wonderful summary on NT Wright
When I read Paul’s letters, it sure sounds like he’s dealing with legalism.
Correct. Wright likes to set statements that Paul makes in the wider context of the whole story of the Bible. This wider story often controls Wright’s interpretation of Paul’s words—to the exclusion of the words themselves.
Okay, so if Paul isn’t confronting works based righteousness, what is he confronting?
In Wright’s system, justification isn’t about “getting in” or “becoming a Christian.” Instead, justification is about being identified with the community God is going to vindicate when the final verdict is handed down. So the important point is not an individual conversion experience but participation in the community God is going to justify. So in Wright’s view, the “works” that Paul is opposing are not things people do to earn God’s favor, they are things people do to be part of the community. For Wright, circumcision in Galatians is a badge of membership in the community. In this scheme, faith, rather than “works of law,” is the badge one wears to signify one’s membership in the community.
Is this really what Paul means?
Well, if you read Galatians from Wright’s paradigm, you might be able to make the words Paul uses mean what Wright says they mean. The question is whether Paul means for the words to be understood this way, and to determine that we have to compare what Paul says in Galatians with what he says elsewhere. The question is whether Paul says things in other places that cannot fit Wright’s scheme. If so, the concepts in Galatians probably don’t mean what Wright says they do.
Well, does what Paul says elsewhere fit Wright’s scheme?
That’s something that we all have to engage in Pauline theology to determine. Read Romans 9:30–32 for yourself:
ESV Romans 9:30 “What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. 32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.”
This language about having a “righteousness that is by faith” as opposed to pursuing a righteousness “based on works” sure makes it look like we get declared righteous, justified, by God when we believe. How does Wright understand this?
The traditional protestant understanding has been that Jesus took our sin and we get his righteousness. In other words, our trespasses are imputed to him, and he suffers for them in our place. Likewise, his righteousness is imputed to us, and we stand before God clothed in his righteousness. Several texts in the New Testament, taken together, lead to this position (Rom 4:1–8; 5:12–21; 2 Cor 5:21; 1 Cor 1:30; Phil 3:9; Rom 9:30–10:4, see Brian Vickers’ book, Jesus’ Blood and Righteousness).
Wright’s system only works if Paul is not talking about the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Without imputation, Wright’s view that justification means being identified with the community that will be vindicated makes sense. Wright doesn’t believe that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to believers.
Ouch. That’s some cause for concern, but lots of scholars push the envelope. Why are people so exercised about Wright?
He’s not only a capable scholar at the highest technical levels, he’s taking his message to the people. Here’s a guy who is writing a 6 volume Theology of the New Testament (Christian Origins and the Question of God) that will make him the most influential NT scholar since Bultmann, and he’s also putting his views in dozens of little popular books for mass consumption. On top of that, he’s a charming speaker with a British accent, and this accent, of course, makes everything he says sound right.
But that’s not all. Evangelicals love him not only for the way he dressed down the Jesus Seminar but for his masterful defense of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Further, his first book was actually a defense of the Doctrines of Grace published by Banner of Truth. So he seems to come from the evangelical fold, and this can make his ideas even more attractive.
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