The New Perspective on Paul:A Reformed Assessment

Stephen E. Paynter,A PhD Student in New Testament Studies, Trinity College, Bristol.

21st June, 2012

Abstract

This paper introduces the reader to the revolutions in interpreting Paul’s teaching onjustification that have followed in the wake of E.P. Sanders’s 1977 work on the nature offirst century Judaism: “Paul and Palestinian Judaism”. After briefly introducing the ‘NewPerspective on Paul’ this paper critiques it, and the scholarship that it is built upon, froman evangelical and Reformed perspective. A paper of this size and scope can do little morethan document the broad outline of the issues involved.

1 Introduction

In the last quarter of the twentieth century New Testament scholars started to propose a newunderstanding of Second Temple Judaism, and have argued that this necessitates a new read-ing of Paul. This so-called New Perspective on Paul (NPP) has had large success in certain(especially English speaking) scholarly circles, and has started to cross over into the Church,including evangelical and Reformed churches. Its popularity in scholarly circles suggests that itsimpact will be increasingly felt in the Church as more ministers emerge who have been taughtit during their training.

The particular aspect of Paul’s thought which has been reinterpreted is his teachings onjustification. However, there are differences of opinion amongst NPP scholars on how, precisely,Paul’s teaching on justification should be understood. The NPP is really therefore just aconvenient ‘umbrella term’ for a range of positions which have certain familial characteristics.In particular, these characteristics include a belief that Second Temple Judaism was not legalisticand that the Reformers (and Rome) got Paul’s teaching on justification wrong.

This is an important and complex issue. It is important because of the popularity of the NPPand because justification has been traditionally understood to hold an important (even central)role in the gospel and our salvation. Changes in it are likely to entail we have a significantlydifferent gospel to believe and proclaim. Seyoon Kim has highlighted the significance of thesefactors:

“Since the Reformation, I think no school of thought, not even the Bultmanian school, has exerteda greater influence upon Pauline scholarship than the school of the New Perspective. With itsradical reinterpretation of Paul’s gospel, especially his doctrine of justification, on the basis ofEd P. Sanders’s definition of Second Temple Judaism as covenantal nomism, the New Perspectiveis in many respects overturning the Reformation interpretation of Paul’s gospel. The potentialsignificance of the school for the whole Christian faith can hardly be exaggerated.”1

It is a complex issue because it raises questions concerned with history and historical method(e.g. what the nature of first century Palestinian Judaism was, and how we should determinethat); historical theology (e.g. what the issues were in the Pelagian controversy and in the Re-formation); biblical theology (e.g. the role of the Mosaic law in both the old and new covenants);and exegesis (particularly, the exegesis of Paul’s epistles). It should not be surprising, therefore,that this debate has been described as being “bogged down with multiple confusions.”2

1Seyoon Kim, “Paul and the New Perspective: Second Thoughts on the Origin of Paul’s Gospel”, [27],William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 2002, page xiv.

2The words are John Barclay’s quoted on the back of Stephen Westerholm’s “Perspectives Old and Newon Paul: The ‘Lutheran’ Paul and His Critics”, [55], William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids:Michigan), 2004.

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The Reformed consider this subject challenging quite apart from its inherent complexity.Whenever one reads about or reflects on God and his revelation, one’s responses are on trial,and this is especially the case the closer one gets to the basis of our reconciliation with God. Inparticular, Reformed scholars have noted the importance of understanding one’s predicament asa sinner before a holy God in coming to a proper appreciation of Paul’s teaching on justification.In the nineteenth century, for example, James Buchanan wrote:

“The best preparation for the study of this doctrine is—neither great intellectual ability, nor muchscholastic learning—but a conscience impressed with a sense of our actual condition as sinners inthe sight of God. A deep conviction of sin is the one thing needful in such an inquiry ... To studythe subject with advantage, we must have a heartfelt interest in it, as one that bears directly on thesalvation of our souls; and this interest can only be felt in proportion as we realize our guilt, andmisery, and danger, as transgressors of God’s Law. ... It is the convinced, and not careless, sinner,who alone will lay to heart, with some sense of its real meaning and momentous importance, thesolemn question – ‘How shall a man be just with God?’”3

Unlike many other challenges to the traditional evangelical gospel, the challenge of the NPPcannot be automatically ruled out due to some methodological or pre-suppositional problemwith it. Second Temple Judaism may have been as the NPP scholars claim, and when this isproperly appreciated, our reading of Paul may have to change in the ways suggested. Onlypainstaking historical reconstruction and exegesis of Paul’s letters will determine the matter.This is not to admit that there are no methodological problems with the scholarship on whichthe NPP is built, only to recognise they are not so foundational that the whole challenge isautomatically overturned. Unfortunately, in this paper it will only be possible to sketch someof the methodological problems and exegetical issues with the NPP; a definitive response wouldnecessarily need to be much more extensive.

2 The New Perspective on Paul

This section briefly introduces the literature and the case for the New Perspective on Paul beforelater sections go on to challenge it.

An important forerunner of the New Perspective is Krister Stendahl, who anticipated manyof the conclusions of the New Perspective scholars in his 1964 paper, “Paul and the IntrospectiveConscience of the West”4. The New Perspective proper, however, is generally considered tohave been launched by the publication of E.P. Sanders’s 1977 book “Paul and PalestinianJudaism”5. He developed his ideas on Paul further in his 1983 book, “Paul, the Law, andthe Jewish People”6. James D.G. Dunn drew different conclusions about Paul’s teaching onjustification from Sanders’s insights into Judaism. An important collection of his early paperson this subject is his “Jesus, Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians”7. He providesa reading of Paul’s overall thought in “The Theology of Paul the Apostle”8. A new collection ofhis papers on the New Perspective, including his most recent review of the debate is “The NewPerspective on Paul: Revised Edition”9. Dunn’s commentaries on Romans10 and Galatians11 areimportant. N.T. Wright’s “The Climax of the Covenant”12 collects together many of Wright’searly pertinent scholarly essays on the subject, and his “What St. Paul Really Said”13, presents

3James Buchanan, “The Doctrine of Justification: An Outline of its History in the Church and of its Ex-position from Scripture”, [3], Banner of Truth Trust (Edinburgh), 1961, pages 222-23. Originally published in1867.

4Krister Stendahl, “Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West”, [48], reprinted in “Paul Among Jewsand Gentiles – And Other Essays”, [47], SCM Press (London), 1977.

5E.P. Sanders, “Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion”, [39], Fortress Press(Philadelphia), 1977.

6E.P. Sanders, “Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People”, [40], Fortress Press (Philadelphia), 19837James D.G. Dunn, “Jesus, Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians”, [12], SPCK (London) 1990.8James D.G. Dunn, “The Theology of Paul the Apostle”, [14], T. & T. Clark (Edinburgh), 1998.9James D.G. Dunn, “The New Perspective on Paul: Revised Edition”, [15], William B. Eerdmans (Grand

Rapids: Michigan), 2008.10James D.G. Dunn, “Romans”, [11], Word Biblical Commentary, Volumes 38a & 38b, Word (Dallas: Texas),

1988.11James D.G. Dunn, “The Epistle to the Galatians”, [13], Black’s New Testament Commentaries, A. & C.

Black (London), 1993.12N.T. Wright, “Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology”, [58], Fortress Press

(Minneapolis), 1991.13N.T. Wright, “What St. Paul Really Said”, [59], Lion (Oxford: England, 1997.

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the new perspective in a popular style. His “Paul: Fresh Perspectives”14 and his “Justification:God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision”15, contains his more recent ideas. His commentary on Romans16

is an important resource for understanding his reading of Paul. Don Garlington, a one timestudent of Dunn’s, has published his papers and reviews relevant to the New Perspective debatein “In Defense of the New Perspective on Paul”17. Stephen Westerholm’s essay, “The ‘NewPerspective’ at Twenty-Five”18 provides an overview of the contributions of a vast number ofNPP scholars, many of whom adopt subtly different positions.

2.1 Second Temple Judaism

Through the early part of the twentieth century a small handful of scholarly voices were raisedthat the Christian (and especially, Lutheran) characterisation of the Jewish contemporaries ofJesus and Paul did not accord well with the extant documents of Second Temple Judaism.These documents, it was argued, did not show first century Jews as legalists who were obsessedwith earning their salvation through works-righteousness.

After the holocaust, the time was ripe for a reassessment of Second Temple Judaism: aportrait was desired which did not paint Judaism in such a negative light as Protestant (andespecially Lutheran) scholarship had typically done. This reassessment was compelling carriedout by the Pauline and Rabbinics scholar, E.P. Sanders in his massive volume, “Paul andPalestinian Judaism”.

In this book Sanders’s method was to consider the “pattern of religion” of Judaism, by whichhe meant how the religion functioned practically for its adherents. He considered a religion’spattern to be determined by two questions: 1) how one ‘got into’ the religion; and 2) how one‘stayed in’ it.

Sanders argued that Palestinian Judaism’s pattern of religion was what he called ‘covenantalnomism:’

“Briefly put, covenantal nomism is the view that one’s place in God’s plan is established on thebasis of the covenant and that the covenant requires as the proper response of man his obedienceto its commandments, while providing means of atonement for transgression.”19

This emphasised that the Jews got into the covenant with God historically through a gra-ciously given covenant, and that they stayed in this covenant by obeying the stipulations of theMosaic covenant. Sanders emphasised that this obedience was not in order to earn salvation,but was the joyful believing response of those who were already in God’s covenant community.Sanders’s also pointed out that the Mosaic covenant provided gracious sacrifices to atone forthe sins of those who failed to keep the stipulations perfectly.

Sanders reviewed a vast amount of early rabbinic literature to show that indeed it did havea covenantal nomistic pattern. The literature that Christians had traditionally quoted to showthat Judaism had a system of merit theology was often late (such as the fifth century BabylonianTalmud), or was quoted in a way which ignored the (admittedly sometimes implicit) covenantalcontext.

Sanders considered whether there were any significant differences between the pattern ofreligion of Christianity and first century Judaism. He concluded that although there weresimilarities – Christians got into the God’s covenant community through grace, and they stayedin the community by obeying the ethical norms of life in the Spirit – there were also differences.Some later NPP scholars have only emphasised the similarities.

14N.T. Wright, “Paul: Fresh Perspectives”, [61], Fortress Press (Minneapolis: Minnesota), 2005.15N.T. Wright, “Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision”, [63], SPCK (London), 2009.16New Interpretor’s Commentary, Vol. 10.17Don Garlington, “In Defense of the New Perspective on Paul: Essays and Reviews”, [21], Wipf and Stock

Publishers (Eugene: Oregon), 2005.18Stephen Westerholm, “The ‘New Perspective’ at Twenty-Five”, [56], in D.A. Carson, P.T. O’Brien and

M.A. Seifrid’s (editors), “Justification and Variegated Nomism – Volume 2: The Paradoxes of Paul”, [7], BakerAcademic (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 2004.

19E.P. Sanders, “Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion”, [39], Fortress Press(Philadelphia), 1977, page 75.

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2.2 Paul

The question for the New Perspective scholars was, if Second Temple Judaism had not beenlegalistic, what are we to make of Paul’s letters which seem to imply that it had been? Threeoptions were considered: 1) Paul knew his Jewish contemporaries were not legalistic, but mis-represented them to Gentiles to warn them off Judaism; 2) Paul misunderstood his Jewish con-temporaries; or 3) Paul had been misread (especially in the Protestant tradition), and he didn’tactually accuse his contemporaries of legalism and trying to earn their salvation through goodworks. Earlier scholarship20 had already ruled out a fourth possibility, namely, that Paul hadbeen familiar with a degenerate Hellenistic Judaism which was more legalistic than PalestinianJudaism. Sanders and the NPP scholars who followed him, are unanimous in following the thirdoption, that it is the Church that has misread Paul.

2.2.1 E.P. Sanders

Sanders concludes that there was no fundamental differences between Judaism and Paul overthe role of grace and works in salvation, and that their real differences were christological.

“In short, this is what Paul finds wrong in Judaism: it is not Christianity.”21

Sanders argues that Paul’s argument (e.g. in Romans) that all had sinned and needed tobe saved by Jesus, should not be seen as Paul having had Luther-like anguish over his salvificstatus due to trying to earn his salvation by works. Rather, Sanders’s observes, Paul encounteredthe risen Christ, and from that reasoned from ‘solution’ to ‘plight’ to deduce that he and hiscontemporaries needed salvation.

“There seems good reason to think that the sequence of Paul’s thought was from solution toplight, with individual commandments being understood to be implied in the solution. One entersby becoming one with Christ Jesus, and one stays in by remaining ‘pure and blameless’ and bynot engaging in unions which are destructive of the union with Christ. Paul then thought throughman’s non-Christian position as the opposite of belonging to Christ or of being one with him. Thusone meets in Paul’s thought a series of polarities rather than the smooth sequence of covenantalnomism: in Christ/in the flesh; under grace/under law; and the like.”’22

Like Stendahl before him, Sanders views Paul as having had a ‘robust’ rather than an‘introspective’ conscience, prior to his encounter with the risen Christ.

Sanders reads Paul’s teaching on justification as being concerned not with how guilty sinnersare declared righteous in God’s sight (the traditional Protestant view), but with how Gentilesmay be incorporated into God’s covenant community. Now, Jews and Gentiles are incorporatedin God’s covenant community by faith in Jesus.

“Being ‘justified’ or ‘made righteous’ is the acquittal achieved by Christ’s death (5:9f, 18), or thepossibility of salvation achieved by Christ’s resurrection in contrast to the acquittal of trespassesachieved by his death (4:35). It agrees with this that in general ‘righteousness’ is sometimes theforensic status of being justified (sanctified) from transgression so that one may then have life(Romans 5:1,9) and sometimes simply the equivalent of life. In other terms, righteousness may beeither past (Romans 5:1,9) or future (Romans 2:13; Galatians 3:5). ‘Righteousness by faith,’ inother words, is not any one doctrine. It is the heuristic category employed by Paul against thenotion that obedience to the law is necessary. ... ‘Faith’ alone, in a way, is a prerequisite, sinceit signifies conversion and being Christian: the Spirit is received by believing the gospel message.But all this can be and is discussed without reference to a supposed doctrine of ‘righteousness byfaith’. The latter remains primarily a negative category, directed against the view that obedienceto the law is either the necessary or sufficient condition of salvation.”23

2.2.2 James D.G. Dunn

James D.G. Dunn, the scholar who coined the phrase ‘the New Perspective on Paul,’ acceptedSanders’s recasting of Second Temple Judaism as a religion with a covenantal nomistic pattern.He argued, however, that Sanders’s Paul was too traditional:

20Notably, W.D. Davies’ “Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology”, [9],SPCK (London), 1948, 1955, 1970.

21E.P. Sanders, ibid, page 552, (original italics).22E.P. Sanders, ibid, page 548–49.23E.P. Sanders, ibid, page 491–92. (Italics original)

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“The most surprising feature of Sanders’s writing, however, is that he himself has failed to takethe opportunity of his own mold-breaking work offered. Instead of trying to explore how far Paul’stheology could be explicated in relation to Judaism’s ‘covenantal nomism’, he remained moreimpressed by the difference between Paul’s pattern of religious thought and that of first-centuryJudaism. He quickly – too quickly in my view – concluded that Paul’s religion could be understoodonly as a basically different system from that of his fellow Jews. In Christianity a quite differentmode of righteousness operated from that in Judaism, righteousness that is by faith in Christ, ‘fromGod’ and not ‘from the law’ (Philippians 3:9).”24

Dunn’s argument was that in Second Temple Judaism, Jews generally, and the Jewish Chris-tians Paul opposed in Galatia in particular, were overly focused on the ‘boundary marker’ lawsof the Mosaic covenant – laws such as circumcision; food laws, and sabbath observances; lawswhich marked them out as a separate people from the Gentiles around them. This, accordingto Dunn, was what Paul rejected when he wrote against ‘works of the law.’

Paul, Dunn observes, could not have been rejecting attempts to earn salvation throughobeying the law, as Sanders has shown that Jews were not trying to do that. Paul’s objectionwas to these boundary marker laws as they excluded the Gentiles. An over emphasis on theseboundary marker laws allowed Jews to boast in their national privileges, and stopped them frombeing the blessing to the nations that they were intended to be. Paul argues that his gospelmeans that Gentiles are now accepted into membership in God’s covenant community by theirfaith in Jesus, not by ‘works of the law.’

“As God’s choice of Israel drew the corollary that God’s saving righteousness was restricted toIsrael, so the law’s role in defining Israel’s holiness to God became also its role in separating Israelfrom the nations. In this way the positive sense of ‘works of the law,’ as equivalent to Paul’s talkof the obedience of faith, became the more negative sense which we find in Paul – works of the lawas not only maintaining Israel’s covenant status, but as also protecting Israel’s privileged statusand restricted prerogative.”25

Dunn works with an idea of justification as being declared to be in God’s covenant com-munity.

2.2.3 N.T. Wright

N.T. Wright agreed that justification was not to be understood as dealing with being declaredrighteous in God’s sight – this misreading of Paul only arose, says Wright, because the Reformersillegitimately projected back their debate with medieval Catholicism onto Paul, Second TempleJudaism and the Judaisers. Wright considered Sanders to have shown that the first centuryJews had not been ‘Pelagians before Pelagius.’

“[Sanders’s] main point, to which all else is subservient, can be quite simply stated. Judaism inPaul’s day was not, as has been regularly been supposed, a religion of legalistic works-righteousness.If we imagine that it was, and that Paul was attacking it as if it was, we will do great violenceto it and to him. Most Protestant exegetes have read Paul and Judaism as if Judaism was aform of the old heresy Pelagianism, according to which humans must pull themselves up by theirmoral bootstraps and thereby earn justification, righteousness, and salvation. No, said Sanders.Keeping the law within Judaism always functioned within a covenantal scheme. God took theinitiative, when he made a covenant with Judaism; God’s grace thus precedes everything thatpeople (especially Jews) do in response.”26

Wright makes the point that ‘God’s righteousness’ in Paul refers to:

“God’s own faithfulness to his promises ... God has made promises; Israel can trust those promises.God’s righteousness is thus cognate with his trustworthiness on one hand, and Israel’s salvation onthe other”27

Wright suggests that the Reformers misunderstood the legal metaphor behind the ‘right-eousness of God.’ It does not refer to the ‘legal fiction’ of declaring the wicked to be righteous

24James D.G. Dunn, “The New Perspective on Paul”, [10], in James D.G. Dunn, “Jesus, Paul and the Law:Studies in Mark and Galatians”, [12], SPCK (London), 1990, page 186. Originally the Manson Memorial Lecture,Manchester University, November 1982. First Published in the Bulletin of the John Rylands University Libraryof Manchester, 1983. Additional Notes added 1990.

25James D.G. Dunn, “The Theology of Paul the Apostle”, [14], T. & T. Clark (Edinburgh), 1998, page 355.Original italics.

26N.T. Wright, “What St. Paul Really Said”, [59], Lion (Oxford: England), 1997, page 19.27N.T. Wright, ibid, page 96.

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(a traditional Roman Catholic caricature of the Reformation doctrine), but to the vindicationthat a defendant in a Hebrew court might receive from the judge, from the accusations of hisaccuser. The righteousness that one receives from God is the acquittal that he gives:

“But the key point is that, within the technical language of the law court, ‘righteous’ means, forthese two persons, the status they have when the court finds in their favour. Nothing more, nothingless.”28

Wright goes on to point out that righteousness is not an object that can be passed aroundbetween people.

“The result of all this should be obvious, but is enormously important for understanding Paul. Ifwe use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatever to say that the judge imputes,imparts, bequeathes, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff orthe defendant. Righteousness is not an object, substance or gas which can be passed across thecourtroom. For the judge to be righteous does not mean that the court has found in his favour.For the plaintiff or defendant to be righteous mean that he or she has tried the case properly orimpartially. To imagine the defendant somehow receiving the judge’s righteousness is simply acategory mistake. That is not how the language works.”29

For Wright justification is a legal declaration, but it is a legal declaration that is constantlyrepeated; contra the Reformers (and Sanders) justification is not a ‘transfer term’ at the startof the Christian life, but an ongoing one. The justified are those that exhibit the ‘badge ofthe covenant community,’ namely faith in Christ. To be justified is not to have a righteousnessimputed to one, but to be declared a member of the covenant community. Justification is anecclesiological, not a soteriological, term.

“‘Justification’ in the first century was not about how someone might establish a relationship withGod. It was about God’s eschatological definition, both future and present, of who was, in fact, amember of his people. In Sanders’ terms, it was not so much about ‘getting in’, or indeed about‘staying in’, as about ‘how you could tell who was in’. In standard Christian theological language,it wasn’t so much about soteriology as about ecclesiology; not so much about salvation as aboutthe church.”30

The gospel for Wright is not ‘a set of techniques for making people Christians’, but adeclaration of the lordship of Jesus.

“The gospel is not, as I have stressed, a set of techniques for making people Christians. Nor isit a set of theological reflections, however important. The gospel is the announcement that Jesusis Lord – Lord of the world, Lord of the cosmos, Lord of the earth, of the ozone layer, of whalesand waterfalls, of trees and tortoises. As soon as we get this right we destroy at a stroke thedisastrous dichotomy that has existed in people’s minds between ‘preaching the gospel’ on the onehand and what used to be called loosely ‘social action’ or ‘social justice’ on the other. Preachingthe gospel means announcing Jesus as Lord of the world; and unless we are prepared to contradictourselves with every breath we take, we cannot make that announcement without seeking to bringthat lordship to bear over every aspect of the world.”31

The gospel should not be seen as ‘ahistorical statements about how to be saved’ but anarrative that explains how Christ’s death and resurrection have brought the Exile to an end.

However, Wright professes himself to be “perfectly comfortable with what people normallymean when they say ‘the gospel’”32 It is not clear, however, what he means by this, in particular,it is unclear whether he thinks that his recasting of justification and the gospel leaves unchangedthe message of how one comes to be considered righteous by God and the significance of thatfor one’s final salvation.

3 Challenging the New Perspective

As the importance of the New Perspective debate to the Church has become increasingly ap-preciated, so more scholars have written in defence of the ‘Old Perspective.’

28N.T. Wright, ibid, page 98. Original italics.29N.T. Wright, ibid, page 98.30N.T. Wright, ibid, page 119.31N.T. Wright, ibid, pages 153–154.32N.T. Wright, ibid, page 41; his italics.

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A two volume work edited by D.A. Carson et. al., published in 2001 & 2004, and en-titled “Justification and Variegated Nomism – Volume 1: The Complexities of Second TempleJudaism”33 and “Volume 2: The Paradoxes of Paul”34, is probably the most important schol-arly challenge to the New Perspective to-date. The first volume reassesses Sanders’s claimsabout Second Temple Judaism, while the second contains papers challenging the exegetical andtheological correctness of the New Perspective readings of Paul. A number of critical singlevolume introductions to the whole debate have been published, including: Guy Prentiss Wa-ters’s “Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul: A Review and Response”35; and CornelisP. Venema’s “The Gospel of Free Acceptance in Christ: An Assessment of the Reformation andNew Perspectives on Paul”36. Perhaps the best current such critique is Stephen Westerholm’s“Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The ‘Lutheran’ Paul and His Critics”37. Other importantworks include: Thomas R. Schreiner’s study on Paul’s teaching about the Law, “The Law andIts Fulfillment: A Pauline Theology”38; Mark A. Seifrid’s study of Paul’s teaching on justi-fication, “Christ, Our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Justification”39; Seyoon Kim’s studyon the development of Paul’s gospel “Paul and the New Perspective: Second Thoughts on theOrigin of Paul’s Gospel”40; Simon J. Gathercole’s reassessment of Second Temple Judaism inthe light of what they viewed as the ground of their ultimate vindication, “Where is Boasting?Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1–5”41; and John Piper’s courteousand penetrating critique of N.T. Wright’s views on justification, “The Future of Justification:A Response to N.T. Wright”42. A number of collections of papers on justification from a Re-formed perspective have been published recently, notably, “Covenant, Justification and PastoralMinistry”43; “By Faith Alone: Answering the Challenges to the Doctrine of Justification”44 and“Justified in Christ: God’s Plan for Us in Justification”45. Many of these papers interact withthe New Perspective. Douglas J. Moo’s commentary on Romans in the NICNT series46 andT.R. Schreiner’s one in the BECNT series47 interact with the the NPP, as does R.Y.K. Fung’sNICNT commentary on Galatians48.

4 A Critique of the NPP’s Handling of Judaism

Here the principle problems with the NPP handling of Second Temple Judaism are highlighted;space constraints mean that it will not be possible to do more than simply state the concerns.

33D.A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid (editors), “Justification and Variegated Nomism –Volume 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism”, [6], Baker Academic (Grand Rapids: Michigan),2001.

34D.A. Carson, P.T. O’Brien and M.A. Seifrid’s (editors), “Justification and Variegated Nomism – Volume 2:The Paradoxes of Paul”, [7], Baker Academic (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 2004.

35Guy Prentiss Waters, “Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul: A Review and Response”, [54],Presbyterian and Reformed (Phillipsburg: New Jersey), 2004.

36Cornelis P. Venema, “The Gospel of Free Acceptance in Christ: An Assessment of the New Perspectives onPaul”, [51], Banner of Truth Trust (Edinburgh), 2006.

37Stephen Westerholm’s, “Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The ‘Lutheran’ Paul and His Critics”, [55],William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 2004.

38Thomas R. Schreiner, “The Law and Its Fulfillment: A Pauline Theology”, [42], Baker Books (Grand Rapids:Michigan), 1993.

39Mark A. Seifrid, “Christ, Our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Justification”, [44], New Studies in BiblicalTheology, Vol. 9, Apollos (Leicester: England), 2000.

40Seyoon Kim, “Paul and the New Perspective: Second Thoughts on the Origin of Paul’s Gospel”, [27],William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 2002.

41Simon J. Gathercole, “Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1–5”,[22], William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids: Michigan / Cambridge: England), 2002.

42John Piper, “The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright”, [38], Crossway Books (Wheaton:Illinois), 2007.

43R. Scott Clark (ed), “Covenant, Justification and Pastoral Ministry: Essays By the Faculty of WestminsterSeminary California”, [8], P&R (Phillipsburg: New Jersey), 2007.

44Gary L.W. Johnson and Guy Prentiss Waters (eds), “By Faith Alone: Answering the Challenges to theDoctrine of Justification”, [26], Crossway Books (Wheaton: Illinois), 2007.

45K. Scott Oliphint (ed), “Justified in Christ: God’s Plan for Us in Justification”, [34], Mentor (Fearn:Scotland), 2007.

46Douglas J. Moo, “The Epistle to the Romans” [32], The New International Commentary on the New Test-ament, William B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 1996.

47Thomas R. Schreiner, “Romans” [43], Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, Baker AcademicPress (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 1998.

48Ronald Y.K. Fung, “The Epistle to the Galatians” [19], The New International Commentary on the NewTestament, William B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 1988.

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4.1 Methodological Criticisms

• The New Perspective Scholars, in their desire to characterise Second Temple Judaism inits own terms, have ended up not giving the New Testament is due weight as a historicalsource. This is problematic as the relative scarcity of the literature (and difficulty ofdating it) makes it difficult to know if the extant literature should be used to characterisethe beliefs and behaviour of the same Jews as the New Testament describes. Simon J.Gathercole reports that there is a growing consensus that this is unacceptable:

“...although it may be considered problematic in some circles, it has in recent years beenwidely acknowledged by scholars (and not only from the conservative camp) that the NT ingeneral, and the Gospels in particular, should be used in the reconstruction of first-centuryJudaism.”49

• The nature of the Bible as the authoritative and inspired Word of God must be taken intoaccount when it is deemed that its claims are in conflict with either the self-understandingof those it mentions, or our historical reconstruction of those it mentions. Sanders, forexample, dates the Gospels late, and considers them unreliable for gaining a picture of firstcentury Palestinian Judaism. This is problematic because it means that Gospel depictionsof self-righteous Pharisees, such as the one in Jesus’ parable who ‘prayed to himself’, aredisallowed from contributing to our understanding of Paul’s contemporaries.

• Historic documents have to be interpreted in their historical context; however no docu-ment should be interpreted so that its context is allowed to constrain what it is saying.Ancient authors must be allowed their own voice, and the right to critique their contextor contemporaries. The New Perspective scholars fail to take this into account when theyargue that Paul cannot have been accusing his Jewish contemporaries of legalism, as hiscontemporaries did not present themselves as being legalistic.

• Legalism and other similar terms, such as ‘works-righteousness’, ‘merit theology’, e.t.c.,are extremely slippery and ambiguous terms. A number of important works in the NewPerspective debate (both pro and con) have failed to be precise enough about what ismeant by these terms, and have not been sensitive to the alternative meanings that othershave adopted. This opens the door for significant miscommunication and equivocation.50

• It is unsafe to conclude from the kind of literature that is still extant that first century Jewswere not legalistic. It is uncertain whether the extant literature is a complete and accuratereflection of popular religious practice and belief at the time. Apart from the authorityof the Gospels as Scripture, it is unsafe to conclude that they are ‘wrong’ in depictingself-righteous Pharisees because the surviving literature suggests that the Pharisees werenot ‘legalistic’. Actual religious behaviour may have been more legalistic than the ideasreflected in the surviving religious texts suggest. We know it has often been the casein Christian history that popular religious life has been more legalistic than the officialchurch documents and creeds would suggest.

4.2 Criticisms of Covenantal Nomism as a Concept

• There appears to have been too much diversity between the different groups and elementsof first century Judaism for a single characterisation of ‘Second Temple Judaism’ to be trueof each of the elements and an adequate as a background against which to interpret Paul.We know that there were significant differences between the Pharisees, the Sadducees, theirreligious ‘sinners;’ and the Essenes at Qumran. D.A. Carson makes this point, drawingout an implication of a multi-scholar volume which contains a fresh study of the widerange of extant Second Temple literature:

“Several of the scholars found that at least parts of their respective corpora could be usefullydescribed as reflecting covenantal nomism. One conclusion to be drawn, then, is not that

49Simon J. Gathercole, Early Judaism and Covenantal Nomism: A Review Article, The Evangelical Quarterly:An International Review of Bible and Theology, [23], LXXVI (2), April 2004, page 160

50A notable exception is Simon J. Gathercole’s “Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’sResponse in Romans 1–5”, [22], William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids: Michigan / Cambridge:England), 2002.

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Sanders is wrong everywhere, but he is wrong when he tries to establish that his category isright everywhere.”51

Carson concludes that ‘covenantal nomism’ ends up being a reductionistic characterisationof this literature.

“But covenantal nomism is not only reductionistic, it is misleading, and this for two reasons.Firstly, deploying this one neat formula across literature so diverse engenders an assumptionthat there is more uniformity in the literature than there is. ... Sanders’s formula is ratherdifficult to falsify, precisely because it is so plastic that it hides more than it reveals, andengenders false assumptions that lose the flavour, emphases, priorities, and frames of referenceof these diverse literary corpora. ...”52

• A ‘pattern of religion’ as Sanders defined it, is essentially a sociological concept, and itis unsafe to draw conclusions about a religion’s theology of salvation from its pattern.Important aspects (e.g. those considered ‘theoretical’ rather than ‘practical’) of the textsrelevant to determining the soteriology(ies) of Second Temple Judaism were arguablyignored by Sanders when determining its pattern. For example, Sanders writes:

“It is not necessary to discuss here Rabbinic speculation on the origin of sinful disobedience.This sort of theological speculation, like speculation concerning the nature of the world tocome, lies outside the scope of the Rabbinic pattern of religion.”53

• Covenantal nomism is an inadequate concept to characterise a religion’s ‘soteriology,’and in particular, to determine the relative roles of grace and works in it. ‘Pelagian’;‘synergistic’ and even monergistic soteriologies can be made to fit the covenantal nomisticpattern. To show that a religion had a covenantal nomistic pattern, therefore, does notrule out either ‘Pelagian’ or ‘synergistic’ legalism. D.A. Carson identifies this inadequacyas another reason why covenantal nomism as a soteriological category is reductionistic,continuing the quotation above with the following observation:

“Secondly, and more importantly, Sanders has erected the structure of covenantal nomism ashis alternative to merit theology. At one level, of course, he has a point. ... Nevertheless,covenantal nomism as a category is not really an alternative to merit theology, and thereforethere is no response to it. Over against merit theology stands grace (whether the word itself isused or not). By putting over against merit theology not grace but covenant theology, Sandershas managed to have a structure that preserves grace in the ‘getting in’ while preserving works(and frequently some form or other of merit theology) in the ‘staying in.’ In other words, it isas if Sanders is saying, ‘See, we don’t have merit theology here, we have covenantal nomism’– but the covenantal nomism he constructs is so flexible that it includes and baptises a greatdeal of merit theology.”54

Henri Blocher observes:

“... one cannot expect believers in the Augustinian tradition to be satisfied with a model inwhich grace is one factor cooperating with another factor. High-flown praises of God’s graceand compassion are perfectly compatible with legalism! Do not we know in ourselves howlegalism, over and over again, hides itself under the guise of pious language? The parable’sPharisee, who did not go home justified, offers a prayer of thanks to God (Luke 18:11)! Ifgrace is not all, the difference between people really stems from their own contribution, andthey have some reason for boasting (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:7, a favourite text of Augustine).”55

4.3 Criticisms of its Soteriological Conclusions

• It is true that the Jews understood Israel to be in a graciously convened covenant; howevernot all of them ascribed this to ‘free’ grace. In fact many of the Rabbis actually madeIsrael’s election depend upon the merit of the Israelites, as Sanders himself documents.

51D.A. Carson, “Summaries and Conclusions”, [4], in [6], 2001, page 543.52D.A. Carson, ibid, [4], 2001, page 544.53E.P. Sanders, ibid, [39], page 114.54D.A. Carson, ibid, [4], 2001, page 545.55Henri Blocher, “Justification of the Ungodly (Sola Fide)”, [2], in D.A. Carson, P.T. O’Brien and M.A.

Seifrid’s (editors), “Justification and Variegated Nomism – Volume 2: The Paradoxes of Paul”, [7], BakerAcademic (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 2004, page 489.

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“We have already seen passages in which God’s election was thought of as being totallygratuitous, without prior cause in those being elected. But the Rabbis regarded God asreasonable, as the just judge who, while he may temper his judgements with mercy, is neithercapricious nor arbitrary. Thus one finds that the Rabbis could not rest content with simplysaying that God chose Israel, but inquired why he did so. They wished to explain that it wasnot ‘odd of God to choose the Jews’. There are basically three kinds of answers given by theRabbis to the question of why God chose Israel.

One answer is that God offered the covenant (and the commandments attached to it) to all,but only Israel accepted it. The second answer is that God chose Israel because of somemerit found either in the patriarchs or in the exodus generation or on the condition of futureobedience. The third answer is really not an answer at all; it does not in fact give a reasonbeyond God’s own will; it is that God chose Israel for his name’s sake.”56

Sanders fails to appreciate that this means that at least some elements of Second TempleJudaism had a synergistic soteriology.

Simon Gathercole has pointed out that a number of more recent studies, such as, forexample, Daniel Falk’s on Prayers and Psalms in Second Temple literature,57 have shownthat some in Second Temple Judaism believed that works were the cause or means of one’sinclusion in the covenant, and not only the response of being included in the covenant bygrace, as Covenantal Nomism maintains. Gathercole writes:

“...despite the fact that entry is a product of divine predestination and the ongoing actionof God, Falk argues that 1QH reflects a strong sense of the need to prove oneself worthyby obedience before entering the covenant: ‘taking upon themselves to obey the covenantregulations was an essential element in the process of entering the covenant; it was the requisiteevidence for admittance to the community apart from which there is no salvation or atonement’(p.33).”58

• A graciously convened covenant is not enough to rule out legalism, for even Pelagiusrecognised external grace (e.g. in the form of the example of Jesus). The mere fact thatgrace is ascribed some role in a soteriology does not mean that that soteriology is not‘legalistic’ (in the sense of being synergistic). Medieval Catholicism, for example, hadcomplex and extensive roles for grace in soteriology, yet still made salvation ultimatelydepend upon people performing ‘their bit’ to be saved, in particular, of availing themselvesof the sacraments.

• Simon Gathercole has shown that if one adds the question ‘how does one get there?’ or‘what is one’s final vindication based on?’ to the set of questions used to determine areligion’s pattern, one gets a very different characterisation of Second Temple Judaismthan Sanders suggests. Gathercole observes,

“The taxonomy of ‘getting in’ and ‘staying in’ itself considerably downplays eschatologicaljudgement (and by extension the role of works in that judgement) in the pattern of Jewishsoteriology.”59

In particular, it becomes clear that in Second Temple Judaism, an individual’s salvationis ultimately dependent upon his obedience or works. Second Temple Judaism is seento be much more ‘legalistic’ than New Perspective scholars have argued. Gathercoleconcludes an extensive study of the relevant texts from Second Temple Judaism withthese observations:

“... the images of final judgement and reward or punishment for individuals after death areprominent in the Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal texts. ... in the texts that envisage afuture age consisting of the reward for the righteous and punishment for the wicked afterdeath, we have seen clear evidence that obedience is a vital basis for receiving eternal life. ....All these different portrayals highlight the fact that God is portrayed as saving his people atthe eschaton on the basis of their obedience, as well as on the basis of his election of them.”60

and

56E.P. Sanders, ibid, page 87–88.57Daniel Falk, “Prayers and Psalms”, [17], in [6], 2001.58Simon J. Gathercole, Early Judaism and Covenantal Nomism: A Review Article, The Evangelical Quarterly:

An International Review of Bible and Theology, [23], LXXVI (2), April 2004, page 155–5659Simon J. Gathercole, “Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1–5”,

[22], William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids: Michigan / Cambridge: England), 2002, page 111.60Simon J. Gathercole, ibid, page 90.

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“Thus we have seen that final salvation according to works is not a diaspora tenet thatemerges in the Palestinian literature only after the crisis of the destruction of the temple; itis an integral part of the theology of Palestinian Judaism by the second–first century B.C.E.at the latest.”61

4.4 Relating Judaism to Various Christian Soteriologies

Dunn and Wright claim that the Reformers illegitimately projected back their conflict withmedieval Catholicism onto Paul and Second Temple Judaism. The Reformers are accused ofhaving the Jews play the role of the ‘Pelagian’ Catholics, and Paul the role of Luther in thisprojection. However, Dunn and Wright argue, Sanders has shown that Judaism was not Pela-gian, and hence the Reformers and their heirs have misunderstood Paul. Wright, for example,concludes:

“Sanders thus, at a stroke, cut the ground from under the majority reading of Paul, especially inmainline Protestantism.”62

In making these claims Dunn and Wright seem to be trying to discredit the Reformers inorder that their readers, (particularly their Protestant readers), will be more open to the NPP’snovel understanding of Paul. Unfortunately for this aim, their argument is historical nonsense,and their handling of these historical matters has come in for strong criticism.

Firstly, medieval Catholicism was neither ‘Pelagian,’ nor (depending upon how exactly onedefines the term) ‘semi-Pelagian,’ but it was synergistic, where ‘works’ in the form of baptismand making use of the church’s sacraments were the contribution that people needed to maketo effect their salvation. Secondly the Reformers knew this, and so arguing that Paul rejectedJudaism simply because it was ‘Pelagian’ or semi-Pelagian would not have furthered their causeagainst their Catholic opponents. Thirdly, as argued above, Sanders’s covenantal nomism (evenif it could be established that this was a faithful characterisation of Second Temple Judaism)does not rule out the possibility that Second Temple Judaism was ‘Pelagian’ (in at least someimportant meanings of that word).

4.4.1 Pelagianism

Pelagianism arose in the early fifth century a.d., and gained its name from the British acetic,Pelagius. Pelagius visited Rome, and was dismayed at what he perceived to be the moral laxityamongst the Christians there. He understood this to arise from the teachings of Augustine ofHippo.

Augustine understood the Bible to teach that the human race is in bondage to sin becauseof the inherited guilt and corruption which flows from Adam’s first sin. Augustine argued thatto live a holy life which made appropriate use of the Church sacraments and which resulted ineternal life, one needed God to work graciously within one to overcome this corruption. Indeed,Augustine taught monergism, where God’s grace performs the whole work of salvation. Godgraciously predestines the elect to faith in Christ, to holiness of life, and ultimately to finalsalvation. Christ graciously died for his elect, and the Holy Spirit graciously works within theelect, bringing them to faith and repentance.

Pelagius was horrified that a person might argue that they were unable to live a holy lifebecause God had not given them the grace to do so, and therefore postulated that God doesnot require anything of a person which they did not have the ability to perform. Therefore, ifGod required holiness of people, then people had to have the innate ability to behave in thisway.

Pelagius developed a soteriology around this insight, which included a system of meritoriousworks righteousness, where good deeds were weighed against bad ones, and could effectivelyatone for them. Pelagius’s system was not devoid of grace, however. Pelagius recognised God’sgrace in his account of salvation, however, it was all grace that worked ‘externally’ to a person,as B.B. Warfield once explained:

“No doubt the Pelagians spoke constantly of ‘grace,’ but they meant by this the primal endowmentof man with free will, and the subsequent aid given him in order to its proper use by the revelation

61Simon J. Gathercole, ibid, page 160.62N.T. Wright, ibid, page 19.

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of the law and the teaching of the gospel, and, above all, by the forgiveness of past sins in Christand by Christ’s holy example. Anything further than this external help they utterly denied; andthey denied that this external help itself was absolutely necessary, affirming that it only renderedit easier for man to do what otherwise he had plenary ability for doing.”63

Pelagius was not the only voice at the time to articulate ‘Pelagianism’. However, Pelagius’steaching provoked Augustine to reply, and debate flared in the western Church. The conflictended with Pelagius and his followers Caelestius and Julius of Eclanum being branded as hereticswhen the Church officially rejected Pelagianism in 418 a.d..64 Some Pelagians continued toagitate for their position, siding with Nestorius, but the movement effectively ended whenNestorius was condemned for his Christology at the ecumenical synod at Ephesus (a.d. 431).

4.4.2 Semi-Pelagianism

As the Pelagian controversy was coming to an end, a mediating position was proposed by monksfrom Southern Gaul, led by John Cassian. They articulated a position which has come to beknown as semi-Pelagianism. Semi-Pelagianism recognises that grace that works internally toa person is needed if people are to live a life of salvific holiness, but semi-Pelagianism arguesthat such grace is only given to those who first make an effort to respond to God positively.Semi-Pelagianism is therefore a synergistic system, where a person works with God to bringabout their salvation.

Semi-Pelganianism was officially rejected by the Church at the Second Council of Orange,in 530 a.d.. However, this council did not reject all synergistic systems, just the semi-Pelagianone. In particular, the council provided confessional support for Augustine’s understanding oforiginal sin as involving guilt and corruption of a person’s nature, and hence maintained thatGod’s grace work must come first in a person’s salvation to overcome this corrupt nature.

However, the council did not go on to maintain a monergistic system: whereas Augustinetaught a purely gracious predestination to eternal life, the second council of Orange only taughta purely gracious predestination to baptism. The council effectively assumed a synergisticsystem, where a person had to contribute some work of their own to co-operate with this initialgrace and cause this grace to result in salvation. The baptised person had to strive for holinessand make use of the Church’s sacraments to bring about their salvation.

Medieval Catholicism went on to develop numerous synergistic systems65. All of thesesystems accepted that an initial work of grace on God’s part was needed, although not all ofthem made this work of grace irresitable. Some only allowed the grace to be effective when itwas not resisted or when it was co-operated with. Nevertheless, strictly speaking, such systemswere not ‘semi-Pelagian’. Some Reformed thinkers over the centuries, however, have understoodthe semi-Pelagian heresy to be the one of synergism, and have used the term ‘semi-Pelagian’to mean any synergistic system, and have been content to label both medieval Catholicism andsome versions of Protestantism, such as Arminianism, as being semi-Pelagian. This, however,is arguably a mis-use of the term, and confuses the discussion.

4.4.3 The Reformation Position

The Reformers rejecting all the synergistic systems of semi-Pelagianism and medieval Cath-olicism, returned to a Augustinian monergistic understanding of salvation, arguing that God’sgrace does everything necessary to bring us to eternal life, from electing us, to overcoming ourcorruption and calling us to faith, to perseverence in that faith. The Reformers understoodelection to be purely due to grace, and according to God’s good pleasure, and not based on anyforeseen merit of the elect. In time Christ made satisfaction for the sins of the elect through hisobjective atonement on the cross. Subsequently, the Holy Spirit performs a work of sovereigngrace in the hearts of the elect, overcoming their corruption and bondage to sin, and bringing

63B.B. Warfield, “Introductory Essay on Augustine and the Pelagian Controversy”, [52], in Philip Schaff (ed),“St. Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings”, [41], Christian Literature Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids: Michigan),1886.

64See, for example, the entry on Pelagianism in “The Dictionary of Historical Theology”, Edited by TrevorA. Hart, [25], Eerdmans (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 2000.

65For an introduction to the teachings of the various scholastic schools on justification see, for example, AlisterMcGrath’s “Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification – Second Edition”, [31], CambridgeUniversity Press (Cambridge: England), 1998.

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them to faith in Christ. This faith is understood to result in them being justified, that is, inthem declared to be righteous in God’s sight, on the basis of Christ’s righteousness counted astheirs. The elect are kept in their faith, and are ultimately vindicated at the last judgement.66

Salvation from first to last is a work of God’s sovereign free grace.The Reformers undoubtedly did understand Paul’s opponents (both Judaism and the Judaisers)

to be advocating a version of Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism. However, they understood thatPaul rejected these positions not because they were ‘proto-Pelagians’ or ‘proto-semi-Pelagians’per se, but because these positions failed to recognise Christ’s monergistically wrought salva-tion. The Reformers related this to their synergistic Catholic opponents by arguing that theyalso, by believing they had to add their bit, failed to recognise that salvation was entirely dueto God’s work in us – more specifically, they understod their Catholic opponents to have failedto recognise that sinners could be justified (declared righteous) in God’s sight only through (agraciously given) faith in Christ. Justification by faith alone was the ‘material cause’ of the Re-formation (that is, the main point of disagreement) because it was the doctrine of justificationwhich brought the conflict between the Reformed and Lutheran monergistic and Roman Cath-olic synergistic soteriologies most clearly into focus. The principle that ‘the Scriptures shouldhave sole authority in determining the faith and practice of the Church’ was called the ‘formalcause’ of the Reformation, for, according to the Reformers, it is the Scriptures that testify tothis monergistic salvation, and hence provides the ‘form’ of Reformers’s position.

Each step of Wright’s and Dunn’s argument about the ramifications of Sanders’s work forthe Reformation understanding of Paul is problematic.

1. that the Reformers understood Paul to teach a gospel of grace that was in opposition tothe Pelagianism of first century Judaism;

2. that the Reformers understood themselves to be like Paul in teaching a gospel of gracethat is in opposition to Pelagianism of medieval Catholicism;

3. that Sanders has shown that first century Palestinian Judaism was not ‘Pelagian’;

4. Therefore, that the Reformers must have misunderstood Paul, because Paul could nothave been opposing Pelagianism in Second Temple Judaism, for it was not Pelagian.

With regard to the first point, the Reformers understood Paul to be not merely opposingproto-Pelagianism, but any system less than monergism. However, the Reformers never under-stood the problem Paul had with his opponents to be primarily about the balance between graceand works in an arbitrary soteriological system, but rather the failure to rest on the moner-gistically salvation provided through Christ. The Reformers would, no doubt, have appreciatedSanders’s point that what Paul finds wrong with Judaism is it is not Christianity. Not that theissue, according to the Reformers’s understanding, merely turned on Christology, but on themonergistic salvation that was grounded in the person and work of Christ.

With regard to the second point, it must be recognised that although much of medievalCatholicism from the Second Council of Orange onwards, was synergistic, it was rarely semi-Pelagian and even more rarely Pelagian. Furthermore, the Reformers knew this, and did notcriticise medieval Catholicism for being Pelagian, but for not following the Scriptures alone andgiving for honour to God for his sovereignty and grace in salvation by holding to the monergisticsoteriology taught in the Bible.

It should be recognised that Sanders has shown that most parts of first century Judaism didnot share the Pelagian teaching that bad deeds are balanced against good deeds.67 However,this is only one aspect of Pelagianism, and arguably the optimistic view of human natureis equally characteristic of ‘Pelagianism’. Sanders himself acknowledges that most groups inSecond Temple Judaism did not hold to a doctrine of original sin. Sanders and many otherNPP scholars, however, fail to recognise the full import of this, for it means that the resultingsoteriology will only need external grace, not internal grace that transforms a person’s corrupt

66This, of course, is where the Reformers’s monergistic system differed from Augustine’s. For Augustineunderstood justification to be a life long process of growing in righteousness, and ultimate vindication to bebased upon the monergistically wrought works of a Christian’s life. The Reformers understood justification tobe an event at the start of the Christian’s life, where God, when a person comes to Christ in faith, declares thatperson to be righteous in sight.

67Or, at least, he has shown that it cannot be shown that they did share such views.

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nature, thus distinguishing such systems not only from Catholic and Protestant systems, whichrequire internal grace from the beginning of the Christian life, but also from semi-Pelagian ones,which recognise the role of internal grace in continuing the Christian life once started.

Second Temple Judaism, like Pelagius, as Sanders recognises, did not by and large (anexception seems to have been at Qumran) understand the human race to be in bondage to sin.They also, therefore, only recognised outward external grace (in God establishing his covenantwith them), and saw no need for an inward enabling grace. Sanders has shown that mostfirst century Jews did not have a system of merit theology like Pelagius did, where good deedswere weighed again bad ones, although some did. Nevertheless, they were still much closer toPelagianism than to the synergistic systems of medieval Catholicism, as they saw no need forinward enabling grace.

Guy Prentiss Waters in “Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul”68 has advanceda similar but not identical critique of the NPP handling of the relationship of Judaism andvarious Christian soteriologies, the principle difference being that he is prepared to admit thatSanders has shown that Second Temple Judaism was not ‘Pelagian’ but ‘semi-Pelagian’. Hisargument is therefore that the Reformers were perfectly correct in seeing parallels between thesemi-Pelagianism (a term he appears to use as a synonym for ‘synergism’) of their Catholicopponents and the semi-Pelagianism (synergism) of the Judaisers Paul faced in Galatia, andthat Sanders’s demonstration that Second Temple Judaism was not Pelagian is beside the point,and does not create a need to reinterprete Paul.

4.4.4 Implications of this for Calvinist-Arminian Relations

Nicholas Perrin, based on the fact that evangelical Arminians also hold to a synergistic so-teriology69, has pointed out the following implication which he believes follows from Waters’sunderstanding of the relationship between Paul’s context and the Reformation:

“But let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Waters is correct: that Paul is attacking hisopponents because they hold to a semi-Pelagian position. It is clear that, as far as Paul wasconcerned, the stakes were high for the Judaisers. To hold to the Judaisers’ position, whateverit was, essentially meant forfeiting salvation (Gal. 1:8–9; 2:21; 5:4). In this case, again if Watersis right, to adopt semi-Pelagianism is tantamount to having forfeited salvation. In this case too,if we may think about the implications of Waters’s reading of Paul for today, this not only putsthe Roman communion in serious jeopardy, but also consigns our evangelical, Arminian brothersand sisters to perdition. If readers are convinced by Waters’s position, then they must be equallyconvinced—to put it bluntly but nonetheless in keeping with the logic of his argument—that a goodportion of the Evangelical Theological Society stands in need of evangelisation. Again I demur.”70

Perrin’s ‘unacceptable’ implication can also be argued to follow from my position. If Paulrejected the Judaisers’ gospel, and considered them to be anathema because they failed todo justice to the monergistic gospel of Christ, then it follows that surely we must reject theArminian gospel and consider Arminians to be anathema for their denial of monergism.

In reply it needs to be noticed that there are important differences between the Pelagianismand synergisms of the Judaisers and medieval Catholicism, and the synergisms of Arminians.The former were requiring ‘works’ apart from faith in Christ; Arminians however do not do this,

68Guy Prentiss Waters, “Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul: A Review and Response”, [54],Presbyterian and Reformed (Phillipsburg: New Jersey), 2004.

69Classical Arminianism views faith as the extra contribution that we must add to make Christ’s atonementeffectual for us. The Arminian understanding is that our faith is the ground for our justification. Such a viewof justification has been called neonomian because it makes the requirement to place our faith in Christ the‘new law’ that the gospel requires of us for our salvation. The nature of the justification also changes: becauseour faith is the ground for our salvation, not the perfect righteousness of Christ, and because Arminians believethat a believer’s faith may ultimately fail, justification is changed from a once-for-all declaration that the personis righteous in God’s sight, to a declaration that the person’s past sins have been forgiven. Wesley, for one,considered this to be a strength of the Arminian doctrine, as he agreed with Roman Catholic critics that theReformation doctrine’s tendency must be towards antinomianism. (The Reformers, in contrast, believed thatPaul’s treatment of antinomianism in Romans 6 immediately after teaching on justification in chapters 3-5,showed that the biblical doctrine of justification will naturally leave itself open to the charge of antinomianism,and that Paul’s argument in Romans 6 shows that the correct response is not to change one’s understandingof justification but to appreciate the implications of the correlated truths that believers have been regeneratedand united with Christ.) It should be observed that justification in the Arminian scheme is, as in Wright’s, adeclaration that is continuously repeated while the person has faith.

70Nicholas Perrin, “Some Reflections on Hermeneutics and Method: A Reply to Guy Waters”, [37], Westmin-ster Theological Journal, Vol. 68, 2006, pages 139–46.

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they do not require anything from a Christian apart from faith in Christ – they ‘only’ try toturn faith in Christ into a ‘work’.

Historically, Calvinists have taken different positions on Arminianism, but by far the major-ity have maintained that Arminians are fellow believers, albeit mistaken in certain importantparticulars. For example, William Ames, a British Puritan who attended the Synod of Dortwhich responded to the Arminian Remonstrants, wrote:

“... the view of the Remonstrants, as it is taken by the mass of their supporters, is not strictlya heresy that is, a major lapse from the gospel, but a dangerous error tending toward heresy. Asmaintained by some of them, however, it is the Pelagian heresy, because they deny that the effectiveoperation of inward grace is necessary for conversion.”71

Furthermore, since Ames’ day, there has arisen Wesleyan or ‘evangelical’ Arminianism, whichis even closer to the Reformation gospel, although ultimately, still synergistic. This means thatblanket condemnations of Arminians are inappropriate, as J.I. Packer notes:

“Ames’ words alert us to the fact that Arminianisms vary, so that blanket judgements are not inorder: each version of post-Reformation semi-Pelagianism must be judged on its own merits. Amesis right. The facts surveyed in this article show clearly the need for discrimination. Thus, it is surelyproper to be less hard on Wesleyanism than on any form of Dutch Arminianism, just because (tothe loss of clarity and consistency, yet to the furtherance of the gospel) Wesley’s teaching includedso much Reformation truth about the nature if faith, the witness of the Spirit, and effectual calling.Wesley’s Arminianism, we might say, contained a good deal of its own antidote! Its evangelical andreligious motivation, also, puts it in a different class from the Remonstrant position.”72

Various considerations go into this hopeful of assessment of Arminianism, apart from thecrucial point that they do not require anything more than faith in Christ. One is that some(although by no means all) Arminians, although affirming that people have libertarian freedom,baulk at the idea that they have turned faith into a meritorious ‘work.’73 Another considerationis that one is saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, not by faith in a particulardoctrine of salvation which asserts that faith in Christ alone is by grace alone.

However, the reason why failing to have a monergistic soteriology is potentially so importantis that it might mean that one’s faith is not properly in Christ alone, but in the adequacy withwhich one has added one’s synergistic part. A mistaken soteriology of this kind may makeshipwreck of one’s soul. Arminian synergism, pursued relentlessly, may lead a person away fromsalvific trust in Christ. J.I. Packer speaks for many Calvinists when he writes:

“The lapse [of Arminians from the biblical faith in the God of all grace] is less serious in some cases,more so in others, but in every case it calls for responsible notice and compassionate correction.The logical conclusion of Arminian principles would be pure Pelagianism, but no Arminian takes hisprinciples so far (otherwise one would call him a Pelagian, and be done with it). Calvinists shouldtherefore approach professed Arminians as brother evangelicals trapped in weakening theologicalmistakes, and seek to help them to a better mind.”74

4.4.5 Summary of these Historical Considerations

In summary, Wright and Dunn’s failure to engage properly with the Reformers and the Re-formers’s interpretation of Paul, and their failure to appreciate the parallels between the differenthistoric Christian schools and Judaism undermines their attempts to discredit the Reformationreading of Paul. Sanders’s failure to address the Pelagian and synergistic character of Judaismin his work, means that he has not succeeded in creating a need to interpret Paul differently.Covenantal nomism ought not to “exercise hegemonic control over the exegesis of the Paulinecorpus”75.

71William Ames, De Conscientia, IV:iv, q4. Quoted by J.I. Packer, “Arminianisms”, [35], 1985.72J.I. Packer, “Arminianisms”, [35], in The Collected Shorter Writings of J.I. Packer, Vol. 4: Honouring the

People of God, [36], Paternoster Press, (Carlisle: England), 1999, page 303.73Reformed scholar John Frame makes the following observation concerning this position:

“It is true that faith has no merit that would move God to save us. That is true of anything andeverything we do. But the Arminian wants to have it both ways. He wants to say that faith has nomerit, but he also wants to say that our faith somehow motivates God to save us, that God choosesus on the basis of our choosing him. But if our faith motivates God to save us, then it must havemerit in his eyes.” (John M. Frame, “The Doctrine of God” (2002), [18], page 71 footnote 31.)

74J.I. Packer, ibid, page 306.75To use a phrase of D.A. Carson’s, “Mystery and Fulfillment: Toward a More Comprehensive Paradigm of

Paul’s Understanding of the Old and the New”, [5], D.A. Carson, P.T. O’Brien and M.A. Seifrid’s (editors),

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5 A Critique of the NPP’s Handling of Paul

It is not possible in this paper to defend exegetically each of the points made here, only outlinethe broad shape of the Reformed critique of the NPP.

5.1 The Works of the Law

As we have seen Dunn’s position is that when Paul contrasted a righteousness ‘by faith’ with arighteousness ‘by works of the law’ he was proposing faith as the means of uniting both Jewsand Gentiles into the people of God. Dunn understands Paul to have been objecting to thenecessity of having to obey ‘boundary marking’ laws, such as circumcision, dietary and sabbathlaws, because they excluded Gentiles from the people of God. The broad position, however, isnot novel. The Reformers themselves were very familiar with this interpretation of Paul, andrejected it strongly. Martin Luther, for example, wrote the following in his famous reply toErasmus:

“Paul’s meaning is commonly escaped and avoided by saying that what he calls ‘works of the law’are ceremonial works, which since the death of Christ are death-dealing. I reply: This is the error ofthe ignorant Jerome, which, for all Augustine’s strenuous resistance, spread throughout the worldwhen God withdrew, and Satan prevailed, and has continued to this day; with the result that it hasbeen impossible to understand Paul, and the knowledge of of Christ has been inevitably obscured.Had there been no other error in the church, this one was sufficiently potent and destructive towreck the gospel. Unless extraordinary grace has interposed, Jerome deserved hell rather thanheaven for it—so far am I from having the audacity to canonise him and call him a saint! It is nottrue that Paul is here speaking only of ceremonial works; else, how will his argument prove thatall are unrighteous and need grace, stand good.”76

Timothy George has observed:

“In pursuing this line of interpretation, adherents of the new perspective reconnect with an ex-egetical tradition that is far from new. Both Luther and Calvin were aware of a standard wayof interpreting ‘works of the law’ to refer only to certain Jewish ceremonies. As Calvin put it,‘The papists, misled by Origen and Jerome, think, and in fact assert definitely, that the disputerelates to shadows and accordingly interpret the works of the law as ceremonies, as if Paul werenot discussing the free righteousness given us by Christ.’ Luther also railed against ‘the smug andidle scholastics and monks, who obscure such words in Paul – in fact, everything in Paul – withtheir foolish and wicked glosses, which even they themselves do not understand. ... Thus for Paul‘works of the law’ means the works of the entire law. Therefore one should not make a distinctionbetween the Decalogue and ceremonial laws’.”77

Dunn’s position on the ‘works of the law’ has not been found to be defensible exegeticallyfrom Paul’s epistles by modern exegetes either. Romans 4:2–4 for example, makes plain that the‘works of the law’ in question are viewed by some as being concerned with wages, and that Paulrejects this. In Galatians 3:10 and 5:3, Paul explains that being circumcised (i.e. complyingwith one of the boundary marker laws) requires one to obey the whole law (which cannot bedone). The whole law is in view, not merely the boundary marker laws, when Paul is speakingof ‘works of the law’.

Dunn now recognises that his thesis on ‘works of the law’ cannot be true in every Paulinepassage. Henri Blocher observes:

“Construing the phrase ‘works of the law’ to mean (or to refer to) only those works that were‘badges of Jewishness’ flies in the face of all probabilities. Counter-arguments have proved decisive,and James D.G. Dunn himself has been led to qualify his earlier statements and to make significantconcessions. The problem, in Romans 2, is the failure to obey the ethical precepts of the law –which failure produces the need for another way, without the works of the law. Replacing ‘the law’in Galatians 3:21 by ‘ceremonial regulations’ verges on the absurd. One should not privilege thenatural import of the phrase ‘works of law,’ which is not restrictive, ...”78

“Justification and Variegated Nomism – Volume 2: The Paradoxes of Paul”, [7], Baker Academic (GrandRapids: Michigan), 2004, page 394.

76Martin Luther, “The Bondage of the Will”, [29], James Clarke and Co. (London), 1957. A translation of“De Servo Arbitrio” (1525) by J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnston, page 284.

77Timothy George, “Modernising Luther, Domesticating Paul: Another Perspective”, [24], D.A. Carson, P.T.O’Brien and M.A. Seifrid’s (editors), “Justification and Variegated Nomism – Volume 2: The Paradoxes ofPaul”, [7], Baker Academic (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 2004, pages 457.

78Henri Blocher, ibid, page 487.

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Dunn admits that his ‘New Perspective’ paper79 gave the impression that he thought ‘worksof the law’ only referred to observances of the boundary-marking laws; however since then hehas argued that all the Mosaic law stipulations are in view, but that the focus naturally fallson the boundary-marking laws because of the social role these have in defining the people ofGod. Furthermore, Dunn does not consider the fact that the whole law is in view endangershis position because Second Temple Jews did not consider such observances to be to gain God’sfavour, but the obedience required to stay in the covenant. Dunn effectively makes ‘works ofthe law’ Paul’s phrase for Sanders’s ‘covenantal nomism.’ However, where Sanders’s conclusionsabout covenantal nomism depend on a reading Second Temple literature, Dunn’s position (albeitbolstered by Sanders’s results) depends upon a close exegetical reading of Romans and Galatians.

Clearly, a full reply to Dunn would necessarily need to be deeply exegetical. Dunn hasalternative readings to all the verses which the Reformed would point to as undermining hisposition. Nevertheless, once it is realised that covenantal nomism is not an alternative to‘legalism’ (in the sense of believing one’s observances synergistically contribute to one’s ultimatevindication) one starts to see the weakness in Dunn’s reading. It follows that Paul’s criticismof Jews for relying on ‘works of the law’ to establish a righteousness of their own involves morethan just a critique of nationalism and their (effective) exclusion of Gentiles.

It should be noticed that Dunn’s position that Paul’s main problem with his Jewish con-temporaries was their focus on law observances which excluded Gentiles undermines one of theoriginal motivations for reconsidering Judaism: namely the desire to paint Judaism in a betterlight. Dunn’s perspective sees Paul effectively accusing first century Jews of inappropriate na-tionalism. The proper response to the claim that the gospel is anti-semitic is to do justice toPaul’s remnant theme, which undermines any racist conclusions that anyone might be temptedto draw: not all Jews have rejected their Messiah. Furthermore, those who do come to faith –the elect of God, whether Jewish or not – do so entirely due to God’s free elective grace, andnot due to any merit or positive quality of their own.

5.2 The Righteousness of God

Wright in particular makes a point of arguing that the “righteousness of God” Paul talks aboutin his gospel is God’s actions of covenantal faithfulness, not a righteousness that is from Godwhich is imputed to believers.

There are important word studies, however, that raise crucial questions against this reading.In the Old Testament, in spite of over 500 references to God’s righteousness, only a handful doso in the context of God’s covenant.

“‘Covenant’ ... occurs 283 times, [righteousness] some 524 times, and yet in only seven passagesdo the terms come into any significant semantic contact. This lack of convergence in usage is allthe more striking when we take into account that both [covenant] and the [righteousness] wordgroup have fields of meaning having to do with relationships, and both have ethical and juridicaldimensions.”80

Seifrid goes on to account for this lack of correlation. He writes:

“... a more fundamental explanation of the infrequent collocation of righteousness and covenantlanguage emerges ... If ... righteousness language in the Hebrew scriptures has to do in the firstinstance with God’s ordering of creation, its relative distance from covenantal contexts is entirelyexplicable.”81

He adds:

“The frequent association of ‘righteousness’ language with ‘ruling and judging’ therefore stronglysupports [the] claim that in biblical thought ‘righteousness’ has to do with creational theology.”82

79“The New Perspective on Paul”, [10], in James D.G. Dunn, “Jesus, Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark andGalatians”, [12], SPCK (London), 1990.

80Mark A. Seifrid, “Righteousness Language in the Hebrew Scriptures and Early Judaism”, [45], in D.A.Carson, P.T. O’Brien and M.A. Seifrid’s (editors), “Justification and Variegated Nomism – Volume 1: TheComplexities of Second Temple Judaism”, [6], Baker Academic (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 2001, page 423.

81Mark A. Seifrid, ibid, [45], in [6], 2001, page 425.82Mark A. Seifrid, ibid, [45], in [6], 2001, page 425.

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This lack of correlation between God’s righteousness and the covenant is more surprisingwhen it is appreciated that it often takes on salvific significance – not only in the Old Testamentbut in Paul’s epistles too. It needs to be appreciated, however, that it is also capable of takingon negative overtones, when God enters into judgement and condemnation with the nations andwith Israel.

The bringing together of God’s righteousness in judgement, and God’s righteousness inacting to save is ultimately only done on the cross. It is Christ’s death which ultimately revealsthe meaning of the phrase ‘God’s righteousness’ for Paul. Seifrid observes:

“But there is no definition of ‘righteousness,’ not even in narrative terms, which adequately accountsfor the simultaneity of righteous wrath and the gift of righteousness of which Paul speaks (Romans3:4–5; 3:21–26). The Christ-event itself supplies the final definition of the language.”83

It is in the context of Christ dying a substitutionary death for his people, that the idea ofthe ‘gift of a righteousness from God’ takes shape. Douglas J. Moo summarises a careful andinformed analysis of the debate in this way:

“For Paul, as in the Old Testament, ‘righteousness of God’ is a relational concept. Bringing togetherthe aspects of activity and status, we can define it as the act by which God brings people into a rightrelationship with himself. With Luther, we stress that what is meant is a status before God andnot internal moral transformation – God’s activity of ‘making right’ is a purely forensic activity,an acquitting, and not an ‘infusing’ of righteousness or a ‘making’ right in a moral sense.”84

The context of Romans 3, that is, Paul’s argument from Romans 1:18 onwards, is concernedwith the universal breach between creation and the Creator. The focus therefore falls on God’suniversal lordship, rather than on his special covenantal relationship with Israel. It is thereforeunlikely that Wright is correct and these two important verses on God’s righteousness (Romans1:16 and 3:21) are to do with his covenantal faithfulness. Wright’s assertions notwithstanding,such ideas are entirely alien to both the immediate context, and to the wider context of the vastmajority the Jewish scriptures, as Seifrid has established.

5.3 Justification

5.3.1 A Forensic Declaration

As we have seen, N.T. Wright has argued from his model of the Hebrew law-court that justi-fication is to be understood as the court finding in the person’s favour, rather than the courtfinding the person righteous.

The subtlety and significance of how this model differs from the traditional one can be seenby reflecting on the following sentences: ‘The Court found in his favour’ and ‘The court foundin his favour, therefore he has been found innocent.’

The first is similar to Wright’s model, and the second to the Reformation one. Wright usesthe ambiguity of his court’s declaration to subsequently assert that for the court to find in one’sfavour is to be counted a member of God’s covenant community. Wright’s model has come infor some criticism. For example, Seifrid is trenchantly opposed to Wright’s reading. He arguesthat Wright is not correct in his initial assertion about righteousness language in the Hebrewcourts. He writes:

“The pronouncement [of a party being righteous by a Hebrew law court] means that their causehas been found just.”85

With regard to Wright’s conclusions about imputation of the judge’s righteousness to theplaintiff being a category mistake, Seifrid observes:

“At this point Wright is led astray by his model of the ‘Jewish law court,’ which he seems to havecreated without much attention to the relevant biblical texts. When Paul echoes Psalm 98:1–3 inhis announcement of the revelation of God’s righteousness in Romans 1:17, he takes up the biblicaltradition which expressed Israel’s hope for the establishment of God’s justice. By its very nature

83Mark A. Seifrid, “Paul’s Use of Righteousness Language Against Its Hellenistic Background”, [46], in D.A.Carson, P.T. O’Brien and M.A. Seifrid’s (editors), “Justification and Variegated Nomism – The Paradoxes ofPaul”, [7], Baker Academic (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 2004, page 59.

84Douglas J. Moo, “The New International Commentary on the New Testament: Romans” (1996), [32], pages74–75.

85Mark A. Seifrid, ibid, page 66, italics original.

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such justice is a gift to the world. Wright’s abstract model of the ‘court’ likewise overlooks Christ’scross and resurrection which, according to Paul, constitutes the justifying event – the ‘law court’so to speak – announced in his gospel.”86

Not only is there some difficulty with Wright’s model, but his reading of justification is notvery plausible linguistically either. The NPP scholars generally seem to have failed to interactwith the traditional Protestant arguments that justification is a judicial declaration that theperson justified is ‘vindicated’, ‘acquitted’, ‘considered righteous’ in God’s sight.87

These arguments, which were historically advanced to answer the Roman Catholic claimthat the ground of justification is righteousness imparted, not an alien righteousness imputed tobelievers, have implications for whether justification for Paul merely had to do with inclusionin the people of God, or whether it also had to do with being declared righteous in God’s sight.

One important argument is that throughout the Bible, including in Paul, the opposite ofbeing justified is to be condemned. Historically, the argument was, that to be justified cannotmean to be made righteous, but must mean to be declared righteous, because the opposite ofbeing condemned is to be found not guilty, not to be made good. When applied to the NewPerspective, the point is, the opposite of being condemned is not (merely) to be declared oneof God’s people.

Another argument is that there are places where the Bible talks about God or Jesus beingjustified. Historically, the argument was justification must mean to be vindicated, rather than tobe made righteous, as it is inconceivable that God could be made more righteous. In the contextof the NPP, the argument becomes, justification in these cases must mean to be vindicated,because it is nonsensical to claim it means that God is one of his own covenantal people.

There are other classes of text which are equally conclusive, such as those where there arephrases correlated with being justified which imply either salvation or that the opposite of beingjustified is to be condemned.

Other important texts make plain that to be justified is to be ‘forgiven’ or ‘not to have one’ssins imputed to one’ (e.g. Romans 4). The salvific element of being justified is clear in suchtexts, undermining, for example, Stendahl’s and Wright’s claims that justification should beseen as an ecclesiological rather than a soteriological concept.

The point is not that being declared righteous in God’s sight does not have implications forwhether or not one is counted a member of the Church. As Richard B. Gaffin has written:

“For Paul, justification undoubtedly has inalienable ecclesiological implications and these are aprominent concern, especially in Galatians. These implications must not be denied, obscured ordownplayed through an unduly individualistic soteriological mindset. No doubt, too, they have notbeen appreciated heretofore as they should. ...”88

The point is rather that being counted a member of the Church does not exhaust what itmeans to be justified. No-one is included in God’s people while still being counted as unrighteousby God. In concentrating on the ecclesiastical implications of justification, the NPP scholarshave missed, sidelined, or denied the critical soteriological implications. As Gaffin continues:

“... But justification in Paul is essentially, primarily soteriological. It is a ‘transfer’ term describingwhat takes place in an individual’s transition from wrath to grace, and component of what iseffected at the point of being ‘delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into thekingdom of his beloved Son.’ (Col. 1:13)”89

The NPP misunderstanding of justification sadly plays into our current culture’s desire (evenin parts of evangelicalism) to deny or downplay sin and God’s wrath at sin. It focuses on thesocial implications of Kingdom living at the expense of the salvific implications of justification,redemption and reconciliation with God.

86Mark A. Seifrid, ibid., [46], page 66.87These arguments can be found rehearsed in many contemporary publications, including Leon Morris, “The

Apostolic Preaching of the Cross – Third Edition”, [33], William B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 1965;James Buchanan, “The Doctrine of Justification: An Outline of its History in the Church and of its Expositionfrom Scripture”, [3], Banner of Truth Trust (Edinburgh), 1961. Originally published in 1867; and James R.White, “The God Who Justifies”, [57], Bethany House (Minneapolis: Minnesota), 2001.

88Richard B. Gaffin Jr., “By Faith, Not By Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation”, [20], Paternoster Press(Bletchley: England), 2006, page 45.

89Richard B. Gaffin Jr., ibid, page 45.

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5.3.2 The Witness of the Complete Pauline Corpus

Interestingly, Dunn recognises that a salvific justification is contrasted with deeds which failto save in parts of the New Testament. He even recognises that this is what is taught inEphesians90, 2 Timothy91, and Titus92. Dunn feels no pressure to take these teachings intoconsideration when developing his account of Paul’s theology as he considers Ephesians and theso-called Pastoral Epistles to be deutero-Pauline93; that is, not written by Paul, but by laterwriters who wrote pseudonymously in Paul’s name. Quite apart from the fact that Christiansrejected such fabrications whenever they were detected, and pseudonymous works are incompat-ible with an evangelical understanding of Scripture,94 NPP scholars must face the question ofhow likely their reading of Paul is to be correct, given that documents reputed to be from Paul,and accepted in the first century as such, were soon written with a totally different theologythan they find in Galatians and Romans – a theology in keeping with the Reformation readingof Paul.

5.3.3 Wright’s New Position and ‘Final Justification’

N.T. Wright, it must be acknowledged, has recently moved away from his previous position (orat least clarified it). He now acknowledges the soteriological implications of justification:

“This move [of considering the narratives of creation and covenant] shows, I believe, the folly ofdividing up readings of Paul into the false either/or of those on the one hand which highlight theproblem of sin and the question of forgiveness and those on the other which highlight the problemof Israel and the inclusion of the Gentiles within God’s people. This is where the so-called ‘newperspective’ has made one of its necessary points – that every time Paul discusses justification heseems simultaneously to be talking about Gentile inclusion – but has not, usually, shown how thisintegrates with the traditional view that he is talking about how sinners are put right with God.Once we frame the question within the overall narratives of creation and covenant, the way is clearand open to a fresh treatment of Paul which will do far more exegetical justice to the passagesconcerned and which will show how these two emphases are in fact part of the same thing, both tobe equally stressed.”95

Wright is still prepared to write the following about justification:

“The point of justification by faith is that, as [Paul] insists in [Romans] 3:26, it takes place in thepresent time as opposed to on the last day. It has to do with the questions, ‘Who now belongs toGod’s people?’, and ‘How can you tell?’ The answer is: all who believe in the gospel belong, andthat is the only way you can tell – not by who their parents were, or how well they have obeyed theTorah (or any other moral code), or whether they have been circumcised. Justification, for Paul,is a subset of election, that is, it belongs as part of his doctrine of the people of God.”96

However, he now balances this emphasis by immediately adding:

“And of course this does not mean, despite many efforts to push the conclusion this way, that ithas nothing to do with sinners being saved from sin and death by the love and grace of God. Thepoint of election always was that humans were sinful, that the world was lapsing back into chaos,and that God was going to mount a rescue operation. That is what the covenant was designed todo, and that is why ‘belonging to the covenant’ means, among other things, ‘forgiven sinner.”’97

It must be admitted that this element was also present in an earlier essay where he definesjustification in this way:

90Ephesians 2 (especially v9) shows that Paul views grace and faith to be in contrast with ‘works’ which maybe the cause of ‘boasting’. Some opponents of the gospel clearly had a ‘legalistic’ soteriology.

912 Timothy 1:9 contrasts the salvation by grace which is proclaimed in Paul’s gospel with ‘things we havedone’, again supporting the Reformation understanding of Judaism and Paul.

92Titus 3:5–7 shows both that justification is salvific, and that it is contrasted with ‘the righteous things wehad done’.

93Recent commentaries that have argued for the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral epistles include G.W.Knight’s NIGTC, [28], and P.H. Towner’s NICNT, [49], commentaries.

94See, for example, the essay on pseudonymity in the Scriptures by Joyce G. Baldwin, “Is there pseudonymityin the Old Testament”, [1], in Trueman et. al. “Solid Ground: 25 Years of Evangelical Theology”, [50], Apollos(Leicester: England), 2000, pages 108–119. Originally published in Themelios, 1978.

95N.T. Wright, “Paul: Fresh Perspectives”, [61], Fortress Press (Minneapolis: Minnesota), 2005, page 36.96N.T. Wright, ibid, page 121. Italics original.97N.T. Wright, ibid, page 121. Italics original.

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“Justification is thus the declaration of God, the just judge, that someone is (a) in the right, thattheir sins are forgiven, and (b) a true member of the covenant family, the people belonging toAbraham. That is how the word works in Paul’s writings.”98

Wright notes that Paul uses the word ‘call’ rather than ‘justification’ to answer the questionof ‘how I get saved’; justification is rather used by Paul to denote what happens immediatelyafter the ‘call’, and has to do with covenant inclusion.

“The point is that the word ‘justification’ does not itself denote the process whereby, or the eventin which, a person is brought by grace from unbelief, idolatry and sin into faith, true worship andrenewal of life. Paul, clearly and unambiguously, uses a different word for that, the word ‘call’.”99

From a Reformed perspective, it should be noted that, welcome though a recognition is thatforgiveness of sins is an element of justification, forgiveness falls short of the being declaredrighteous. Certainly in Arminian hands, forgiveness in justification is made to refer only to pastsins.

Wright considers this change of terminology to be important, because the ecclesiastical mean-ing of justification means that it is not in conflict with a strong doctrine of a final eschatologicaljudgement according to works for everyone:

“You cannot understand justification by faith in Romans 3 and 4 unless you see it flanked by thelong statement of judgement according to works in Romans 2:1–16 and the spectacular scene inRomans 8 which explains why there is ‘no condemnation for those who are in the Messiah, Jesus.This is the point at which the redefinition of justification which I offered in the previous chaptermakes its presence fully felt: because if by ‘justification’ you suppose that Paul means ‘the eventby which you become a Christian’, this is always going to sound contested, as though (to quoteone of my critics) one were smuggling in semi-Pelagianism by the back door, insisting, in the teethof Galatians 3, that having begun with faith one must end with works after all.”100

Without some such change of terminology so that justification is not seen as being relatedto a declaration at the beginning of the Christian life, Galatians 3 might seem to stand againststarting with faith and ending with works. Wright, however, observes (drawing on other newperspective teachings):

“It simply isn’t like that – and Galatians 3, being about circumcision, makes the point, becausePaul did not see circumcision at all as a ‘good work’ which one might do as part of a self-helpmoralism, but always as an ethnic badge.”101

Wright understands justification to occur in three tenses or stages, the last stage or futurejustification of believers occurring in the context of the final judgement, and will be on the basisof ‘performance, not possession [of the law]’102 i.e. on the believer’s whole life of works andfaith.

“We now discover that this declaration, this vindication, occurs twice. It occurs in the future, aswe have seen, on the basis of the entire life a person has led in the power of the Spirit–that is, itoccurs on the basis of ‘works’ in Paul’s redefined sense.”103

This use of the word ‘basis’ or ‘ground’ is a particularly problematic aspect of Wright’steaching. In contrast, the Reformed understanding of Paul’s teaching on the final judgementand works has the following characteristics:

• The present justification of believers anticipates the final judgement, and is based entirelyon the work (the righteousness) of Christ. Final vindication is not a reward for our works.There is not now, nor will there ever be, any condemnation for those who are joined toChrist by faith.

• Justified believers are regenerate and the Holy Spirit ensures that each one will start toexhibit the deeds appropriate to who they have now been made – a son of God. Theirdeeds will be in accordance with their new nature;

98N.T. Wright, “The Shape of Justification”, [60], Bible Review, April 2001.99N.T. Wright, ibid, page 121. Italics original.

100N.T. Wright, “Paul: Fresh Perspectives”, [61], Fortress Press (Minneapolis: Minnesota), 2005, page 148.101N.T. Wright, ibid, page 148.102N.T. Wright’s commentary on Romans, page 440.103N.T. Wright, “New Perspectives on Paul”, [62], in Bruce L. McCormack (ed), “Justification in Perspective:Historical Developments and Contemporary Challenges”, [30], Baker Academic (Grand Rapids: Michigan), 2006,page 260. Italics added.

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• God graciously will reward each believer’s works at the final judgement, although strictlysuch ‘works’ are not meritorious, and the reward in question is not our vindication. Wenever get beyond being ‘unprofitable servants.’

Reformed theologian Cornelius Venema contrasts the Reformed and NPP understanding offinal justification as follows:

“Among some new perspective authors, Paul’s emphasis upon a final judgement according to worksis viewed as a kind of final chapter in the believer’s justification. Unlike the Reformation perspect-ive, which distinguishes between justification by grace alone apart from works and a final judgement‘according to’ but not ‘on the basis of’ works. This final justification concept suggests that thepresent membership of believers in the covenant family is suspended upon a future justification.Although believers enjoy a present justification in union with Christ. they face the prospect of afuture justification whose verdict depends upon the quality of the whole life of faith.”104

It should be observed that Wright is not always consistent on this point. In his latest bookhe can also write of the final judgment being ‘according to works’:

“If initial membership is by grace, but final judgment is according to works – and the New Testa-ment, at first glance, including the Pauline corpus, does seem quite clear at this point – then whataccount of those ‘works’ can we give?”105

However, it does not appear that Wright is here trying to draw the normal Reformed dis-tinction between ‘according to’ and ‘on the basis of’ works. In fact, Wright’s words above occurin passage where he is arguing for similarity between Jewish and Pauline ‘scheme of covenantalthought.’ As John Piper notes, ‘...we should be aware that he [Wright] does not use the word‘basis’ with a nuanced theological precision.’106

Furthermore, in Wright’s latest work on justification, which replies to John Piper’s critique,Wright remarks in an endnote:

“I am aware that John Piper puts a great deal of store by technical meanings, within Reformeddebates, of the word ‘basis’ (e.g. 117f). I have to say that, since Paul does not use a phrase whichcorresponds to this, I am not convinced that this is the way to clarity.”107

However, Wright’s failure to clarify whether the ‘basis’ or ‘ground’ of the verdict in a person’sfinal justification is their own works or because of their incorporation into the Messiah108 leavesan important ambiguity in Wright’s teaching. Wright is prepared to say:

“For the positive verdict, the criterion is the Messiah: the Messiah and his faithfulness unto death,the death to which he gave himself to ‘deliver us from the present evil age’ (Galatians 1:4 echoedin the ‘giving of himself’ in 2:20), are the basis on which God makes the declaration ‘Here are mypeople.”’109

However, given Wright’s refusal to clarify what he means by ‘basis’ this statement is notas clear as one might like. Also unclear is whether Wright is only talking about our presentjustification at this point, or whether he would also say that the basis of our final justificationis the ‘Messiah and his faithfulness unto death.’ Piper, choosing to interpret Wright in asReformed way as possible, assumes Wright’s teaching amounts to the same thing as teachingthe imputation of Christ’s ‘passive’ obedience unto death as the ground or basis for our presentand future justification. Piper notes that Wright denies that Christ’s perfect obedience (his‘active righteousness’) is also imputed to believers. Piper observes that this seems to have tofollowing two effects:

“1. It leaves the gift of the status of vindication without foundation in real perfect imputedobedience. We have no perfect obedience to offer, and Wright would say, Christ’s obedience is notimputed to me nor does it need to be. He does not believe that this is a biblical category. So wehave no perfect obedience as the foundation of our status of vindication (i.e. justification).

104Cornelis P. Venema, “The Gospel of Free Acceptance in Christ: An Assessment of the New Perspectives onPaul”, [51], Banner of Truth Trust (Edinburgh), 2006, page 305.105N.T. Wright, “Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision”, [63], SPCK (London), 2009, page 56.106John Piper, “The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright”, [38], Crossway Books (Wheaton:Illinois), 2007, page 117.107N.T. Wright, “Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision”, [63], SPCK (London), 2009, page 229.108Wright denies the terminology of the ‘imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believers’.109N.T. Wright, “Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision”, [63], SPCK (London), 2009, page 101.

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2. The absence of a foundation for our vindication, in real perfect obedience, results in a vacuumthat our own Spirit-enabled, but imperfect, obedience seems to fill as part of the foundation orground or basis alongside the atoning death of Jesus. I say ‘seems to,’ since I would be happy forWright to clarify for his reading public that this, in fact, is not what he believes.”110

Traditionally, Arminians have also denied that justification entails the imputation to believ-ers of Christ’s active obedience. However, they have also avoided speaking about our worksbeing the basis of our final vindication.

It should not be surprising if Wright’s ambiguity in such a crucial matter have lead somecritics to conclude the worse. For example, Cornelis Venema, in a courteous and generous book,nevertheless concludes:

“The carelessness with which writers of the new perspective speak of a final justification on thebasis of works threatens the heart of Paul’s gospel, which teaches that the acceptance and standingof the believer before God rests on the work of Christ alone. An unqualified doctrine of finaljustification which is suspended upon the works of believers, is tantamount to ‘another gospel’ andmerits Paul’s apostolic ‘anathema’ of Galatians 1:8–9.”111

It is possible that N.T. Wright in the future may suitably qualify his doctrine of finaljustification. There is already in Wright’s works a strand that sees works as being the inevitableproof the Spirit in the life of elect believers, and salvific faith as the first such work. Speakingof such salvific faith, Wright observes:

“And it looks forward to the final day: because this faith is the first sign of new God-given life,it is the appropriate anticipation of the final verdict, which is guaranteed by the same Spirit whoinspired faith (2 Cor. 1:22; Phil 1:6).”112

More recently Wright phrased it like this:

“In order to understand the future verdict which God, the righteous judge, will deliver on the lastday, and how that future verdict is correctly anticipated in the present when someone confessesthat Jesus is Lord and believes that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9), we need tounderstand one more level of the covenant: Christology. As John Calvin rightly saw – and asPaul himself said, in the first paragraph he ever wrote on the subject – we are ‘justified in Christ’(Galatians 2:17).”113

From these quotations it would appear that N.T. Wright’s soteriology is monergistic – jus-tifying faith and the life of obedience that follows are both from the Holy Spirit. If Wright’ssoteriology is monergistic, it defuses many (but not all) of Venema’s concerns. Nevertheless, itis probably fair to observe that N.T. Wright and some other NPP scholars speak too freely ofthese works being the basis of this eschatological judgement, when, from a Reformed reading ofPaul, they should be pointing to Christ’s life and death. The difficulty with really understand-ing what New Perspective scholars are advocating at this point is exacerbated by an importantobscurity in the NPP position, as Venema notes:

“One of the most vexing features of the new perspective is its failure to explain the connectionbetween the justification of believers and Christ’s atoning work. In the Reformation perspective onPaul there is a close and intimate connection between Christ’s obedience, cross and resurrection,and the benefits of justification which believers derive from their union with him. ....

[An exposition of the connections that the Reformed see taught by Paul omitted.]

... However in the NPP no comparable account is provided of the intimate connection betweenChrist’s saving work and the believer’s justification. Justification merely identifies those who belongto the covenant family of God, but no adequate explanation is provided as to why this identificationrequired nothing less than the cross and resurrection of Christ on their behalf.”114

110John Piper, “The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright”, [38], Crossway Books (Wheaton:Illinois), 2007, page 128–29. Italics original.111Cornelis P. Venema, ibid., page xxx.112N.T. Wright, “The Shape of Justification”, [60], Bible Review, April 2001.113N.T. Wright, “Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision”, [63], SPCK (London), 2009, page 81. Italicsoriginal.114Cornelis P. Venema, ibid., page 303–304.

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5.3.4 Justification and the Gospel

N.T. Wright argues that Paul’s gospel consisted of a proclamation of the universal lordship ofJesus Christ, and makes the point that in particular this means that justification by faith wasnot itself part of his gospel.

“By ‘the gospel’ Paul does not mean ‘justification by faith’ itself. He means the announcementthat the crucified and risen Jesus is Lord. To believe this message, to give believing allegiance toJesus as Messiah and Lord, is to be justified in the present by faith (whether or not one has evenheard of justification by faith). Justification by faith itself is a second-order doctrine: to believeit is both to have assurance (believing that one will be vindicated on the last day [Rom. 5:1–5])and to know that one belongs to the single family of God, called to share table-fellowship withoutdistinction with all other believers (Gal. 2:11–21). But one is not justified by faith by believing injustification by faith ..., but by believing in Jesus.”115

There is a lot of truth and insight in this position. Indeed, no Reformed theologian wouldmaintain that the doctrine of justification by faith alone ought to be the object of our faith.Furthermore, to its credit, Wright’s emphasis makes it impossible to imagine that one may“accept Jesus as one’s saviour but not as one’s Lord” as some ‘evangelicals’ vainly believe theycan.

However, Wright’s position is in danger of being reductionistic, for it so elevates the personand office of Christ that this element eclipses the news about Christ’s work in our gospelproclamations. Our message for our contemporaries, as well as containing a declaration of thelordship of Jesus, should involve an declaration his death and resurrection, and an explanationof the significance of this for our contemporaries (especially the significance it has for theirjustification and salvation). In particular, our gospel proclamations should involve passing onthe divine commands to repent and believe, and the divine promise to accept all those whocome to Jesus in faith, relying not on their own righteousness. The gospel contains good newsabout salvation from sins and hence reconciliation with God. Wright is correct to emphasisethat it is Christ who is held out in this message as the object of faith, however it is not a Christdenuded of his salvific deeds and stripped of the apostolic interpretation of those deeds. Partof placing one’s faith in Christ is coming to lean on his work of salvation for us.

The problem with overly focusing our gospel messages on the lordship of Christ, and omittingmention of the salvific implications of his work, is that we fail to explain how Christ’s lordshipis good news for those who have been in rebellion against this king.116 The danger is thatour hearers will assume that the way to get right with this king is to do one’s best to live outKingdom values (in recognition of Christ’s lordship). As church history teaches, such a ‘gospel’is ultimately blackest bondage.

6 Conclusions

There are five main conclusions to this study. The first is that, because of a number of weak-nesses in Sanders’ work, the pressure to reinterpret Paul along New Perspective lines is notas compelling as the NPP scholars present it. These weaknesses include the fact that it hasnot been established that Second Temple Judaism uniformly followed the pattern of covenantalnomism; that covenantal nomism is the correct way to characterise its pattern; or that a ‘pat-tern’ is an adequate concept from which to draw conclusions about a religion’s soteriology. Mostimportantly, Sanders has not succeeded in showing that Second Temple Judaism did not haveimportant characteristics in common with Pelagianism.

The second conclusion is that the New Perspective on Paul does not do justice to theApostle’s teaching on justification. The NPP positions are based on flawed arguments andscholarship; and they seriously distort and obscure a critical element of the gospel of JesusChrist. It is a serious matter adopt a New Perspective position on the gospel. The best thatcan be said for the sanguine belief of some NPP scholars that their re-readings of Paul’s doctrineof justification will not have profound implications on the message that we must proclaim tonon-Christians is that such hopes are unproven. NPP scholars will need to do significant work

115N.T. Wright, ibid.116A point eloquently made by John Piper in “The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright”, [38],Crossway Books (Wheaton: Illinois), 2007.

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in systematics to establish this, and until they have it is wise to assume that they will notsucceed, for there is a prima facie case that they have modified it significantly.

The third is that it is crucial that the scholarship that is used in determining the Church’sgospel should be scholarship that is based on appropriate presuppositions compatible with theChurch’s faith commitments. Historical reconstructions of Judaism which ignore the Gospels,and accounts of Paul’s thought which ignore some of his epistles are fundamentally inappropriatefor the Church to use in determining its theology. Evangelical scholars and ministers need tobe discerning and vigilant with regard to the ‘scholarship’ that they build upon.

The fourth conclusion is that there are important lessons to learn from the New Perspectivescholars. They have identified a number of themes in Paul’s thought which, although not aliento or incompatible with the ‘Old Perspective’, have not always been articulated as they shouldhave been. Furthermore, the New Perspective criticisms against some ‘degenerate’ expressionsof the ‘Old Perspective’ are welcome. The main lessons which we can learn from the NewPerspective are:

• The nature of Second Temple Judaism should not be determined from later Jewish sources– this is bad history.

• Second Temple Judaism, by and large, does not seem to have had a crude merit theology,where good deeds were balanced against bad ones.

• Obedience in Second Temple Judaism was primarily understood as the appropriate re-sponse of God’s covenant people to his graciously established covenant with Israel, (al-though that did not stop many believing their works were the ground for their ultimatevindication).

• Words and phrases such as: legalism; self-righteousness; and merit theology, are loadedexpressions, which are ambiguous in meaning. Much more care is needed than is usuallytaken in finding or defining words in this area, so that the soteriology under discussion(whether Jewish or Christian) can be accurately depicted.

• Portraying Paul as rejecting Second Temple Judaism only or primarily for its ‘legalism’ isseriously to misread Paul; it misses the vital Christological differences between Paul andhis Jew contemporaries, and, incidentally, makes the Reformation that much harder tounderstand.

• Being justified in Paul’s thought entails that one has been incorporated into the Church(albeit, it also entails that one will not finally be condemned, but forgiven and saved).

The fifth conclusion is that the traditional Reformed understanding of salvific justificationis still a viable reading of Paul’s teachings. Various aspects of the NPP debate show that thisposition is not as well understood by modern evangelicals and Pauline scholars as it should be,so it is worth reminding ourselves of its principle features. These can be stated as:

• The nature of justification is a forensic or judicial judgement or declaration by God that aperson is righteous in his sight. It is not merely the forgiveness of past sins or the declara-tion that one is part of God’s covenant community, although being declared righteous byGod entails both these things as well.

• Theoretically the grounds for justification could be a person’s own righteousness, hadthat person only ever engaged in righteous behaviour. However, in fact, all of Adam’sdescendants are polluted and sinful, in rebellion against God in a profound way. Therefore,all are sinners and are – outside of Christ – under God’s wrath.

• The ground of salvific justification is Christ’s penal substitutionary death and righteous-ness for his people who are united to him. This righteousness is extrinsic to the believer,not intrinsic – an ‘alien’ righteousness that is imputed not imparted. Imputation or ‘count-ing’ is the phrase used to explain that the benefits of Christ’s obedience and death becomeours. A common biblical image is being given new clothes to cover us (Is. 62:10; Zec. 3:4;Mt. 22:11; Rev. 7:9).

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• The source of justification is unmerited effectual grace, that overcomes a sinner’s rebellionand spiritual deadness, and which brings that person to faith. No-one can prepare for,merit, co-operate with, or ultimately resist such grace.

• The means of justification is God-wrought self-despairing trust in Jesus Christ and hisgospel. This faith is purely instrumental – it is not meritorious and part of the groundfor one’s justification. We are justified – declared righteous – by our faith, but the reasonwe are declared righteous is because of the righteousness of Christ, which God graciouslycounts as ours.

• The timing of justification is such that it occurs when a sinner places his or her faith(trust) in Jesus Christ.

• The implication of being declared righteous by God in time, is that one will be vindicatedat the final judgement. Justification anticipates this eschatological verdict, and brings itforward to the present.

• Correlated with having justifying faith is the fact that the Holy Spirit will have been atwork within the believer, making that person increasingly Christ-like. One is justified byfaith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.

More succinctly, Philip Eveson writing in the Reformed tradition has defined justificationas:

“... a legal pronouncement made by God in the present, prior to the day of judgement, declaringsinners to be not guilty and therefore acquitted, by pardoning all their sins and reckoning themto be righteous in his sight, on the basis of Christ, their representative and substitute, whoserighteousness in life and death is put to their account, when in self-despairing trust they look tohim alone for their salvation.”117

An equally masterly summary of justification was found by the Bible translator who realisedthat the best translation for “justification” into Pidgin English was “God say me okay.”

This ‘Old Perspective’ is not only weathering the novel attacks of the New Perspective uponit, but, through this debate, many are being led to rediscover their theological heritage and toappreciate in deeper ways these important truths that form critical elements of the apostolicgospel.

Arguably there is nothing more important for evangelical churches to remember in thesedays than that justification is by faith alone. Every time we just assume this gospel, and failto emphasise that our salvation depends upon us resting upon Christ’s work and not upon ourown efforts, we run the risk of our hearers concluding that they get right with God throughcomplying with the behavioural norms of our church. In this way, even evangelical Reformedchurches can lose the gospel and slip into legalistic moralism.

May God in his grace use this New Perspective debate to stir us up to the faithful proclam-ation of his most holy gospel. And may he use our words to save his people, Jew and Gentile,and bring eternal glory to his name.

References

[1] Joyce G. Baldwin. Is There Pseudonymity in the Old Testament? In Trueman et al. [50],pages 108–119. Originally Published in 1978.

[2] Henri Blocher. Justification of the Ungodly (Sola Fide): Theological Reflections. In Carsonet al. [7], pages 465–500. 2004.

[3] James Buchanan. The Doctrine of Justification: An Outline of its History in the Churchand of its Exposition from Scripture. Banner of Truth Trust (Edinburgh), 1961. OriginallyPublished in 1867.

[4] D.A. Carson. Summaries and Conclusions. In Carson et al. [6], pages 505–548. 2001.

117Philip Eveson, “The Great Exchange: Justification by Faith Alone – in the Light of Recent Thought”, [16],Day One (Epsom: England), 1996, page 112.

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[44] Mark A. Seifrid. Christ, Our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Justification. Number 9 inNew Studies in Biblical Theology. Apollos (Leicester: England), 2000.

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