Perhaps it’s because the church has developed an allergic reaction to anything that smells like Arius (or his contemporary sibling, the Jesus Seminar). Whatever the case, most Christians don’t take seriously the fact that Jesus would have caught common colds, made mistakes in carpentry, and struggled as he got older with what he perceived to be his vocation – unless of course you think baby Jesus knew he was the divine Son of God while still in the crib.

This passage deals specifically with Jesus’ self-understanding, which Wright prefers to speak of in terms of his growing sense of vocation. I was quite moved when I first read it, and I continue to be stirred by the images it conjures up (at least in my mind) of Christ wrestling with his identity before entering Jerusalem and the Temple, and then again in the garden of Gethsemane before his arrest.

“Speaking of Jesus’ ‘vocation’ brings us to quite a different place from some tradition statements of gospel christology. ‘Awareness of vocation’ is by no means the same thing as Jesus having the sort of ‘supernatural’ awareness of himself, of Israel’s god, and of the relation between the two of them…Jesus did not, in other words, ‘know that he was God’ in the same way that one knows one is male or female, hungry or thirsty, or that one ate an orange an hour ago. His ‘knowledge’ was of a more risky, but perhaps more significant, sort: like knowing one is loved. One cannot ‘prove’ it except by living by it. Jesus’ prophetic vocation thus included within it the vocation to enact, symbolically, the return of YHWH to Zion. His messianic vocation included within it the vocation to attempt certain tasks which, according to scripture, YHWH had reserved for himself. He would take upon himself the role of messianic shepherd, knowing that YHWH had claimed this role as his own. He would perform the saving task which YHWH had said he alone could achieve. He would do what no messenger, no angel, but only the ‘arm of YHWH’, the presence of Israel’s god, could accomplish. As part of his human vocation, grasped in faith, sustained in prayer, tested in confrontation, agonized over in further prayer and doubt, and implemented in action, he believed he had to do and be, for Israel and the world, that which according to scripture only YHWH himself could do and be. He was Israel’s Messiah; but there would, in the end, be ‘no king but God’.

I suggest, in short, that the return of YHWH to Zion, and the Temple-theology which it brings into focus, are the deepest keys and clues to gospel christology…Focus…on a young Jewish prophet telling a story about YHWH returning to Zion as judge and redeemer, and then embodying it by riding into the city in tears, symbolizing the Temple’s destruction and celebrating the final exodus. I propose, as a matter of history, that Jesus of Nazareth was conscious of a vocation: a vocation, given him by the one he knew as ‘father’, to enact in himself what, in Israel’s scriptures, God had promised to accomplish all by himself. He would be the pillar of cloud and fire for the people of the new exodus. He would embody in himself the returning and redeeming action of the covenant God.” (652-653)

What Wright is proposing here is a view of Jesus’ humanity that is raw and real. And if true, it means it was always a gamble for him to go to the cross. Considering the Temple incident and what he said during his last meal, it’s clear that Jesus knew he would be killed if he made the journey to Jerusalem. The real test, then, would be on the other side of death.

Jesus understood the Old Testament texts that spoke of a coming Messiah who would suffer on behalf of Israel but whom God would vindicate in the end. He must have come to strongly believe that he was this Messiah (Wright makes a strong case for this), but this doesn’t negate the fact that he was still having his doubts. I can’t help but believe there were times when Jesus really struggled with this, times when he wondered whether he was crazy – in fact, the gospels tell us his own family at times believed he was crazy. Self understanding eventually came through a combination of his unique relationship with the Father, his reading of Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah or “Son of Man” who would bring about the promised reign of God (Daniel 7, Zechariah 9-14, Isaiah 40-55, etc.), and over time sensing deep within himself that he could be the long-awaiting one.

The only way for him to find out if he was truly the Messiah would be to embody the full vocation of the prophesied Messiah – and that would mean suffering and dying for Israel and the world. That was the great gamble. If he was the Messiah as he believed, then he would be vindicated; God would resurrect him. And if he wasn’t…well, there would be no vindication. It would mean that he was mistaken in who he believed himself to be. This is why what one believes (or doesn’t believe) about the resurrection of Jesus makes all the difference in the world; Messianism hinges on whether the tomb was empty.

Understanding just what was at stake in Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem makes his humanity more real, more vulnerable, and as Wright says, more significant.

The Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating (and Exegesis)
Wright has already put his cards on the table by the time we arrive at the second half of the book; he’s defined righteousness and justification in terms of God’s faithfulness to the Abraham covenant, argued that justification is only one part of human salvation, and drawn a distinction between how justification works in the present and in the future. He now turns directly to the text to show he’s built his case on Paul’s writings rather than some later tradition of interpretation (he accuses Piper of doing of the latter).

In his treatment of Galatians he takes two major approaches. First he traces Paul’s line of thought through the course of the letter, then points out how Paul develops the meaning of justification in relation to lawcourt, covenant, eschatology, and Christology (all of which were sketched earlier in a chapter on first-century Judaism).

In the next chapter, titled “Interlude,” Wright hones in on key passages from Pauline letters normally left out of the discussion on justification: Philippians, Corinthians, and Ephesians. This chapter brings out some of the more illuminating insights of the “new perspective” (the camp represented by Wright, E.P. Sanders, and J.D.G. Dunn). For instance, an aspect of God’s redemptive work seen especially in the book of Ephesians, but often and sadly ignored in Reformed theology, is how justification includes the coming together of Jews and Gentiles as an avant-garde of God’s new creation. As Wright eloquently puts it, “The reunion of the scattered fragments of humanity in the Messiah is the sign to the world that here we have nothing short of new creation” (169). Central to Wright’s overall argument is that all of Paul’s letters, not just two, must be read, considered, weighed, and studied if we’re to grasp the scope and magnitude and splendor of the colossal vision that Paul had of God’s saving work through Jesus Christ.

Saving the Best for Last
Wright saves Romans for last, and for good reason; it’s not only where we find the crux of Paul’s thought on justification, but also where Wright feels most at home. Romans was the focus of his doctoral dissertation at Oxford (The Messiah and the People of God: A Study in Pauline Theology with Particular Reference to the Argument of the Epistle to the Romans) and is the only book of the Bible that he’s written an academic commentary on (New Interpreter’s Bible). The new seventy-one-page chapter on Romans in Justification begins with the admission that “all roads led to Rome in the ancient world, and all roads in biblical exegesis lead to Romans sooner or later—especially when it comes to justification” (177). Here we’ve arrived at the meat of Wright’s argument.

Let us first note that Wright doesn’t say anything all that new about Romans in Justification. For the most part he’s recapitulating what he’s written elsewhere, but framing and phrasing it differently for the present debate. His full-dress treatment of Romans can be found in the massive commentary he wrote for New Interpreter’s Bible in 2002. What we do find in his new book, however, are parts of his exegesis explained more clearly and certain points of his argument stated more precisely than ever before.

By closely following Paul’s argument through the first eleven chapters of Romans and providing detailed examination of the crucial passages, Wright moves the debate with Piper beyond arm-wrestling over isolated texts and playing tug-of-war with theological slogans. He treats the book of Romans as a whole, gives attention to its original historical, social, and linguistic contexts, holds together its various themes, and never loses sight of the larger story Paul is telling. Perhaps Wright’s greatest contribution to Pauline studies is how he labors to ensure the “big picture” is seen when reading Paul. He’s raised the bar for New Testament exegesis, and those who wish to contend against his view of justification or any other Pauline doctrine will only be able to do so with a reading of Romans that accounts for the entirety of the letter and not just individual passages.

Bombing the Theologians’ Playground
Here is where Karl Barth comes to mind. His Romans commentary, when first published in 1918, was like a bomb exploding on the theological landscape of Europe, and its shockwaves were soon felt all around the world. Barth’s reading of Romans punctured and eventually leveled the theological liberalism of the day, and all exegetes who’ve wished to work with this New Testament letter since have had to navigate through the debris left by its blast. One contemporary of Barth actually described it as such; he said the commentary was “a bombshell dropped on the playground of the theologians.”

Wright’s most substantial work on Romans – his NIB commentary and this new seventy-one-page chapter in Justification – when taken together, constitute nothing less than another bombing of the theologians’ playground. His fresh insights and radical re-interpretation of Paul’s letter is causing a theological shakedown as significant as the one wrought by Barth almost a century ago. And I’m not the first to suggest this; others have drawn a comparison between the impact of these two theologians. It’s little wonder why John Piper and company are up in arms. It’s their playgrounds that are being bombarded.

A Slightly Different Romans Road
Since this is only a review, I won’t attempt to fully outline Wright’s excursion through Romans, but will follow the road he takes and only stop at those points most crucial to his argument.

We begin with Romans 1:18-3:20. Most exegetes zoom past this large chunk of Paul’s letter, assuming it’s simply one long and rather verbose condemnation of humanity, in order to get to 3:21 where the “gospel” really starts. Their thinking is as follows: Paul’s message is that those who break God’s covenant and law will face judgment, and sure, he also says that God will reward those who keep his covenant and obey the law – but this is merely a mirage, a smokescreen if you will, since Paul will soon go on to say that nobody can actually do this.

Wright warns that if we follow this line of interpretation then we’ll be making a monumental mistake from the outset. Romans 2:1-16 is a picture of the last judgment, and just because Paul makes the open pronouncement that it is “the doers of the law who will be justified” (2:13), we shouldn’t think that he means anything other than what he is saying. “Unless we are absolutely forced to deny it, we should assume that when Paul appears to be laying down first principles about God’s future judgment, he is laying down first principles about God’s future judgment” (183). Wright contends that Paul is teaching that we will in the end be judged according to our works, and that he’s only continuing what he stated earlier in Romans 2:6, “God will render to each one according to his works.” Furthermore, those in Romans 2:26-29 who “keep the commandments of the law” even though they are uncircumcised are Christian Gentiles (something once suggested by Augustine). This is pivotal for Wright’s interpretation. God has written his law on their hearts by the Spirit, though we’ll have to wait until Paul unpacks a bit more before we can connect these dots.

For the time being, Wright wants us to note that Romans 3:21-31 states present justification is issued strictly on the basis of faith. How does this present verdict correspond with 2:6-7, 10, and 13, which say future verdict is in accordance to works? By the power of the Spirit. Wright’s repeated charge is that Reformed theology has sidelined the work of the Holy Spirit for far too long, and that a robust pneumatology will only be recovered once we properly understand how justification works. Again, we’re not ready to fully unpack this, but Wright is confident it will become clearer as we keep following Paul’s logic.

Unfaithful in What Sense?
Before arriving at the beloved Romans 3:21, we need to notice how Wright handles the unfaithfulness of Israel in 3:1-8. He’s adamant that “unfaithfulness” doesn’t mean “refusing to have faith” but “unfaithful to God’s commission.” These verses are not primarily about the “salvation of the Jew,” but rather how God’s plan was for “salvation to come through the Jew” (194), and it’s precisely a summary of what Paul has just said in 2:21-24; Israel was given the vocation of being a light to the nations but ended up providing a good deal of darkness. If we feel such a charge against the Jews is harsh, Wright reminds us that Paul is only echoing the words of Israel’s earlier prophets; it’s the Old Testament that says God’s people have failed to deliver on the divine vocation. “Would any first-century Jews have been prepared to claim the contrary, that Israel was a shining example to the world, obeying Torah in such a way that the nations, looking on, were saying to themselves, ‘What a people! What a god!’?” (198).

Finally we’re beginning to see how the issue of faithfulness to the covenant is at the core of Paul’s thought. If Israel has been unfaithful and broken covenant with God, it’s a problem not just for Israel but for the whole world. Even more importantly, this is a problem for God, for it appears that his single plan to save the world through Israel has been thwarted. “How is [God] then going to be faithful not only to the promises made to Israel but to the promises made through Israel?” (195). This brings up the issue of “God’s righteousness,” since according to Wright, “God’s righteousness” in scripture is best understood as God’s faithfulness to the covenant he made with Israel, and more specifically the covenant God made with Abraham (this was covered in the earlier post).

Wright understands this sense of faithfulness/righteousness as exactly what Paul had in mind when he thundered the famous words in Romans 3:21, “But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested.” God is righteous because he has been faithful to his promise to overcome the problem of sin and put the world back to rights. And how exactly has God accomplished this?

Faithful in What Sense?
Paul states in the next verse (3:22) that God has achieved this through the faithfulness of the Messiah. Wright translates dia pistis Christou in the subjective genitive, “through the faith(fulness) of Jesus Christ,” whereas most bibles translate it in the objective genitive, which reads as “faith in Jesus Christ.” If we define “the faith(fulness) of Jesus Christ” by what follows in the passage then it must mean “his faithfulness unto death, the redeeming death, the dealing-with-sin death, the death that then makes it possible for sinners to be justified, to be declared ‘in the right,’ not because of any moral worth in themselves but only because Jesus has done what Israel was called to do but, because of its own sin, could not do” (203-204).

Wright repeats here what he’s written elsewhere. He’s not advocating we translate the Pauline phrase, pistis Christou, in the subjective genitive every time; sometimes the context calls for it to be translated in the objective genitive. Moreover, by no means does the subjective genitive render the idea of faith in Christ as unnecessary. Wright points out that in most texts where pistis Christou should be translated as the faith(fulness) of Christ, the need for believers to have faith in Christ follows closely by in the context. This is true of the present verse, Romans 3:22 – God’s righteousness is given through the faithfulness of Christ to all who believe. The phrase “to all who believe” simply means God’s righteousness is received by “all who have faith in Christ.” Translating pistis Christou in this verse as the subjective genitive places the emphasis of justification on the work of Jesus and, specifically, on his faithfulness to and fulfillment of Israel’s vocation. For Paul, “the faithfulness of the Messiah” is a shorthand way of saying “in Jesus, as Israel’s representative…God has accomplished what he always said he would” (207).

The Faithful Justice of God
Wright’s explanation of Romans 3:24-26, only a few paragraphs, is quite compact and dense. God put forward his Son as Israel’s representative to be the means of propitiation through the Messiah’s faithfulness and by his shed blood. The result is that God has shown himself to be “faithful” and “just” for previously “passing over” sins and not dealing with them as they deserved since “the cosmic moral deficit has now been put right” (204). The unveiling of God’s righteousness has come; he has been “just” and faithful to his covenant with Israel and through Israel to all the world. And “within this very same faithful justice,” God is just for “justifying” all those who have faith in Jesus (204). Wright has translated pistis Christou in Romans 3:36 in the objective genitive, “faith in Christ Jesus.” Once again we see that nothing is lost by his earlier translation of this in the subjective genitive (3:22); rather than cheapening our understanding of justification, it enhances it.

Wright is careful to note which tense Paul uses when speaking of justification. In Romans 3 it’s present justification and this is made clear in verses 21 (“now”) and 26 (“at the present time”). Paul’s words point forward to chapter 8 and backward to chapter 2, which are both about future justification. “This is the present verdict which anticipates the verdict that will be issued on the last day” (204). We are not told yet how God can pronounce someone to be “in the right” in the present only on the basis of faith, while promising that this will correspond with a future verdict that is in accordance with works. Paul simply tells us it is so in chapter 3, but waits until chapter 8 to tell us how it is so.

A Centerpiece or Simply an Illustration?
We now come to Romans 4 on our journey of Wright’s Romans road. This will need to be a brief stop since we still have a way to go, but a few comments must be made about why Paul brings Abraham into the discussion at this point. Reformed theology states rather matter of factly that Paul’s use of Abraham in both Romans 4 and Galatians 3 is nothing more than an “example” or “illustration” of how justification by faith works. This is a hill Wright will die on. He insists that Paul uses Abraham in both places because God’s justifying work only makes sense when understood as part of the larger narrative being told, namely God’s faithfulness to his covenant made with Abraham to put the world to rights through Abraham’s family. Paul isn’t randomly pulling a figure from the OT as “proof from Scripture” of how people are justified anytime and anywhere. He’s anchoring the doctrine of justification in a historical narrative. God’s justifying work flows directly from his faithfulness to his convent made with Israel. Thus, Abraham is not simply an illustration of how justification comes about, he’s a centerpiece of how it has come about.

Wright acknowledges that God makes other covenants with Israel in the Old Testament that are important, such as those with Noah, Moses, Phinehas, and David. But all of these covenants carry forward, or further add to the Abrahamic covenant. In some way, each of them point back to Abraham (or in the case of Genesis 3:15 and Noah, point forward). “Abraham is where it all starts. Abraham is where things get shaped” (217). And Wright will not budge from this place. If Paul’s use of Abraham is seen as only an illustration, then much will be lost, such as the meaning of “God’s righteousness” in the Old Testament, God’s keeping of his promises made to Israel, and the importance of a Jewish Messiah.

Following suit, Wright proposes translating Romans 4:1 in a fairly literal way that is more faithful, in his opinion, to the context. The alternative translation is, “What then shall we say? Have we found Abraham to be our forefather according to the flesh?” Wright thinks this is the very question Paul is attempting to answer in chapter 4 generally and in 4:16-17 specifically. Here’s how he explains it:
“Verse 16b of chapter 4 is the climatic answer to the question of Romans 4:1: Abraham is the father of us all, the law-people and the non-law people, Jews and Gentiles alike, the dead who need to be brought back to life and the non-existent who need to come to life for the first time (Romans 4:17). The whole chapter, then, is not about ‘how Abraham got justified by faith’ so much as ‘God’s faithfulness to his promises to Abraham, giving him a worldwide family whose badge is the same faith that Abraham himself had’” (222).

This exposition of Romans 4 connects it intimately with Romans 3, and especially 3:21. God’s covenant faithfulness has been manifested apart from Torah, though Torah and the prophets bear witness to this reality that the faithfulness of God to his covenant with Abraham is shown in the faithful death of Jesus which is now bringing blessing and benefit to Abraham’s family. And Abraham’s family is made of all those who share in not his bloodline but his faith.

Bringing the Two Poles Together
By necessity, I’ll skip over Wright’s treatment of Romans 5 and 6, and he himself skips over chapter 7 (about which he quips, “For a lifelong exegete to skip over Romans 7 is like a thirsty Irishman ignoring a pint of Guinness”). It’s time we move straight to how he handles Romans 8. He repeatedly states that faith in not mentioned in chapter 8 at any point, yet the entire chapter is about justification. If it’s about justification, then why doesn’t Paul mention faith? Because he is talking about final justification, not present justification, therefore it’s the work of the Spirit in the Christian’s life that dominates Paul’s discourse. Chapter 8 in some ways is a commentary on “that much neglected chapter Romans 2,” since Paul’s present point is that “those who are in Christ, who have died and been raised with him and have received his Spirit, are in fact those who ‘do the law’ in the extended sense he hinted at in 2:25-29, those who ‘show that what the law requires is written on their hearts’ as in 2:15, those who ‘by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality’ in 2:7-11” (234).

Here’s where those who cling to classic Reformed theology will start getting jittery about “works.” Yet Wright insists that this allergic reaction of the über-Reformed toward any notion of “works” in the Christian life is a serious travesty, for its casualty will be, every time, pneumatology. And when you lose the doctrine of the Spirit you lose the powerful Pauline doctrine of assurance, for people will always be worrying about whether they have the right kind of faith and enough of it. And, secondly, when you lose the doctrine of the Spirit you lose any solid ground for Christian ethics, for people will not pay much attention to the moral commands of Scripture (like the Sermon on the Mount) because they believe “in grace, not law.”

The Spirit is what brings together the two poles of Paul’s doctrine of justification. Present justification is by faith alone, while future justification is according to “works,” which are the evidence and outworking of faith. At the final judgment justification will be granted to the doers of the law precisely because the Spirit indwelt them, enabling them to fulfill Torah’s righteous requirements, not perfectly or anything close to it, but in a way that was not possible before the resurrection of Christ and the giving of the Spirit. Romans 2 and 8 are organically connected to the covenant promises of Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 11, that God will forgive the sins of his people and give them a new heart/spirit so that they will follow his laws and decrees, thereby showing themselves to be God’s people.

God’s Plan Prevails
At last we arrive at Romans 9-11, much feared and much avoided in New Testament studies. According to Wright, however, we needn’t be intimated; there’s no monster lurking in the darkness. If we follow the inner logic of these chapters, we’ll discover that Paul is still “telling the story precisely of Israel and the covenant” (241), for he’s talking about God’s righteousness, the righteousness of God’s people, and above all the covenant plan and God’s faithfulness to it. Miss this and you’ll miss the meaning of this entire passage. “Israel’s failure, ironically, was the same as that of many exegetes: to ignore the single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world, in other words, the covenant plan and God’s faithfulness to it” (244).

Wright focuses on Romans 9:30-10:13 and the centrality of the covenant in Deuteronomy 30 that’s behind Paul’s argument. He asserts that this text begins to take shape when dikaiosyne (righteousness) in 9:30 and 9:31 is understood in terms of membership within the covenant (242). Paul poses the question of Israel’s salvation in 10:1, and his answer will have to do with God renewing the covenant in Christ and by the Spirit, which in turn has to do with covenant membership, and that’s where salvation comes in. Israel has failed to keep the covenant, not because they attempted “works-righteousness” in the old Reformational sense, but because they took their God-given vocation to bless the whole world (Genesis 12, 15) and turned it back on themselves. Thus, when Paul says in Romans 9:32 that Israel has pursued covenant membership by works he means they’ve created and clung to an “ethnic-Jewish only” membership. In this sense, “Works of Torah” is a national identity marker to show who’s Jewish and who’s not – in other words, who’s blessed and who’s not.

Despite this failure on the part of God’s people, Paul arrives at the stunning conclusion that “even this failure was not outside the strange purposes of God” (243). Israel did not understand that “God’s-single-plan-for-the-world-through-Israel” (a verbose but effective phrase Wright uses throughout the book) was supposed to work not just for them but through them. But God’s plan has nevertheless won out “because the plan always was the single plan through Israel in the person of the Messiah, alone, for the world” (244). As Paul made clear in chapter 3, the faithful Israelite, Jesus, has fulfilled Israel’s vocation. And now the long-awaited covenant renewal predicted in Deuteronomy 30 has at last come true; Paul interprets the “doing of the law” spoken of by Moses as what takes place in the Christian faith through confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that God has raised him from the dead. The faith that Abraham had when he believed that God would bring life to his and Sarah’s old dead bodies, is “the same faith that Christians have” when they believe that Jesus has been raised from death. “When people believe the gospel of Jesus and his resurrection, and confess him as Lord, they are in fact doing what Torah wanted all along, and are therefore displaying the necessary marks of covenant renewal” (245).

Resurrection Must Be Center Stage
Considering that he previously wrote an 800 page book on the resurrection, it should come as no surprise that Wright ends his treatment of Romans on that very note. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to gloss over this detail simply because the resurrection is a favorite subject of his. Wright has a solid point. In Reformed theology, justification and the death of Jesus are two peas in the same pod. Whenever justification appears in a book of systematic theology, it’s always accompanied by a treatment of the cross and the atoning work of Christ. But more often than not you’ll have to flip to another section if you wish to read about the resurrection. Wright points out that in Romans 4:23-25 and 10:6-11, the two crucial passages where Paul speaks of justification and the faith of the Christian embodying the faith spoken of in the Old Testament, it is the resurrection rather than the crucifixion that takes center stage. Wright is quick to add, “This is not, of course, an either-or. The resurrection remains the resurrection of the crucified one, and its significance is not least that it signals that the cross was a victory, not a defeat” (247).

Church history shows that heresy usually consists not of a false doctrine, but in the under- or over-emphases of a true doctrine. How would our thoughts on justification today change if we were to follow Paul’s lead by framing it within the resurrection of Jesus? “Justification is more than simply the remitting and forgiving of sins, vital and wonderful though that is. It is the declaration that those who believe in Jesus are part of the resurrection-based single family of the one Creator God” (248).

Disorientation That Leads to Reorientation
Trying to summarize Wright’s treatment of Romans is a bit like trying to take a sip out of a fire hose. I’ve touched upon only a fragment of his chapter on Romans in Justification, which is only a fragment of his larger commentary published in 2002, yet I think it’s enough to understand why Wright’s work on Romans is nothing less than another bombing of the theologians’ playground.

As Wright follows Paul’s argument through the first 11 chapters of Romans, all the various themes of Justification begin to come together and form a coherent picture. Something I mentioned earlier in this post, but can now say with more force, is that perhaps the greatest contribution N.T. Wright has made to the field of Pauline studies is his unrelenting insistence that the magnificent story of God remaking the cosmos, beginning with Abraham in Genesis and extending all way to the new heavens and new earth in Revelation, has always been the backdrop of Paul’s thinking and writing.

The dispute between Wright and Piper over justification is an in-house debate. As much as some of his opponents insist to the contrary, Wright is a Reformed theologian. He described himself as such when giving his Rutherford lecture, and even went as far as to call himself “a good Calvinist.” And it should be noted that he affirms all five solas of the Reformation in his NIB commentary on Romans.

Nevertheless, a bombshell has exploded and is disrupting Reformed theology, and it’s the Bishop of Durham who detonated it. The purpose of this theological disorientation is not disarray, but reorientation. Wright puts it well: “Nothing that the Reformation traditions at their best were anxious to stress has been lost. But they are held in place, and I suggest even enhanced, by a cosmic vision, a high ecclesiology generated by Paul’s high Christology and resulting in a high missiology of the renewal of all things, and all framed by the highest doctrine of all, Paul’s vision of the God who made promises and has been faithful to them, the God whose purposes are unsearchable but yet revealed in Jesus Christ and operative through the Holy Spirit, the God of power and glory but above all of love” (247).

Wright’s chapter on Romans, along with the overall treatment of justification in his new book, is encouraging us to reread Paul with fresh eyes, and to grasp not only the individual and personal side of Paul’s doctrine of justification but also its social, political, ecological, and eschatological dimensions. It still remains to be seen, however, whether those who are being bombarded will realize this.

Geocentric vs. Heliocentric
Justification was written in reply to a book published in 2007 by John Piper, The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright. Piper’s book is straightforwardly polemical (a PDF version is free online, and whether or not you agree with his writings, you have to respect the fact that he makes them free), with the chapters arranged one punch after another, each aiming at a different aspect of Wright’s teaching on the doctrine of justification. I read The Future of Justification shortly after it came out, and I will say that though Piper has little patience for any view other than his own, the overall tone of his book is courteous. (Unfortunately the same can’t be said for many of Wright’s other critics who have used Piper’s book as angry ammunition in their own writings and blogs; hence, Wright’s comment in his first chapter: “It really is high time we developed a Christian ethic of blogging.”)

Wright’s tone, like Piper’s, is cordial. On multiple occasions he notes where the two agree. But Wright’s extremely critical response is made crystal clear in his opening analogy. He compares Piper to someone who, despite all facts and proof to the contrary, insists that the sun goes around the earth. Here is how the story goes. Due to some “accident of education,” this person was never told how the planetary system really works. So you share with them what we’ve learned through astronomy, that in fact it’s the earth that revolves around the sun. You use books, charts, and diagrams to show him in great detail how we’ve come to know this. But even after long conversations and painstaking explanations, the person insists that we’re at the center and the sun is in orbit. He tells you that new fads and clever theories will always come and go, so we’re better off just sticking with the tried and tested truth. Wright admits this is a crude way to put it, but nevertheless it’s the way he sees it. The problem is not that Piper and others disagree with him but that they haven’t really listened to what he is saying.

So as civil as this debate might appear, there’s no skirting around the fact that both theologians have plenty of strong backhanded slaps directed toward the other in their writings. And we shouldn’t expect anything less, for much is at stake. We’ll return to this point momentarily.

Jigsaw Pieces Left in the Box
Wright’s second analogy opens the main themes of his book, and he continually returns to it. When putting together a jigsaw puzzle it’s tempting to leave half of the pieces in the box to make it easier. It actually makes the puzzle much more difficult, however. You wind up with pieces that obviously don’t fit regardless of how you try to force them, and the end result is a jumbled mess. Wright insists this is case with Piper and company. Their treatment of justification has kept in the box, or swept off the table, or even burned in the fire, jigsaw pieces that are key to Paul’s doctrine. Among those discarded are God’s single plan through history, the covenant made with Abraham, the work of the Holy Spirit, and eschatology. He contends that the “old perspective” (which Piper represents) has consistently read Paul’s letters within a sixteenth-century rather than a first-century context, and continually over-focused on Romans and Galatians at the expense of Paul’s other letters. Wright hopes that by getting all these jigsaw pieces back on the table it will become apparent that Paul’s understanding of justification is based on God’s faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham to rescue the whole world and the human race through Israel’s representative, the Messiah. Paul’s concern reaches beyond questions of “Me and my salvation” to the big question of “How is God saving the world through Israel?”

Wright’s book is divided into two parts. In the first part (oddly titled “Introduction” since it’s half of the book) he frames Paul’s thought within first-century Judaism, gives clear reference points by which key words like righteousness and justification can be defined, and describes what exactly is at stake in this debate. This sets the stage for the second part of the book, which is pure exegesis (I’ll review this in two weeks’ time). He provides mini-commentaries on Galatians and Romans, as well as close examinations of key passages from Philippians, Corinthians, and Ephesians, all in a concerted effort to show from Scripture how he’s arrived at these conclusions.

Wrestling Over Words
Though righteous and just have different root words in English, both Greek and Hebrew have only one root (in Greek, dikaios; in Hebrew, tsedaqah) and many cognates. Analyzing how righteousness is used in not only Paul’s writings but also the Old Testament and second-temple Jewish literature, Wright claims that “God’s righteousness” is God’s faithfulness to the covenant he made with Israel, specifically the covenant made with Abraham in Genesis 12 and reiterated in Genesis 15. In this covenant God promised to bless the whole world through Abraham’s family; thus, when Paul speaks of “God’s righteousness” he is referring to God’s own loyalty to his covenant. “God’s dikaiosyne is, not least, his faithfulness to, and his powerful commitment to rescue, creation itself. It always has in view God’s utter commitment to put things right” (65).

Before moving on, it’s worth examining a jab Wright makes at Piper at this point. I’ve already noted the respectful tenor of conversation between these two and, secondly, that this doesn’t prevent them from delivering low blows every once in a while. Wright does exactly this when commenting on what he calls “Piper’s idiosyncratic definition of God’s righteousness” (66). According to Piper, both “human righteousness” and “God’s righteousness” in Scripture mean “an unwavering allegiance to treasure and uphold the glory of God” (Piper, 71). Wright remarks:

“There is a sense in which what Piper claims about ‘God’s righteousness’ could be seen as going in exactly the wrong direction. He sees it as God’s concern for God’s own glory, which implies that God’s primary concern returns, as it were, to himself. There is always of course a sense in which that is true. But the great story of Scripture, from creation and covenant right on through to the New Jerusalem, is constantly about God’s overflowing, generous, creative love—God’s concern, if you like, for the flourishing and well-being of everything else. Of course, this too will redound to God’s glory because God, as the Creator, is glorified when creation is flourishing and able to praise him gladly and freely. And of course there are plenty of passages where God does what he does precisely not because anybody deserves it but simply ‘for the sake of his own name.’ But ‘God’s righteousness’ is regularly invoked in Scripture, not when God is acting thus, but when his concern is going out to those in need, particularly to his covenant people. The tsedaqah elohim, the dikaiosyne theou, is an outward-looking characteristic of God, linked of course to the concern for God’s own glory but essentially going, as it were, in the opposite direction, that of God’s creative, healing, restorative love. God’s concern for God’s glory is precisely rescued from the appearance of divine narcissism because God, not least God as Trinity, is always giving out, pouring out, lavishing generous love on undeserving people, undeserving Israel, and an undeserving world. That is the sort of God he is, and ‘God’s righteousness’ is a way of saying, ‘Yes, and God will be true to that character.’ Indeed, it is because God will be true to that outward-facing generous, creative love that he must also curse those ways of life, particularly those ways of life within his covenant people, which embody and express the opposite” (70-71).

If not a deafening blow, this jab at least has a particular sting to it. Those familiar with Piper’s overall theology will understand what I mean. Starting in 1986 with his groundbreaking work, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, the axiom “God is for God first” has been at the heart of Piper’s writing, preaching, and teaching. Labeling this as “divine narcissism” is a strong charge, and one that will surely arouse a reaction. Although Wright’s words are only secondarily related to the discussion about justification, it will be interesting to see how Piper responds.

Now we proceed to how we define the watchword of the debate: justification. Again, this must hold hands with our definition of righteousness since in Greek and Hebrew both words are formed from the same root. Wright and Piper agree that when Paul uses “justification” in a legal context he is describing the act of God reckoning a person as righteous (e.g., Galatians 3:6). But what exactly does this “reckoning” entail? Ah, here’s where the real hand-to-hand combat starts. Piper insists that since God requires a moral righteousness of us that none of us can supply, Christ’s moral righteousness is imputed to us in the act of justification, thereby making us righteous. Wright has two objections: (1) that this righteousness denotes the moral character that’s required of us, and (2) the whole notion of imputation if by it we mean “make righteous” (which is most certainly what the Reformers meant by it). Wright contends that “righteousness” within a lawcourt setting means strictly “the status that someone has when the court has found in their favor” (90).

More To a Car Than Just Its Steering Wheel
What Wright wants to guard against is collapsing the entire range of “becoming a Christian” into the one act of “justification.” He argues that since Paul uses the term far more precisely and exactly, so should we. For Paul, justification “does not denote an action which transforms someone so much as a declaration which grants them a status” (91). Justification is an essential and fundamental aspect of human salvation but it is still only one aspect, and when it’s made synonymous with “salvation,” the entire sequence of thought on how God reconciles, redeems, and transforms the human race becomes blurry and muddled. The metaphor of leaving jigsaw pieces in the box is still fitting, but Wright also illustrates this with the steering wheel of a car. Of course the steering wheel is vital for driving, and in some way or another it’s organically connected to everything else in the car, but if we start referring to the car as “the wheel,” then there’s a good chance that people who had never seen a car might image it as a huge, giant steering wheel equipped with seats and an engine. (As a side note, a friend of mine, upon reading this, remarked that we do in fact sometimes refer to a car as “wheels” or “a set of wheels.” She thinks Wright’s analogy actually strengthens Piper’s argument since we use synecdoche in everyday speech.)

Present and Future Justification
Both Wright and Piper agree that justification consists of an initial verdict pronounced by God in the here and now, and a future verdict which God will pronounce at the final judgment. Here’s where they differ. Piper asserts that in both verdicts the Christian is pronounced righteous because the moral righteousness of Christ has been imputed to that person on the basis of faith.

Wright asserts that in both verdicts the Christian is pronounced righteous but for different reasons: initial justification is purely forensic and is on the basis of faith, whereas future justification will be in accordance with one’s “works” – and these “works” are done by the Christian through the Spirit. Initial justification, then, is the future verdict coming into the present. The work of the Holy Spirit is how these two verdicts correspond, but Wright waits until his exegesis of Romans to really hammer this home.

We can now see that this debate between Wright and Piper is over more than just how to define justification. It also includes how we understand God’s righteousness, faith vs. works, the scope of God’s salvation, the role of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life, and as we will see in the next post, the faithfulness of Christ, the place of Israel in salvation history, and the breadth of the gospel message.

Preventing a Theological Holy War
While studying under the Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson, I was floored by a comment he made about justification and the Reformation. It’s no secret that this doctrine was the most disputed and, in fact, started the whole disputation in the first place. Jenson told the story of Martin Luther, then a Catholic priest and theology professor, writing the pope a letter that pointed out flaws in the church’s teaching on justification. Jenson remarked that had the pope simply read Luther’s letter (he obviously thinks the pope never laid eyes on it), an entire holy war quite possibly could have been avoided.

This is where Jenson parts from many fellow Lutherans – he refuses to demonize the medieval Catholic Church. He recognizes that Luther’s understanding on justification was fresh, new, and, yes, revolutionary, but he regrets that the Catholic Church reacted in hostility toward a teaching that would have not only corrected their understanding of the gospel and the work of Christ, but also expanded and enriched that which they already believed about justification. The Catholic Church of the sixteenth-century was missing integral elements of sound, historical Christian theology, but they hadn’t strayed so far that they couldn’t comprehend and even incorporate Luther’s radical new perspective. Most believe the Reformation happened because of irreconcilable differences. According to Jenson, however, the real problem was that the bishop of Rome refused to truly listen to what Luther was saying and learn from his insights.

Maybe we can make this historical hypothesis: The great civil war of Christianity that tore the church apart could have been prevented had there been more humility and an ecumenical spirit at its genesis.

I can’t help but see some similarities between the theological holy war of the sixteenth-century and the one emerging in our day. And this isn’t just because both are theological disputes over the doctrine of justification – though that is surely relevant. Before you think I’m being overly dramatic and epic, let me state that in no way do I think the present dispute can even remotely have the seismic impact that the Reformation did. Our context wouldn’t allow it: today the Christian church is much more diversified and divided, there is separation of church and state, and our society has increasingly become post-Christian.

But we mustn’t downplay the potential impact of this present debate either. The last hundred years have seen an unprecedented movement in history as the Christian world’s center of gravity has shifted from West and North to East and South. Attendance is growing in the African church at almost the same rate that it’s declining in the Western church, and there are now more Christians in China than there are people in Germany. Only 25% of the world’s Christians now live in the West. Nevertheless, the theological base of Christianity has yet to experience this shift. The West/North still account for the overwhelming majority of seminaries, Bible colleges, training schools, and teaching materials, and the young church (Christians in the two-thirds world) continues to take its cue for the most part from Western theologies and scholarship. These are broad generalizations, but, nevertheless, they are true. And I am neither validating nor endorsing this situation, but merely stating it is the present situation. (My personal hope is that more frontline theology will emerge from Christians in the two-thirds world, both for their benefit and ours.)

Yes, both Piper and Wright are a part of the Protestant side of Christianity, and even more specifically, the more Evangelical tradition. But both of these theologians have a global influence. They both have followings in the academy and the church; they both are widely read by pastors, students, and those in the pew; and they both authored books that have been translated into numerous languages.

Perhaps now we can see the magnitude of this debate. At first glance it could appear as just a squabbling between two theologians that won’t affect anyone outside of their little highly specialized corner of the church. But if we consider it from a global perspective, we realize the impact could be far greater than we had supposed.

This debate is over justification, but at its root it’s also over how the gospel and God’s saving work in Jesus Christ is understood. And how we think of the gospel will inevitably affect how we think of God’s overarching mission and our place in it. Much is at stake. “Globalization” is just a fancy way of saying we’re all connected, and as the world continues to shrink, the effect of the outcome of this debate will only grow.

But perhaps this emerging theological holy war can be avoided. Perhaps another civil war in the Christian faith can be prevented with humility, ecumenical spirit, and the ability to really listen to one another.

To summarize (and grossly oversimplify) Barth’s argument in Church Dogmatics (hereafter CD), I should begin by saying he comes much closer to the position of pacifism than he does just war. In CD III/4 he asks, “Can there ever be a time when war is justified?” He asserts that any affirmative answer to this question is wrong from the very outset and a betrayal of the Gospel. To even discuss the question of just war, one must first admit that the arguments for absolute pacifism are “almost infinite” and “almost overpoweringly strong” (455).

In spite of the fierce arguments he builds against the traditional doctrine of just war, Barth says “nevertheless,” war must still remain a possibility for the Christian. To understand his reasoning one must first understand how ethics function in Barth’s thought. He has already stated elsewhere (CD II/2) that the commands of God are both sovereign and definite: sovereign in that they are true and good, definite in that they speak to a specific time and place. This definition of definite is key; he’s deconstructing the traditional approach to ethics, both philosophical and theological, which takes general, universal, static principles and applies them to specific cases. This “casuistic” movement (the general to the specific) is at the heart of Barth’s rejection of traditional ethics because it impinges on God’s freedom to speak into the present by confining truth to a set of timeless principles.

Over and against the traditional approach, Barth contends that Christian ethics is obedience to the word of God pure and simple. And since God is a living God who speaks even today, ethics can never remain static nor tied down to an old word. Christian ethics, like Christian theology, must always be oriented toward the object that stands at the center of the Christian faith: the revealing, reconciling, and redeeming work of God in Jesus Christ. God’s word speaks to every new time and place with fresh immediacy, and ethics is the obedience to that living word.

This doesn’t mean specific commands found in scripture, such as the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, do not have relevance for Christians today. They cannot simply be made into principles to be applied universally, but they do reveal the general direction that God’s commands have had and will have. The Word of God that speaks in every new situation is always Jesus Christ, and since Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we can be confident that there will be a considerable amount of congruence among all the commands. God’s Word spoken to a new place and time with be aligned with the direction of the words and commands God has already spoken in Christ himself and through scripture.

So here is the big question I’ve been wrestling with – do the nonviolent teachings and life of Jesus give us enough indication of the direction (to use Barth’s language) of God’s commands in the future that we can assume followers of Jesus in every place and time will be called to reject violence and war? According to Barth, almost. Christian ethics must point in the direction of nonviolence, yet the possibility of God commanding war cannot be ruled out.

I’m with Barth in thinking that Christian ethics isn’t frozen and fixed but dynamic, since it constitutes obedience to the living Word that continues to be spoken today in Jesus Christ. But I don’t know if I can go along with Barth in leaving the possibility open that Jesus will command his followers to use violence and wage war. Here’s where we can bring Wright’s thoughts into play.

Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship is a collection of sermons N.T. Wright preached in 1994, and the chapter titled “Heaven and Power” examines the ascension of Jesus and what it means for us today. He talks about the love of power that we find throughout human history and the world today. So much of our life is concerned with power – who has it, how to get it, and what it does for us. We live in an age “that is dying for power, and that is in fact dying of power” (102).

He contends that the ascension of Jesus is seminal because it shows that the power of love is supremely stronger than the love of power. He interprets the death and resurrection of Jesus in light of Daniel 7 (one of Wright’s favorite moves) where the prophet Daniel has a vision of a great monster emerging from the sea and boasting before a courtroom about its power, muscle, and destructive potential. The monster, like all human empires, believes its power is shown chiefly in its ability to kill.

But here is the twist in Daniel’s vision. God is presiding over this courtroom scene, and in one swift move he silences the monster’s boast and exalts to his own right hand not a fierce supernatural being, but a human figure, “one like the son of man.” God gives this son of man authority, dominion, and kingly power. But this is a power different from the one the monster (read: human empires) had exercised; it’s the power of love. Let me at this point quote Wright at length:

“The original writer of Daniel, and those who studied the book at the time of Jesus, interpreted the ‘son of man’ figure to refer to the faithful few who suffered for God’s sake at the hand of the tyrants, and who would be vindicated at the last. Jesus drew this image on to himself, and went to his death believing that thereby the power of the monsters would be broken, that the weight of human arrogance would have done its worst, and that then the creator God, the God of love and new life, would vindicate him and so begin the process of establishing his own kingdom, in which power has been stood on its head. The chief thing that the monster can do, then and now, is to kill. Jesus believed in a God who could, and would, raise the dead. The power of God, says St Paul in 1 Corinthians 1, is therefore revealed in human weakness, supremely in the weakness of Jesus. At the heart of the Christian gospel stands the ridiculous paradox that true power is found in the apparent failure, and the shameful death, of a young Jew at the hands of a ruthless empire” (104).

If the death and resurrection of Jesus was not defeat but victory over evil and the powers that be, then where does Jesus’ ascension to the Father fit into this and what does it signify? Wright answers, “The generous self-giving love of Jesus, giving himself for the sins of the world, has been vindicated and exalted as the supreme principle of the universe” (104).

Let’s now return to Barth’s treatment of war. If we’re to go with his way of doing ethics (which I think we should) then morality isn’t a set of timeless principles but obedience to the living Word of God that continues to be spoken through Jesus Christ. This means we must expect and look to the Spirit of God to speak while we pray and study the Word of God (Scripture) with the community of God (church).

Now we’ve come full circle back to the big question – is there still a possibility that God will command us in the future to use violence and wage war? If the ascension was God’s way of exalting not only Jesus but also the way of Jesus, then no. God rejected the human empires of this world and their way of power by exalting Jesus to his right hand and giving him a kingdom built on love.

So when it comes to the question of war, I think there’s a way to combine Barth’s approach to ethics and Wright’s reflections on discipleship to arrive at the conclusion that violence and war are not options for the follower of Jesus. Christian discipleship isn’t about aligning your life to a set of abstract moral principles. It’s about following the crucified, resurrected, and reigning Jesus. And following Jesus means not only believing in, but being a citizen of, his peaceable kingdom. So until I can imagine Jesus, the exalted “son of man,” throwing hand grenades and firing a machinegun, I’ll reject violence and war as options for his followers.

I’ll let Wright finish this entry:
“Jesus himself, no abstract principle but a human person, is now exalted as the still loving, still giving, still generous Lord, to whom one day every knee shall bow, and whom we are today summoned to follow…God now longs that we, his children, should take our own part in implementing his victory, the victory of the power of love over the love of power, throughout his creation. Those who commit themselves to following the ascended Lord Jesus are thereby signing on for this task” (104-5).

He begins with a thorough overview of the history of Jesus studies and some of the biographies of this Galilean Jew that have resulted. Playing off of a Schweitzer tune, he says that most historians looking for Jesus in the past were “inclined to see [their] own face at the bottom of a deep well and mistake it for the face of Jesus” (XV). There’s an old jibe that says God made us in his image, so we turned around and returned the favor.

I’ve got a stack of books about Jesus sitting on my desk, and it’s been stimulating (to say the least) to read some other folks’ perspectives on this man from Nazareth alongside my study of JVG. In Mark 8 Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say I am?” and here’s a sampling of some of the answers I’ve come across:

Pope Benedict XVI
“What was true of Moses only in fragmentary form has now been fully realized in the person of Jesus: He lives before the face of God, not just as a friend, but as a Son; he lives in the most intimate unity with the Father. We have to start here if we are truly to understand the figure of Jesus as it is presented to us in the New Testament; all that we are told about his words, deeds, sufferings, and glory is anchored here.” (Jesus of Nazareth, 6)

The Dalai Lama
“For a Buddhist, whose main object of refuge is the Buddha, when coming into contact with someone like Jesus – who life clearly demonstrates a being who has affected millions of people in a spiritual way, bringing about their liberation and freedom from suffering – the feeling that one would have toward such a person would be that of reverence toward a fully enlightened being or a bodhisattva.” (The Good Heart, 82-3)

“For me, as a Buddhist, my attitude toward Jesus Christ is that he was either a fully enlightened being or a bodhisattva of a very high spiritual realization.” (Ibid., 83)

Richard Horsley, professor of religion at University of Massachusetts
“Trying to understand Jesus’ speech and action without knowing how Roman imperialism determined the conditions of life in Galilee and Jerusalem would be like trying to understand Martin Luther King without knowing how slavery, reconstruction, and segregation determined the lives of African Americans in the United States…” (Jesus and Empire, 13)

“From the survey of the various resistance movements among the Galileans and Judeans we may begin to suspect that Jesus was not a completely unique figure.” (Ibid., 14)

Scott Peck (1936-2005), psychotherapist and author of The Road Less Traveled
“Everyone wanted to see this controversial new show coming to town called Jesus Christ Superstar. That show was a real eye-opener. It was the first thing that put me in touch with Jesus’ humanity and realness. The other major thing was reading the Gospels at the age of 40. I lay in bed at night reading the New Testament. And just as I had felt with Jesus Christ Superstar, I was blown away. Now I think a small part of the Gospels is made up. But I found this incredibly real person. Jesus was lonely and sorrowful and scared – an unbelievably real person. And it was at that point that I began to take becoming a Christian seriously. Some people who arrive at Christianity start with Jesus’ divinity, and some with his humanity. With me, it was his humanity. And only later did I begin to get in touch with his divinity, which was initially difficult for me to swallow.” (Interview in Psychology Today)

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), existentialist philosopher
“The ‘bringer of glad tidings’ died as he had lived, as he had taught – not to ‘redeem men’ but to show how one must live. This practice is his legacy to mankind: his behavior before the judges, before the catchpoles, before the accusers and all kinds of slander and scorn – his behavior on the cross. He does not resist, he does not defend his right, he takes no step which might ward off the worst; on the contrary, he provokes it. And he begs, he suffers, he loves with those, in those, who do him evil. Not to resist, not to be angry, not to hold responsible – but to resist not even the evil one – to love him.” (The Antichrist, 608-9)

Dave Matthews, South African-American singer and songwriter
“Not very much of his childhood was known
Kept his mother Mary worried
always out on his own
He met another Mary who for a reasonable fee,
less than reputable was known to be.
His heart full of love love love…

When Jesus Christ was nailed to his tree
said ‘oh, Daddy-o, I can see how it all soon will be
I came to shed a little light on this darkening scene
instead I fear I’ve spilled the blood of my children all around’…

So I’m told, so the story goes
the people he knew were
less than golden hearted
Gamblers and robbers
drinkers and jokers, all soul searchers
like you and me…

Rumors insisted he soon would be
for his deviations
taken into custody
by the authorities less informed than he.
Drinkers and Jokers all soul searchers
searching for love love love…

Preparations were made
for his celebration day
He said ‘eat this bread and think of it as me
Drink this wine and dream it will be’

Father up above, why in all this hatred do you fill
Me up with love, love, love…” (The Christmas Song)

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), philosopher and author of The Quest for the Historical Jesus
“In the knowledge that He is the coming Son of Man [Jesus] lays hold of the wheel of the world to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and He throws Himself on it. Then it does turn; and crushes Him. Instead of bringing in the eschatological conditions, He has destroyed them. The wheel rolls onward, and the mangled body of the one immeasurably great Man, who was strong enough to think of Himself as the spiritual ruler of mankind and to bend history to his purpose, is hanging upon it still. That is His victory and His reign.” (368)

Now back to JVG. Wright feels that for the last 200 years the church has been timid and apprehensive about using the Enlightenment’s tool of historical criticism in fear of the influence and impact it could have on how Jesus is seen. As a result, the gap between the ‘historical Jesus’ and the ‘Christ of faith’ has widened.

He uses the parable of the prodigal son to further explain the situation: the younger son (representing the Enlightenment and its tool of historical criticism) left home a couple hundred years ago wanting nothing to do with the Father. It now seems, however, that the prodigal has sobered up and is heading home. The elder son (representing the church and its orthodoxy) has been scolding the younger brother ever since he left and is indignant about the possibility of him returning.

Is this where the story must end? Or is there a chance the elder son (church) could come to embrace his prodigal brother (historical criticism)? Wright thinks so. The underlying argument of his book is that rigorous history and rigorous theology “belong together, and never more so than in discussion of Jesus” (8). He is seeking nothing less than the reconciliation of the two brothers.

The first place I turned was Wright’s popular work “The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture”.  This proved to be immensely helpful.  His discussion of the authority of Scripture was particularly insightful, because he argues that the authority we are talking about is not the authority of Scripture itself, but “the authority of God exercised through Scripture” (Last Word, 138).  This shift in emphasis helps me to use the text as an avenue to hear and know God, rather than to view it as an unliving document to which my life and every decision must answer.  It allows for flexible and creative interpretations, and it opens up the ability for people who end up with different opinions on matters to respect each others use of the Bible as having led them to that position.  Ultimately, it allows for a much more faithful witness to the truths of God which are revealed in Scripture.

This change of emphasis on the authority of Scripture also helps in understanding the seeming inconsistencies of the Bible.  Wright addresses this in “Climax of the Covenant”, as he is discussing some of the inconsistencies of Paul.  He says, “The way to produce inconsistency is to ask a sharp question…and to insist on a yes-or-no answer…if you manage to answer yes and no, you’re just a harmonizer, a flattener out of Paul’s craggy contours, denying the poor apostle the fun, and the scholarly prestige, of his own splendid inconsistency” (Climax of the Covenant, 5).  This helps me to understand that sometimes the questions with which we approach the Bible and insist on an answer from are the wrong questions.  We expect the text to do things that it just can’t do and wasn’t intended to do.

Another area in which Wright has been very helpful is to help me in understanding how to use Scripture in forming my theology.  One of the most difficult obstacles I have encountered as I engage further and further in theological conversation is my constant frustration at the ease with which we appropriate and manipulate Scripture to justify our positions and beliefs.  Wright addresses this frustration in “The New Testament and the People of God”.  He spends some time discussing when and how it is best to use the New Testament.  He claims, “There may be a sliding scale of appropriateness for the use of the New Testament.  It may quite properly be used to reconstruct the life, language, religion and beliefs of the early Christians, provided we remember that it was not written for that purpose, but rather as something more like a play to be staged, that is, as a charter for a community, a set of books designed (in their very different ways) to fuel worship and witness” (NTPG, 470).  This reminder has been important in helping me remember that the texts of the New Testament, particularly, were not written as systematic theological doctrine, but rather as guides in helping people figure out how to best follow Jesus as they live their daily lives.  If we understand the texts in this way, it is freeing and enables us to dream and imagine with Scripture rather than declare and restrain.

Finally, I want to share Wright’s summation of early Christian theology, as it reminds me of the most important things we learn through Scripture and what this journey we have embarked upon is really all about.  He says, “The fundamental theological position is a view of creator and creation, of evil within creation and the rescue of creation from that evil, of hope fulfilled and hope to come, of a people who are both rescued and rescuers, Christology, pneumatology, and ecclesiology grow naturally and Jewishly from this basis” (NTPG, 458).  To understand the Christian story in this broad, sweeping perspective, allows me to recognize the evil and claim the hope, and to realize that this hope is the most important thing and what must be communicated to others in each and every theological converstaion I have, through every truth claim I make, and in every step I take along the journey.

In reading Tom Wright’s discussion of the very beginnings of the early church in The New Testament and the People of God, I came across a passage which paints a very different picture of Christian identity than the one I just described.  “But that there was a striking difference in general praxis as between pagans and Christians there can be no doubt.  That there was even a viable expectation of a striking difference is remarkable in itself…  Early Christians took it for granted that in the details of their behavior they should be significantly different, in clearly defined ways, from their pagan neighbors” (NTPG, p. 363).

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who is vegan, which I understand is a different type of life choice than faith, but still effects her life in a similar, all-encompassing way.  She was reflecting on how during the first year of her new vegan diet, she was very careful not to push her diet or her views on anyone else, attempting to be very polite and never wanting to offend anyone because of the personal choices she was making.  But recently she has had a shift in her thinking.  She has come to realize that if she truly believes that the choices she is making lead to a healthier, happier life, why shouldn’t she tell others about them?  Not in a judgmental or holier-than-thou way, but in a way that conveys the passion and conviction she feels about the choices she is making.

That conversation about veganism has helped me to sort through some of my questions concerning the distinctiveness of Christian identity.  I do believe that I have found a way to live my life that makes me healthier (in every sense of the word) and happier.  And that way is through Christ.  So why wouldn’t I want to share that with others and explain the decisions I make that do end up looking distinctly different?  I want to be able to expect, as the early Christians did, that my life will look different because of what I believe.  And I shouldn’t hide my identity out of fear of offending someone else if I truly believe in those choices.

1. Critical realism

Many evangelicals have a difficult time accepting the mediated character of theologizing and biblical interpretation. By mediated, I mean coming to terms with the fact that theology and biblical interpretation involves human beings making claims about God; and further, that in making those claims, they are inevitably making choices about the meanings of words, the themes of a particular book, the leading images for taking about God, etc. The deep suspicion - which is not an unwarranted one I might add - is that acknowledging the the mediated character necessarily means that talk about God is nothing more than projecting human dramas onto a divine cansas that may or may not exist. Out of disquieting fear, the question then arises: are there any philosophical resources for evangelicals - who rightly believe that we can speak truly of God, and of God in relation to Scripture - desiring to acknowledge the mediated character of theology without subscribing to “your guess is as good as mine” relativism?

With his model of critical realism, Wright provides such a philosophical resource. I lay out in brief form what I take to be Wright’s understanding of critical realism in another post. Here, I want to point out the significance of this model of in the context of our earlier lament. All efforts to speak of God and interpret Scripture involve human beings choosing a particular way to tell a story. Critical realism, by acknowledging this human element, allows one to see the judgments taking place when people say Paul is all about justification by faith (and forget what he says about love); or Jesus is all about love and justice (and forget what he says about self-denial). More importantly, critical realism presupposes that one can appeal to a norm - a grand Story if you will - by which one may judge other narratives.

For many, the creeds at Nicea and Chalcedon tell the grand Story, hitting all the essentials about Christian faith. For others, it is the magnum opus text of their favorite Christian thinker: say, John Calvin and the Institutes. Karl Barth and Church Dogmatics. Or, more grimly, R. J. Rushdoony and the Institues of Biblical Law.

I would argue that the grand Story is about Creation, Sin, Redemption in Jesus, and the Consummation of God’s Kingdom. Some Christians would place a stronger accent on one part of the story as opposed to another, but the agreement about the content of the story amongst Christians - that the four things that are mentioned actually happened - is there.

Wright composes a helpful variation of the grand Story, one that can close of discussion. He writes:

“The fundamental theological position is a view of creator and creation, of evil within creation and the rescue of creation from that evil, of hope fulfilled and hope to come, of a peope who are both rescued and rescuers.”

(Wright, New Testament and the People of God, p. 458)

May we always remember that human beings are talking about God and interpreting scripture. And never forget that we do not do these things unaided, for as Wright loves to say, we speak of a God who has “come from the fog” in the Incarnation, and as I want to say, indwells our very bodies by the Holy Spirit.

Reform is good. In fact, it’s essential. Christianity has an element of self-critique built into itself, dating all the way back to Israel’s prophets.

But, as always, one mustn’t throw the banana out with the skin.

Over the past few years I’ve begun to reclaim some of the ancient liturgical tradition that Christians down through the ages have observed. I’m learning how to anticipate the gift of Christ long before December 25th, remember death while having ash smeared on my forehead, repent and make a sacrifice during lent, and party like it’s 1999 when Easter rolls around. And part of my learning curve has been figuring out what the heck All Saints Day is. So last week I read Wright’s small book, For All the Saints?, and saw just how goofy we are in America for dropping the real celebration at the end of October/beginning of November (’All Hallows Day’ or All Saints Day on Nov 1st) for a pagan offshoot of it instead (’All Hallows Eve’ or Halloween on Oct 31st). Not only have we embraced this weird pumpkin-carving, death-dressing festival with open arms, we’ve cultivated it into a full-blown money making scheme. Sounds like one big fat adventure in missing the point (instead of tossing the banana out with the skin, we ditched the banana and are eating the skin). Ah, it’s times like this that make me proud to be an American.

So I discovered All Saints Day is a wonderful holiday with much to offer the church today. It began around the 4th century when the church wanted to honor its members who had been martyred for the faith. Furthermore, the New Testament is clear that all Christians are called “saints.” There is no hierarchy in God’s kingdom; all those who follow Christ, both past and present, are saints. So November 1st is a day we can set aside to remember and celebrate all the Christians who lived before us and have since departed.

We can focus in on this particular celebration, but I’d rather us step back and look at the big picture of the Christian calendar and have some dialogue. In For All the Saints?, Wright gives some of the best reasons I’ve heard yet for observing the liturgical year:
“Many churches have found that by following the liturgical year in the traditional way they have a solid framework within which to teach and live the gospel, the scriptures, and the Christian life. The Bible offers itself to us as a great story, a sprawling and complex narrative, inviting us to come in and make it our own. The Gospels, the very heart of scripture, likewise tell a story not merely to give us information about Jesus but in order to provide a narrative we can inhabit, a story we must make our own. This is one way in which we can become the people God calls us to be. The traditional Christian year is a deep-rooted and long-tested means by which that biblical aim can be realized” (56-57).

It’s the link between the liturgical year and the narrative of scripture that I find so attractive. When viewed as such, the liturgical tradition becomes drenched with significance; it’s a way of not only acting out the pivotal events of the biblical story, but preparing ourselves to participate in God’s great narrative.

Later in the book he writes:
“The story you tell with your body, with your outward behaviour and habits, is the story you learn in your heart. The Christian year, if followed through faithfully, becomes a story we tell with our bodies, fasting and feasting by turns, kneeling in adoration at Christmas, following Jesus into the wilderness, singing Hosanna on Palm Sunday, sitting with Jesus at the Last Supper, following him to Calvary, singing for joy by the empty tomb, and so on. This is a time-honoured way of making real in our own imagination and experience the story of God and the world which came to climax in Jesus and reaches out in love to us and the whole world. This story, as we’ve seen, speaks unequivocally of the Kingship of Jesus Christ as a past achievement, and hence as a present reality; and it describes the still-future hope as God’s final act of new creation. That’s the story we tell in the great sequence of the church’s year” (69-70).

So what are your thoughts on the Christian calendar? Does your church observe the liturgical year, and if so how does it help or hinder your community? Does your view on liturgy change when seen from the narrative perspective Wright gives?

This simple statement helps me see questions of the afterlife in a new light. When reading a book it’s much more important to grasp the thesis, the author’s underlying argument, than details or specifics of its chapters and passages. When watching a play it’s much more important to catch the plot, the storyline that is pushing the play along, than one scene or a dialogue within the play. In a way this describes the importance of grasping the hope of resurrection in the New Testament compared to other afterlife issues. This is not to say the other details are not important such as the intermediate state between death and resurrection, the realities of heaven and hell, etc. These specifics are important, for together they must constitute a coherent whole. However, it would be a grave mistake to weigh these after-death details with the same heaviness as the great after-death question the New Testament is concerned with: resurrection. Maybe we’ve been asking the wrong questions. Where will we go? What will it be like? Will I still be married? Come to think of it, we’re pretty good at asking the wrong questions. Wright says the question ought to be, “How will God’s new creation come?” and then, “How will we humans contribute to that renewal of creation and to the fresh projects that the creator God will launch in his new world?” (185). Resurrection and new creation are at the center, the very core, of Christian hope; they’re the plot holding the play together. And understanding the plot of a play is the first step in making sense of its smaller scenes.

Why not end this post with another Wright quote, one just as robust as the first:
“But the most important thing to say at the end of this discussion, and of this section of the book, is that heaven and hell are not, so to speak, what the whole game is about. This is one of the central surprises in the Christian hope. The whole point of my argument so far is that the question of what happens to me after death is not the major, central, framing question that centuries of theological tradition have supposed. The New Testament, true to its Old Testament roots, regularly insists that the major, central, framing question is that of God’s purpose of rescue and re-creation for the whole world, the entire cosmos.” (184)