John Piper and N.T. Wright

[ManleyBeasley]

Can you guys give me a general break down of what N.T. Wright views are? I know John Piper wrote a book debating one of Wright's books. I don't really have time to read all of that right now and I would like to have an idea.

 

[greenbaggins]

Put briefly, here are his views.

1. The people of Israel are viewed as still in Exile, since the promises of the OT were not fulfilled as gloriously as they should have been.

2. Jesus came to usher in the inauguration of the complete fulfillment.

3. Part of the fulfillment of that promise is that the nations would be blessed by the (S)seed of Abraham.

4. This involves the elimination of the Jew/Gentile distinction within the people of God.

5. Some Jews, when they became Christians, did not leave behind those things that distinguished Jew from Gentile, and were, in fact, trying to make the Gentiles do them as well.

6. These Jews were not legalistic (this comes from E.P. Sanders's book Paul and Palestinian Judaism), but exclusivistic.

7. Therefore, Paul was not reacting against proto-Pelagians, but against Jewish exclusivism.

8. Hence, justification is not so much about salvation, but about ecclesiology. He does not exclude salvific categories from justification, but rather foregrounds the church and backgrounds the ordo salutis.

9. This involves the implicit premise (sometimes stated, and sometimes made hazy) that the Reformation (and especially Luther) got justification wrong.

 

[FenderPriest]

If you're looking for a brief synopsis, this may help you: Interview with John Piper About The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright. He gives a general over view there.

 

[Kevin]

Thanks Lane. That was helpful.

 

[ManleyBeasley]

Thanks for the explanation Lane! And thanks for the article Jacob! Both were very useful

 

[greenbaggins]

You're welcome, Manley. There are a couple of technical points that should be added here. One is the definition of the phrase "righteousness of God" in Paul. Wright argues that the phrase means God's covenant faithfulness, rather than adherence to God's own moral standard. as a result, when we are justified by the righteousness of Christ, he takes that to mean Christ's covenant faithfulness, not our belief in Christ, taking Christ there as the subject of the faithfulness, not the object.

The second point that should be brought up here is the phrase "works of the law." Paul says we are not justified by works of the law. What works? Wright and the other NPP guys interpret that phrase as including primarily Jewish boundary markers (circumcision, dietary laws, festivals), things that marked Jews out as Jews. In other words, the only works that are excluded from justification are exclusivistic works. So Paul (according to the NPP) is not excluding all works from justification, only some works. This is, of course, exactly the same thing that the Roman Catholic Church argued in the time of the Reformation, only they used the term "ceremonial works."

 

[Jimmy the Greek]

Thanks, Lane. Your added points are very important to the issues of Wright and the NPP issues.

 

[Scott1]

Yes, thank you Rev Keister for explaining this in fair and concise summary.

It is comforting to know that a layman can readily recognize that for all the sophistication of argument, the "New Perspective" is not that complicated. It is serious error, and it distorts and confuses the Gospel (and there is nothing new about that).

 

[ManleyBeasley]

You're welcome, Manley. There are a couple of technical points that should be added here. One is the definition of the phrase "righteousness of God" in Paul. Wright argues that the phrase means God's covenant faithfulness, rather than adherence to God's own moral standard. as a result, when we are justified by the righteousness of Christ, he takes that to mean Christ's covenant faithfulness, not our belief in Christ, taking Christ there as the subject of the faithfulness, not the object.

The second point that should be brought up here is the phrase "works of the law." Paul says we are not justified by works of the law. What works? Wright and the other NPP guys interpret that phrase as including primarily Jewish boundary markers (circumcision, dietary laws, festivals), things that marked Jews out as Jews. In other words, the only works that are excluded from justification are exclusivistic works. So Paul (according to the NPP) is not excluding all works from justification, only some works. This is, of course, exactly the same thing that the Roman Catholic Church argued in the time of the Reformation, only they used the term "ceremonial works."

As I read your post here and you talked about the NPP claiming works of the Law as being "Jewish boundry markers", BIG WARNING lights went off. I knew that was RC dogma...then you said it yourself! This has me very agitated. Thanks for the info brother!

 

[Grace Alone]

Thanks from me, too, because I did not understand what this meant before.

So you then saying that they believe we are justified at least partially by works? As in, we can lose our salvation if our works aren't good enough? That is very depressing.

(I need a similar brief explanation of FV, too!)

 

[R. Scott Clark]

For what it's worth, some of us were reading and discussing a portion Abelard's commentary on Romans (ch 3) and we noted that he anticipated the NPP by more than 800 years! His definition of "the works of the law" was identical to that of the NPP. His view of the fall and its consequences and of human ability relative to grace was also not too far similar. As Mike Horton (see vol 3 of his series from WJKP) has argued, turns out that the N in NPP is false advertising.

 

[SolaGratia]

For what it's worth, some of us were reading and discussing a portion Abelard's commentary on Romans (ch 3) and we noted that he anticipated the NPP by more than 800 years! His definition of "the works of the law" was identical to that of the NPP. His view of the fall and its consequences and of human ability relative to grace was also not too far similar. As Mike Horton (see vol 3 of his series from WJKP) has argued, turns out that the N in NPP is false advertising.

Now that is what the study of Histotical Theology is all about to the Church.