[BBC List] I am glad Phil is on our side

[Mike Abendroth]

The Old Perspective on Paul: A Critical Introduction to What Saint Paul
Really Said 

Phil Johnson
 
This chapter is adapted from a seminar given at The Metropolitan Tabernacle
in London, England, in January 2004. It provides an introduction to the
so-called "New Perspective on Paul." The New Perspective is a currently
popular approach to understanding the New Testament, and its influence is
quickly moving from the academic realm to evangelical pulpits. It usually
involves significant modifications to the Protestant understanding of the
doctrine of justification by faith. N. T. Wright's popular book, What Saint
Paul Really Said, is probably the most influential and simplest introduction
to the major ideas of the New Perspective. While not intended as a complete
analysis of every aspect of New Perspective teachings, this chapter serves
as an introduction and critique for pastors and laypeople alike.
 
At the moment several intense and important debates are stirring controversy
among Reformed and evangelical leaders, all more or less centering on a new
interpretive approach to the New Testament known as "The New Perspective on
Paul." The debate is not merely an academic 
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quarrel over unimportant hermeneutical nuances; it involves some real and
significant threats to the doctrine Martin Luther called "the article by
which the church stands or falls"-the doctrine of justification by faith. If
the New Perspective is the correct perspective of Paul's teaching and
theology, the Reformers were wrong on the main issue of the Reformation.
Understandably, the New Perspective is sending shock waves of controversy
into circles where Reformation principles are still deemed crucial biblical
and theological distinctives.
The expression "New Perspective on Paul" was coined by James Dunn in a 1982
lecture describing this new approach to Pauline teaching that had roots
going back to Albert Schweitzer in the early twentieth century and Lutheran
theologian Krister Stendahl after the end of World War II. But the most
important foundation for the New Perspective was a 1977 work of E. P.
Sanders entitled Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Sanders rocked the academic
world of contemporary Pauline studies with the revolutionary suggestion that
the Judaism of Paul's day was not the self-righteous, works-based system
that had been commonly assumed. James D. G. Dunn refined Sanders's views and
added some twists of his own. None of those men were evangelicals, nor did
they claim to be.
N. T. Wright, an Anglican archbishop and respected scholar, who is much
closer to mainstream evangelicalism, has led the way among evangelicals who
are adopting, adapting, and popularizing elements of these earlier authors
(especially Dunn and Sanders). But Sanders, Wright, and Dunn also disagree
among themselves on major points. So the New Perspective at the moment lacks
the cohesiveness of a movement, and many observers have noted that there is
not one monolithic "New Perspective on Paul," though many new perspectives
share some common ideas and intersect with one another at key points.

The Basic Premise of New Perspective Theology

One thing virtually all advocates of the New Perspective do agree on,
however, is that the historic Reformed understanding of Pauline sote-
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riology (especially the Protestant understanding of justification by faith)
is fundamentally flawed. In a nutshell, they suggest that the apostle Paul
has been seriously misunderstood, at least since the time of Augustine and
the Pelagian controversy, but even more since the time of Luther and the
Protestant Reformation. They agree with Sanders's assertion that
first-century Judaism has also been misinterpreted and misconstrued by New
Testament scholars for hundreds of years, and therefore they believe the
church's understanding of what Paul was teaching in Romans and Galatians has
been seriously inaccurate at least since the time of Augustine.
Here are four important ways they say Paul has been misunderstood:

1. They Claim Paul Was Not Fighting Legalism

First, regarding first-century Judaism, keep in mind that the New
Perspective on Paul starts with the claim that the Judaism of Paul's day was
not really, after all, a religion of self-righteousness where salvation
hinged on human works and human merit. So, according to this view, most New
Testament scholars have utterly misunderstood Paul because they have
misconstrued what he was up against. Even the Pharisees weren't legalists
after all, it turns out. According to the New Perspective, the Jewish
leaders of Paul's time have been misunderstood for centuries by biased
exegetes who have erred because they have superimposed Augustine's conflict
with Pelagius, as well as Luther's conflict with Roman Catholicism, onto
their reading of Paul's conflict with the Judaizers.
Instead, according to the New Perspective, there was a strong emphasis on
divine grace in the Judaism of Paul's time, and the Pharisees were not
really guilty of teaching salvation by human merit. That is the one basic
point upon which Sanders, Dunn, and Wright are all in full agreement. They
base that claim primarily on their study of extrabiblical rabbinical
sources, and they treat the matter as if it were settled in the world of New
Testament scholarship-even though there are still plenty of weighty New
Testament scholars who would 
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strongly disagree with them. But that's the starting point of their view:
First-century Judaism was not legalistic after all. For centuries,
Christians have simply misunderstood what the Pharisees taught.

2. They See Racial Reconciliation as Paul's Primary Emphasis

Second, regarding the apostle Paul, the New Perspectivists are very keen to
absolve Paul from the charge of anti-Semitism-and therefore they deny that
he had any serious or significant theological disagreement with the Jewish
leaders of his time. Obviously, if the religion of the Pharisees was a
religion of grace and not human merit, then Paul would have had no
fundamental disagreement with them regarding the doctrine of salvation.
But Paul's real controversy with the Jewish leaders, we are told, had to do
with the way they treated Gentiles. It was not any kind of soteriological
conflict. The Judaizers and the Pharisees were racial and cultural bigots
who wanted to exclude all Gentiles from their fellowship, and Paul was
seeking racial harmony and diversity in the covenant community. So the only
significant complaint Paul had with Judaism was the racial and cultural
exclusivity of its leaders.

3. They Limit the Gospel to a Declaration of Victory

Third, regarding the message of Christianity, the New Perspective on Paul
claims that the gospel is an announcement about the lordship of Christ,
period. It is the declaration that Christ, through His death and
resurrection, has been shown by God to be Lord of creation and King of the
cosmos. We would agree that this truth is an essential feature of the New
Testament Gospel, of course. But we would not agree with advocates of the
New Perspective when they say the gospel is therefore not really a message
about personal and individual redemption from the guilt and condemnation of
sin.
To quote Tom Wright in What Saint Paul Really Said, "[The gospel] is not . .
. a system of how people get saved" (p. 45). Later he writes, "The
announcement of the gospel results in people being saved. . . . But 'the
gospel' itself, strictly speaking, is the narrative 
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proclamation of King Jesus." "[The gospel is] the announcement of a royal
victory" (p. 47).
Ultimately, the New Perspective downplays or divests the gospel of every
significant aspect of soteriology. The means of atonement is left vague in
this system; the issues of personal sin and guilt are passed over and
brushed aside. The gospel becomes nothing more than a proclamation of
victory. In other words, the gospel of the New Perspective is decidedly not
a message about how sinners can escape the wrath of God. In fact, this
gospel says little or nothing about personal sin and forgiveness, individual
redemption, atonement, or any of the other great soteriological doctrines.
Soteriology is hardly a concern of the New Perspective, even when it comes
to the gospel message.

4. They Redefine Justification by Faith

A fourth characteristic of the New Perspective is its unusual way of
interpreting the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith and the
Reformation principle of sola fide. Again, the New Perspective claims that
historic Protestant Christianity has seriously confused and distorted what
the apostle Paul taught about justification by faith. According to the New
Perspective, when Paul wrote about justification, his concerns were (once
again) corporate, national, racial, and social-not individual and
soteriological.
According to those who advocate the new view, the doctrine of justification
as taught by the apostle Paul has very little to do with personal and
individual salvation from sin and guilt. Justification, they say, doesn't
really pertain to soteriology, or the doctrine of salvation. It fits more
properly in the category of ecclesiology, or the doctrine of the church.
To quote Tom Wright again, "What Paul means by justification . . . is not
'how you become a Christian,' so much as 'how you can tell who is a member
of the covenant family'" (p. 122). On page 119, he says,
"Justification" in the first century was not about how someone might
establish a relationship with God. It was about God's eschatological
definition, both future and present, of who was, in fact,
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a member 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 about the
church.
Again, and at every opportunity, the emphasis on personal and individual
salvation is minimized or denied. The gospel is not really a message about
redemption from sin and personal guilt; it is simply and only the
declaration that Jesus is now Lord over all. Justification is not mainly
about sin and forgiveness; it's about membership in the covenant community.
And when you're done reading everything that has been written to promote the
New Perspective, the issues of personal guilt, individual redemption, and
atonement for sin have hardly been dealt with at all. All those weighty
soteriological issues are left in a fog of uncertainty and confusion.
This redefinition of the doctrine of justification by faith is surely the
greatest and most immediate danger posed by the New Perspective on Paul.
With that in mind, the rest of this chapter will address this specific claim
that the doctrine of justification, in Paul's theology, is all about the
Gentiles' standing in the covenant community rather than about the
individual's standing before God as it relates to sin and forgiveness.
Without question, that is a total redefinition of justification-and one
that, realistically speaking, is utterly impossible to harmonize with the
historic Protestant understanding of justification by faith.
Certainly, the most conservative defenders of N. T. Wright and the New
Perspective often insist that they do affirm what the great Protestant
creeds teach regarding justification, and some of them have taken great
pains to try to find language in the Westminster standards and other creeds
that they can interpret as an affirmation of their views. But having read
several such treatments and having dialogued at length with several devotees
of the New Perspective who insist they are "Reformed," it is our conviction
that when they are finished trying to reconcile their views with the
historic evangelical and 
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Protestant view of justification by faith, all the main issues are left
confused and muddled rather than clarified. That's because the New
Perspective's view of justification is radically and fundamentally different
from the classic view of justification by faith alone-which has always been
understood as the central distinctive of every branch of historic Protestant
Christianity.

N. T. Wright and Justification by Faith

In order to deal with such a large issue in the space allotted, the
remainder of this chapter will focus on just a few of the most troubling
statements made by Tom Wright in his book What Saint Paul Really Said. As a
lay-level treatment of Wright's beliefs, What Saint Paul Really Said is
certainly not as thorough and perhaps not as precise as his more academic
works. On the other hand, since this work is a popular distillation of his
perspective on the apostle Paul, aimed at serious laypeople and pastors, his
aim ought to have been to convey his thoughts with the clearest, most
concise, and most unambiguous language. This book is supposed to be a
non-academic introduction to the New Perspective and a simple digest of the
New Perspective's most important ideas. Thus, it deserves to be responded to
on that basis-in a non-academic fashion, trying to deal with the big ideas
and not getting bogged down in side issues and technicalities.
This chapter is therefore not intended to be a full, careful academic reply
to Wright. Instead, it is designed to be a brief summary of why Wright's New
Perspective is problematic, pointing out the major things to be on guard
against in his work. As the subtitle suggests, this chapter is only a
critical introduction to Wright's position.
No doctrine is more important in Protestant theology than the doctrine of
justification by faith. This was the material principle of the Reformation,
the central issue over which Rome and the Reformers fought and ultimately
split. Calvin called justification by faith the principal hinge of all
religion. But if Tom Wright and his New Perspective are correct, Luther and
Calvin-and indeed all the Reformers-badly misunderstood the apostle Paul and
seriously mis-
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construed the doctrine of justification. They were mistaken on the main
issue. That is a very serious charge, but it is precisely what the New
Perspective suggests.
(A corollary is that the scholars proposing this New Perspective are also
claiming that they are the first people since the early church fathers who
have correctly understood the Pauline epistles. That's an extremely bold
stance to take-especially since it's a view that depends to such a large
degree on the work of E. P. Sanders, who doesn't even accept the Pauline
authorship of most of Paul's epistles.)
In What Saint Paul Really Said, Wright includes a chapter titled
"Justification and the Church," in which he says that the traditional
Protestant doctrine of justification "owes a good deal both to the
controversy between Pelagius and Augustine in the early fifth century and to
that between Erasmus and Luther in the early sixteenth century" (p. 113).
But (according to Wright) the historic Protestant view of justification
"does not do justice to the richness and precision of Paul's doctrine, and
indeed distorts it at various points" (p. 113).
Notice that Wright is expressly arguing against a Reformed understanding of
justification, and he repeatedly insinuates that Protestants need to rethink
the whole doctrine and retool their teaching in light of his new
understanding of what Paul really meant. On page 117, he claims that the
classic Protestant understanding of justification has resulted in a reading
of Romans that "has systematically done violence to that text for hundreds
of years, and . . . it is time for the text itself to be heard again."
But Wright's own doctrine of justification is seriously deficient. In fact,
he is at odds with Scripture on at least four major points related to this
one issue of justification.

His Definition of Justification

We've already seen a basic description of how Wright portrays the doctrine
of justification. But here's how he himself states it in What Saint Paul
Really Said, page 115: "The discussions of justification in much of the
history of the church, certainly since Augustine, got off 
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on the wrong foot-at least in terms of understanding Paul-and they have
stayed there ever since." On page 120, he adds this:
Despite a long tradition to the contrary, the problem Paul addresses in
Galatians is not the question of how precisely someone becomes a Christian
or attains to a relationship with God. (I'm not even sure how Paul would
express, in Greek, the notion of 'relationship with God', but we'll leave
that aside.) The problem he addresses is: should ex-pagan converts be
circumcised or not? Now this question is by no means obviously to do with
the questions faced by Augustine and Pelagius, or by Luther and Erasmus. On
anyone's reading, but especially within its first-century context, [the
problem] has to do, quite obviously, with the question of how you define the
people of God. Are they to be defined by the badges of the Jewish race, or
in some other way?
And so he concludes, "Justification, in Galatians, is the doctrine which
insists that all who share faith in Christ belong at the same table, no
matter what their racial differences, as they together wait for the final
new creation" (p. 122).
In other words, according to Wright, justification is more a corporate issue
than a personal one; it has more to do with the identity of the church than
with the standing of the individual before God.
When Wright does connect the doctrine of justification with the individual's
standing before God, it is nearly always in contexts where he is speaking of
"final justification," which takes place in the eschatalogical future, at
the last judgment, when God will judge men and women according to their
works. In an article he has posted on the Internet titled "The Shape of
Justification," Wright refers to "future justification" and cites Romans
2:13 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Ro+2%3A13>  as a proof text
("it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the
doers of the law who will be justified"). Thus Wright and other New
Perspective writers seriously confuse the question of whether our standing
as believers before God depends in some part on our own works, or whether
Christ's work on our behalf is the sole and sufficient ground of our
justification.
The way Wright speaks of this "future dimension" of justification 
70
is both careless and unclear. While in places he strenuously denies that
justification is a process, he nonetheless believes that the individual
Christian's standing before God is not truly settled until the final
judgment, and then it will depend (at least in part) on the believer's own
righteous works. That is almost precisely the point over which Rome and the
Reformers fought their most important battles. If Wright is not on the Roman
Catholic side of that issue, he certainly is not on the Reformers' side.
(On a side note, in that same online article, Wright insists that the
doctrine of justification by faith is "a second-order doctrine," not an
essential doctrine of Christianity. But the text of Galatians-and especially
the anathema of Galatians 1:8-9
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Gal+1%3A8-9> -clearly indicates
that the doctrine of justification is of primary importance. All the classic
Reformed and Protestant creeds certainly treated justification as a
first-order doctrine-if not the most important of all doctrines related to
the gospel.)

His Description of "Works of the Law"

A second problem with Wright's teaching on justification involves his
understanding of the phrase, "works of the law." Galatians 2:16
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Gal+2%3A16>  uses that expression
three times in a single verse. "We know that a person is not justified by
works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed
in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by
works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified."
There are three other references to "works of the law" in Galatians (3:2
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Gal+3%3A2> , 5
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Gal+3%3A5> , 10
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Gal+3%3A10> ) and one in Romans
9:32 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Ro+9%3A32> , and in each case
the apostle Paul's point is the same: Legal obedience has no saving
efficacy. Galatians <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Gal+3%3A10>
3:10 states: "all who rely on works of the law are under a curse."
Of course, the historic Protestant position has been that these very texts
prove that Paul was saying the law condemns sinners and therefore our own
efforts to obey the law cannot save us. Meritorious works of any kind are
antithetical to grace. That is precisely what Paul states in Romans 11:6
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Ro+11%3A6> : "if it is by grace, it
is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be
grace."
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But Tom Wright says we need a new understanding of what Paul meant when he
spoke of the works of the law. In his paper "The Shape of Justification," he
defines "the works of the law" as "the badges of Jewish law-observance." He
says Paul is speaking of circumcision, the dietary laws, and the
priesthood-only the ceremonial aspects of Moses' law.
He is echoing Dunn, who wrote:
"Works of the law" are nowhere understood here, either by his Jewish
interlocutors or by Paul himself, as works which earn God's favor, as
merit-amassing observances. They are rather seen as badges: they are simply
what membership of the covenant people involves, what mark out the Jews as
God's people. [What Paul denies in Galatians 2:16
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Gal+2%3A16>  is that] God's grace
extends only to those who wear the badge of the covenant.
In other words, according to Wright and Dunn, Paul isn't saying that
meritorious works in general contribute nothing to our justification.
Rather, Paul's real point is that the distinctly Jewish elements of Moses'
law don't guarantee covenant membership, and they cannot be used to exclude
Gentiles from covenant membership. Or to put it more concisely, they are
suggesting that Galatians 2:16
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Gal+2%3A16>  and biblical texts
like it are not intended to deny that meritorious human works have any role
whatsoever in justification.
Remember, according to Wright, this means that "justification, in Galatians,
is the doctrine which insists that all who share faith in Christ belong at
the same table, no matter what their racial differences" (p. 122). Again,
Paul is not arguing against meritorious works; he is arguing against racial
exclusivity.
Notice carefully: Wright at this point is not explicitly arguing that a
person's works do provide grounds for his righteous standing before God; he
is merely arguing that the standard proof-texts against such a doctrine
prove no such thing. And so once again he stands against the Reformers and
on the Roman Catholic side of the justification 
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debate. At the very least, he leaves the door open for human merit as part
of the grounds for our "final justification."

His Distortion of "the Righteousness of God"

Third, Wright misunderstands Paul's view of "the righteousness of God." This
is a huge issue in What Saint Paul Really Said, deserving a more full
treatment than it can be given here. But it must be mentioned.
Wright has a major section discussing the meaning of the phrase "the
righteousness of God," beginning on page 95. In summary, he says that
Protestants have always misunderstood the concept of divine righteousness.
God's righteousness is His "covenant faithfulness." It is not "something
that 'counts before' God or 'avails with' God" (p. 102). It's not something
God can either impart or impute to sinners. When Scripture speaks of God's
"righteousness," it's using the expression as a synonym for His covenant
faithfulness.
In fact, Wright is so hostile to the notion of righteousness as something
that counts with God that he paraphrases the traditional concept of
righteousness out of Philippians 3:9
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Php+3%3A9>  completely. In the
actual text, Paul says that his great hope as a Christian is to "be found in
him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that
which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends
on faith." But according to Wright, Paul is really "saying, in effect: I,
though possessing covenant membership according to the flesh, did not regard
that covenant membership as something to exploit; I emptied myself, sharing
the death of the Messiah; wherefore God has given me the membership that
really counts, in which I too will share the glory of Christ" (p. 124). So
the "righteousness" that justifies the believer has been reduced to
"covenant membership."

His Denial of Imputation

Before concluding, there is one final aspect of Wright's position that must
be noted. Over and over again Tom Wright assaults the classic 
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Reformed doctrine that the righteousness of Christ is imputed, or reckoned,
to the sinner's account and that it is on the ground of Christ's
righteousness alone that we obtain our righteous standing before God.
Wright says that's nonsense. On page 98 he writes, "If we use the language
of the law court, it makes no sense whatsoever to say that the judge
imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his
righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not
an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom."
Writing against the historic Reformed doctrine of imputation, he continues,
"If we leave the notion of 'righteousness' as a law-court metaphor only, as
so many have done in the past, this gives the impression of a legal
transaction, a cold piece of business, almost a trick of thought performed
by a God who is logical and correct but hardly one we would want to
worship."
Is this to say that Christians are wrong to worship a God who justifies the
ungodly and who is both just and the justifier of the one who believes in
Jesus (cf. Rom 3:26 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Ro+3%3A26> )?
May it never be! While space does not allow a more complete discussion of
this topic, it is clear that Wright has drifted far from historic Reformed
doctrine.

Responding to Wright

How should Christians respond to N. T. Wright's understanding of
justification by faith? Here are four brief, simple, biblical arguments that
weigh heavily against New Perspective teaching:

1. Scripture Should Inform Our Understanding of First-Century Judaism

Our understanding of Judaism in the apostle Paul's culture ought to come
primarily from Scripture itself and not from the musings of twenty-first
century scholars who themselves refuse to bow to the authority of Scripture.
Tom Wright has erred by lending more credence to the scholarship of men like
Sanders and Dunn than he does to the testimony of Scripture.
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The parable about the Pharisee and the publican, for example, gives us one
of the best clues about what Scripture really means when it speaks of
justification. The parable describes the justification of an individual
before God. Luke 18:9 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Lk+18%3A9>
says Jesus told that parable "to some who trusted in themselves that they
were righteous, and treated others with contempt." The New Perspective
claims that kind of self-righteousness wasn't really a problem with the
Judaism of Paul's and Jesus' time. Scripture plainly states otherwise. In
fact, if we allow the Gospel accounts to inform our understanding of the
Pharisees' religion, rather than selling out to the scholarship of E. P.
Sanders, we must come to the conclusion that the old perspective of
first-century Pharisaism is the correct one.

2. Scripture Should Shape Our Understanding of Paul's Teachings

Second, our understanding of Paul's doctrine of justification ought to come
from the text of Scripture and not from questionable scholarship about
first-century rabbinical views. To cite just one text that is impossible to
reconcile with the New Perspective, listen to Acts 13:38-39
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Ac+13%3A38-39> , where we have
Luke's record of how Paul preached the gospel in Antioch. After mentioning
the resurrection, Paul said, "Let it be known to you therefore, brothers,
that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you." Clearly,
the gospel Paul proclaimed is about personal forgiveness after all. And
notice how he equates the forgiveness of sins with the doctrine of
justification: "by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from
which you could not be freed by the law of Moses."
Romans 4:4-8 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Ro+4%3A4-8>  is
another passage that, when understood correctly, demolishes N. T. Wright's
New Perspective on justification. It likewise speaks of individual
justification from the guilt of sin, and it rules out meritorious works of
all kind, not merely obedience to the ceremonial badges of Jewish identity:
"Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his
due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the
ungodly, his faith is 
75
counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the
one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 'Blessed are those
whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the
man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.'"

3. Scripture Should Frame Our Understanding of the Gospel

Third, notice that in the book of Romans, Paul's starting point for the
gospel is divine wrath (Rom 1:18
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Ro+1%3A18> ), and Paul begins his
systematic treatment of gospel truth with almost two full chapters on the
problems of sin and guilt. It seems quite clear that Paul had a very
different notion of the gospel and the doctrine of justification than N. T.
Wright does.
Openly motivated by ecumenical desires, Wright is deliberately
reinterpreting biblical language (such as these key passages in Romans) in
order to minimize the differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
While his tactics may be subtle, couched in evangelical language and clothed
in scholarly form, his interpretations do more to cloud Paul's true meaning
than to clarify it.
Along those same lines, Sidney Dyer sums it up this way:
The most disturbing material in Wright's book is that which sets forth his
view of justification. . . . His view of justification is an attack on the
very heart of the gospel. Paul warned of the danger of preaching another
gospel in Galatians <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Gal+1%3A8>
1:8, "But if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you
than what we have preached, let him be accursed." Paul, by using the words
"any other gospel" (emphasis added), shows that he is attacking all other
forms of the gospel, including therefore a proto-Pelagianism in the book of
Galatians. It is against the backdrop of this attack that the true doctrine
of justification shines so brightly and clearly. An unbeliever stands guilty
before God as a criminal charged with a capital offense. He can only escape
the judgment he deserves by believing in Christ who lived a righteous life
and died an atoning death for sinners. Men are not waiting to stand 
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before God as members of one of two disputing parties in a civil lawsuit who
are hoping that God will find in their favor. 

4. Scripture Should Be the Final Arbiter of All Our Opinions

Fourth and finally, it is ironic that N. T. Wight and other proponents of
the New Perspective invariably complain that Luther and the Reformers were
guilty of reading a conflict from their own time back into the New
Testament. Clearly, N. T. Wright and his colleagues are themselves guilty of
reading popular notions of twenty-first-century political correctness back
into the text of the Pauline epistles. And the view they have come up with
has a distinct postmodern slant. It is a perfect postmodern blend of
inclusivism, anti-individualism, a subtle attack on certainty and assurance,
and above all, ecumenism.
What they are really suggesting is that the apostle Paul was driven more by
social and ecumenical concerns than by a concern for the standing of sinners
before God. The New Perspective on Paul is, at the end of the day, an
ecumenical, not an evangelical, movement.
Wright is totally frank about his ecumenical motives. Near the end of the
book, on page 158, he writes:
Paul's doctrine of justification by faith impels the churches, in their
current fragmented state, into the ecumenical task. It cannot be right that
the very doctrine which declares that all who believe in Jesus belong at the
same table (Galatians 2 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Gal+2> )
should be used as a way of saying that some, who define the doctrine of
justification differently, belong at a different table. The doctrine of
justification, in other words, is not merely a doctrine which Catholic and
Protestant might just be able to agree on, as a result of hard ecumenical
endeavour. It is itself the ecumenical doctrine, the doctrine that rebukes
all our petty and often culture-bound church groupings, and which declares
that all who believe in Jesus belong together in the one family. . . . The
doctrine of justification is in fact the great ecumenical doctrine.
77
He goes on to add, moreover, that those of us who regard justification as
central to the debate between Protestants and Catholics "have turned the
doctrine into its opposite."
Frankly, we're happy to stand with Augustine and Luther and the rest of the
Protestant Reformers-and with the Old-Perspective apostle Paul-against
doctrine that weakens the very heart of the gospel. It is both surprising
and saddening to see a novelty like this seducing so many men who profess to
be Reformed in their theology. In reality, the New Perspective on Paul does
not build on the advances of the Protestant Reformation. Rather it aims at
destroying the Reformation at its very foundation. Put another way,
Wright's view of justification is an attempt to reverse the Reformation. We
must resist such attempts. The issue is one of life and death-eternal life
and eternal death. When theological professors and pastors abandon the
biblical and confessional doctrine of justification, they sacrifice the
gospel and the souls of men. 
-Fool's Gold?
 
Thanks.
 
Charis,
 
Mike Abendroth
 
 <http://www.bbcchurch.org> www.bbcchurch.org
 
Ephesians 3:21 auvtw/| h` do,xa evn th/| evkklhsi,a| 
 
2 Tim 1:2b  "Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord."
 
"Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician ... Faith is
not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on
Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us;
that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for
our sins.  It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a
sin-bearer. Faith can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can
pay no penalty; can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It
brings us to the cross, . but in itself it has no merit and no virtue.
Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor
the sacrifice; . Our faith does not divide the work of salvation between
itself and the cross. It is the acknowledgment that the cross alone saves,
and that it saves alone. Faith adds nothing to the cross, nor to its healing
virtue. It owns the fulness, and sufficiency, and suitableness of the work
done there, and bids the toiling spirit cease from its labours and enter
into rest. Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything. It comes to see
the glorious spectacle of all things done, and to accept this completion
without a misgiving as to its efficacy. It listens to the "It is finished!"
of the Sin-bearer, and says, "Amen."   
NOT FAITH, BUT CHRIST 
by Horatius Bonar 
(1808-1889) 
 
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