue has arisen because of Paul's claim that the Gentiles are in by faith, at the same time that the bulk of the Jews are out.

The Moo/Piper/Schreiner approach thus still reads Romans 9-11 too much like a systematic theology rather than a defense of Paul's understanding of the gospel.

Moo suggests that the true Israel here refers to those ethnic Jews who have believed on Christ. I think he's probably right, with the understanding that believing Gentiles are grafted into that Israel as well. Ethnic Israel thus remains the center point, rather than some completely redefined Israel.

9:19-20 Therefore, you will say to me, "Why will He still find fault?" For who has resisted His will? O mortal, who are you yourself indeed, who are bringing God into judgment? The clay will not say to the potter, will it, "Why have you made me thus?"
This is a classic predestination text, but of course Paul isn't really talking about individuals, although there may very well be implications for individuals. Paul is discussing God's inclusion of the Gentiles and His apparent hardening of most ethnic Jews. Paul's answer to the person who finds this situation problematic is, "Shut up. God can do whatever He wants because He's God." That the Jew-Gentile issue is the real topic appears explicitly in 9:24 and following.

We should remember, however, that the same Jews whom God has currently hardened can still be saved in 11:11. Indeed, Paul indicates that all Israel, including those currently hardened, will be saved around the time of Christ's arrival, the parousia (11:26).

More to come...

Friday Post #2: Garlington's Review of Piper

I'm sorry, but you're likely to get three posts today (in other words, I'm going Jim West on you today :-).

... but I wanted to point out Don Garlington's review of John Piper's The Future of Justification that came out today in the Review of Biblical Literature. Some of you will know that I extensively reviewed this book in the Fall as well. The entire review is now archived at my kenschenck.com site.

Don (a fellow Dunnite) agrees with Piper on a few things, disagrees with him on others. To me his most memorable critiques have to do with Piper's fearmongering over how dangerous Wright's thinking is and his rejection of trying to read Paul's writings in context in deference to reading Paul the way Augustine and Calvin do. In a memorable line, Don writes, "Once a Copernican revolution has occurred, it will not do to retreat into a pre-Copernican universe."

Arminians Beware

Piper has since clarified that he would not apply this comment to Arminian institutions (I misworded this statement when I first posted the comments--I doubt very seriously that Piper would consider Wesleyan or Arminian thought to be truly evangelical):

"how should we regard these errors [Wesleyanism and Arminianism] in relationship to the teaching office of the church and other institutions?..."

"Here’s my rule of thumb: the more responsible a person is to shape the thoughts of others about God, the less Arminianism should be tolerated. Therefore church members should not be excommunicated for this view but elders and pastors and seminary and college teachers should be expected to hold the more fully biblical view of grace."

Ha! He made this comment at Resurgence 2008, which is an arm of Mars Hill Church in Seattle where Mark Driscoll is the pastor (not to be confused with the Mars Hill where Rob Bell is). In other words, this group has nothing to do with my own circles. Resurgence is a group that aims to resource multiple generations. It is emerging rather than emergent, a new distinction that has emerged (Ha!) so that people can distinguish between the orthodox (e.g., Mark Driscoll) and the unorthodox (e.g., Doug Pagitt).

Wesleyans have nothing to fear from the emerging--an "emerging" Wesleyan on this definition is a "missional" Wesleyan who is simply one focused on the Christian mission in all its dimensions. I could mention several individuals who I fully believe will be future leaders and general superintendents of TWC who would fall into this category.

By one person's reckoning, Brian McLaren stands right on the cusp of the distinction between emerging and emergent. Frankly, if you are solid in your theology, then we don't need to fear engaging these people's ideas. You can learn something from everyone if you know where you stand, everyone from the most fundamentalist to the most liberal.

In any case, Wesleyans should be very cautious of using any of Resurgence's materials, as they should in general of material from John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Gary Shavey, etc... I believe Driscoll is a good man from whom we can no doubt learn much, but his theology is not our theology.

Review 13: Conclusion to Piper's Future of Justification

Today we reach the conclusion of John Piper's response to Tom Wright: The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright. As I said in the last post, however, there are six appendices to knock out before Christmas. In these Piper presents what might have been another book entirely, but obviously in condensed form.

By the way, Scot McKnight had a link on his website today with a wonderful interview with Tom Wright. If you want to know his thinking, just read through this very, very good synopsis:
http://trevinwax.com/2007/11/19/trevin-wax-interview-with-nt-wright-full-transcript/
His thought should seem very familiar to you if you read through it!

Conclusion: Is the Reformation Over?
Wright turns out to be pessimistic of any raproachment between Protestantism and Catholicism on several issues. But on the issue of justification, he believes both sides have misconceived the nature of justification. Since justification is not about how a person becomes a Christian but is the declaration that one is a Christian. So for Wright, the case is closed. If both Catholic and Protestant have been declared a part of the people of God, then they are both justified.

Piper then points out some Catholic statements on justification with which he cannot agree. Of course he does not agree with Wright's definition of justification either, so the debate is still on for him. The Catholic Church believes, "Justification is conferred in Baptism ... It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy" (Piper, 182).

Piper of course objects to the idea that we become inwardly just as a part of what we call justification. Rather justification involves the imputation of Christ's justness. I should add that Piper has made it clear that we do become more just by the power of the Spirit, but it is important for him not to include this at all under the heading of justification (no doubt he would place it under the heading of sanctification).

As I process this debate, I would say that

1) justification is usually located biblically around the time of baptism. But of course the explicitly narrated baptisms of the NT are adult baptisms (it is possible there are implicit baptisms of children in Acts). Roman Catholics believe in baptismal regeneration and practice infant baptism. I dissociate baptism from justification.

2) I do believe that the Spirit will make us inwardly just in association with our justification. I would not call this justification. So in that sense I do think the Catholic statement says something different than Paul does.

But in reality there is a good deal of commonality between what the Roman Catholic Church believes on justification and what Protestants believe. This commonality is captured well in The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church. In it the catholics affirm their belief in justification by faith and through grace.

I have said it before and now say it again. The fact that the NT books consistently teach that a person can be in the people of God and yet be rejected at the judgment undermines the entire Calvinist system. Rather, the NT consistently urges its audiences to "make your calling and election sure" (2 Pet. 1:10), a non-sensical command in Piper's theology.

So Piper is welcome to invoke Luther's "Here I Stand." But he is standing in the wrong place on some of these issues.

As a final footnote, I do think it is time for many Protestants to get over this "catholics aren't Christians" thing. A Christian, in the people of God sense, is someone who has been reconciled to God through Christ, a reconciliation made possible through God's love manifested on the cross and His power manifested in the resurrection. When God quickens our hearts to Him, this gracious reconciliation results from our faith in what He has done in Christ. Most of us believe that God's love includes within His embrace all those whose hearts He has not yet quickened (e.g., children).

John Wesley set a model attitude for us toward other Christians: "If your heart is as my heart, then give me your hand." I am surprised that some in my own Wesleyan circles would turn God's priorities upside down as if it were more important to God for our heads to be right than our hearts. If this were true then God would lead all believers eventually to believe the same things. They do not, even though we will find holy elders in almost every church whose hearts are full of "perfect" love yet whose theology is not the same.

And so it is an affrontery to the nature of God for us to disdain others with the heart of Christ. We can disagree with their thoughts, we can fight their thoughts vigorously--as I do. But I must love John Piper and I must love Tom Wright, for in the way that counts, their hearts are as my heart.

Are there Roman Catholics who have trusted in what God's love for us did in the death and resurrection of Christ? Even to ask such a question is ludicrous. Let us dismiss such ridiculous talk from our lips! If the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control, then these are the tell-tale signs of a Christian. Note that these are all attitudes of the heart, not the head. Anyone who suggests Christianity is primarily a matter of our heads has not listened to much of the NT and has twisted what little they have. Yes, faith in Christ is essential--if it is true faith, these are the signs.

It is thus those who use the name of Christ who hate, are disgruntled, unsettled, impatient, hateful, harmful, inconstant, rough, and licenscious whose Christianity is in question. Obviously ideas are important to me or I would not write a series like this one--so don't twist what we're saying into some relativistic or pluralistic puddle. There are right answers to our questions and they are important.

They are just not the most important thing.

So a Wheaton might have to kick out a professor if they convert to Catholicism. But when the subject does not involve teaching doctrine, I hope none of our Wesleyan colleges would reject a candidate who had true faith in Christ, was truly orthodox in belief, truly respected our Wesleyan-Arminian theology, was the best candidate for the job, and happened to be Catholic. I can't think of a legitimate basis to reject such a candidate. To do otherwise is for us to exalt our values over Christ's values and to reject the Spirit of Christ.

Friday Review: Chapter 11 of Piper's Future of Justification 13

And so we reach the final chapter of the main part of John Piper's book, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright. Don't get your hopes up too much--there's still a conclusion and 6 appendices to go :-)

Chapter 11 is titled, "That in Him We Might Become the Righteousness of God." In other words, Piper is going to address Tom Wright's interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:21 in this chapter:

1. 2 Corinthians 5:21
"The one who had not known sin, [God] made [to become] sin for us, so that we ourselves might become the righteousness of God in him."

This verse is potentially a great test case in the pre-understanding that we all bring to texts. My reaction to Wright's interpretation was pretty much the same as Piper's when I first came across it. Isn't the meaning of this verse obvious?

Christ goes from righteous to sinful (putatively).
We go from sinful to righteous (putatively).

Morna Hooker wrote a famous article in New Testament Studies called "Interchange in Christ" on this verse.

But Wright argues the following in What Saint Paul Really Said. The phrase "the righteousness of God" is a phrase with a history. Any Jew that heard it would immediately have thought of God's faithfulness to His covenant with Israel. Accordingly, Wright understands the verse to say this:

Christ atones for our sin as a sin offering...
which demonstrates God's righteousness, His faithfulness to redeem Israel...
where Christ is understood to be the embodiment of Israel...
and believers are all in Christ.

Now I would agree that "covenant faithfulness" probably is not the most apt description of the righteousness of God here (as I mentioned in an earlier post). I noted that in Paul: A Fresh Perspective Wright uses the phrase "covenant justice," which is no doubt ambiguous but better in some respects.

But I eventually came around to agree largely with Wright, minus his more idiosyncratic points. I take the train of thought to be:

Christ atones for our sin as a sin offering...
which demonstrates God's righteousness,
which is not only his justice but also His propensity to redeem and save not only Israel but all humanity.

I agree with two out of Wright's three arguments for this interpretation of the phrase "the righteousness of God" here (set out by Piper on p. 175):

a. Wright holds that the phrase "the righteousness of God" is a technical term meaning "covenant faithfulness."

I agree with this statement with the tweak I mention above. I already have presented the argument that this phrase had a known definition in Paul's day in my review of chapter 3.

I might say that I am open to the possibility that Paul intended some sort of a double entendre here and in Romans. Since I think there was a default dictionary entry for this phrase in Paul's dictionary, I come out with Wright as far as the primary meaning of the phrase.

But it is certainly conceivable, given that human righteousness is also a major feature of Paul's argument, that Paul meant the reader to see a double entendre somewhat along traditional lines.

By the way, one critique of Piper's position--that this verse is about the imputation of Christ's righteousness, a balanced exchange--is that the verse does not speak of the righteousness of Christ. It does not say, God made Christ who had not sinned to be sinful so that we might take on the righteousness of Christ. Rather, God offers Christ as a sin offering (cf. Rom. 3:25) so that we might become God's righteousness. You see how Piper has not seen the correlation correctly.

Piper rightly questions the role of the phrase "in him" then--"so that we might become the righteousness of God in him." May I not chastise Piper too much for his read of this verse for it is compact, poetic, and very ambiguous from where we sit today. I believe, however, that if we will look at this clause grammatically, we will see what Paul is saying:

The heart of the clause, subject and verb is "we might become."

"The righteousness of God" is a predicate nominative with a modifying word.

Now, "in him" is a prepositional phrase that is functioning adverbially, that is, it tells us something about the verb "might become." It does not modify "righteousness"--we do not become the righteousness in him. Rather in him we become the righteousness of God.

In other words, Paul is telling us where we come to demonstrate the righteousness of God, namely, when we are "in Christ."

After I have said that about 2 Corinthians 5:21, there are other verses that do seem to imply that it is the fact that I am "in Christ" that I can be justified. It is not a "real transference of righteousness" in the manner of Piper's understanding of imputation, but it is a putative reckoning of me as righteous in Christ.

Let me hold off on such verses for a few moments.

b. A second argument Wright offers for his understanding of 2 Corinthians 5:21 is that this understanding fits the train of thought in 2 Corinthians 5.

This fact pushed me over to Wright's side. If we think back to Romans 1:16-17 where Paul uses the phrase righteousness of God, there Paul says that "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God leading to salvation for everyone who has faith... For in it the righteousness of God is revealed..."

In other words, the aspect of God's righteousness that Paul highlights the most in Romans is His propensity to save not only His people but in fact all humanity. Now, what is 2 Corinthians 5 about:

"That God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting [humanity's] transgressions to them and having placed the message of reconciliation among us" (2 Cor. 5:19).

Then I came to agree with Wright. This passage really is about God's righteousness as it is properly understood against the backdrop of Isaiah and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

c. Wright's third point is that if 5:21 is about humans becoming righteous, then the idea just pops up out of nowhere. Here I think Piper is right to suggest that the idea is not foreign to the train of thought (e.g., 5:15). In fact, I have already mentioned that I am open to overtones of these ideas latent in the verse, even if it is not the primary sense.

2. Romans 5:18-19 and Galatians 2:20
I mentioned above that there are other verses that do indicate that we are considered righteous because we are "in Christ" and in his "faithfulness" in particular. This is slightly different than Piper's argument, for a real and absolute transfer of Christ's righteousness is essential to his system.

But he does correctly produce Scriptures that support the idea that we are incorporated into Christ's faithfulness and obedience.

He mentions Romans 5:18-19, for example:

Therefore then, as through the one transgression all came under condemnation, so also through the one righteous act all come to justification and life. For just as through the disobedience of one person many were designated sinners, so also through the obedience of one [person] many will be designated righteous.

To open up another can of worms, 5:19 here is so similar to Richard Hays understanding of Romans 3:22 that it was a major factor in my finally accepting his understanding of "the faith of Christ" in that verse:

"even God's righteousness [demonstrated] through the faithfulness of Jesus Messiah toward all who have faith."

Notice the parallel:

5:19--Jesus' obedience leads to many being pronounced righteous.
3:22--Jesus' faithfulness leads to believers being justified (=pronounced righteous).

A better verse, and of course one Piper would not agree supports his own general trajectory for obvious reasons, is Galatians 2:20 in Haysian translation:

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. And what I now live in flesh, I live in the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me."

3. Philippians 3:9
I will close this review with a brief consideration of Philippians 3:9. This verse is somewhat ambiguous on its own:

"...so that I might gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness based on the law but [a righteousness] through the faith of Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith."

Let me give it my interpretive understanding:

...not having my own righteousness based on keeping the Jewish law but a righteousness that has come through the faithfulness of Christ, a righteousness God has declared based on my faith.

As I interpret it--and I recognize that it is ambiguous and that Paul might simply be saying the same thing twice--there is first a reference to Christ's faith and then one to Paul's:

my righteousness through faith of Christ
my righteousness from God through my faith

Yes indeed, this righteousness I have is really Christ's righteousness, a righteousness that is reckoned to me because I am in Christ.

4. Conclusion
While I disagree with Piper on many of his specific interpretations here, I'm not sure I am that far from him on the question of Christ's righteousness counting as my own. I think the main difference is that he is very concerned to see this as a real and total transfer.

I'm not 100% sure I even know what a real transfer means. What I think it means for Piper is that God must have absolute, mathematical justice and cannot accept us without total mathematical righteousness. So Christ must take every drop of punishment we should have and we must have every drop of his perfect righteousness.

This is where the difference is. Piper is driven by theological concerns of which Paul knows nothing.