NT Wright">Five Points of NT Wright
When Paul talks about righteous status, he uses different phrasing, as in Philippians 3:9, where he talks not about the “righteousness of God” but about “righteousness from God.” In this kind of context, Paul is evoking the “context of the Jewish law court,” and the word is a forensic term. There, “when the case has been heard, the judge finds in favor of one party and against the other. Once this has happened, the indicated party possesses the status of ‘righteous’ – not itself a moral statement, we note, but a statement of how things stand in terms of the now completed lawsuit.” The status of the vindicated man before the judge is not the result of the imputation of the judge’s own righteousness; the righteousness of the judge is instead evident in his conduct of the case, whether he has tried the case fairly or not. Wright says that, within this context, it’s quite proper to say that the judge has “made” the party righteous by his verdict “because ‘righteous’ at this point is not a word denoting moral character but only and precisely the status that you have when the court has found in your favor.”
Sinclair Ferguson on the New Perspective(s)
1. Sinclair comments that the “Old Perspective” has not been understood by many exponents of the New Perspective. A vitally important point in this whole discussion.
2. He also has some searching comments about the propensity for some (especially us American Christians) to look for “gurus” who are teaching some new thing. He says we need to beware the longing “for gurus to give us something new or give us something we don’t have in the Gospel.”
3. He astutely observes that the “NPP” is not a helpful denomination – because (1) many NPP proponents do not have a shared theology or a broadly defined theological position and (2) it is developing, and so is a moving target.
4. He observes five attractions of the NPP. It (1) transforms our view of Judaism; (2) gives hope for RC-Protestant rapprochment; (3) counters dichotomy between OT/NT religion; (4) counters evangelical subjectivism; (5) provides a liberation from individualism – emphasizes community
5. He rightly notes that NPP writers say many good things that don’t have anything to do with (or that do not exclusively derive from) the NPP, and that the NPP raises helpful questions, such as “what is the Gospel?” He also admits that the NPP often highlights legitimate evangelical problems: subjectivism, and unconcern with the church.
6. He notes that the NPP has a tendency to establish straw men – illustrating this by noting Sanders arguments on Judaism as religion of grace (and brilliantly comparing this to the novels of Chaim Potok).
7. He argues that (1) it is an exegetical mistake to suggest that Paul was without pre-conversion guilt; (2) a mistake to see Romans as a theodicy rather than as an exposition of salvation; and that (3) Works of the law/works cannot be reduced to boundary markers, (4) nor can justification be transformed into ecclesiology.
You might also want to check out this response by Bishop Wright that is part of an exchange with Bishop Paul Barnett of Sydney. The link is broken to +Barnett’s first piece, but I am still looking.
For a broad overview of the debate The Paul Page is also a great resource.
19 Comments •
), so I agree with your assessment regarding the percentage of N.T. Wright afficianados in the OPC. And yes, FV is a mixed bag.
Thanks for the pointer Matt! You’ve given me my summer reading list.