Dr. Sinclair Ferguson: NPP at Bethel PCA

http://www.monergism.com/updates/on_the_new_perspective_mp3.php

On the New Perspective (MP3)

Sinclair Ferguson, this important lecture which critiques NPP was given at Bethel Church PCA in Dallas, TX. - HT: Nicholas T. Batzig

N.T. Wright Watch: Why Wright is Wrong: Refuting the “New Perspective on Paul” Movement

Rev. Paul McCain, LCMS Churchman, writes re: N.T. Wright and Justification. It is entitled, "Why Wright is Wrong: Refuting the `New Perspective on Paul' Movement."  For professional and lay bloggers who are Catholic Confesssionalists of the Reformation, we recommend following Pastor McCain. While Paul has frequent difficulty in restraining himself from bashing and belittling Calvinists (some deserve it), his blog nevertheless, most often over not, is worth following. On Lutheran matters, Paul is worth following. Such is that which follows.

http://cyberbrethren.com/2009/09/04/why-wright-is-wrong-refuting-the-new-perpectives-on-paul-movement/

Since 1963, when Krister Stendahl wrote a paper titled ‘The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West’ in The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Jul., 1963), pp. 199-215; republished in Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, (Augsburg Fortress Publishers) 1976. the view has been put forth that basically the Reformation got the doctrine of justification wrong. These views explain how it is that so-called Lutherans embraced the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, which was a wholescale betrayal of the Reformation. Since Stendahl, have been various protestant theologians who have come along challenging the Reformation doctrine of justification, or, to be more precise, the Reformation rediscovery of the Gospel itself: that we are saved by grace alone, by faith alone, apart from any works, entirely on account of Christ alone. James Dunn has more formalized advanced this movement, labelling it “The New Perspective on Paul” in 1982.


Most recently, it has been N.T. Wright who has popularized the “new perspective” through a series of books and articles. Sadly, even some Lutherans, who should know better, have been sucked into these erroneous views and claims about “chief article” of the Christian faith, as our Lutheran Confessions refer to it: justification. One of the fundamental premises of Wright’s positions [and there are a good many nuances, to be sure] is that whereas the “old perspective” [read: the view of the historic Lutheran Church!] is that when Paul refers to trying to save ourselves by our “works” he is referring to works we do in order to merit God’s favor. The “new perspective” asserts that in fact when Paul talks about works he is referring rather to those who wanted to try to be following rituals associated with the Torah and Judaism, or even ancient Greek religious customs.

Let’s be clear on where Wright is wrong. He has made many important and helpful contributions in support of the historical reliability and accuracy of the New Testament, has been a champion defending the resurrection of Christ, and has been outspoken in support of the Biblical view of homosexality, all for which we must be thankful, but on the doctrine of justification, Wright is simply wrong.

The “new perspective” movement effectively turns the Biblical doctrine of justification on its ear, and contradicts the beating heart both of the Sacred Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions, by a redefinition of key terms like “works” and “faith” and it simply opens the door widely to a reintroduction of the errors of Romanism. Lutheran professors today who are dabbling with these views are doing themselves and their students a tremendous disservice, to say the very least, if they are advancing these views as helpful. These views need to be engaged and refuted, not embraced and welcomed.

Recently, on the campus of Southern Baptist Seminary there was a panel discussion which I found to be quite information and helpful, offering reactions to, and refutations of, N.T. Wright’s perspectives on Paul. Here is the presentation

Reasonable Christian: Gordon Fee Endorses N. T. Wright

Reasonable Christian: Gordon Fee Endorses N. T. Wright

Not All Evangelicals and Catholics Together

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/november/10.19.html

Not All Evangelicals and Catholics Together
Protestant debate on justification is reigniting questions about Rome.
Collin Hansen posted 10/29/2009 08:41AM

An InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter can look very different in the fall than it did the previous spring. But the chapter at George Washington University (GWU) in the nation's capital is dealing with change of a more uncomfortable kind than absent graduates and incoming freshmen.

Shortly before students left for summer vacation, the D.C. chapter split when all ten student leaders resigned to form a new campus ministry called University Christian Fellowship. More than half of the chapter's roughly 100 students joined them. At issue was student leaders' worry that the national ministry confuses the gospel by cooperating with Roman Catholics, and has a mission statement that Catholics could sign without violating church teaching on the doctrine of justification—how sinners are declared righteous before God.

Over the past decade, justification has become one of the most hotly debated doctrines at conservative Protestant theology conferences and in the catalogs of highbrow Christian publishers. But it has almost entirely stayed in the academy and a handful of churches and denominations. The GWU clash suggests the debate may divide parachurch ministries and reshape evangelicals' relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.Jolt of Intensity

The long debate over how Protestants should view the Roman Catholic Church has received several jolts of intensity in the past 15 years. The group Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) touted a 1994 statement, "The Gift of Salvation," in which several prominent Roman Catholics affirmed "justification by faith alone." The unofficial statement predated an official agreement between the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999, called "The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification." The church allowed that anathemas the Council of Trent delivered in the mid-1500s do not apply to Protestants who agree with the joint declaration.

But Protestants' internal disagreement over justification has complicated matters. A Presbyterian Church in America committee reported in 2007 that reformulations of justification (especially two views known as the Federal Vision and the New Perspective on Paul) fall outside the bounds of historic Presbyterian confessions.
The committee's study of the New Perspective focused largely on N.T. Wright, the Anglican bishop of Durham and a prolific biblical scholar. This year Wright published Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision. The book counters his critics, especially John Piper, who published The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright in 2007. (See "The Justification Debate: A Primer," CT, June 2009.)

Another bombshell hit in May 2007, when Francis Beckwith, then president of the Evangelical Theological Society, reverted to Catholicism. The Baylor University philosopher has since published an account of his journey, titled Return to Rome.

"I have no doubt that the New Perspective and Federal Vision have had an effect on the Protestant-Catholic debate," Beckwith told Christianity Today. "I have met several former evangelical Protestants who have told me that Wright's work in particular helped them to better appreciate the Catholic view of grace."

Taylor Marshall went even further. Now a Ph.D. philosophy student at the University of Dallas, he started reading Wright while attending Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He said Wright's work shifted his assumptions so he could understand the Council of Trent's position. Marshall does not believe Wright holds to the full Catholic view. But he said Wright's critique led him to conclude that the Reformers departed from Scripture by teaching "forensic justification through the imputed alien righteousness of Christ."

Marshall briefly served as an Anglican priest before converting to Catholicism in 2006 and becoming assistant director of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C. Marshall said he speaks with new Catholic converts every month, about half of whom have been "deeply influenced" by Wright.


"If you buy into Wright's approach to covenantal theology, then you've already taken three steps toward the Catholic Church. Keep following the trail and you'll be Catholic," said Marshall, who blogs at PaulIsCatholic.com. "Salvation is sacramental, transformational, communal, and eschatological. Sound good? You've just assented to the Catholic Council of Trent."

Wright himself finds strange the notion that he's leading people to Rome. "I am sorry to think that there are people out there whose Protestantism has been so barren that they never found out about sacraments, transformation, community, or eschatology. Clearly this person needed a change. But to jump to Rome for that reason is very odd," he said. The best Reformed, charismatic, Anglican, and even some emerging churches have these emphases, he said.

Wright, the Anglican observer at the Vatican's Synod of Bishops last October, said he was struck by the bishops' emphasis that every Catholic read the Bible in his or her own language. "Let's engage cheerfully in as much discussion with our Roman friends as we can," Wright said. "They are among my best ecumenical conversation partners, and some of them are among my dear friends. But let's not imagine that a renewed biblical theology will mean we find ourselves saying, 'you guys were right after all,' just at the point where, not explicitly but actually, they are saying that to us."

Chris Castaldo studied under Wright for a semester at Harvard Divinity School. He identifies several reasons why Wright's Pauline theology might lead Protestants to consider the merits of Catholic teaching. Like Catholics, Wright emphasizes the positive contribution of "works" in salvation, worships in a liturgical church, and places the church's call to social justice in the foreground. But Castaldo, author of Holy Ground: Walking with Jesus as a Former Catholic, also sees a growing movement of Catholics more willing to confront Protestant belief as the reason for so many conversions—and for renewed Protestant-Catholic tensions.

"In keeping with the spirit of Vatican II, the 'new evangelization' of Pope John Paul II sought to deepen personal faith and stimulate innovative forms of outreach," Castaldo said. "Not unlike renewal movements surrounding the Council of Trent, an element of this recent Catholic fervor has morphed into strident opposition [to] Protestantism. Listen to the Catholic apologists on Relevant Radio or ewtn. Faced with millions who have left Rome for evangelical Protestant pastures, it's not too surprising that Catholic polemics would take such a turn."Long History, Little Agreement

Beeson Divinity School founding dean Timothy George signed the 1994 ECT statement, which he said was a "circumscribed step forward" in Protestant-Catholic dialogue. Among ECT participants, George said, there is strong agreement with the Augustinian emphasis on the gratuity of grace, that we do not earn salvation by good works or merits. He acknowledges Protestants' and Catholics' lingering disagreement over how justification relates to sanctification and Luther's famous phrase simul iustus et peccator ("at the same time righteous and a sinner"). But he does not see justification as the focal point of Protestant-Catholic
disagreement.

"The gaping divide between evangelicals and Catholics is ecclesiology and authority, not justification and salvation, as important as that debate remains," George said. "There is enough commonality that evangelicals and Catholics with a living faith can recognize one another as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ with a common Lord and common grace that brought them together. The hard issues are questions related to the church, such as the Petrine office [the papacy] and the Eucharist. Those discussions will occupy us for the next 100 years."

They have already occupied us for several hundred years. During the English Reformation, the Puritans were united in their disagreement with Roman Catholic teaching. Yet some viewed Rome as a true church in error, while others treated it as a false church. John Owen took fellow Puritan leader Richard Baxter to task over a view of justification that resembles Wright's. During the 1800s, American Presbyterians disagreed over whether to recognize Roman Catholic baptisms as valid. More recently, conflict over ECT has strained some long-term friendships between prominent theologians with opposing views on how to regard Catholics.

And even ECT is changing. Its October statement on Mary was the first to include, after an initial statement on areas of agreement, sections where each side attempted to correct the other's views.

Basis of Doctrine

Until recent years, debates over justification were handled mainly by theologians and select pastors. But the release of Wright's and Piper's books have led more church leaders to choose sides and act on their convictions. Several of the GWU students who left InterVarsity are members of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, whose associate pastor, Michael Lawrence, formerly served on InterVarsity staff. "Whether or not you agree with the students, they are not impulsive firebrands," Lawrence said.

Concern among GWU student leaders began when they noticed promotional material on InterVarsity's website and during the organization's Urbana conference that conveyed a willingness to cooperate with Catholics. Then, during a spring mission trip, InterVarsity staff took students to a Mass. Finally, local staff pushed back when the student-led executive team unanimously declined to select a student for a leadership position because she was a Catholic.

The GWU executive team then examined the InterVarsity Doctrinal Basis, adopted in 2000, and concluded that Catholics could sign the InterVarsity statement because it does not specify that grace comes through "faith alone" in Jesus Christ.

"We believe that the Roman Catholic Church does not agree with the gospel that we emphasize, meaning that it would not be good to hold up someone as a leader who has associated with them," said Tristan Stiles, a 2009 GWU graduate and former member of the executive team.

InterVarsity president Alec Hill responded in a letter, telling the students, "I can unequivocally assure you that InterVarsity holds to the position of justification by faith alone." Hill observed that InterVarsity is corporately federated under the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), whose statement of faith lists "the justification of the sinner by the grace of God through faith alone" as a central Christian truth. All InterVarsity staff must reaffirm their commitment to the Doctrinal Basis and the IFES statement each year.

Hill also allowed that the GWU executive team could require leaders to affirm "justification by faith alone" in the student application process (editor's note: Efforts to contact InterVarsity staff at GWU were unsuccessful.).

InterVarsity's Bear Trap Statement, adopted in 1960 at the national staff conference, specified that sinners are justified "by the Lord Jesus Christ through faith alone." By contrast, the Doctrinal Basis of 2000 said that InterVarsity believes in "justification by God's grace to all who repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation."

The word alone's shift in placement is significant, said Doug Sweeney, professor of history of Christian thought at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

"Tridentine Roman Catholics could not sign the Bear Trap Statement, for justification by faith alone was anathematized at the Council of Trent," said Sweeney. "Such Roman Catholics could sign the 2000 statement, however, for Catholics have always taught that salvation is found in Christ alone. Further, the 2000 statement allows for a Tridentine commitment to the necessity of faith being formed or perfected by love before one is finally justified. This is the doctrine that the 16th-century Reformers opposed most strenuously."

Hill said some critics are thinking "with their church history primer rather than their biblical text."

"What evangelical Protestant could possibly object to that language [in the 2000 doctrinal basis]?" he said. "It is biblically centered. It is biblically correct. Faith is in Christ Jesus alone …. This was run by many Reformed theologians inside and outside the fellowship when it was adopted. No one objected. As a matter of fact, they felt it strengthened the prior statement by specifically stating in whom we put our faith. To suggest that Inter-Varsity has somehow watered down its statement of justification by faith is erroneous, to be honest."

So far, the GWU debate shows no sign of spreading to other InterVarsity chapters. But given the importance of justification to Protestants' understanding of the gospel, said Lawrence, more ministries can expect more conflict over it.

"This debate has a long pedigree," he said. "Again and again, it has caused division among Protestants."
Collin Hansen is a CT editor at large.

Summary of Dr. Horton on Bishop N.T. Wright's Views of Justification by Faith Alone

http://euangelizomai.blogspot.com/2009/10/michael-horton-reviews-nt-wright-on.html
Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Michael Horton Reviews N.T. Wright on "Justification"

Thanks to Trevin Wax, here is a list of Michael Horton's series of reviews on N.T. Wright's book on Justification.

Introduction
Justification and God’s single plan: The Covenant and History
Justification and God’s people
Justification and God’s Righteousness: Imputation and Future Hope
Justification and God’s Righteousness: Covenant and Eschatology
Justification, Faith, and Faithfulness: The Works of the Law
Justification and the Testimony of Paul
Justification and Romans
“Works of the Law” – Soteriology and Ecclesiology
Conclusion

Horton makes some good points here, several criticisms I would qualify or contest, but an even handed review overall. Horton and I will be engaging each other in a forthcoming IVP volume on four views of justification in the future where I'm down to advocate something called the "progressive reformed view" (sadly the word "progressive" carries all sorts of freighted connotations that I'll have to carefully qualify).

Dikaiosunh Theo and N.T. Wright by Dr. Daniel Wallace

An article on the Wrighteousness of N.T. Wright (Durham). This is by Dr. Daniel B. Wallace, Dallas Seminary, New Testament. His PhD is from Britain, but forgot where. His writings have been scholarly and balanced from our previous readings, here and there. We appreciate his work with the Greek text. As to Wright, another case of monarchial episcopacy gone to his head.

http://bible.org/article/δικαιοσύνη-θεοῦ-and-n-t-wright
Δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ and N. T. Wright
By: Daniel B. Wallace

October 2009

Introduction

N. T. Wright, Bishop of Durham, has become in the last several years a household name among evangelicals. In some respects, he is emerging as the 21st century equivalent to Rudolf Bultmann. Both scholars are known for their synthesis of the NT message. They have written multiple volumes dealing especially with global treatments on the theology of the NT. They both have also written commentaries on various NT books, but this is not their primary contribution. In short, both Bultmann and Wright are biblical theologians. One basic difference is that whereas Bultmann was a theological liberal, Wright is an evangelical (or conservative or at least significantly farther to the right than Bultmann). Wright’s respect for the text is vastly higher than Bultmann’s was. And this means that his view of the historicity of the biblical record is significantly higher than Bultmann’s was as well.

In 1997, Wright’s What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity?1 appeared. This book principally addressed the old canard that Paul was the real originator of the Christianity that we know and that Jesus had an entirely different vision that got swallowed up by the apostle to the Gentiles. But in that book Wright also planted the seeds of his overarching view of Paul on justification. He continued to write on this topic, prompting pastor-scholar John Piper to pen a response, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007).

Piper took issue quite a bit with how Wright had defined justification, critiquing him from the vantage point of a close reading of the text. Some say it was too close though, not allowing for the overarching themes and especially Jewish background to be read in certain contexts. Wright was not long silent, penning especially a volume that came out last May: Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision, appearing both in a paperback version (London: SPCK, 2009) and a hardback version (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2009). Unfortunately, the two versions do not differ simply in the covers, but also in their entire formatting. Page numbers in one do not correspond to page numbers in the other. Caveat lector: I will be quoting from the paperback (British) version which is more compact, though the corresponding American hardback pages will be put in parentheses.2

δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in Romans

I was interested in seeing what Wright had to say about the programmatic expression, δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ, as used in Romans. It occurs at key junctures in the book: 1:17; 3:5; 3:21, 22; and 10:3. In addition, we see ‘his righteousness’ (δικαιοσύνη αὐτοῦ) referring to God’s righteousness in 3:25 and 26. Since Wright is a leading advocate of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP), his treatment on δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in a book entitled Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision would seem a likely place to read a sustained and focused argument regarding this particular expression from the New Perspective angle. Apparently, Wright also views the phrase as bearing great importance. And he sees it as having one meaning throughout Romans:

But—still remembering Piper’s own statement about how Paul’s terms must ultimately be understood with reference to the actual contexts in which he uses them—the best argument for taking dikaiosyneœ theou in 1.17, 3.21 and 10.3 as ‘God’s faithfulness to the covenant with Abraham, to the single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world,’ is the massive sense it makes of passage after passage, the way in which bits of Romans often omitted from discussion, or even explicitly left on one side as being irrelevant to the main drift of the discourse, suddenly come back into focus with a bang.3

What is puzzling in this statement is that only three of the five verses that explicitly refer to ‘the righteousness of God’ are enumerated here, with none of the verses that speak of ‘his righteousness’ (referring to God). This lacuna not only occurs here, but the discussion of Rom 3:5 is virtually non-existent (mentioned explicitly on page 49 [68], with the promise of later discussion which can only barely be true, for he touches on it in part of a sentence implicitly on page 173 [198]). He also explicitly mentions 10:3 only one other time, though he does quote from it in his discussion of Rom 9:30–10:13 (quotation on page 216 [244]). My sense from these lacunae is that Wright’s view is in mortal danger of being hammered with his own words, for these lacunae are “bits of Romans often omitted from discussion…” (155 [179]). Is it because they don’t fit his view very well? We shall see.

The modest objective of this short paper will be an examination of what N. T. Wright has to say about the expression δικαιοσύνη αὐτοῦ in Romans, and examine his views in light of these passages in their contexts.
It would help if we began with the Greek text and English translation (from the NET Bible) of these eight references (two in 10:3) in Romans:

Rom 1:17—δικαιοσύνη γὰρ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ ἀποκαλύπτεται ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν, καθὼς γέγραπται· ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται.

For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, just as it is written, “The righteous by faith will live.”

Rom 3:5—εἰ δὲ ἡ ἀδικία ἡμῶν θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην συνίστησιν, τί ἐροῦμεν; μὴ ἄδικος ὁ θεὸς ὁ ἐπιφέρων τὴν ὀργήν; κατὰ ἄνθρωπον λέγω.

But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is he? (I am speaking in human terms.)

Rom 3:21—Νυνὶ δὲ χωρὶς νόμου δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ πεφανέρωται μαρτυρουμένη ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed

Rom 3:22—δικαιοσύνη δὲ θεοῦ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς πάντας τοὺς πιστεύοντας. οὐ γάρ ἐστιν διαστολή,

namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction.

Rom 3:25—ὃν προέθετο ὁ θεὸς ἱλαστήριον διὰ [τῆς] πίστεως ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι εἰς ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν τῶν προγεγονότων ἁμαρτημάτων

God publicly displayed him at his death as the mercy seat accessible through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because God in his forbearance had passed over the sins previously committed.

Rom 3:26—ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ τοῦ θεοῦ, πρὸς τὴν ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν δίκαιον καὶ δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ.

This was also to demonstrate his righteousness in the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who lives because of Jesus’ faithfulness.

Rom 10:3—ἀγνοοῦντες γὰρ τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην καὶ τὴν ἰδίαν [δικαιοσύνην] ζητοῦντες στῆσαι, τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐχ ὑπετάγησαν.

For ignoring the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking instead to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

We will analyze each of these texts in turn, using the following procedure: (1) Examine what Wright says about the passage, (2) compare his comments to the biblical text and see if they seem to match up, making comments about the translation in the process, and (3) summarize our findings.

Competing Themes for Romans

To wrestle with this crux interpretum expression we need to begin by framing the question. In Wright’s view, each of these texts really refers to God’s faithfulness. Wright sees the overarching idea expressed in them that God is faithful to the Abrahamic covenant in which he has chosen Israel as the vehicle by which human beings can come into right relation with God. He argues in 1:17 that “unless the scholars of any time had lost their moorings completely, …nobody would have supposed that ‘God’s righteousness’ was anything other than his faithfulness to the covenant, to Israel, and beyond that again to the whole creation.”4

We will come back to his treatment of 1:17 shortly, but we need to make an important point about Wright’s rhetoric here. This line is characteristic of what one will see throughout the book: Wright speaks in absolute terms. To say that anyone who doesn’t see things his way has lost his moorings and has, in fact, “allowed the little ship of exegesis to be tossed to and fro with every wind of philosophy…,”5 is akin to saying that if anyone disagrees with Wright that God’s righteousness = God’s faithfulness he couldn’t exegete his way out of a paper bag. This kind of language is both unbecoming of the bishop of Durham and stifles genuine dialogue because it belittles his exegetical opponents. ‘My way or the highway’ may work in monarchical episcopacy, but it has no place in exegetical debate. The worst feature of this important work is Wright’s hubris.6 He takes such an incredibly dogmatic stance on almost every aspect of his understanding of Paul’s view of justification, and condemns his exegetical adversaries with such sweeping statements, that one gets the impression that we are seeing the reincarnation of Athanasius: Wright contra mundum. And all too often, that hubris is converted into rhetoric that has very little substance. Rather than reading a reasoned, sustained argument for a New Perspective view of Paul on justification, I felt as though Wright assumed that the debate was over and that he simply wanted to browbeat people into submission. Strip away the rhetoric and the book would have been half the length. Of course, it wouldn’t have been nearly as entertaining to read, but the argument would have been clearer and, I think, more forceful. But I digress; enough for now on tone.

As I said, Wright’s view of ‘the righteousness of God’ in Romans is that it refers to God’s “faithfulness to the covenant, to Israel, and beyond that again to the whole creation” (154 [178]).

In my view, God’s faithfulness is not the main theme of Romans. I freely admit that it is a very important subtheme of Romans, but I do not believe that it drives Paul’s argument. Rather, I see Romans as fundamentally an argument for the vindication of God’s righteousness in relation to Paul’s gospel. Romans 1.16–17, which concludes the salutation/introduction, best articulates the theme of the whole book: “the righteous revelation of God in the gospel.” To flesh this out a bit more: I believe that Paul is more concerned in this letter to vindicate God’s righteousness than he is to explain the gospel. Since Judaizers had dogged Paul from the beginning and had criticized Paul’s gospel as being weak on sin because Paul would not subject Gentiles to the Law, he needed to justify his gospel; he needed to demonstrate that God had not lowered his righteous requirements for ‘getting in’ one iota with the coming of Christ. Ultimately, Paul needed to demonstrate that God’s holiness was completely intact even though salvation had bypassed the Law.
So, two divergent views on the theme of Romans: God’s faithfulness to his covenant, to Israel, and to the created world vs. a vindication of God’s righteousness as it relates to Paul’s gospel.

Evidence: Jewish in General, Romans in Particular

A couple of preliminary comments are in order here: Although Wright is correct to marshal Jewish evidence for how Paul would have thought about various issues, I would think that he would also want to marshal the specific Jewish evidence of how certain Jews interacted with Paul concerning his gospel. The evidence is seen throughout Paul’s letters and it is basically unambiguous (unless, of course, I’m missing something, which is entirely possible): Judaizers and even hostile Jews opposed Paul because he was making concessions to Gentiles to allow them to ‘get in’ without submitting to the Law (cf. Acts 15:1–5; Phil 3:2–9; Galatians in toto).

Proselytes were welcomed by Jews, but they had to get circumcised before they could be considered a true convert. So when Paul comes along and says that Gentiles do not need to get circumcised, Torah-abiding, Jewish-Christian evangelists could not stand for this. Writing to a new group of believers—a church that he had not established—Paul would have been especially sensitive to the possibility of Judaizing perversions of his gospel, as well as simple misunderstandings of his gospel. Romans provided the right occasion for Paul to lay out clearly what he believed and what he didn’t believe. But his larger purpose was to vindicate God’s righteousness because Paul was always passionate (even before his conversion) about upholding the glory, holiness, and truthfulness of God. It was this passion that brought him to meet the ascended Christ when his intentions were to defend God’s truthfulness and righteousness by throwing Christians into prison.

Second, Wright and many who would disagree with him would both agree that the greatest light shed on the interpretation of Romans is Romans itself. Wright argues this point repeatedly in his Justification. What we construct as the Jewish background for Paul is of secondary importance to the meaning that the text itself can shed. But an excellent exercise for the reader of this essay would be to ask the question at each instance of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ whether Wright’s overarching theme or the one argued for here fits the evidence better.

Paul’s Early Interpreters

One of the discussions that seems to be largely missing from the New Perspective camp is how other first-century writers viewed Paul’s view of salvation. I’m not speaking about the apostolic fathers, but other New Testament authors. We have probably three books that interact with Paul’s view to some degree: James, 1 Peter, and Hebrews. The New Perspective folks put such an emphasis on God’s covenant faithfulness as the essential meaning of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ that they consciously place notions of forgiveness, individual salvation, and final eschatological realities as quite subordinate to this motif. But an examination of Jas 2:14–26, 1 Peter 1:3–9, and Heb 10:1–25 clearly shows an emphasis on ‘salvation’ and ‘forgiveness of sins.’

In Jas 2, the author is most likely reacting to Pauline slogans that made their way into James’s churches devoid of their actual content. But the key point is that James is talking about final salvation and its present evidence among believers. First Peter was written in conscious imitation of Paul’s letters, most likely because Peter used one of Paul’s associates to help pen it. The emphasis on Gentile salvation, forgiveness of sins, and even heaven, are evident in verses 3 through 9 of chapter 1. Hebrews was probably penned by an associate of Paul after Paul had died, and has the earmarks of being a theology of the cross in which obedience to the Law is viewed as belonging to a previous dispensation. (These points will not be elaborated here, but see my introductions on each of these books, posted at bible.org.) In other words, all of these authors put an emphasis on soteriology more than sociology. This is not to say that Wright’s sociological emphasis is wrong, just that it is overdone. If other Jewish Christian authors did not read Paul the way that Wright does, perhaps the claim of the NPP folks that only their view adequately deals with the Jewish background for Paul is, in the least, overstated.

Wright is fond of saying that critics of the New Perspective “have not in fact reckoned with the fully biblical and Jewish context of what they are discussing”7 and that they have “attempted to construct the entire soteriological jigsaw on the basis of a mediaeval view of ‘justice….’”8 Further, he argues:
Part of the problem with the ‘old perspective’ on Paul is that it has followed the long mediaeval tradition (to which it was never more thoroughly indebted than when reacting to some of its particulars) in this respect particularly: it has de-Judaized Paul. It has snatched him out of the context where he lived, where he made sense, out of his God-given theological context, rooted in Israel’s scriptures, according to which God made promises to Israel and never went back on them because they were promises through Israel for the world.9

Wright is surely correct that we absolutely must read Paul in his own Jewish context rather than place him in a later one, such as the medieval world of Europe. But what Wright does not point out is that the medieval world owed much to earlier patristic writers for their understanding of ‘justification.’ It is well documented that the Latin notion of iustitia Dei (‘the righteousness of God’) imported alien concepts to the Hebrew thought-world, especially that of retributive justice or exacting a penalty on wrong-doers. Thus, ‘to do justice’ for a Jew would have the force of ‘to set things right’ in a positive sense, while for a Roman it would often, if not usually, mean ‘to dole out punishment.’ To Luther’s credit, he got beyond this Latinized perversion of the righteousness of God as he examined the Greek text of Romans and as he wrestled with the Hebrew text of the Old Testament.

Remarkably, a popular view of God’s justice found among medieval scholastics was one that was espoused by Ambrosiaster, a late fourth-century Latin father who wrote a commentary on every one of Paul’s letters. Ambrosiaster knew little to no Greek. His view of God’s righteousness was that it meant God’s faithfulness to the Abrahamic covenant, precisely Wright’s view.10 Yet, Ambrosiaster came to this conclusion through Latin, without access to the Greek and Hebrew of the original text. So, if this is part of what Luther was arguing against, and yet is now one of the essentials of the New Perspective, how can Wright make the blanket statement that medieval exegesis de-Judaized Paul—unless he is willing to condemn his own view? Perhaps Luther was on to something that was intrinsic to the text of scripture after all.

With these issues in the background, we proceed to Romans.

Romans 1:17

δικαιοσύνη γὰρ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ ἀποκαλύπτεται ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν, καθὼς γέγραπται· ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται.

For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, just as it is written, “The righteous by faith will live.”

Wright argues that “nobody would ever have supposed that the ‘righteousness’ in question in Romans 1.17 was anything other than God’s own ‘righteousness’…. And unless the scholars of any time had lost their moorings completely, …nobody would have supposed that ‘God’s righteousness’ was anything other than his faithfulness to the covenant, to Israel, and beyond that again to the whole of creation.”11

He defends this with three points: (1) Rom 1:16–17 does not define the gospel; rather, it speaks about the effect of the gospel, viz., “when it is preached, God’s power goes to work and people are saved”;12 (2) those who are saved are believers, both Jews and Greeks; and (3) the use of Hab 2:4 in the rest of Rom 1:17 has to do with divine judgment that is rooted in divine faithfulness.13

Wright says that Rom 1:3–4 gives us a clearer presentation of the gospel for Paul, but many scholars would dispute this by noting that these verses are probably an embedded hymn that Paul had to ‘correct’ theologically. It thus would not be the first place where one would turn to see what Paul means by the gospel.

Further, there is a broad consensus among scholars that Rom 1:16–17 lays out the theme of Romans, a point we will return to in a moment. I am not sure how Wright’s first two points contribute to his view that ‘the righteousness of God’ in Rom 1:17 must mean ‘God’s faithfulness,’ but his third point is clear: If Paul is using Hab 2:4 in light of its OT meaning, then God’s faithfulness is related to his judgment of sin. I agree with Wright that Paul’s use of the OT “has nothing to do with Paul merely running through a mental concordance of biblical passages which linked ‘righteous’ and ‘faith’ and, finding Habakkuk 2.4 along with Genesis 15.6, deciding here and in Galatians to drop them both into his argument.”14

But Wright’s exegesis of Hab 2:4 plays a bit fast and loose with the text. He argues that Habakkuk argues for faith among God’s people, that 2:4 is specifically speaking about God’s faithfulness. But where is faith explicitly mentioned in Habakkuk 2? Faith is of course programmatic for Paul, as even Wright recognizes. But was it part of Habakkuk’s argument? Second, is God’s faithfulness explicitly mentioned in Hab 2:4? The Hebrew text speaks of “his faithfulness,” almost surely referring to the faithfulness of the person to YHWH. (Literally, Hab 2:4b reads, “the righteous person will live because of his faithfulness.” Although this could just possibly refer to God’s faithfulness, we would expect the first person suffix on the noun ‏האמונ (‘faithfulness’)—thus, ‘my faithfulness.’ Instead, the third person suffix is found. Better suited to Wright’s argument is the LXX which says, ‘my faithfulness’ (πίστεώς μου). But this raises a significant issue: Is Paul basing his argument on the Hebrew text of Habakkuk or the Greek? Further, what is Wright basing his argument on?

In the context of Romans, the personal pronoun has dropped out. No longer does the righteous one live by “his faithfulness,” nor “my faithfulness,” but simply by ‘faith.’ One suspects another shift here for Paul: since there is no pronoun, the meaning of πίστις is probably now more related to the exercise of belief than to the character of faithfulness. Later, Paul will use πίστις in the sense of “faithfulness” (3.3, and probably 3.22). But for now, πίστις can hardly mean “faithfulness” in Rom 1.17, even though the underlying Hebrew word never meant faith.15 It is much more related to faith, as this is one of the key themes in Romans and must surely figure in this programmatic verse. Putting all this together, has Paul changed the meaning of Habakkuk? Not necessarily. At minimum, the apostle seems to have captured something in Habakkuk that is often overlooked: faithfulness to YHWH can only come about by faith in YHWH. One is not faithful to his God unless he first believes in him. Although the original context referred to the nation of Israel, and life referred to its continued survival, the application on a personal level is not much of a stretch. Dependence on God, and therefore loyalty to God, is necessary for life, whether it be national and political or individual and soteriological. Further, it is possible to see echoes of Gen 15.6 in Hab 2.4 (both verbally and conceptually),16 and Paul will pick up on the former text later. Thus the notion of πίστις/πιστεύω, and δίκαιος/δικαιοσύνη are linked: faith in God—the kind that leads to faithfulness—is how the righteous man shall live.
The point is that neither Paul nor Habakkuk are here speaking about God’s faithfulness. Habakkuk is speaking about man’s faithfulness and Paul is speaking about man’s faith. If God’s faithfulness is not in view in this verse, how is Paul using it in the context of Romans 1?

It is painfully obvious that the righteousness of God in 1:17 has to be the answer created by the problem of the wrath of God in 1:18. If it is true that Paul in Romans is fundamentally speaking about vindicating the righteousness of God in Paul’s gospel then 1:16–17 is giving us the theme of the letter. But 1:18 begins by laying out the problem. Yet here we see clearly that Paul is not going to be soft on sin, nor on how God deals with it. His wrath is all that humanity deserves. The sociological view of God’s righteousness simply is not a sufficient answer for the problem of our depravity in 1:18–3:20. God’s faithfulness won’t cut it, since we’re dealing with sin and how it separates us from God, not covenant faithfulness and how God relates to his people (at least, that’s not the initial issue). The reason that covenant faithfulness is not in view here is because Paul is not speaking about those who are ‘in’; he is establishing the fact that God is a holy God and that we are alienated from him.

To argue that God’s faithfulness to Christians (?) is in view in Rom 1:17 is to miss the point that Paul makes in 1:18–3:20. Paul begins by giving the theme of the letter: “the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel.” When this introduction is completed, he launches into an extended statement of humanity’s utter sinfulness. But he does so by juxtaposing vv. 17 and 18:

“The righteousness of God is revealed [δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ ἀποκαλύπτεται] in the gospel from faith to faith” (v. 17)

“The wrath of God is revealed [ἀποκαλύπτεται ὀργὴ θεοῦ]… against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people” (v. 18)

Paul’s connection of God’s righteousness, the gospel, and faith is the solution to the problem of God’s wrath against sinners. His diatribe against the sinfulness of humanity surely is meant to counter those who would see his gospel as a compromise on holiness because it did not require Gentiles to be circumcised or obey the Law. He speaks in no uncertain terms that God is absolutely holy, leading to his major point in 3:21–26 that our only access to this God is through his Son.

There is another point that Wright seems to have missed here. If Habakkuk is speaking about God’s faithfulness to his people in the midst of his judgment of sin, Paul’s point is otherwise. If the judgment of sin seen in 1:18–3:20 refers to the sin of both Jews and Gentiles, as it surely must, then for whom is God’s faithfulness applied? Habakkuk condemns the enemies of Israel, while Paul condemns both Gentiles and Jews. No one escapes God’s wrath. Paul thus creates a dilemma that he will not resolve until 3:21–26.
Romans 3:5

εἰ δὲ ἡ ἀδικία ἡμῶν θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην συνίστησιν, τί ἐροῦμεν; μὴ ἄδικος ὁ θεὸς ὁ ἐπιφέρων τὴν ὀργήν; κατὰ ἄνθρωπον λέγω.

But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is he? (I am speaking in human terms.)

N. T. Wright has noted that Rom 3:1–8 is “all about God: God’s oracles, God’s faithfulness, God’s truth, God’s vindication, God’s victory, God’s righteousness, God’s justice, God’s judgment, God’s truth (again), and ultimately (verse 7) God’s glory. It is surprising that theologians, to say nothing of preachers, would so readily skip over such a sequence of thought.”17 His indictment of theologians and preachers is unwarranted—except for C. H. Dodd and his followers (very few agree with him on his exegesis of Romans), and Arminians. But Arminians regularly stay away from Romans because they find little in this book that gives them comfort.

Romans 3:1–8 is vital to Paul’s overarching agenda. Here we see Paul vindicating God’s righteousness as a prelude to his proclamation of the gospel. The pericope actually interweaves two distinct themes: vindication of God and condemnation of those who think that Paul’s gospel promotes sin. Wright suggested that the crescendo of this passage is in v. 7, with its emphasis on God’s glory (“For if by my lie the truth of God enhances his glory, why am I still actually being judged as a sinner?”). But that is only partially true. Verse 7 demands some sort of response (which shows that it is not the high-water mark of this pericope), and Paul gives it in v. 8: “And why not say, ‘Let us do evil so that good may come of it’? —as some who slander us allege that we say. (Their condemnation is deserved!)” It is not God’s glory that is primarily in view here, but vindication of God’s righteousness in the gospel that Paul will soon set forth. Wright makes no comment on v. 8.

Wright suggests that Rom 3:4, with its mention of God’s righteousness (δικαιωθῇς—[that] he might be vindicated), shows that δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in Romans has the force of covenant faithfulness instead of a righteous standing that comes from God and is bestowed on the believer because of Christ’s payment for his sins. He boldly states that with this verse, “the whole attempt to deny the meaning of ‘covenant faithfulness’ for dikaiosyneœ theou crashes to the ground like a felled oak.”18

There are problems with this view, however. Not only is the verb δικαιόω used here not the same as the noun phrase δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ, and not only is its usage a bit atypical in Romans (with the force of ‘vindicate’), but Wright’s interpretation seems to wrench v. 4 out of its larger context. Yes, God’s faithfulness is in view in Rom 3:1–4, because Paul is discussing the advantages of the Jew. He speaks of God’s covenant faithfulness in spite of the fact that some were unfaithful. It is necessary for Paul to do this to show that there is a future for Israel.

But the larger tenor of vv. 1–8 is about vindicating God’s righteousness in the light of Paul’s gospel. Wright does not address the notion of faithfulness in 3.5, but if we were to substitute ‘faithfulness’ for ‘righteousness’ we would be hard pressed to make much sense of the text: “But if our unfaithfulness demonstrates the faithfulness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unfaithful, is he? (I am speaking in human terms.)” The point of v. 5 is that God is righteous to judge sin, not that he is faithful to his covenant with Israel. ‘Wrath’ and ‘unrighteousness’ are words used when speaking of God’s righteous judgment on the world (ὀργή and ἀδικία are found in the opening verse of Paul’s diatribe against sin, 1:18; to not see the link to that verse here is to miss Paul’s essential point).

This is then followed by Rom 3:6, “For how else would God be able to judge the world?” (paraphrased). There is no hint in this text of covenant faithfulness; God’s righteousness is seen in relation to his judgment of sin, not his covenant faithfulness to the Jews. Romans 3:7 continues this train of thought—viz., that some have charged Paul with being weak on sin because he sees things in such black-and-white hues. Thus, the interlocutor raises the question, “if by my lie the truth of God enhances his glory, why am I still actually being judged as a sinner?” As Moo rightly points out, this is Paul the Jew asking Paul the Christian a question.19 This is also the Judaizers, who had dogged Paul for his entire ministry, objecting to his form of the gospel. But the language has nothing to do with covenant faithfulness; it has everything to do with a vindication of God’s righteousness, specifically his ethical stance of judging sin. Paul’s conclusion to this section again underscores a vindication of God’s righteousness: “And why not [say], ‘Let us do evil that good may come’? —just as we are slandered and just as some claim we say. (Their condemnation is just.)” Although he does not get into why this slander is incorrect here, he does state unequivocally that his gospel does not promote sin and that God has a sovereign right to judge sin.

In conclusion, covenant faithfulness is a subtheme of Rom 3.1–8, but it is found only in the first half of this pericope. Indeed, Paul uses πίστις θεοῦ in 3:3 in the sense of “God’s faithfulness.” The very fact that Paul has as part of his lexical stock πίστις θεοῦ in the sense of ‘God’s faithfulness,’ and uses it in this pericope, argues against δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ meaning the same thing in 3:5. Paul speaks of God’s covenant faithfulness because he must show that both Gentiles and Jews are sinners. In order to show that for Jews, he must declare that God is faithful even though God’s people were not. This establishes that Jews, too, are sinners, just like the Gentiles.
Romans 3:21–26

(21) Νυνὶ δὲ χωρὶς νόμου δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ πεφανέρωται μαρτυρουμένη ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed,

(22) δικαιοσύνη δὲ θεοῦ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς πάντας τοὺς πιστεύοντας. οὐ γάρ ἐστιν διαστολή,
namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction.

(25) ὃν προέθετο ὁ θεὸς ἱλαστήριον διὰ [τῆς] πίστεως ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι εἰς ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν τῶν προγεγονότων ἁμαρτημάτων

God publicly displayed him at his death as the mercy seat accessible through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because God in his forbearance had passed over the sins previously committed.

(26) ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ τοῦ θεοῦ, πρὸς τὴν ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν δίκαιον καὶ δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ.

This was also to demonstrate his righteousness in the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who lives because of Jesus’ faithfulness.

In my view, Paul’s argument in Rom 1:18 through 3:20 was first to show that the Gentiles were lost. Then he showed that the Jews were lost. “No one does good, not even one.” “No one seeks out God, not even one.” All of us are spiritually dead because of sin. That is the devastating reality of our spiritual condition before God. This brings us to Rom 3:21, where Paul shifts in his argument to the good news of Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice.

But before he can tell us the good news, he must wrestle with a dilemma: because we are utterly sinful and because God is utterly holy, how is it possible for us to get saved, for us to ever stand in God’s presence without being condemned? The answer to this question is the heart of Romans and is found in 3.21–26. I have argued that for Paul vindicating God’s righteousness is every bit as important as demonstrating his grace, especially because his accusers assumed that he had capitulated on the former to promote the latter. In this pericope, δικαιοσύνη/δικαιόω/δίκαιον appears in every verse except one (3.23), yet the thought of God’s righteousness is clearly seen in that lone verse, too. δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ is found twice (21, 22), δικαιοσύνη αὐτοῦ twice (25, 26), δικαιόω twice (24, 26), and δίκαιος is found once (26). This word-group appears seven times in six verses. It is vital for us to understand what Paul means by this word-group if we are to understand this passage.

Concerning the usage of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in Rom 3:21, N. T. Wright argues, “‘God’s righteousness,’ in the light of 2.17–3.8, must mean, and can only mean, God’s faithfulness to his single plan, the plan through which he will deal with human sin and put the whole world right at last.”20 The key element in Wright’s interpretation is that δικαιοσύνη must mean the same thing as πίστις, a point he argued strongly for in 3:4. But there we saw that the phrase was not used and that 3:5, where the phrase was used, almost surely speaks of God’s righteousness in terms of his right to judge the world, not his ability to save the world. Wright, however, argues that his interpretation “is massively indicated by the argument of Romans to this point…” He then argues that this is especially evident in this pericope, and charges no less a translation than the NIV and no less a scholar than Simon Gathercole with running roughshod over “the fully biblical and Jewish context” (177).

But if Wright is wrong to this point in Romans and if Paul’s passion was a vindication of God’s holiness in light of his gospel and in spite of his adversaries, then Wright is almost surely misinterpreting 3:21–26 as well. In addition, Wright’s view seems to fail at the linguistic level: Since πίστις, πιστός, etc. were words that Paul knew and used, and since Paul already in this chapter spoke explicitly of God’s faithfulness (πίστις θεοῦ in 3:3), why would he change his terminology at such a crucial juncture—especially since he had just spoken of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ (3:5) with reference to God’s righteousness rather than God’s faithfulness?

On v. 22, I agree with Wright that Christ’s faithfulness is in view. Basically I understand this text to be saying this: The righteousness of God has become available because of Christ’s faithfulness to the Mosaic covenant. He is the perfect Passover lamb who died in our place (cf. 1 Cor 5:7—“Christ our Passover lamb”). He fulfilled the Law in its moral precepts and its prophecies—all that the Law looked forward to. As the one who fulfilled it, he completed it. This means that we are no longer under the Law. Or, as Paul says in Rom 10:4, “Christ is the end of the Law.” This forms a crucial part of Paul’s argument that his gospel does not lower God’s righteous standards, for those standards are met in Christ.

I won’t elaborate here, but I believe that vv. 22b–23 is not parenthetical to Paul’s thought.21 Essentially, Paul is arguing that Christ’s faithfulness is applied to all who believe (v. 22). Those ‘all who believe’ are the ‘all’ in view in 3:23. Paul is saying that all believers have sinned and fall short of God’s glory. The ‘all’ in v. 23 is in nominative masculine plural and thus has concord with the ‘being freely justified’ in v. 24 (πάντες…δικαιούμενοι). Many interpreters see v. 22b–23 as parenthetical, and the δικαιούμενοι either functioning as an indicative or being subordinate to the accusative πάντας of v. 22 (‘all who believe’). Either way, this creates rather awkward syntax—and it does so when a simpler interpretation is at hand. Paul’s argument is that believers who have sinned and are still falling short of God’s glory are nevertheless freely justified by God’s grace.

Δικαιούμενοι in v. 24 almost surely must mean ‘being declared righteous’ (the Protestant view) rather than ‘being made righteous’ (the Roman Catholic view). Wright is unclear as to what he thinks it means, for his discussion of Rom 3:21–26 does not always interpret key words in the passage but instead gives a general impression of the text. Wright agrees that a lawcourt genre is seen in this pericope. I would argue that not only is a lawcourt genre in view, but Paul may well have specific OT texts in mind. Paul seems to be consciously borrowing from legal language, language that is virtually idiomatic in the LXX. In YHWH’s instructions to his people, he demands an ethical standard of witnesses and those involved in a court of law. Two passages in particular may be in Paul’s mind both in Rom 3:24 and Rom 4:5: Exod 23:7 and Isa 5:23.

The context of Exod 23:7 clearly involves legal language. In v. 7 we see δικαιόω used with ἀσεβής: ‘you shall not justify the ungodly for a bribe’ (οὐ δικαιώσεις τὸν ἀσεβῆ ἕνεκεν δώρων). This can only mean ‘you shall not declare innocent the ungodly for a bribe.’ Three things are significant here: (1) δικαιόω means, in this legal context, ‘declare righteous/innocent’; it does not mean ‘make righteous.’ (2) The person who might be declared innocent is in fact guilty (ἀσεβῆ), precisely the situation we have in Rom 3:23–24. (3) The word for bribe is δῶρον, a cognate of δωρεάν found in Rom 3:24. It would of course not do for Paul to say that God declares sinners righteous ‘for a bribe,’ so an appropriate substitute is needed—one that is a cognate of δῶρον, but does not use ἕνεκεν or imply anything except that God acts freely when he justifies sinners. δωρεάν is the accusative singular of δωρεά; as such, it is adverbial (always so in the NT) and means ‘freely.’ It is a common feature of accusative singular nouns to act adverbially. Paul may well have chosen this word because it is a nominal cognate of δῶρον and, in collocation with δικαιόω would thus be reminiscent of the legal language of Exod 23:7.

In Isa 5.22–23 we again see this idiom, but this time it is an indictment against those human judges (implied in the context) who are drunk and declare the wicked innocent for a bribe: οἱ δικαιοῦντες τὸν ἀσεβῆ ἕνεκεν δώρων καὶ τὸ δίκαιον τοῦ δικαίου αἴροντες (v. 23: ‘who declare the ungodly innocent for a bribe and take away the righteous cause from the righteous’).22 Again, we see the collocation of δικαιόω with ἀσεβής and δῶρον. And again, we see that δικαιόω must almost surely mean ‘declare innocent’ since the pronouncement is made on the ungodly who do not deserve it.

Paul thus seems to have borrowed from the legal language of the LXX, yet he argues against what Exod 23:7 commends and for what Isa 5:23 condemns: the justifying of the ungodly. Why does he do so? The objection may well have come up by Paul’s opponents that he is actually claiming that God declares righteous those who are guilty—a charge which would make God just as guilty! They viewed this as blasphemy because it would view God as evil. It would be an easy task for both Judaizers and Jews to point out Exod 23:7 or Isa 5:23—both texts being in oft-used books—that God does not justify the ungodly and that only wicked judges do this, and for a bribe no less!

Paul turns this on its head. God freely justifies (δικαιούμενοι δωρεάν [3:24]) the ungodly (ἀσεβῆ [4:5]), and he is just (3:26) to do so (αὐτὸν δίκαιον καὶ δικαιοῦντα [3:26]). Exodus 23:7 also may play another important role: nowhere else in the LXX do we see such a cluster of terms that will be exploited by Paul in his vindication of God. In 1:18 he speaks of the wickedness and ungodliness (ἀδικία, ἀσεβεία) of people (cognates of each word found in Exod 23:7). In 3:21–26 he speaks of God justifying freely those who fall short of God’s glory (δικαιούμενοι δωρεάν, ὑστεροῦνται τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ). In 3:26, he says that God is just even while justifying the one who exists because of the faithfulness of Jesus. In 4:5, he says that God justifies the ungodly.

There is at least a thought-world here that seems clearly to speak of the declaration of one’s innocence/righteousness as good when it comes from God and bad when it comes from wicked judges who declare the wrong man innocent. Further, if Paul’s position is to stand up to ridicule (and if he is responding to criticisms against his view based on Exod 23:7 and Isa 5:23), it must be that only the perfect sacrifice of Christ, freely imputed to our account, satisfies God’s wrath. Anything that speaks of imperfect obedience, or hints that we can add even one iota to the finished work of Christ, mitigates Paul’s argument, for the only way that God can now reverse himself and justify the ungodly is because there is a final, perfect substitute for our sins. Paul eloquently and decisively, with firm echoes from OT legal literature, shows that God has not lowered his standard of holiness in the cross, but has in fact established it. Further, these passages, both in the LXX and MT, clearly show that ‘to justify the ungodly,’ in legal contexts can mean ‘to declare the ungodly innocent.’ In other words, although in certain contexts, ‘righteousness’ in the OT can involve notions of faithfulness, in legal contexts that most closely parallel Rom 3:21–26 and Rom 4:5, the idea is decidedly different. Luther’s view, then, seems to fit the Jewish world well in these passages. And the fact that Luther was first trained as a lawyer perhaps shows that he was more sensitive to these issues than is often recognized.

How is it possible for God to be just when he declares sinners not guilty? Because Jesus, his Son, has paid the price. He is the mercy seat that God has publicly displayed (see NET Bible at Rom 3:25 and the evidence for ‘mercy seat’ as the proper translation of ἱλαστήριον), thus indicating that the Mosaic Covenant is no more, that both Jews and Gentiles now have free access to God through Christ. Further, God does this “to demonstrate his righteousness” (3:25).

Paul is still concerned about God’s righteousness throughout this whole section. Here he is indicating that the death of Christ is the fulfillment, in type, of the OT. He is the perfect sacrifice that Yom Kippur looked forward to.23 Christ’s death satisfies God’s wrath as nothing else could. And it simultaneously silences Paul’s objectors for we see in Rom 3:21–26 that Paul does not in any sense go soft on sin. Rather, he reveals that in the OT “God in his forbearance had passed over the sins previously committed” (Rom 3:25 [NET]). Only now, in Christ, is God’s wrath against sin finally satisfied. Rather than Paul’s gospel being a lowering of God’s standard of holiness to let Gentiles get ‘in,’ it is an elevation of God’s standard that goes beyond that established in the OT.
Exodus 23:7 and Isa 5:23 are the only passages in the OT which involve δικαιόω, ἀσεβής, and δῶρον. The verb δικαιόω and the noun ἀσεβής occur in Rom 4:5, while δικαιόω and a cognate to δῶρον occur in Rom 3:24. Further, cognates of ἀδικία and ἀσεβεία, which occur in Rom 1:18, are found in Exod 23:7 as well. The distinct impression of all this is that what Paul is saying in Rom 3:21–4:25 is the solution to the problem created by 1:18–3:20, and that the guilty are declared to be righteous because of their faith in Jesus. In the least, these passages show that imputed righteousness is not a late medieval construct that has no relation to the Jewish world of Paul. Yet Wright does not discuss either Exod 23:7 or Isa 5:23 in his Justification.24

Romans 10:3

ἀγνοοῦντες γὰρ τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην καὶ τὴν ἰδίαν [δικαιοσύνην] ζητοῦντες στῆσαι, τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐχ ὑπετάγησαν.

For ignoring the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking instead to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

Wright gives his own translation of Rom 10:3 as follows: “They are ignorant of God’s dikaiosyneœ, and they are seeking to establish their own dikaiosyneœ, and so they did not submit to God’s dikaiosyneœ.”25 But he does not mention the reference. He then interprets the verse as follows: “In other words, they have not recognized the nature, shape and purpose of their own controlling narrative, the story Paul has been telling since 9.6, and have supposed that it was a story about themselves rather than about the creator and the cosmos, with themselves playing the crucial, linchpin role.”26 In this explanation, Wright does not tell us how δικαιοσύνη should be interpreted, but he does elsewhere. Earlier, when discussing all of the passages in Romans that speak of ‘God’s righteousness,’ he says that this means “God’s faithfulness to the covenant with Abraham.”27 And in the next verse, he takes δικαιοσύνη to mean ‘covenant membership.’28 So, if we translate 10:3 the way that Wright sees it, we have “They are ignorant of God’s covenant faithfulness, and they are seeking to establish their own covenant membership, and so they did not submit to God’s covenant faithfulness.” But that makes no sense. Further, translating δικαιοσύνη in 10:5 as ‘covenant membership’ compounds the nonsense: “For Moses writes about the covenant membership that is by the Law: ‘The one who does these things will live by them.’” Is Moses here speaking about the Abrahamic covenant as something that can be achieved by the Law? That would undercut everything that Wright has been arguing! This is precisely the problem that I have with Wright’s approach: it has coherence when it is not interacting with the particulars of the text, but it wreaks havoc at the lexical level for it is self-defeating.

Conclusion

I will close with two lengthy snippets from Gerald Bray’s review of Wright’s Justification in the August 2009 issue of Churchman:29

Bishop Wright’s views on Paul, Israel and justification have been known for many years, and have often been debated in scholarly circles. As this latest book makes clear, those views have not been widely accepted—indeed, they have been openly opposed by almost everyone engaged in the field, from the most conservative Evangelicals to the most ardent liberals. In response to this, Bishop Wright has gone on digging his heels in ever deeper, and has defended his corner with great determination, despite the fact that his disciples seem to come mainly from the ranks of those who have not studied the subject in any depth. Many of them are students who are bored with traditional ideas that their elders expect them to absorb in parrot fashion, and who are therefore responsive to an alternative voice, like Bishop Wright’s, whose powerful rhetoric has carried them along and helped them across whatever hurdles may be thrown up by the facts. Unfortunately, most of these people have not had the time or the inclination to examine the issues involved with the seriousness that they deserve, and so they are swept up in a heady atmosphere of protest that can easily lead them to abandon their earlier moorings in the gospel.30

Bishop Wright has let us down badly. He himself admits that he was rushed for time and could not do justice to his subject; he did not even manage to send his draft to Mr. Piper for comment, as politeness dictated, considering that Mr. Piper had shared his thoughts with him before presuming to publish them. The result is that the book bears all the hallmarks of hasty production. It is full of digressions, personal anecdotes which appear to have no purpose other than to win sympathy for the author, and random attacks against unnamed people who are supposed to be typical of popular modern Evangelicals. Whereas Mr. Piper is unfailingly gracious and sticks rigorously to his subject, Bishop Wright verges on the downright rude and wanders all over the place, with the result that it is often hard to know whether he is addressing Mr. Piper’s concerns or not.31

Although a harsh review, Bray makes some significant points. His mention of Wright’s attacks on ‘unnamed people who are supposed to be typical of popular modern Evangelicals’ is one of them. One of the most disturbing things about Wright’s Justification is that it explicitly interacts with so few scholars. The index of names (p. 242 [270]) lists only 44 names, ranging from Athanasius and Augustine to Piper. But some of the best scholars on Romans—including F. F. Bruce, Joseph Fitzmyer, Otto Kuss, Otto Michel, Douglas Moo, Sanday and Headlam, Adolf Schlatter, Tom Schreiner, and many others—are not mentioned at all. And C. E. B. Cranfield, whose linguistic work on δίκαιος and its cognates is some of the strongest defense of the ‘old perspective’ of Paul’s view of justification, is mentioned twice (pp. 16, 54 [33, 73]), both off-handed comments that involve zero substantive interaction with Cranfield’s exegesis. Wright is of course right to emphasize that there is more to the gospel than individual salvation, but what he puts above it is so abstract and so politically oriented that it really does not answer some of the basic questions we as human beings have about our standing before God, let alone our potential relationship to God.

What Wright has done is to pick on a minor theme that is necessary for Paul’s argument that all people are sinners and in need of salvation, and has turned that minor theme into the theme of Romans. His language is strong, even full of hubris at points, but this ‘pounding the pulpit’ does not alleviate the problem that his vision of Paul’s doctrine of justification—as attractive and coherent as it is—does not adequately deal with the text. Coherent arguments are made all the time about this or that aspect of the Bible’s teaching, but when they don’t match what the text says, then they must be rejected. I would view Wright’s synthesis of Romans as a brilliant failure—brilliant because of how coherent it is, but a failure because it sits three feet above the text at all points where it would be inconvenient to wrestle with what the text actually says. In this respect, Wright’s view simply cannot handle the ‘inconvenient truth’ (to borrow a phrase from Al Gore) that Romans is.

1 Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
2 There are also a few editorial and spelling differences between the two versions.
3 Wright, Justification, 154–55 (179).
4 Wright, Justification, 154 (178).
5 Wright, Justification, 154 (178).
6 Examples can be found in every section of the book. To mention but a few illustrative remarks: “…in my humble but accurate opinion…” (181 [207])—isn’t that a contradiction in terms? “I am frequently challenged on this point in public, after lectures and seminars, and my normal reply is that I did not write Romans 2; Paul did” (160 [184])—this statement suggests that Wright’s view is not an interpretation, but is simply a straightforward, unambiguous explanation of what Paul said. “Miss this point, and (like C. H. Dodd, famously, and a thousand other commentators, less famously) you will wish Paul had never written 3.1–8. Or, for that matter, 9–11” (171 [196])—I don’t think that’s what troubled Dodd here at all, and I didn’t know that there were a thousand commentaries on Romans, let alone a thousand wrong ones! “‘God’s righteousness,’ in the light of 2.17–3.8, must mean, and can only mean, God’s faithfulness to his single plan, the plan through which he will deal with the problem of human sin and put the whole world right at last” (176 [201]). Such a dogmatic conclusion when the exegetical spadework for it leaves something to be desired, is unwarranted. Wright may be right, but he has not put an end to all discussion. “Translations such as the NIV…have simply gone along for the ride, fudging the evidence by translating dikaiosyneœ theou in verses 25 and 26 as ‘justice,’ not noticing what a mess they are thereby making of the inner coherence of the paragraph. The confusion generated at this point runs right on through the literature, as witness Simon Gathercole’s frequent but strange comments about ‘righteousness’ which indicates that he, like so many critics of the ‘new perspective,’ have not in fact reckoned with the fully biblical and Jewish context of what they are discussing” (176–77 [202]).
7 Justification, 177 (202).
8 Ibid., 167 (189).
9 Ibid., 170–71 (195–96).
10 See Joseph Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 33 (New York: Doubleday, 1993) 259, 262. Fitzmyer notes, in Ambrosiaster’s commentary on Romans, In ep. Ad Romanos 1.17, that he speaks of “God’s fidelity to his promises” as the basic idea of God’s righteousness (159), and that some modern commentators have followed Ambrosiaster’s understanding of this expression (e.g., S. K. Williams, “The ‘Righteousness of God’ in Romans,” JBL 99 [1980] 255–89: “God’s fidelity to this promise to Abraham” [whole article on 241–90]).
11 Wright, Justification, 154 (178).
12 Ibid., 156–57 (181).
13 Ibid., 157–58 (181–82).
14 Ibid., 158 (182).
15 Cf. HALOT, s.v. hnwma.
16 So S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., “The Gospel that Paul Preached [Part 2: Rom 1.16–17],” BSac 128 (1971) 340, n. 31.
17 Wright, Justification, 174 (199–200).
18 Wright, Justification, 173 (198).
19 Douglas Moo, Romans, 181.
20 Wright, Justification, 176 (201).
21 See my essay, “The Syntax of Romans 3:22–24, Part 1,” posted at bible.org (http://bible.org/article/syntax-romans-322-24-part-1).
22 The same Hebrew idiom as is found in Exod 23:7 is involved. The MT has רשע מצדיקי (‘who declare the wicked innocent’), using a Hiphil verb with a causative force. The difference is that ‘for a bribe’ is in the Hebrew text here (שחד עקב), while it was missing in Exod 23:7. The LXX may be reflecting a different Hebrew source in Exod 23:7.
23 Hebrews 9.23–10.4 makes the point, in an expanded fashion, of what Paul says in Rom 3.25.
24 It is interesting that Douglas Campbell’s 1100-age magnum opus, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), a tome focusing on justification in Romans 1–4, nowhere mentions either Exod 23:7 or Isa 5:23, even though these texts seem to be extremely relevant to the discussion.
25 Wright, Justification, 216 (244).
26 Ibid (244).
27 Ibid., 154–55 (179).
28 Ibid., 216 (244).
29 The title of the ‘editorial’ (Bray does not call it a review) is ‘The Wrighteousness of God.’
30 Gerald Bray, “Editorial—The Wrighteousness of God,” Churchman (August 2009) 99.
31 Bray, “Wrighteousness,” 103–4.

N.T. Wright, Part Seven by Mike Horton (WHI)

http://www.whitehorseinn.org/archives/139.html
Justification and the Testimony of Paul

In chapter six, Wright interprets other Pauline epistles (Philippians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Ephesians) in the light of his over-arching framework. In his famous contrast in Philippians 3 between “the righteousness of the law” and the righteousness that he now has “in Christ,” Paul designated himself, “‘…as to righteousness within Torah, blameless.’” “Ah, there’s the rub,” says Wright. “What on earth did he mean by that?” (143). “Does that not indicate Paul’s pride in his own achievement, and thus an ‘attitudinal’ failing, the sort of ‘self-righteousness’ which the old perspective made its chief target? Well, yes and no.” Like his fellow Jews, Paul believed (as Sanders suggests), that one gets in by grace by stays in by obedience. “It is vital to distinguish two things: the status of God’s people, prior to anything they do, and the life they are called to lead which points forward to the eventual judgment…there is, on the one hand, the verdict that is already announced, and there is on the other hand, as in Galatians 5:5, the verdict that is still eagerly awaited” (144).

At this point, Wright fails to mention a typical Reformed interpretation: Paul was blameless in terms of “righteousness within Torah”—and here, in this context of Paul’s specific appeal to his Pharisaical pedigree, we can say he is specifically referring to the boundary markers. In this sense, he was blameless, but all of this is to be considered a debit compared to being in Christ. Wright seems to approximate this view on page 147: “He performed the ‘works of Torah,’ attaining a standard that he had regarded as ‘blameless.’…; ‘blameless under the law’ is not the same as ‘sinless’….” “The keeping of the law was not a way of earning anything, of gaining a status before God; the status was already given in birth, ethnic roots, circumcision and the ancestral possession of Torah. All that Torah-obedience then does—it’s a big ‘all,’ but it is all—is to consolidate, to express what is already given, to inhabit appropriately a suit of clothes (‘righteousness’) that one has already inherited” (145).

However, is this really what Paul says here? Not exactly. First, Paul does not say that his circumcision and strict adherence to the ceremonies merely pointed to a righteous status that he already possessed by grace as a Jew. Rather, he refers to this blameless observance as “a righteousness of my own, which comes from the law.” Second, given Wright’s rejection of imputation in favor exclusively of God’s own faithfulness to his covenant, how does “righteousness” now come to mean “a suite of clothes” that one wears? Third, according to Wright, “The question is not, ‘What must I do to get to heaven?’ but How can you tell in the present who will be vindicated in the future?” (146). However, there is no indication here that Paul presupposes any division between the question of personal salvation and belonging to the right group. Even in the way Wright states the question, I fail to see the antithesis: If “going to heaven” means the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting, as Christians confess, how is that different from being vindicated in the future?

Wright next introduces his distinction between present and future justification. On one hand, Wright says that the final justification will be based on works, a total life lived. Yet on the other hand, it is a verdict “here and now” that “will be repeated ‘on the last day.’ The works in question will not earn their performers their membership within God’s true, eschatological, covenant people, they will demonstrate that membership” (146). No argument here. This is standard “old perspective” fare, but is it a movement from Wright’s earlier work, where “future justification” is based on “a total life lived” rather than simply demonstrating the reality of justification?

Wright properly warns of treating justification as a “personal relationship.”

It is of course popular to say that, since the language of ‘righteousness’ is essentially ‘relational,’ ‘justification’ actually means ‘the establishment of a personal relationship,’ a mutual knowing, between the believer and God, or the believer and Jesus. But this is extremely misleading (and made more so by all the loose talk in some Christian circles about ‘my relationship with God’ as the center of everything, which then of course becomes problematic when one encounters depression, or enters a ‘dark night of the soul’) (149).

Here, Wright will find only approval in Reformed circles. In fact, we can identify with Luther’s reaction to Melanchthon’s introspective anxiety: “The gospel is entirely outside of you!” The gospel is an objective announcement about something that has happened in history, not a subjective feeling that we are close to God. The gospel provokes assurance and conversion, but cannot be confused with our inner states. The gospel creates a new relationship, but it is not itself to be identified as a personal relationship. Wright stresses, “relational” is different from “lawcourt” (226); this, despite his polemics, is in complete harmony with the “old perspective.” It is clear enough that Wright is once again reacting against a pietistic emphasis that he mistakes for a Reformation perspective.

One of Wright’s best summaries of justification appears on pages 150-151:

Paul unpacks the meaning of the status in the four ways we have seen. It is a status of (a) having the court find in my favor despite my unworthiness, (b) ‘covenant membership,’ (c) advanced eschatological judgment (hearing, ahead of time, the verdict which will be announced at the end), and above all (d) God’s verdict on Jesus himself when he raised him from the dead and thereby demonstrated that he really was his Son, the Messiah (Romans 1:4; cf. 1 Timothy 3:16).

Therefore, “the ‘faith’ of the beneficiaries, looking away from themselves and to his achievement, is the badge which shows that they are indeed ‘in him.’”

Wright points to Paul’s repeated references to Christ working in us, God’s grace at work in us, and so forth—passages that are hardly passed over in Reformation preaching. Nevertheless, he writes, “If we, particularly those of us who have been strongly influenced by the Reformation, perceive such language as casting a shadow of doubt over ‘justification by faith,’ the problem is not with this way of putting it—it is after all Paul himself who puts it like this!—but with our traditions” (153). Here the author himself seems to assume that justification includes everything from grace to glory, but “old perspective” exegetes have ordinarily interpreted such passages as referring to sanctification as distinct from justification.

That Wright doesn’t appreciate this careful distinction is evident from his treatment of 1 Corinthians 1:30: Paul says that “‘righteousness’ is something that believers have because they are ‘in Christ’—though it is quite illegitimate to seize on that and say that therefore they have something called ‘the righteousness of Christ’ imputed to them, in the full sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sense so emphasized by John Piper.” Although there is “a great truth underneath that Reformation claim,” Wright says “we cannot press this verse into service as a primary vehicle of it, not least because, were we to do so, we should also have to speak, presumably, of ‘imputed wisdom,’ ‘imputed sanctification’ and ‘imputed redemption’” (157). This strikes me as another uncharitable reading of the tradition, as if it were saying that all of the gifts that we have in Christ must be given to us by imputation. Paul teaches that all of our blessings are in Christ, but justification is in Christ by imputation.

Wright’s interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:19 appears to be an example of allowing one’s systematic-theological framework to run roughshod over exegesis: “In other words, that, in the Messiah, we might embody God’s faithfulness, God’s covenant faithfulness, God’s action in reconciling the world to himself” (163). A passage that conveys a transfer from “sinner” to “righteous” simply on the basis of Christ’s completed work is now read as our own activity in reconciliation. “The little word genōmetha in 2 Corinthians 5:21b—‘that we might become God’s righteousness in him’—does not sit comfortably with the normal interpretation, according to which ‘God’s righteousness’ is ‘imputed’ or ‘reckoned’ to believers…Surely that leans far too much toward a Roman Catholic notion of infused righteousness?” (165). This is an odd conclusion, given Wright’s own debunking of the idea of an infused moral virtue. “Become” (genōmetha) is not the difficulty that he supposes; a change has indeed occurred, but it is a change in status, as Wright himself suggests repeatedly elsewhere.

Next week, we’ll move on to Wright’s treatment of the Epistle to the Romans in chapter seven of his book, Justification.

-Mike Horton