It makes a difference in what sense the Jews were a delivered people. They were delivered from slavery in Egypt, but they were not saved. So, keeping Torah had some effect on their occupation of the promised land, but had no effect on their salvation. No-one has ever been saved by keeping Torah, those in the Old Testament who were saved were saved by faith (not all Israel are Israel). So, Wright went wrong at the beginning of his development of his New Perspective ideas (getting ‘covenant’ wrong), and went downhill from there.

David,
So where do Jesus’ teachings about doing the things he said (not merely hearing them or merely calling him ‘Lord’) fit into your understanding of being ultimately declared right in him?

David, I think your comment illustrates another problem in these discussions: What does ‘salvation’ mean? From what and to what are we in the process of being saved? ‘Are you saved?’ or ‘Have you been saved?’ seem to me to be unscriptural questions. I think I like the sense of the Orthodox question at baptism, “Have you united yourself to Christ?” There is a common Orthodox saying that stretches well back into patristics. It’s phrased a number of different ways, but I think I like the way I once heard Fr. Thomas Hopko put it in english.
“We are saved together. The only thing we can do alone is go to hell.”
There is a great deal of that “saved together” perspective of what the process of ‘salvation’ might mean in Judaism as well.
So I tend to think that things began to go downhill when ‘salvation’ was turned into an individualistic as opposed to a personal process. As there is one God in three persons, so there is one bride made up of many persons. There is no individual salvation. As we see from the very beginning of the Holy Scriptures, “It is not good for man to be alone.” It’s the first ‘not good’ of the text.

David,
Strange distinction between “delivered from slavery” and “salvation”. I have my doubts the OT (or the NT) can sustain that kind of distinction. I can’t imagine an Israelite would have been able to separate “being saved” from the Exodus or the possession of the land. I’d be interested to hear your explanation of what an Israelite believed salvation consisted of. Similarly your exclusion of all Torah keeping from salvation seems pretty foreign to the OT. Imposing a theological grid on the historical text is exactly what Wright is critiquing.

David (31),
When Martin Luther read the salvation issues of the 16th century (Catholicism’s meritorious schema) back into Galatians especially, and into Paul’s and Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees, THAT is when, as you write it, “things started going downhill.” I agree with Scot that Wright’s (and Sander’s and Calvin’s) understanding of 1st century Judaism is a strong push-back on Piper’s reconstruction of justification. It will be interesting to see how Piper pushes back on Wright’s push-back.

I haven’t started reading Wright’s book yet. Perhaps someone who has can elaborate on Scot’s final two points, and about how works fit into covenant according to Wright.

Oops! I meant David (#1). Sorry.

T,
Works of the Law fit into the covenant (and don’t confuse Wright’s view of “covenant” with Reformed Covenant theology) as “the obedience of faith.” Having been saved (via Exodus) and made a people, the Israelites kept the law out of obedient love to YHWH, NOT “to earn” salvation. “Earning” is where Luther (mis)read meritorious Catholicism into Pauline theology. In the grand event of Jesus the Messiah, all now will be judged on “the obedience of faith’ (Romans 1:5) which was the passionate drive of Paul’s gospel. The classical Lutheran/Reformed jitters over “works” is being powerfully challenged by the NPP, but without losing one iota of God’s astounding grace in saving us.

John,
Thanks. That confirmed my hope. I assume, from other things I’ve heard from Wright, that he’s not saying that such obedience can happen independent of the Holy Spirit, or the community of faith, etc.
It seems to make sense that at least a substantial part of the “rescue” that God intends for his creation will only come to fruition as people trust and love King Jesus enough to routinely do the things he taught to do–you know, the fun things like generosity to evil people, no loyalty to money, and giving up our right to live every day–all so that we can be a productive part of his administration healing the creation.
It also seems to square perfectly with the idea of ‘faith that works’ that Scot’s been highlighting in James. Trusting a leader means doing what he says.

What is 4QMMT?

BeckyR,
One of the Dead Sea Scrolls: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4QMMT
But perhaps someone else can comment on its significance.

I am glad to see a mature understanding of the role of Divine Commandments forming in some segments of evangelicalism. May that spread more and more.
In Messianic Judaism we still occasionally deal with evangelicals who tell us we are legalists. Meanwhile, most Christians feel it is a good idea to obey commandments and don’t think obedience is legalism. It will be a great day when many of the antinomian myths of popular religion are widely recognized as myths. A proper understanding of obedience relies on Divine mercy and grace and always has.
Derek Leman

I’ve been keeping up with this discussion since it started and have found it very helpful in discovering what the new perspectives are all about. Thank you for that.
I live in Orlando, FL, which is home to Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando) and I have a few friends who are in seminary pursuing various degrees. I myself have also attended part time for a semester. Being in these circles, I have witnessed that The New Perspectives have caused quite a stir, especially in recent years (I’m assuming, due to the writings of NT Wright). My problem is that I’m not quite sure where the division is occurring, especially among Calvinists (according to this series)? Some critics of NPP make it sound like it is a re-defining of the idea of Covenant Faithfulness, but I do not see that being discussed here. Perhaps it is not part of Tom Wright’s rebuttal, but if it is a major point of contention, shouldn’t it be? If it is true that NT Wright is re-defining covenant faithfulness to be OUR faithfulness to God, as opposed to God’s faithfulness to his people, then that is one thing. But if the friction is occurring over whether soteriology should be understood as for the individual, or for (and through) the covenant people, that is entirely different. Defining soteriology as within a community does not change the fact that it is God who keeps his covenant, from beginning to end. The outworking of that covenant faithfulness should certainly be understood in terms of community, over the individual.
To me, and I want to be very explicit that I have not examined NPP in depth as yet, which is a journey I am currently on, it seems that a major part of the contention is “what is our part”? For so many years, we (evangelicals in general) have heard of “salvation by faith alone”, which I subscribe to wholeheartedly. However, it could be that the focus on faith has distorted our view of the fact that Jesus did not preach a faith for faith’s sake, but faith which produced fruit. “You will know them by their fruit”, Jesus said. Thus, perhaps the issues are 1) in being preached a solely individual salvation, we have forgotten our obligation within a community, 2) as a result of forgetting that obligation, we fail to do those things required of us by our King and tend towards gross existentialism (by understanding salvation through European lenses), and 3) have an extremely underdeveloped appreciation for ecclesiology, which the Jews of the 2nd temple certainly did not have. It is unquestionable that they understood God’s holistic plan of redemption, even though they eventually stumbled on the stumbling block of Christ.
Of course, I could be completely wrong (not surprising); however, I just get the impression that the lines being drawn are VERY thin. With that said, the outworking of the church’s preaching, and as a result the community’s understanding of the church’s role, could be profound, as a result of these fine lines.
I keep asking myself “What are the stakes?” I believe the stakes are the future vibrancy of our churches and our understanding of the Church in the world. Essentially, it comes down to a strong or weak ecclesiology, and a salvation preached that is either holistic in nature, or only a small part of the picture — i.e. we are indeed saved from sin, by faith alone in Christ Jesus, but saved TO what? And in light of that reality, as Francis Schaeffer once famously asked, “How Should We Then Live?”
In any case, thank you for the thought provoking discussion. It certainly provides me an impetus to go deeper into the issue. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
-Justin

4 QMMT is a letter from a leader at Qumran in which the recipient is encouraged to live in a way that is honoring to the law and then lists some ways in which this can happen. What is significant is that this is the first time, outside of Paul, that we find the phrase ?works of the law? and thus provides us with a non-NT context. The problem that existed prior to the discovery and translation 4QMMT is that Paul?s phrase ?works of the law? was being interpreted almost in a virtual context vacuum since there is no OT parallel which made it very easy to read into it. Traditionally it was understood as fulfilling the law so that one could earn justification i.e. salvation. But the new perspective instead views ?works of the Law? as things that maintained ones position within the covenant with God, particularly circumcision. The way in which the author of 4QMMT outlines what identifies one as a Jew is similar to what the New Perspective has claimed. At Qumran the sectarian view of the law was how they understood themselves to be different than everyone else, not how they ?got in?. The translation of 4QMMT was sort of a retro confirmation of the theory very similar to how the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas provided an example of what Q might have looked like.

“Something I’ve often thought too: Wright observes that had the Calvinist view of the Law been the dominant one, there would never been a need for the new perspective. The new perspective responded far more to the Lutheran sketch of Judaism than it did to the Reformed view. Wright sums it up and says he can’t tell if he’s summarizing Sanders or Calvin!”
This argument makes sense to me, too (of course, I’m biased toward it as a Presbyterian). Reformed types have long spoken of a covenant of grace to which we belong by God’s choice (election) and for which gratitude is shown by good works. Thus, law is not seen as the enemy of gospel (as for Luther, who drew a sharp distinction between the two), but as a response to the good news that God is gracious. A Reformed exegete is likely to note, for example, that the Ten Commandments are issued only after a reminder to the Hebrews of God’s gift of salvation from slavery in Egypt.
More broadly, Calvin saw the New Testament as the fulfillment of the Old Testament, and thus as a continuation and fulfillment of Judaism. Luther had more of a replacement theology–with Christianity replacing Judaism. Note how Luther summarizes his interpretation of Paul’s argument in his LECTURES ON GALATIANS (in LUTHER’S WORKS, 1963):
“Over and above all [kinds of righteousness] there is the righteousness of faith or Christian righteousness, which is to be distinguished most carefully from all the others. For they are all contrary to this righteousness, both because they proceed from the laws of emperors, the traditions of the pope, and the commandments of God, and because they consist in our works.” (p. 4)
Note what Luther does here: Christian righteousness (described in the New Testament) and “the commandments of God” (described in the Hebrew scriptures) are set against one another. In effect, Christianity is seen as replacing Judaism, rather than as continuing and fulfilling it. This anti-Judaism reading either caused or fed Luther’s anti-Semitism, with tragic historical consequences.

Oops–I wrote #15 above.

Justin @13,
Wright is definitely talking about God’s covenant faithfulness; indeed, he says that is one way Paul defines and uses the word dikaiosune. He sees individual “salvation” as something that comes about because the People of God has been constituted through the faithful acts of Jesus, and distinct persons surely make up that corporate entity.
Interestingly, I am listening (again) to Wright’s “Romans in a Day” series. One of the points he makes is that some evangelicals avoid dealing with some of these concepts precisely because they become uneasy with the weight Paul puts on ecclesiology, and are afraid where it might lead…
Yes, your questions are at the heart of the controversy, and there are other “big picture” sorts of questions. It is important to recognize the “To what” part of your question, but though it includes living a moral life, it’s bigger than that: it’s about what it all *means*. (What is humanity *for*, anyway? What is the telos of our existence? …well, these are the kinds of questions that interest me…)
Allow me to expand your statement and perhaps point to what I mean:
-We are saved from sin – What does “saved” mean? (as in David #1 above and folks answering him)
-Is “sin” the ultimate monkey wrench of life, or is it connected to something larger? And what is “sin”, anyhow?
-If we are saved “by faith alone”, does that mean our faith is a “work”? And what is “faith”, anyhow?
-What does “faith in Jesus Christ” mean?
My understanding of the NP is that those theologians (particularly Wright, as I’ve read most of his work) are returning to scripture, *particularly in its historical Jewish context* (which is something Piper evidently discards, but he’s not alone in this) and asking if the definitions of terms we have accepted since the Reformation are actually the definitions to be found in the text. If the definitions are found not to be the same, then what? In some places, the lines are thin; in others, rather thicker… What Wright does is propose a reading of Paul that does not have to ignore anything in the text, or make excuses for Paul, or for Israel, or for God. It is a wholeness, congruence, integrity of meaning. When it comes down to changing our understanding of meaning, people get a little tense.
Dana

Thanks for these summaries and commentaries on the debate, Dr. McKnight. They are really helpful and thought-provoking.

Justin @ 13,
“1) in being preached a solely individual salvation, we have forgotten our obligation within a community, 2) as a result of forgetting that obligation, we fail to do those things required of us by our King and tend towards gross existentialism (by understanding salvation through European lenses), and 3) have an extremely underdeveloped appreciation for ecclesiology, which the Jews of the 2nd temple certainly did not have.”
All of the above. Additionally, and I think this is the key point the NPP makes, Jews in the time of Jesus (or now) simply did not see themselves as doing what the law said in order to earn God’s favor and salvation, as in Luther’s reading. I think this is a big part of the nervousness about the NPP, a fear that we’re “sliding back” into a legalistic Judaism that did not, in fact, ever really exist. If legalistic self-righteousness, in the typical Reformed/Lutheran theology, is in large part what we’re saved from, then when somebody like Wright comes along and says “Yes, that may be a big problem in some times and places (like the medieval Catholicism Luther was surrounded by), but it’s not exactly what Paul is talking about”, it can look like a big step backward.
Also, I used to live right across from RTS. No disrespect to them (it’s a good school from all I hear), but you might also mix it up and take some classes at Asbury too. I also learned a lot from the Judaic studies classes I took at UCF, particularly as far as what Judaism actually, you know, says about itself. Orlando has more resources than you’d expect. If you can put up with the touristy kitsch and passion play production values, it even has a 1/3 scale model of the Temple that’s worth a look.

Scott (3) Paul says we are ‘saved’.
JonB (4) What do you think Paul means by ‘saved’?
John (5, & Travis (19) Paul thinks most 1st C Jews believed they were saved by Torah, not by faith. Paul says they were not faithful, and were not saved.
One rebuttal of Wright is given in Report on Justification Presented to the Seventy-third General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church pp.34-55. http://www.opc.org/GA/justification.pdf

David (#20),
Is English your first language? I just reread my comments (#5 and #8) and Travis’ (#19) and neither of us said or implied that the Jews in Jesus’ and Paul’s day believed they were “saved by Torah.” How can you put those words into our comments? Read what we wrote. The Jews were saved by God and keeping Torah was an expression of love to God for their free, gracious salvation. Their faith expressed itself in obedience, just as Paul’s gospel to the Gentiles required…”the obedience of faith,” that is, “the obedience that comes from faith” (Romans 1:5). Neither did Travis and I write that all the Jews of Paul’s day were saved. They had lost their mission given to them by God through Abraham to be a blessing to all the nations. They had reduced their mission to a self-absorbed, nationalistic favoritism and were demanding that Gentiles become Jews. This was a horrible, sinful distortion of their purpose for which they faced the terrible judgment of God (exhibited graphically in the destruction of Jerusalem and the devastation of the Temple in 70 AD).

David (#20):
I have read the OPC response to Wright on the subject of justification. It seems to me to be a mostly accurate discussion of the differences between Wright’s views and one part of the Reformed tradition’s views (the room in the Reformed theological house that holds the doctrine of the Westminster divines to be infallible). I do not, however, find it to be a convincing refutation of the New Perspective.
The response in question seems mainly to want to maintain the status quo of the OPC; more specifically, it is intent on preserving the doctrine of “imputed righteousness.” The irony is that this doctrine appears to be a kind of litmus test or boundary marker for some Reformed types (the New Perspective reads Paul as having been concerned primarily with removing boundary markers). A summary sentence near the end of the section you have recommended reads:
“[I]f Sanders or Wright is correct, then…Luther, Calvin, and the historic Reformed understanding of the doctrine of justification is incorrect.”
Do the authors of this response believe that Luther and Calvin were infallible? Surely they were correct about some things and incorrect about other things. Why is this concern expressed? Why not simply return to Paul, focusing on a direct encounter with the biblical text? And isn’t it also ironic that the OPC, which thinks that Jews were legalistic about preserving their tradition, is greatly concerned about preserving its tradition?
The OPC response fairly summarizes Wright’s understanding of righteousness as follows: “To be righteous is not so much a moral or judicial quality as a relational one; it means that one is in covenant with God.” The OPC then contends that “righteousness is not covenant membership but rather adherence or conformity to an ethical standard.” These two ideas are not necessarily mutually exclusive, however. For Wright, covenantal faithfulness is “conformity to an ethical standard.”
Ultimately, Wright and the OPC seem to differ mainly on the subject of “imputed righteousness” (the OPC response even admits that “works of the law” does refer to boundary markers, though it defines the phrase more broadly to include other OT commandments as well). The response in question would have been stronger had it focused less on criticizing Wright’s argument and more on contructing a positive argument for imputed righteousness. As it is, the OPC’s case goes like this: “[I]f Wright is correct in his assertion that righteousness is something that cannot be transferred, then what does Paul mean when he writes that those who are justified ?receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness? (Rom 5:17; cf. Eph 2:8)? Paul, contrary to Wright, thinks that righteousness is something that can be passed across the courtroom.”
This argument is a non sequitur. The statement “righteousness is something that can be passed across the courtroom” does not necessarily follow from the statement “[the justified] receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness.” The OPC statement simply assumes that “the free gift of righteousness” is a thing that is imputed. It begs the question. Why does the OPC think Paul teaches imputed righteousness? Because Paul writes of “the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness.” Why does the OPC think this statement refers to imputed righteousness? Because Paul teaches imputed righteousness. Why does the OPC think Paul teaches imputed righteousness?
And around and around we go in a circular argument. Nowhere does Paul expressly mention “imputed righteousness.” Wright believes that to receive righteousness is to be declared in covenantal relationship–which does not require imputation. Nor does it require circumcision or a particular diet–hence Paul’s dismissiveness regarding “works of the law.”

Scot,
A very good post. Breaking this book down piece by piece has helped me not only get a better grasp of what Wright is saying but has also helped me in reflecting on my own theology and preaching.
(By the way, I like J. Frye’s comment #21)
Thanks!

John (21). Paul thinks a small few Jews were saved by God, the ones who had faith. Judaism is defined by Torah not by faith, so Judaism was never enough for salvation. The Jews, as Jews, were not a delivered people (that is, not saved. Of course, at the beginning they were all delivered from Egypt.). Only those with faith were delivered (saved).
Josh (22): Wright defends his view, as all sincere people do, and keep them until understood to be inadequate.
Quote from Josh: “The OPC response even admits that “works of the law” does refer to boundary markers, though it defines the phrase more broadly to include other OT commandments as well”.
DY reply: Dunn and Wright have had to broaden their outlook here, too. But the OPC don’t place the same significance at all on what ‘boundaries’ comes to.
Wright denounces ‘imputed righteousness’ in a straw man version that the scholars don’t assert.

David (24),
So, we both agree with Wright that the Jews were saved by faith, not by Torah-keeping. Their faith in YHWH that saved them led them to obey the Torah out of loving response. I am glad we agree.