Justification and New Perspective 11

Ted #1: I'm also a bit behind in things!

In this part, I find Scot's 'the how do I get myself saved? focus of the older perspective' tendentious.
I also find Wright doesn't explain just how 'Law chokes the promise' (Scot).

But, much of Wright's exegesis builds on earlier bits, and if I might question something we have too quickly for me gone on from (JNP 10), which then affects how I think of Gal chapters 3 and 4:

I've tried hard to read Gal 2.15-21 as Wright recommends (pp.91 -101, GB), as about marks of separation, and I can get as far as Gal 2.17, when the question of sin comes in (for Wright it already comes in at Gal 2.16 in the OT quote etc). But Gal 2.19 seems to me to be expanding on Gal 2.17, and saying Christ is not minister of sin because I have died to law 'that I might live unto God'. Wright, differently, says Gal 2.19 is about change of identity. Then Wright says Gal 2.21 is about lack of gratitude (which seems very weak), whereas for me it is about it being necessary for Christ to die since sin couldn't be dealt with by law. So, I find Wright's exegesis of Gal 2.15-21 not good.

david (2) - I don't think the comment is designed to be 'tendentious' when you consider this series (along with Wright's book) is designed to highlight the DISTINCTIONS between the two perspectives. This is simply a way of comparing the NPP movement with the previous approach(es).

just to clarify a bit more... when I say all has been accomplished in Christ, i need to add that he also fulfilled the law which is what the torah is all about... not the torah as a bunch of rules but as a vision for community and justice and a way of living that honors God and his creation.

NPP people often say that people under the "old perspective" are too concern about "how do I get myself saved," but at any point do any of them actually answer that question?

#8 Chris

I'd add to joanned #9, that we aren't just saved from sin. We are saved to God, into community, and sent in mission, namely to give witness to the Kingdom of God. That "giving witness" includes calls to others for personal salvation but it is much bigger than that.

Chris' question and Joanned's and Michael's answer highlight the repeated observation by NT Wright that opponents who say they have read his works really haven't. The NPP takes nothing away from the OPP (Old Pauline Perspective) but sets the OPP in a much more coherently biblical and theological framework.

Who's down with OPP?

John (#7, #12)

Wright claims to be reading Gal 2:15-21 in the context of Peter's behaviour Gal 2.11-14, and so argues everything must have no other reference than that. In other places where Paul addresses problems in congregations, Wright says Paul laudably goes back to first principles to explain things. I think the same applies here, and Gal 2:15-21 is a first principles argument against Peter. I think Wright's exegesis fails on the points I make in #2. What about the point I make about Gal 2.19? As for Gal 2.21, I find it very strange to say that is either about lack of graciousness or is a cry of freedom, it makes no communicational sense to me for such a wording to be saying that. So, I think Gal 2.15-21 is about sin, not about markers.

I am not a NPP advocate, but this quote of Wright's really says nothing new nor adds anything to a position held by, say, John Calvin. All (confessing) Reformed Christians would agree that "the theology of Paul is about how God's covenant with Abraham to bless the world has found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ." This is perhaps THE very tenet of Reformed theology: The unity of the covenant of grace (New covenant is part of the Abrahamic) and Christ's federal covenant headship (fulfillment of the Law in Christ).

What is nearly impossible to read, however, is that personal/human sin is not included in Galatians 3:10-14. ("Even the curse passage (3:10-14) is connected -- not to human sin -- but to the inclusion of Gentiles in Abraham's blessing and that we might receive this promise on the basis of faith.")
Who experiences "the curse of the law" if not sinners under God's wrath? The "curse of the law" is not that promise would not come by it, but rather through faith. This is clear because Paul immediately clarifies the curse of the law which Christ bore: death on a cross/tree. Paul includes himself and all believing Jews in this by means of the inclusive "became a curse for US" as separate from mention of the Gentiles.