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Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision (2009)

by N.T. Wright(Favorite Author)

3.97 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0830838635 (ISBN13: 9780830838639)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

IVP Academic

review 1: N.T. Wright represents himself as somewhat of a misunderstood and polarizing figure. Having spent a substantial amount of time studying the apostle Paul, he speaks in his preface of how the Church at large has tended to interpret Paul’s view of justification wrongly. He challenges the concept of imputed righteousness, which Lutherans and the Reformers tend to see as synonymous with justification, and his book, aptly titled Justification, is a polemic and response to Piper’s vocal protest, even as it stands as a concise summary of the trajectory of his former works. In this sense his words have a timely feel, while also reaching past Piper to what he feels is a more faithful historical/critical perspective. The second half of the book is devoted to an exegesis of Paul�... more��s letters, while the first half sets up the primary issues and his central argument. He argues that the Church at large has confused Paul’s understanding of justification in both form and meaning, and that Paul’s view of justification is simply one of many terms that he utilizes to explore the larger concept of Christ’s saving work. He champions what he refers to as the single plan of God for the salvation of the world, and anchors this in the Abrahamic covenant through which Paul interprets Christ. The covenant promise was intended for Israel to be an extension of God’s grace beyond their ethnic boundaries and in to a multi-ethnic world, but in their failure to live in to this covenant Christ became necessary as a single, faithful Israelite who could bring its fulfillment. Dealing with this single plan of God for the world, Wright presents his central thought process through a number of ideas and questions related to the act of justification. This review will interact with three of these ideas in specific, concluding with some personal thoughts as to how Wright’s view of justification impacts my own ministry and theological understanding. These ideas are:1. The relevance of first century law court language2. Righteousness as status vs. moral standing3. The problem of works and grace in justificationThe relevance of first century law court languageWhere Wright begins his discourse is in addressing the nature of tradition. He argues that where the Church has taken the thought patterns of the reformers is far beyond where they first intended. This leads him to recognize a difference between tradition and scripture, suggesting that when we raise tradition above good exegesis we tend to lose sight of faithful perspective. Piper has criticized him for attempting to do away with an entire history of traditional reformed theology. Here Wright distances himself both from more liberal segments of the new perspective and the conservative components of old perspective thinkers, arguing instead for an orthodox view of scripture that is free to challenge our traditions. To be fair, at first glance this can be seen as arrogant or pious, and even dangerous, but I think Wright takes careful steps to ensure that his primary motivation is simply to let “scripture be scripture.” In order to set our theological understanding of justification in its appropriate context, Wright suggests that we must see it through the lens of Paul’s first century perspective, which is familiar with Jewish custom and practice. He writes, “the debates we have look much different than those of first century Jews” , as we tend to focus instead on our personal relationship, personal salvation or our ‘getting’ to Heaven. The Jews understood that they were a part of the Abrahamic covenant in which God would bring salvation both to them and to the world, and they expected this to happen in their time. Paul understood this, and he also understood the resistance to seeing God’s grace reach beyond his own ethnic background. This becomes his motivation for interpreting Christ in light of this resistance to the single plan of God. The concept of justification explains how Christ stands as the fulfillment of the covenant. Pertinent to this is Paul’s use of law court language and imagery. Wright believes that for Paul, covenant and law court language belong together. Justification (diakiosis) is “the word Paul uses less frequently to sum up words he uses more frequently,” and it essentially has to do with aquital, or the granting of a status of righteousness rather than moral character. Righteousness then, refers not to the imputed righteousness that Piper holds so close, but to a given status in which the judge (God) finds favor. “The idea that what sinners need is for someone else’s righteousness to be credited to their account simply muddles up the categories.” The suggestion is that the terms ‘justification’ and ‘righteousness’ do not have to do with our moral response or character or sinless nature. It is simply being granted right status as a final verdict. In his exegetical work on Romans in the latter half of the book, Wright suggests that it is not about who gets justified, but rather about who belongs to the family of Abraham.Righteousness as status vs. moral character Understanding justification in this light should lead us to further distinguish between righteousness and the concept of imputed moral righteousness. If God’s righteousness is first and foremost found in His “faithfulness to the covenant,” then what is offered to us is not God’s own righteousness but rather a right standing. For Wright, “the gift always precedes the obligation. That is how Israel’s covenant theology worked,” and it is how Christ’s saving work can be declared in confidence. Where Wright moves from here then is to suggest, “The challenge to the believer- indeed, one might almost say the challenge of learning to believe at all- is to reckon that this is true, that one has indeed left behind the state of slavery, that one really has come now to stand on resurrection ground (Romans 6:6-11).” Here we can see how terms such as salvation, justification and righteousness can become blurred, and questions of moral behavior can become positioned precariously within the tension of works and grace. Works vs. graceHow can we claim our right standing in the present in terms of a confident assurance in the final status in the fullness of time if that same status is a measure of the works we have done? Write acknowledges that there is a great problem in moving from grace to works under imputed righteousness, and he believes that under the old perspective we inevitably end up back at an idea of salvation that depends on moral works or agency. If we are to understand Jesus’ accomplishment correctly, we can say that, “the task of the Messiah was to offer to God the obedience which Israel could not offer.” Given this, he believes it is vital to distinguish between 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.” He goes on to say that 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.” Wright believes that we have been legally set in the right, and that this action does not require or necessitate a sinless nature in order to be declared as a verdict. Write indicates that for Paul, “These works of Torah were neither an attempt to earn the covenant membership he already had by God’s grace, nor an attempt to add his own merit to the grace that had been given. They were an attempt to do, out of love and obedience to Israel’s God, the works which would function as a sign in the present that he was part of the people who would be vindicated in the future.” Wright believes that understanding it any other way leads to a tricky and dangerous road in which we inevitably fall one way or another in our struggle with grace and law. Here he does a careful dance with the eschatological nature of the resurrection, merging the future and final accomplishment of Christ with the present action of the cross. Christ has both come and yet death still remains, and therefore in justification our future verdict is declared even as we are left to work it out. This is where Wright would insist that “the works of the law were not the moral deeds done to earn justification or salvation, but the particular commandments and ordinance which kept Jew and Gentile separate from one another,” an important distinction in connecting moral obligation to a discussion of Christ’s saving work. He writes, “The things the Christian is commanded to do are not meant to be a grudging duty, nor are they meant merely to bring us back in to a zero balance before an unsmiling Judge. What the Christian is to do is to please God.” Wright I believe would say that it is not the law itself that is convoluted or wrong, rather we, and our attempts to apply the law to justification in less than appropriate ways, are the problem. “When the spirit comes the result is human freedom rather than human slavery.” He also goes on to say that “Habits of death are not freely chosen, however hard on habits of life are freely chosen. We are released from slavery into responsibility.” We must continue to make the same distinctions that Paul did, which is that the working out of our salvation does not demand moral perfection, instead “it looks toward it, seeks for it. Romands 2:7. It partakes of it in advance”. In truth, Wright would firmly and confidently declare that “the more the spirit is at work, the less we think about hard moral effort.” ConclusionWright indicates that where the Gospel is preached God’s power goes to work and people are saved. He believes that Paul’s representation of the Gospel through the legal language of justification allows us to preach this Gospel with confidence to a multi-ethnic world. He understands that justification is but one term out of many that Paul reaches for to describe the saving work of Christ, and that our ability to separate status from moral representation allows us to face the tension of grace and works appropriately. God is made right in His commitment to His covenant promise, and if our own righteousness is the firm declaration of this promise fulfilled and the strong assurance of our future status declared, we are free to move towards the good works that indicates our right status, however imperfectly and incompletely in the present age. Understanding these central themes, I now want to move to explore some of the ways these assertions affect my own theological and ministry context. Wright takes a critical look at Lutheran theology in a portion of his writing, and there is a point where he acknowledges that if he is forced to choose between Lutheran or Calvinist association, he would lean towards a Calvinist approach. Wright does not agree with Luther’s view that “we are justified in Christ, but still sinners simply in the sense of committing actual sin,” and views the accomplishment of Christ from a more communal perspective rather than personal. I know that for me it is easy to recognize the frustration of moral failure and the inability to live up to what I feel I should be. And of course, the more I try the more the failure becomes visible. To this end I appreciate the freedom of Luther’s own theological process. However, I also resonate with Wright’s sense that “the danger with a doctrine which says, you can’t do anything and you mustn’t try is that it ends up with the servant who, knowing his master to be strict, hid his money in the ground.” Wright expresses exasperation over why Paul would include works in his theology if they were unnecessary, and having served in a Lutheran congregation for 4 years, the question of why good works matter is a necessary one in this context. There is equal frustration, certainly in a communal setting, with a Christianity which is freed from the notion of works altogether. Perhaps the concept of imputed righteousness becomes an appropriate way of tending to this issue, claiming works to be the work of Christ and Christ alone, but if Wright is correct, even imputed righteousness fails to tend to the question of works in terms of the implication of its presence or absence. To this end, even if Wright fails to fully answer the dilemma, I think it is appropriate to keep the moral will of the person intact. What I appreciate about Wright’s approach is in how he applies works and moral will distinctly to a communal response and movement. It may be that our struggle with works is born out of our individualism and our tendency to view the law in the same way the Jews viewed the Torah, as a long list of rules that distance us from God’s plan. Is it possible that Christ in fact freed us for His good works? And is it possible that the only way to truly recognize these works is in the community through which they can be enacted as a part of God’s single plan to reach the world? Another concept that stood out for me in Wright’s discourse was the concept of exile. In seeing God’s single plan represented through the Abrahamic covenant and extended to us through Christ as a part of His mission to the world, it allowed me to connect my own story to this larger historical narrative. It is striking that all throughout the history of Israel and Judea that God deals with His covenanted people in exile. It is this theme of exile that permeates the stories of the prophets, priests, judges and kings, and the early Church remains equally indebted to this same theme. In the book of Jeremiah God continually calls those who are in exile the good figs and those who remain in the land as the bad figs. There is something about God’s saving grace that demands this sort of misplaced setting and complete dependence. Having recently gone through an incredibly tough ministry experience, my wife and I have found ourselves not only on the outside of our Church community, but also separated from our family and friends and what we once called home. Being unable to sell our house, we have come to understand this as a sort of exile. What Wright has done is allowed me to place this journey in the context of Christ’s saving grace and work.In a way Wright appears to be on a journey, one he has taken together with the apostle Paul over the last while. I have come to understand that a healthy journey needs a clear foundation. One of the most painful parts of ministry for me personally is seeing youth personally destroyed in their own spirits as they journey through questions without an understanding or awareness of a Christian foundation. Wright addresses this saying, “from the secure base of justification, Paul sets out on a journey which, though its end is in fact secure, always seems like something that has to be struggled for, namely the resurrection itself.” In relation to how we make sense of grace and works in our context, feelings of guilt, shame and hurt over issues and actions related to theological confusion are far too common in our Churches. I think that Wright would share a similar view with those like Luther and Piper in suggesting that this is an unfortunate reality in our Churches. God’s grace was clearly meant to be a freeing enterprise, not destructive and divisive. What I appreciate about Wright’s perspective is that if scripture holds power, it is found in a shared spirit that allows us to stand on the same foundation that people like Paul experienced long before us. It allows us to freely engage with questions of personal failure, assurance, acceptance and love without losing sight of the saving work and grace of Christ. A big focus of the book Justification is contrasting private and communal faith expression. For Wright, it is about the Church being the place where the spirit operates, and he insists that the Church operates in the public spectrum. Wright asks, “Can it be that part of the old perspectives reaction to the new is the tacit sense that once we associate ecclesiology with the very center of the Gospel we will have to go all the way and rethink the political role and task of the church?” If Wright is speaking appropriately, our tendency to think of our faith in terms of individual experience moves us away from God’s single plan for the sake of the world. The sacrifice was not just so that sins could be forgiven, it was to bring the same grace that saved Israel to the gentile world. Write declares passionately, “How can God act in such a way, declaring Abraham and all other believers in the right, acquitted, even though they are ungodly and sinful? Answer: Jesus.” And yet, at the same time there is a strange sense that God’s love for us as an individual becomes entirely visible and present in community. Wright recognizes how God’s concern for God’s own glory, a statement familiar to Piper, is not the same thing as that which is imputed. “God is not simply concerned for His glory in scripture. “He is also concerned for us.” If this is true, then the challenge looks tall and daunting for our modern Western approach. If the Church must necessarily be political, and if the Church must necessarily be public, then justification must play out primarily in community in a way that speaks to every individual. And perhaps Wright is most correct in saying that the more we recognize this, the less importance our own moral works become. The more we put ourselves out in the world the greater the mission of God becomes, and the more we see his covenant promise fulfilled and being fulfilled in an already/not yet dichotomy, the more God becomes alive and true and real to us personally as well. And there is something magical about this process, that the more we see God’s saving work in community and in light of His single plan for the world, the less important the tension of works and grace becomes. And I think that just might be a shared goal that old and new perspective can share together.
review 2: There is probably no other author with whom I disagree whom I enjoy reading more. Wright is a remarkable writer and his ideas and presentation always cause me to reflect deeply on Scripture and the narrative of redemptive history. "Justification" is Wright’s rejoinder to John Piper on the topic of imputed righteousness. As I read Wright, I am in fundamental agreement with him on the passages that are the foundation for his position. But I would say the same for Piper. Because of that, I do believe that there is a righteousness that is credited to the believer. I just cannot see how you can read some passages of Scripture (e.g., 2 Cor 5:21) and come to any other conclusion. Wright wants to gloss dikaiosune theou with “the covenant faithfulness of God.” That seems to work well and faithfully in some contexts, but not in others. It is on those others that his case fails. He also left unexplained what the final verdict of justification is going to be based upon - that is, when the record of my own righteousness/unrighteousness that will constitute the basis for my eschatological judgment begins. less

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