The New Perspective on Paul and the Meaning of Justification

The following is the final paper for my Contemporary Issues in Theology class, which I refer to as Contemporary Issue in Theology since it focused entirely on the New Perspective on Paul.

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In the last thirty years, scholarship on Paul (especially Protestant scholarship) has been in a state of turmoil unprecedented since the Reformation. The culprit: the "New Perspective on Paul" (NPP), a paradigm for understanding the writings of the apostle that dares to examine some of the reformers' most cherished doctrines in a new light. Its supporters claim not to be introducing a new teaching, but correcting a long period of historical blindness that has kept their predecessors from understanding Paul rightly. Just what is the NPP? Referring to the movement with a unitary name is misleading, since there is no such single, monolithic theological entity.[1] Nonetheless, its major proponents share some key similarities in their theology.

The NPP understands itself as a corrective to Christian theologians' long history of misunderstanding the Judaism of Paul's time, from the early church to the twentieth century and beyond.[2] In modern theology, second-temple Judaism is commonly viewed as coldly legalistic and self-righteous, hoping to earn salvation from God by self-driven moral performance.[3] Based on this understanding of what Paul was reacting against in his letters, the salvific "faith" that he champions was defined in opposition to the "works" of the Jews, who became symbols of the basic, universal sin of works-righteousness; the essence of the gospel was to be found, it was thought, in Paul's teaching of justification by faith alone, rather than by works.[4] Eventually this consensus began to change via dialogue between Jewish and Christian scholars, the discovery of second-temple Jewish documents like the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the study of the Septuagint, the Hebrew scriptures translated into Greek which served as Paul's "Bible", and the ways it shaped his understanding of key terms like "righteousness" in relation to their meanings in classical Greek.[5] Jews who had long been calling out Christian scholars for misrepresenting their religion began to be joined by Christians like G.F. Moore, R.T. Herford, and James Parkes.[6]

The turning point came with the publication of E.P. Sanders' book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, which drew on recent historical research on second-temple Judaism to paint a picture that was drastically different than the "traditional" Christian one. This reinterpretation centered on his concept of "covenantal nomism", which proposed a new understanding of the place of the law in Jewish faith and practice. The law, Sanders said, was never a list of instructions to perfectly follow in order to earn God's favor and salvation; this was simply a caricature. Rather, it was to be understood within God's prior covenantal election of Israel. The law was not the way to enter the covenant, but the way to live within it, and it included means of atonement to maintain the covenantal relationship despite transgressions.[7] Sanders' vision of Judaism placed the electing, saving grace of God before human obedience, just as Christian theology does. His conclusions about Judaism are foundational for the theology of the NPP, though its supporters do not agree with all of his conclusions, especially his view of Paul as arbitrarily jumping from Judaism to Christianity, rejecting the law simply because it is not Christ.[8]

The NPP proper seeks a coherent understanding of Paul's theology that avoids the mistakes of earlier scholars, based on Sanders' insights, especially his view of Judaism characterized by covenantal nomism.[9] In light of their historical context, several of Paul's concepts that are key to the theology of what is now known as the "old perspective on Paul” are reinterpreted. Nomos, or "law", is no longer abstracted to refer to a universal moral imperative on humanity in contrast to the principle of “faith”; it is simply taken to refer to the Torah, the Mosaic law, and the Jewish way of life following from it. Erga nomou, "works of law", are no longer human-driven efforts to "earn" righteousness or salvation, but, in light of the phrase's usage in 4QMMT (a document from the Dead Sea Scrolls written by a second-temple Essene sect), are understood as particular commands of the law acting as "boundary markers" that clearly delineate the difference between Jew and non-Jew, or more generally the law's function of establishing this boundary.[10] Dikaiosynē, the Greek word that is translated to both "righteousness" and "justice" (as well as "justification" in Gal 2:21), is no longer taken to be an abstract moral quality as in classical Greek usage, but is understood more relationally in light of its usage in the Septuagint as referring to God's covenant faithfulness or to our inclusion in the covenant. "Justification", formerly taken to be virtually synonymous with "salvation" or "the gospel", is now understood to refer more to something that happens after salvation, namely a divine declaration that one is justified, vindicated, "in the right", a member of the covenant.[11]

One of the best-known proponents of the NPP is British New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, who has written extensively on Paul's life, writings, and theology. He believes that the traditional Protestant reading of Paul is heavily colored by Martin Luther's theology and his struggle against Catholic teaching, and seeks to situate the apostle and his letters back in their first-century Jewish historical and salvation-historical context.[12] Jews in Paul's time "were not sitting around discussing how to get to heaven, and swapping views on the finer points of synergism and sanctification. ... They were hoping and longing for Israel's God to act, to do what he had promised, to turn history the right way up once again.[13] "Salvation", for them, was distinctly corporate (not individual) and this-worldly. Though they had returned to the promised land from exile, the exile still continued in a metaphorical sense, as life was still far from the way it should be.[14] God's "righteousness", far from an abstract moral quality, was his covenant faithfulness, his commitment to end this exile and fulfill his redemptive promises to Israel.[15]

But not just to Israel. God's initial covenant with the childless Abraham entailed the creation of a family more numerous than the stars—but this family was not just identified with Israel. Rather, "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Gen 12:3 ESV) "Paul's view of God's purpose is that God, the creator, called Abraham so that through his family he, God, could rescue the world from its plight."[16] The Abrahamic covenant was the answer to the problem made evident in the previous eleven chapters of Genesis, namely sin, death, and the fall of God's creation into corruption. For this reason, Wright frequently describes the covenant, considered by the Jews to be the founding moment of Israel, as God's "single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world".[17] But as it turned out, Israel was just as sinful as its neighbors. (Rom 3:9-20) Thus there was a new, twofold problem: Israel, too, was in need to rescue, and its sin prevented the promises made to Abraham from having their intended effect of blessing for the nations.[18] This, according to Wright, is the context of Paul's teaching about justification and the gospel. How was God going to be faithful to his promises for the world, through Israel, in light of human unfaithfulness?

Answer: through Jesus the Messiah. Jesus obeyed the law perfectly yet took the curse for disobedience (as in Deu 28) on himself (Gal 3:13-14); by rising from the dead, he made "a way through the curse and out the other side, into the time of renewal when the Gentiles would at last come into Abraham's family, while Jews could have the possibility of covenant renewal, of receiving the promised spirit through faith."[19] The point of all of this is not simply to establish a soteriological system of "justification by faith", but to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant by creating the global family of faith that God promised him and to restore the creation to the way it should be. (Gal 3:7-9)

For Wright, justification is not the imputation of Christ's obedience "to our account"; still less is it synonymous with "salvation" or the gospel. Rather, in the context in which it is first mentioned in Paul's letters (Gal 2) as well as in contemporary Jewish writings, it is a status of vindication, a divine declaration that a person is part of God's covenant family and will be saved at the last judgment. Paul's point is not to establish a dichotomy between the opposing principles of "faith" and "works", but to insist that it is by faith in Christ, not works of the Torah (becoming Jewish, joining the nation of Israel) that God's people are now marked out.[20] The present verdict of justification is by faith alone, but it anticipates the final verdict of justification described in Romans 2, which will be by works. This is possible because of the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, transforming us and manifesting our justification; as Paul goes on to explain especially in Romans 6-8.[21] Wright seeks to restore "the Jewish, Messianic, covenantal, Abrahamic, history-of-Israel overtones", which he feels are screened out by the traditional Protestant understanding of Paul[22] but become visible with a study of Paul in his Jewish context.

The NPP is often met with criticism from conservative Protestant theologians. Foremost among Wright's critics is John Piper, who wrote a book to critique Wright's claims on Paul and justification. He alleges that the NPP, especially as represented by Wright, dangerously distorts the gospel taught by the Reformation tradition.[23] One frequently criticized tenet of the NPP is its claim that justification per se is not part of the gospel. Piper argues that the gospel is only good news if it includes justification; without it, in light of our sin, the announcement of Jesus' vindication and lordship is terrifying.[24] "[Paul's] announcement of the death and resurrection and lordship of Jesus became good news in Paul's preaching precisely because in some way he communicated that believing in this Christ brought about justification."[25] He appeals to Romans 5:1 to show that justification is part of how someone becomes a Christian, since it involves a crucial change in the relationship of the sinner to God without which there can be no salvation. Without justification, the gospel gives guilty rebels against God no reason to hope for a good outcome for themselves. Sinclair Ferguson also claims that Wright has exaggerated the gospel individualism and subjectivism to which he sees the NPP as an antidote.[26]

Piper also questions what he sees as Wright's redefinition of "righteousness" as impartiality and covenant faithfulness (on the part of God) or a status of vindication and covenant membership (on our part). Rather, Piper argues, as he has elsewhere, that righteousness is the same for God and man: "For both the defendant and the judge, righteousness is 'an unwavering allegiance to treasure and uphold the glory of God.' This is what makes God and humans 'righteous.'"[27] Because of this and contrary to Wright, the imputation of Christ's righteousness (his unfailing obedience to God's righteous demand "that we unwaveringly love and uphold the glory of God"[28]) does make sense and is a real and vital part of justification. Justification is not simply a status given to us by a courtroom declaration, but the counting of a real, alien moral righteousness as ours; "in Christ we are counted as having done all the righteousness that God requires".[29] J. Ligon Duncan points out that in its discussion of justification, the NPP tends to neglect atonement theology, actually investigating the work of Christ and how it functions in favor of focusing on the person of Christ as Lord and Messiah.[30]

Piper and others also dispute the NPP's reassessment of first-century Judaism as a "religion of grace". Piper believes that Paul's descriptions of his pre-conversion life depict him not as a humble supplicant of God's grace, but an arrogant blasphemer; as well, Jesus' teachings on the Pharisees show that they pursued Torah not out of gratitude to God but a craving for human glory.[31] Ultimately, ethnic pride and legalism have the same sinful root: self-righteousness.[32] J. Ligon Duncan also believes the NPP's case is inconclusive because it only denies that first-century Judaism was essentially Pelagian. But Luther only ascribed semi-Pelagianism to the Catholic church and Judaism, and this description still appears accurate.[33] He also criticizes the NPP for allowing a provisional theory on first-century Judaism to dominate its exegesis and diminish what the text is actually saying in favor of overwhelming context.

Finally, Piper emphasizes that both now and in the end, faith rather than works is the instrument of justification. He believes Wright's case for final justification on the basis of works from Romans 2:13 is inconclusive in its immediate context.[34] With extensive support from historic Protestant confessions, he reiterates the Reformation truth that a transformed life of obedience is necessary for the Christian, but it is only evidence and confirmation of our faith in Christ whose righteousness is the sole basis of our justification, both now and for eternity.[35] J. Ligon Duncan alleges that the NPP "diminishes the New Testament emphasis on the importance of the problem of sin and its forgiveness in relation to the Gospel" and focuses on Paul's soteriology and ecclesiology without considering his anthropology and hamartiology.[36] As a result of all of these factors, proponents of the old perspective believe that the NPP amounts to a corruption of the true gospel.

Several loci of disagreement between perspectives are evident. Most basically, they contrast on what second-temple Judaism was like, especially in relation to the Mosaic law: prototypically legalistic, or a "religion of grace" characterized by covenantal nomism. "Works of the law" are viewed as either meritorious actions intended to earn righteousness before God, or "boundary markers" or "badges" to mark one off as a member of the covenant. God's "righteousness" is his moral perfection and more specifically "[his] unswerving commitment to preserve the honor of his name and display his glory"[37], or his covenant faithfulness and impartiality as a judge. "Justification" is either the imputation of Christ's righteousness and the forgiveness of sins, or God's public declaration that someone is "in the right", a member of the covenant; the perspectives also differ on the relative importance of justification in the gospel. The NPP views the human condition more corporately as alienation from God's covenant of redemption which is intended to save from sin and death, in contrast to the more individualistic traditional stress on escaping God's wrath for sins and having a righteousness to stand on at the final judgment. Procedurally, the perspectives differ on the relative priority of the well-tested Reformation tradition and new historical-contextual research as guides for exegesis.

I find the New Perspective more, but not totally convincing. It answers several theological problems I have had with believing the old perspective. It rightly calls out the flaws of the Lutheran view of the "law" (which is also present, to a lesser degree, in Reformed theology) as a harsh judge or taskmaster that exists to show us our sin and drive us to God's grace. While this may be true on an individual level, it doesn't work when applied to the historical narrative of the Bible, which is the focus of the NPP. If sin is virtually equivalent to self-justification, why did God give the Israelites a law that plays right into it and then leave them to struggle with it for thousands of years before sending the Messiah it was supposed to "point" to all along? What of all the Jews who lived and died before this time, who knew the law only in its negative function of inciting and condemning their sin? And if this function of the law continues in the church age (as Luther’s universalizing treatment of the law implies), why do we not repent of breaking the Sabbath or eating pork? This telling makes the law, as described by Paul, seem like something God saves us from, or at least a deliberately ineffective measure for dealing with sin. As well, the law itself commands its hearers to seek life and righteousness by obedience to it (Lev 18:5, Deu 6:25) which is seen as possible at the present time (Deu 30:11-14); the old perspective does not take these verses seriously, or even contrasts them with justification by faith! Crucially, the old perspective does not (in my experience) attempt to explain how the Judaism Paul denigrated is different than the Judaism established by God in the Old Testament, which is essential to avoid a neo-Marcionite reading of Scripture.

I also believe the NPP offers a somewhat better account of justification. The "traditional" view is based on an Anselmian, inward-oriented, demanding view of God's righteousness/justice that needs to be "satisfied" by the punishment of sin, whether in us or in Christ. The critical point of justification is a change in the divine disposition towards us, from "against us" to "for us".[38] I do not believe that this is an accurate understanding of God's justice. Though I don't exactly agree with Wright's understanding of "righteousness", I agree with him that the imputation of Christ's righteousness does not make sense; the logic of imputation is foreign to the Bible as well as common sense. Piper's criticism that the New Perspective understanding of "justification" makes it into little more than a status[39] rings hollow; what is imputed righteousness if not a legal status with no corresponding moral reality? Isn’t that exactly the point of justification by faith alone? The old perspective bases its view of justification on a merit-based concept of salvation, which, with the Orthodox Church, I believe is not a part of biblical soteriology.[40]

Finally, along with Wright I find it ironic that in his rebuttal Piper repeatedly appeals to Reformation tradition as normative. This is seen as he assumes that the old perspective is the default or "obvious" interpretation of Scripture; Ferguson calls it the "old wine" in reference to Luke 5:39 (seemingly unaware that the "new wine" stands for the gospel in this parable).[41] Aside from the fact that little effort is made to trace this tradition back any earlier than the sixteenth century (and thus demonstrate that it is not itself a corruption of an older tradition), it is hard to reconcile Reformed theologians' appeals to it with their claimed ancestors' opposition to established tradition and willingness to pursue fresh readings of Scripture. What do you do when a theology that emerged in defiance of tradition becomes the new tradition?

Perhaps because of these appeals to tradition, the old perspective tends to neglect to engage the NPP on its own turf: new historical research into second-temple Judaism and Paul's Jewish context. Piper's engagement with it is mostly limited to a chapter warning that studying first-century ideas may not be illuminating (which Wright satisfactorily rebuts[42]). I also agree with Wright that the New Perspective is more Trinitarian, creational, and Israel-focused than the old,[43] themes which are far too important to neglect when reading Paul. I consider his theology of synergism[44] to be an important part of soteriology rather than a "bogey-word" to be avoided.

Yet the New Perspective is not perfect. Many of its faults may simply be consequences of its break with Protestant tradition on such central doctrines and the need to distinguish itself from the "default" interpretation of Paul, which is not entirely without value. While I am sympathetic to N.T. Wright's points about the Jewish context and connotations of Paul's usage of terms like dikaios(yne) and erga nomou, I have trouble following the gospel narrative he builds out of them; it feels unintuitive, like an external interpretive grid laid over the text which confuses more than it enlightens. Some of this is from how he tends to look for one clear-cut context in which to define words, and then feels free to use this meaning everywhere (e.g. defining "justified" in light of what we can know of the "Antioch incident" in Galatians 2, and then reading it through this lens throughout Paul's writing). How does James use dikaioō in his epistle? In Wright's telling, the word seems to be defined almost entirely by context, with little innate meaning.

As well, due to its methodological emphasis on studying Paul in his social, cultural, and historical context, proponents of the NPP tend to interpret his letters in a very human way, more so than their opponents. Wright complains that the old perspective does not keep the Holy Spirit in sight in its understanding of final justification,[45] but he interacts little with how the same Spirit may be speaking through Paul to grant his words new dimensions of meaning for the church he helped found, beyond his original context. The old perspective does this better. Both perspectives also still tend to look largely to Paul (rather than the other epistles or, even the gospels) to understand what "the gospel" basically is, though Wright somewhat sees past this.[46]

Another result of the project of distinguishing itself from the old view is that the NPP tends to draw strong theological dichotomies for detractors like Piper to jump on: ethnocentrism vs. moralism,[47] or justification vs. reconciliation with God.[48] Both perspectives seem to support the familiar dichotomy between justification and sanctification, creating a sharp disconnect (or strictly one-way relationship) between justification and any moral righteousness on our part.[49]

The NPP works better as a part of a larger whole than as a complete account of the gospel; for example, Duncan is correct in pointing out that it says little about the atonement in itself. Wright and others, with their rigorous study of Paul's context, have produced a set of hermeneutical tools for glimpsing new dimensions of Paul's theology—but it would be foolish to use these new ideas exclusively (Wright would probably agree with this). James Dunn considers the NPP to be complementary with the historic Protestant doctrine of justification.[50] I would go a different route and combine it with an Orthodox understanding of soteriology, Christology, eschatology, and anthropology. Justification includes both reconciliation and vindication, with a definite beginning that is also maintained as the Christian continues to live and grow through right relationship (union) with God and the destruction of sin by the atonement of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Contrary to the old perspective, I believe the whole of Scripture testifies that God is always, unconditionally “for” us; the question is whether we resist his grace or allow it to be effectual in us. There is no need for justification to convince him to bestow grace on us or make up for a deficiency in merit on our part. This approach overcomes the shortcomings of both perspectives, complementing traditional Christian soteriology with the fresh insights of the NPP and offering a more satisfying answer to the issues at hand.

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1. Tom Wright, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2009), 12.
2. Michael Wise, “Some Comments on Origins of the New Perspective: Part 1,” course notes.
3. George Foot Moore, "Christian Writers on Judaism," Harvard Theological Review 14 (1921), 252–253.
4. Francis Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: Beyond the New Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 30,37,51.
5. Wise, "Some Comments on Origins of the New Perspective" (both parts), course notes.
6. James D.G. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 199.
7. E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 422.
8. Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles, 49; Dunn, Word Biblical Commentary: Volume 38A, Romans 1–8, (Dallas: Word Incorporated, 1988), lxvi.
9. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, 1–6.
10. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, 8–15.
11. Wright, Justification, 111–113.
12. Wright, Justification, 53–58.
13. Wright, Justification, 37.
14. Wright, Justification, 41.
15. Wright, Justification, 52.
16. Wright, Justification, 73.
17. Wright, Justification, 103.
18. Wright, Justification, 175.
19. Wright, Justification, 104.
20. Wright, Justification, 96.
21. Wright, Justification, 163–168.
22. Wright, Justification, 62.
23. John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 16–17,25,37–38,61,181–183
24. Piper, The Future of Justification, 89.
25. Piper, The Future of Justification, 90.
26. Sinclair Ferguson, "What Does Justification Have to do with the Gospel?", Ligonier Ministries, 1 February 2010, < http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/what-does-justification-have-do-gospel/> (31 January 2015).
27. Piper, The Future of Justification, 71.
28. Piper, The Future of Justification, 164.
29. Piper, The Future of Justification, 171.
30. J. Ligon Duncan, "The Attractions of the New Perspective(s) on Paul," Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, 2009, < ttp://www.alliancenet.org/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID307086_CHID560462_CIID1660662,00.html> (31 January 2015).
31. Piper, The Future of Justification, 152,154.
32. Piper, The Future of Justification, 159.
33. Duncan, "The Attractions of the New Perspective(s) on Paul."
34. Piper, The Future of Justification, 108.
35. Piper, The Future of Justification, 110.
36. Duncan, "The Attractions of the New Perspective(s) on Paul."
37. Piper, The Future of Justification, 66.
38. Piper, The Future of Justification, 184.
39. Piper, The Future of Justification, 78.
40. Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2002), 197.
41. Ferguson, "What Does Justification Have to do with the Gospel?".
42. Wright, Justification, 31–34.
43. Wright, Justification, 212,222.
44. Wright, Justification, 163–168.
45. Wright, Justification, 163–164.
46. Wright, Justification, 60.
47. Piper, The Future of Justification, 160.
48. Wright, Justification, 199.
49. Wright, Justification, 180, 187.
50. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, 194.

My Journey, Part 8: Back to the Gospel

This is part 8 of my rebooted series on my journey from Evangelicalism to Eastern Orthodoxy. The full series can be found here:

1	Back to the beginning
2	Cracks appear
3	Questions multiply
4	Questioning the "gospel"
5	The big question
6	A better hermeneutic
7	Explorations in epistemology
7.5	Excursus on oversystematization
8	Back to the gospel
9	The new direction
10	Ecclesiological foundations
11.1	Sola scriptura
11.2	The insufficiency of Scripture
11.25	Addenda on sola scriptura
11.3	Holy Tradition
12	Bridging the cracks
13.1	Orthodoxy and Genesis 1–3
13.2	A Better Atonement (Against Penal Substitution)
13.3	Faith Alone?
13.4	The Colour and the Shape of the Gospel
14	Worshipping with the Church
15	Mary, Saints, Baptism, and Other Odds/Ends
16	Looking Back, Coming Home

Through all of this thinking about the nature of the Bible and what we do with it, I never lost sight of the goal. I sought to understand what this all-important "gospel" was all about now that I'd acknowledged that the pat answers I'd been hearing weren't sufficient. I faced questions like "Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?", "How do faith and works relate for the Christian?", the simple question "What is salvation, really?", and the big one: "How do the Testaments fit together?". Everything seemed open to revision, but somehow this no longer bothered me. After all that God had brought me through, I was beginning to trust Him even without having neat answers at the moment. It was while searching for answers to questions like these that I began the present series on the Gospel.

Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?
This is the classic question of atonement, for which numerous theories have been advanced. I began searching for ways to think about the atonement that view sin, salvation, etc. in more of a "relational" way, whatever that meant (certainly not in the oversystematized way I described last time).

When we say Jesus destroyed sin on the cross, to avoid spiritual object thinking, we must consider 'sin' to mean 'separation from God of those united with Him.' (2013-6-9)

The penal substitutionary atonement theory seemed dependent on the juridical, spiritual-object definition of sin that I had grown quite tired of, and I instead began taking interest in the atonement theories held by the early church; Christus Victor and ransom theory seemed especially promising. Having learned about atonement only through the Reformed tradition, though, it was hard for me to fully shift my thinking to these new lenses.

Somewhat related to this, I was trying to see the cross as just one part of Jesus' redemptive work, alongside the resurrection and perhaps His whole life. I realized that emphasizing the crucifixion exclusively above these things was not pious, but a distortion of the true gospel, whatever it was. Part of putting it into perspective was acknowledging a fact that we forget surprisingly easily by fitting the cross into a theological system of salvation: God was dead. And we killed Him. Before my Good Friday post on the oft-forgotten tragedy of the cross, I journaled:

By making Jesus' death seem inevitable, fitting into my theology like a neat puzzle piece, I lessen the shock value of the cross. God not only became a man, but we killed Him horribly. ... The crucifixion was a defeat, not a victory. (2014-1-12)

I overstated my point here, since (as I would learn) the victory of the resurrection can't be separated from the defeat of the cross, but I was on the right track by seeking a theology that affirmed both.

How do faith and works relate for the Christian?
With somewhat more success, I sought to see past the dichotomy we had set up between human and divine agency, to see what role works could play in a Christian:

Faith is not simply a reduced cost of admission, it is an openness and desire to live as God's covenant people. The problem with salvation by works, basically, is not that it is intrinsically bad or prideful, but that it is impossible. The pride comes in if you delude yourself otherwise. In other words, faith doesn't simply replace works for us. Rather, the faithfulness of Christ fulfills in us what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not—He makes us righteous, just as the law commanded. Faith is not a soteriological substitute for works, but a recognition and acceptance of the supremacy of Christ, to do in us what we couldn't do ourselves. Works are still important—but because of our union with Christ our actions are also the power of God working through us. (Phil 2:12-13) (2014-1-30)

I was slowly coming to a more integrated view of faith and works as partners, not opponents. Taking up faith doesn't have to mean setting aside our own effort as if it were something bad. Faith does not simply mean ceasing to try to save ourselves and trusting in Christ's work instead; it is not simply an alternative to human effort, and the two are not opposite poles. Instead (as Paul describes in those verses which are the clearest description of synergism I knew of), by faith we recognize and trust in the mystery that because of the Holy Spirit, our own actions and decisions also become God's "willing and working" in us for His good pleasure. I started to see the perfect union of divinity and humanity that Jesus embodied as a pattern for the Christian life.

What is salvation, really?
Through this, though, I was still unsure about the nature of this salvation that we attained to through God's faithful working in us. I sought to thinking about it in a "relational" way, whatever that meant, not as a metaphysical "thing" that we simply need to get and defend.

I've been thinking about salvation as a spiritual object again, as something that God ties up with a proverbial bow and hands to us in exchange for either faith or good works. But again, this is a disconnected, non-relational way of thinking of it. (2014-1-30)

In our rush to "get in" (and to theologize about how "getting in" is easy and doesn't depend on us even though we have to make a decision, and about how once you're "in" it's impossible to come back "out"), could we be losing sight of just what "in" entails?

Protestants take a very minimalist view of salvation, like a student asking, 'what's the least I need to do to pass?' There are no right answers to wrong questions. (2014-1-24)

Admittedly, I was being unfair and overgeneralizing here. But I do think "salvation" is commonly thought of as something atomic, indivisible, all-or-nothing, devoid of degree, so we can slip into thinking that once we "have" salvation we're good and everything else is just icing on the cake, a little like how you can get a passing grade on that final exam and then forget everything you learned. It's the assumption behind "threshold evangelism". If this view of salvation is "minimalist" (in that we seek to reduce salvation to its essential essence and hold fast to that over everything else as what's truly important), I sought a "maximalist" understanding, whatever that looked like. I expected that it would do away with the distinction between salvation and sanctification and instead encompass both as part of the same process, and that it would not focus so much on individuals that it seemed to forget about the larger scope of God's redemptive purpose.

How do the testaments fit together?
The question of the testaments saw the most progress, partly because it was the number-one thing wreaking havoc on my faith so I spent the most time and attention on it. Presaging my entry on 2014-1-30 about how faith fulfills the law, I tried to see the law not as a list of dos and don'ts from which Christ sets us free, but as a covenant of God with a definite redemptive purpose, which Christ now fulfills.

Perhaps the law is not to be ultimately understood in terms of its provisions and requirements, but the kind of people and society it was meant to produce—perfectly bearing God's image, living in Shalom. So the 'righteous requirement of the law' in Romans 8:4 is not referring to doing all the rules, but the requirement to become this kind of people. And Christ's fulfilling it does not mean somehow checking all the boxes of the law, but enabling us to be transformed into His perfect, godly likeness. … In other words, what if the requirement of the law is not just to do certain things, but to be a certain people? (2013-8-25)

This helped to make sense of how Jesus could fulfill the law when he so cavalierly bent or broke the letter of it, and taught others to do the same. But more than this, what really helped answer my questions about how the covenants/testaments fit together was this wonderful thing called...

The New Perspective on Paul

Before I can define the New Perspective, I have to clearly define the "Old Perspective": it is the traditional (for Protestants) reading of Paul's letters (especially Romans, Galatians, and Philippians) as being, first and foremost, about how sinful people "get right with God" and go from the condemnation and death brought by sin to forgiveness and eternal life, which is considered to be the meaning of Paul's term "justification". In the Lutheran flavor of the Old Perspective, the law is something frightful and oppressive that constantly shows us our sin by contrasting it with God's impossibly high standards in order to drive us toward our savior Jesus, who fulfills this law on our behalf so that we can know God in His grace and receive Christ's "alien righteousness" by which alone we are justified. In the Reformed flavor, the law may serve this purpose, but we are not merely saved by Jesus from it but to it, to obey it not out of our dead, fallen sinful nature and feeble self-effort but by the life given to us by Christ and the empowering of the Holy Spirit, God working in us to do what we cannot do for ourselves. In this way "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes". (Rom 10:4)

This reading of Paul should be highly familiar for evangelicals, lying close to the heart of the "Gospel". The New Perspective, in contrast, reads these parts of Paul as being "about" something quite different: the destruction of racial and ethnic barriers between Jew and Gentile, and the creation of one united people of God from both groups when they were formerly enemies. "Works of the law", then, is read not as shorthand for "human moral effort", "works righteousness", or "pulling yourself up by your spiritual bootstraps", but as "boundary markers" in the Torah (remember that "Torah" simply means "law" and both are expressed by the same Greek word, nomos) that were being used to mark out a distinctively Jewish identity for the early Christians that left Gentile believers out in the cold. "Justification" is read not so much metaphysically, as "getting right with God" spiritually, but sociologically, as being shown to be right with God, adopted into His covenant people.

A quick tour of the New Perspective

I first learned about the New Perspective through the writings of the former Anglican bishop of Durham, N.T. Wright, who I already knew and respected even before that. In his book
Justification (in which he responds to John Piper's critique and makes the case for his understanding of the New Perspective), Wright explains that first-century Jews (such as Jesus, His apostles, and His Pharisaic opponents) were not given to theologizing about what happens after you die or how to be accepted into heaven. Their concept of heaven was not otherworldly, but pointedly this-worldly. The narrative in which they saw themselves was not one in which all people are innately sinful and justly condemned to hell unless they could acquire some kind of salvific righteousness to cover their sins. All of these were concerns of Luther and the late medieval Catholic Church, but not of first-century Judaism.

Instead, their narrative was one in which they, the children of Abraham, had been chosen by God out of all the nations (ethnoi, also translated "Gentiles") to be His people, His treasured possession, given promises of divine blessing and favor and an unending line of Davidic kingship (1 Kings 2:4). This was drastically at odds with Israel's present situation, kingless and instead subjected to rule by one foreign power after another. In a very real sense, even though the Jews were back in the promised land with a rebuilt temple, their exile was still ongoing. The fulfillment of God's promises to them had still not come. So they eagerly hoped to see God prove true to His promises; some took a more passive, fatalistic view (especially the sectarian Essenes) while others (e.g. the Zealots) took a more active approach, seeking to overthrow the Romans and restore Israel's place by violent uprising. The Jews awaited the coming of the Messiah to bring about this fulfillment, though the person of the Messiah was actually not as essential as the promises themselves, however God chose to fulfill them. All clung jealously to "works of Torah", the signs of their election by God (especially circumcision and the law), to show that they belonged not to the ethnoi but were the chosen nation of God who would soon be vindicated (or justified) when He restored them.

What Paul was doing, then, was presenting Jesus was the fulfillment of God's promises, albeit in an unexpected way. (Hence the controversy among the Jews, messianic and non-) But he was not simply answering Israel's cries for national liberation and promised (tangible) blessings with a metaphysical system for salvation from sin and death through individual reconciliation with God. If that was what Jesus had come to inaugurate, He would not have been crucified because no one would have understood Him enough to be angry. Instead, Paul argued, God's promises had been fulfilled not at the end of the age but in the middle of it, and not for all of Israel but for one man, Jesus. What was the meaning of this? In particular, what was the meaning of Jesus' surprising acceptance of Gentiles? Had He forgotten to whom the promises had been made? In response, Paul takes a step back and reminds his readers that before the law had been given, even before circumcision, Abraham found favor with God—by faith. And God's promises to Abraham which he believed never promised some kind of exclusive blessing of Israel and Israel alone. Rather, God told him that "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Israel was supposed to be the means by which God's promises and blessing would come to the whole world. Salvation of the Gentiles is not some unexpected development, argues Paul; it was the plan from the start. The law was given as a tutor and guide for Israel, but it was not meant to permanently separate her from the nations; it was supposed to shape her into God's blessing to them.

But because of Israel's misconception that God's promises were for her instead of through her, the promises had gotten "stuck" and did not come to fruition. Israel became part of the larger problem of sin and death rather than its solution. What was needed was a faithful Israelite who would lead the Jews to their intended obedience and bring God's blessing to the whole world. And this is just what Jesus came to do. So, trying to sum up, when Paul talks about justification, he is not referring to the process by which an individual is "made right" with God. Again, this would have been a total non-sequitur for Paul's audience. He is talking about who is part of God's covenant people, and how you can tell. Formerly the Gentiles had been excluded; now they were invited, apart from the law that had been used to exclude them. Paul's Judaizer opponents in Galatians, like many other Jews, believed that the law of Moses was what marked out those who would be vindicated/justified by God; it was not what "made them right" with God but simply how they stayed in His covenant and demonstrated their membership. But, Paul argues, the boundary marker of God's people is not obedience to the law, but faith in Jesus Christ, the one God has chosen to unite His people and fulfill His promises at last.

Later, I also read Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles by Francis Wright, which offered an interesting attempt to move "beyond the New Perspective" (the book's subtitle). Watson very consciously calls attention to the immediate context and specific purpose of Paul's letters; he tries to show what, specifically, Paul was saying, addressing, and doing through them, in response to the tendency to read them as systematic theology. Specifically, he argues that Paul is trying to establish Christianity as a new religion and not simply a new sect of Judaism, hence his rejection of the Jewish law and embrace of the faith of Jesus Christ as its foundation. He is rightly wary of the possibility of overcompensating for the Old Perspective and understanding "justification" only sociologically. Watson does seem to go too far toward portraying Paul as opposing Judaism simply because it is not Christianity (rather than opposing it insofar as it has rejected and excluded itself from God's redemptive plan), but he offers an interesting and valuable counterbalance to Wright.

The value of the New Perspective

My study of the New Perspective on Paul was very helpful for understanding the gospel, more than anything else, for three main reasons:

First, the New Perspective reading of Paul is much more contextually sensitive than the Old—to both Paul's historical context and the literary context of his letters. I think Wright's criticism that the Old Perspective today is a result of reading Scripture with "nineteenth-century eyes and sixteenth-century questions" is accurate. We assume that Paul shared Luther's late medieval concerns with the metaphysical salvation of the soul, along with his heavily Catholic-influenced definitions of "works" and "merit". I began to become suspicious of this, and saw a possible key to resolving the seemingly inescapable tension between the Testaments:

The 'life' promised in Lev 18:5 can't be eschatological life. This wasn't anywhere on Israel's radar. (2014-2-3)

But I repeat the question I asked before: what if Paul is not simply laying down abstract doctrine for the church to believe at all times, but is writing contextually to particular churches facing particular problems? The New Perspective (especially as represented by Watson) takes this question seriously. It recognizes the historical realities of Paul's situation and his purpose in writing his letters and reads them through this lens, not our modern concerns about how one "gets saved". It recognizes that Paul was not writing systematic theology in his letters. Rather than taking people for a ride along the "Romans road" or calling a collection of prooftexts from all over Paul's letters "the gospel", the New Perspective sagely fits them into Paul's larger situation as the apostle to the Gentiles. It makes a serious, honest attempt to find what Paul was actually trying to say and do through his letters, getting beneath how we have interpreted him through the centuries.

Second, as I mentioned in my post on the impersonal gospel, the New Perspective recognizes that justification, and the gospel in general, is not about us. Of course any evangelical will be the first to stress that "it's not about us, it's about God"—but does the theology really show that? The "gospel" as commonly stated is about what God does—for us. It is too often seen, primarily, as a message of personal, metaphysical salvation. We view it as a sign of Jesus' great love for us that we can consider His sacrifice on the cross to have been "for" us, personally. As I expressed on 2013-1-10, I was getting tired of this kind of individualism.

How is the gospel usually stated in evangelicalism? 'God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, so He sent Jesus so that your sin could be forgiven and you can have a personal relationship with Him.' With such a personal understanding of the gospel—as being all about you and God—is it any wonder that so many American Christians have a self-centered faith? (2013-1-10)

I thought about all the historical narrative and Jew/Gentile language as if it were the backdrop to God's continuing mission of saving individual souls—which He doesn't always succeed at! (2014-2-25)

The grand gospel narrative, for Paul, is not metaphysical but historical. (2014-2-25)

The New Perspective, in contrast, doesn't just say that it's all about God, it demonstrates it. By situating Paul's message firmly in its historical context it reveals the historical and cosmic dimensions of salvation as well as the metaphysical, as something grand and epic that doesn't just boil down to you and Jesus. Rather than making the gospel somehow less personal, this change makes it into something superpersonal, that draws me up out of myself and my own life into an unimaginably vast and ongoing historical salvation plan for the whole world that I am called to take part in.

Third, and most obviously, the NPP alleviates most (if not all) of the confusion I'd been having about how the Old and New Testaments fit together. By showing how the Mosaic law was a gift in its original context, how the Jews could be called to obey it without this constituting a call to seek "works righteousness", what place deeds have in the life of Christian faith, and how Paul's opposition of "works of the law" and "faith of Jesus Christ" doesn't mean that the Mosaic law itself is a bad thing but that it had been misused, it effectively cured the confusion I was having about the gospel apparently being a God-given solution to a God-given problem.

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In such possibilities I saw the seeds of a new, better theology, one that would be an effective answer to the doubts that had sprang up like weeds and would help me to live out the gospel more authentically than I had ever been able to before. But this vision of the gospel seemed like just that—a vision, an ideal, something expressed in airy theology that we can and should strive for but shouldn't expect to see consistently realized in the real Church, work in progress that she is. It seemed like I would have to work out this theology myself essentially from scratch. I didn't know of any church that demonstrated it, certainly not in the Twin Cities.