I find the use of the word “concept” (referring to Biblical ideas) with the Church’s “doctrine” to be particularly helpful in trying to get a clear grasp on what Wright is saying.
Glad to know that the book is more than a rebuttal. I had wondered if I wanted to read that much of a rebuttal. Your description of the book as a “…brilliant sketch of Wright’s own views” is the nudge I needed to buy the book.

I think the point that Wright makes about Piper’s reading into *dikaios* some form of moral righteousness betrays Piper’s lexical captivity to ‘medieval meritorious Catholicism’ that Luther battled, but Paul did not battle. Also, the “doctrine” of the “imputation” of the judge’s righteousness to the defendant’s account makes a circus out of the law court metaphor. And, as Wright constantly emphasizes: in Piper’s view the strategic place of the Holy Spirit in justification is muted or, at least, made secondary or tertiary.
Thanks, Scot, for these informative posts.

Scot, how is “status” different from the Catholic teaching of “merit”?

‘But righteousness in Paul is not about morality but about status.’
Exactly. The primary thrust of Romans seems to be to establish who are now the people of a God who is faithful to his covenants. The answer Paul develops to that question is laid out in Romans 9-11. Justification (the same or closely related word as the one translated righteousness, no?) in the context of the letter is about who is marked as part of the people of God now and what now marks those people. Who now is Israel? And the answer is those who have faith in Jesus as marked by baptism.
In the historical context, Paul seems to be in this letter also establishing that Roman gentile Christians needed to not look down on, separate from, or treat poorly the Jewish Christians in Rome. It’s something of the opposite of the problem in Galatia from the judaizers, thus the emphasis on the native tree vs. the branches grafted in.
It was and is an important theological point to establish. God is faithful, not unfaithful. He keeps his covenants even when the form looks other than what we may have anticipated. Other is not less. God became the faithful Israel that Israel could never be in Jesus, which is so much more than anyone could have imagined before it happened. It is now faith in Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah and Lord that marks Israel (native or grafted), that distinguishes the people of God. It is not obedience to Torah through circumcision, dietary laws, observance of the Jewish feasts, and all the rest.
With that said, I’ve never understood the obsession with trying to know with some degree of certainty who is “in” or who is “out”, which seems to be what most are trying to use the metaphor of justification to do. It can be hard to find common ground for communication at times because the issue isn’t really the answers exactly. The real issue is why people seem to be obsessed with this question rather than the question of how to increasingly become one with God in Christ, how to unite our will to his, how to live within the life of Christ? Those are simply the more interesting and more difficult questions.
God knows which heart is inclined toward him and moving toward him and which is not. Heck, though my will may be weak at times, I generally know when I am trying to orient on the God made known in Jesus of Nazareth and when I am orienting or worshiping other gods. I need grace, which is to say that I need God, but God gives liberally of himself to all who will receive.
I guess I don’t get the prominence given and attention to this single point. Sometimes it seems to almost crowd out everything else.

Somebody help me out here. In the final section of this post on Wright’s view of righteousness, this contrast is made: Wright says that is solely declaration and “It does not mean “make righteous” as if it meant transformation of character.” In other words, the contrast he sets up seems to be between “declaration” and “becoming morally righteous.”
But is this really Reformed thinking? Isn’t justification and imputation in the Reformed system purely declaratory? Let me quote another Neo-Reformed Piperite, Wayne Grudem: “justification is an instantaneous legal act of God in which he (1) thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us and (2) declares us to be righteous in his sight.” Berkhof agrees that justification is a judicial declaration and says imputation is righteousness “in his sight.” It is not transformation, it is declaration.
Both men continue to explain that it is the Roman Catholic view that believes justification involves “infused righteousness” which does in fact transform moral character.
So in this Neo-reformed thinking, it is the Roman Catholics who said justification is “transformation of character” not the Reformers. For the Reformers, justification AND imputation are merely declaratory acts. It is a declaration that gives someone the status of forgiven and righteous in God’s sight (not literally righteous in terms of a moral transformation).
Wright can disagree with imputation, but I don’t understand the claim that the Reformers taught justification actually transforms moral character. Remember, they have a strong (too strong?) separation between justification and sanctification. Am I misreading Wright?

Scot,
I had asked at the end of post 6, how you differ in regards to double imputation from Piper and Wright as you mention it in a community called atonement. I’m just looking for clarification.
Phil

Brian (#5):
I think you’re right that some Reformed thinkers, like Wright, have understood justification to be something declared (as in, “declared righteous” rather than “made righteous”–a judge in a courtroom does not impute his own righteousness to a defendant, but declares the defendant guilty or not guilty). Piper, however, clearly objects to Wright’s view that righteousness is merely declared, arguing that it is also effectual. One of the weaknesses of Piper’s book is that it assumes there is only one Reformed theology (which has more to do with fundamentalism than with the larger Reformed tradition).

Brian @5,
In the book, Wright talks about how he sees Paul using the dik- word group to indicate three different aspects or trains of thought (lawcourt, covenant, eschatology), all under the “umbrella” of Christology- how they all relate to who Jesus is and what he has done and why. Section 1) of you quote from Grudem about forgiveness of sins actually belongs more under the “covenant” heading of the three. If you want to pull it into Wright’s understanding of the “lawcourt” heading, it would have to be changed to read something like “God sees that this person has faith in Jesus”; then section 2) would follow. The “lawcourt” is not about the judge giving his own righteousness to the parties in a lawsuit; it’s about the finding in favor of one or the other, which is not the same thing as “imputation”, in the judge’s sight or otherwise. This portion of it is not about “morality”; morality would actually fit better into the “eschatology” aspect in Wright’s schema.
You are misreading Wright if you can’t get out of the Catholic vs Protestant categories. For Wright, they are too small for Paul, were questions that were “burning” only at the start of the Reformation, and relate to what Paul was actually talking about in a “sideways” sort of way. That’s the reason Piper hasn’t been able to understand Wright- he can’t get past the category difference, put himself into Wright’s frame of reference and deal with the differences in definitions of words and concepts. Scot’s comments have focused on only a part of this chapter (concerning theologians’ disagreements, which is understandable, because he moves in that world); I hope he will say something more about the rest of it, because this is where Wright gives his definitions. I do hope you get the book and read it for yourself.
Everyone, remember Scot is “on vacation” and really can’t check in on the blog to answer your questions right now- he wrote the posts before he left, and set them up to appear on the day scheduled. If it’s really, really important for you to hear from him, shoot him an email and then be patient until he gets a few minutes to answer (probably not until next week).
Dana

Scot #4:
You said, “Who now is Israel? And the answer is those who have faith in Jesus as marked by baptism.”
I don’t think you are getting this from Romans. You are making, in my opinion, a similar error to Piper, reading Romans from a faulty premise about its audience and purpose.
Romans is written to a church confused about the place of Israel, rejecting Jesus, and the idea of God’s election. One of the very errors Paul is correcting with Romans is the one you make. That is, in my opinion, you got the opposite message Paul intended (see esp. Rom 11:26-29).
His message is, “Let God worry about Israel’s unbelief and meanwhile, you [Church], do not be arrogant, but believe and obey. God is not through with Israel and the covenants with Israel will come to fruition in the future.”
Derek Leman

Clarification since I wrote unclearly in one part. I meant that the church was confused about Israel’s election in light of Israel’s rejection of Messiah. This raised questions in general about election and salvation that Paul clarified in Romans.
Derek Leman

Derek,
are you saying that the covenants with Israel haven’t come to fruition in Messiah?
Dana

‘Righteous’ seems to me in all sorts of places in the Bible to refer to a quality of God, not to people’s membership of some group. I suppose part of God’s being righteous is being true to what he says he will do, but that is an effect of the divine quality. But also, what might seem strange to some people, some people in the Bible are said to be righteous who are not obviously part of any covenant. God, of course, does also act righteously towards those outside the covenants.

Dana (8). I’m pretty sure I’m not too hung up on the Prot/Cath divide. My point was this: the Reformers were passionate about that divide. The Catholics taught infused righteousness (in which justification transforms moral character) and the Reformers reacted against this vehemently. Their reaction is that justification does NOT transform moral character, it is purely declaratory. Therefore, what I don’t understand is why Scot’s summary of Wright says that Wright is accusing Reformers of teaching a justification about moral transformation. That was one of the very things they were against, so how he say they taught it. It just doesn’t follow to me.
Josh (7), I’ll have to read Piper again. But I’m pretty sure he is consistent in stating that justification does NOT lead to transformed character (see comments above) When Piper says justification is effectual, he means “it does something.” That “something” is provide right standing before God which leads to salvation. To my knowledge he doesn’t say it leads to transforming moral character.

Dana, the land promises to Abraham were fulfilled in Joshua 21, but many believe the spiritural promises have yet to be fulfilled. It can be difficult to distinguish covenants in both testaments, because if you look at Achan, for instance, he was part of the “covenant community” but it didn’t really do him any good from an election or salvific standpoint did it?

Well Brian, I don’t see where Scot has said anything about what the Catholics taught, nor anything about Wright accusing the Reformers. In the post, Scot says that Wright says that “justification” is about acquittal and forgiveness. Wright would say that neither “infused righteousness” nor the Reformers’ reaction against it is what Paul means by “justification”. As I said above, Wright thinks Paul means more than one thing when he uses the dik- root words; the “lawcourt” flavor of it would be purely declaratory, but that’s not the only flavor to Paul’s usage. Do please get the book! Wright’s audios are good, too. Start with the ones about Jesus.
I know you’re trying to find a balance, and that shows your good heart. I don’t think there really is much that can be reconciled between the two of them in terms of the “big picture”. Their visions of what scripture says God is up to are pretty divergent, if you step back and take a look. They would agree that Jesus is the only way to the Father, and that his death was substitutionary (but Wright’s more nuanced- not opaque, just more Jewish) and that one must give one’s allegiance to Jesus on the basis of faith. But already in that short summary we would have to be clear about how they each would define “substitutionary” and exegete “pistis”, and there would be some irreconcilable differences already.
Richard, my question about the promises was probably not clear. I’m trying to say, “What more does God have to do in order for the covenants with Israel to come to fruition?” I’m not so sure there is a difference between the “land promises” and the “spiritual promises”, esp. reading with Wright’s lenses.
Yes, I’m a huge fan of Wright. I’ve always been a Christian- and Wright made the bible make sense for me and gave me a Jesus I can actually worship. I don’t mean to go “over the top” in my appreciation, and I actually would quibble with him about a couple of things not covered in this book- but not about any of what’s covered in this book. Email me if you want to talk more without taking up Scot’s combox space: ldames at pacific dot net.
Dana

Dana (#15),
Agreed that its hard to find a middle ground between Wright and Piper on these issues, but I think it is possible, even on some core issues. Here is an attempt (by someone who thinks Wright is somewhere around 80-95% correct on this topic): Yes, Wright has a point about covenant, eschatology and law court in Romans, which doesn’t really support Piper on imputation. But 2 Cor. 5:21 could be read to suggest imputation. To get around this, Wright makes a good effort to point out the repeated pattern in that passage (i.e., the “Christ’s conduct, our mission” pattern), but one could argue that he is reading too much of his own interpretation of other passages into verse 21. And it doesn’t do any violence to Wright’s overall message if you acknowledge some sort of imputation in 2 Cor. 5:21; you still have the single-plan-through-Israel-to-save-the-world (i.e., covenant), the eschatology and law court in the other passages. And its not denying the important pattern Wright sees in 2 Cor. 5 (i.e., Christ, mission) to acknowledge imputation in 2 Cor. 5:21. At the end of the day we might think Wright is correct about 2 Cor. 5:21, but I for one think it is a debatable point, and it is possible to allow both Wright’s primary views and Piper’s view of imputation in 2 Cor. 5:21.
And I like it that Brian keeps pushing folks for a middle ground, even though there isn’t much sometimes.

The other thing that I would say is that in his book on Evil, Wright makes the point that our description of what happened in Christ’s death and ressurection is some sense all metaphor anyway; our words (atonement, substitution, representation, Christus Victor, etc.) fail to describe the depth of the reality. I think you can apply the same idea to the debate about righteousness. In particular, although Wright is very clearly on to something when he sees ecclesiology, covenant, etc. in Romans and Galations, that doesn’t mean Paul isn’t using the same term (righteousness) for some other purpose in 2 Corinthians, for example. Imputation, law court, etc., are all clearly metaphors, just like Wright says atonement is. We shouldn’t be too rigid about this stuff.

Yes, I agree that all our language falls short and we shouldn’t be too rigid. That’s why I think that “imputation” is really not the point of 2Cor5.21- it’s another one of those “in Christ” places that I think is about much, much more than “what God has done for me”- though I find my place within it, the individual’s place is not the focus. Rather, we (collective, not individual) have become the demonstration (eikon, if you will) of the reality of God’s covenant faithfulness. I think all of Paul “holds together” much better with the focus on God’s people (collective) being *in Christ* and how Paul is trying to describe what that means, rather than anything being “imputed” to the individual- God’s righteousness, or anything else.
We may have to agree to disagree. That’s ok, but disagree with an understanding of Wright, looking at things through his categories.
Dana

Excellent, helpful stuff here, Scot. I really look forward to getting and reading this book. It did look exceptional, the day I picked it up and was able to spot read here and there.

In ‘What Saint Paul Really Said’, Wright (p.101) distinguishes between imputed righteousness and imparted righteousness, both being
‘righteousness’ given to humans as righteous standing ‘from God’. He explains further (p.102) ‘imputed’ is “‘reckoned’ to be theirs,
almost as a legal fiction?”, and ‘imparted’ is “an actual entity or property, given by God”. Why does Wright now argue about ‘imputed’
as if it is ‘imparted’ when he discusses these issues? Or have I got it wrong what he is saying, then and now?

Dana (#18),
You’re preachin’ to the justified here. I’m on board with Wright’s view that “in Christ” is the key concept in most of Paul’s writings; the reality to which most of the old perspective discussion of imputation points.
My point is much more modest: Put aside what our personal views are on 2 Cor. 5:21 for the moment: Isn’t it at least possible for someone to believe all of Wright’s key points and think that that one verse has imputation overtones? It doesn’t undercut any of his key points, including the “in Christ” point. If you want a middle ground, its there.
Although it is debatable, I personally think Wright is most likely correct about 2 Cor. 5:21. But that is not my point.

Sure, it’s possible. But building theology/doctrine on one verse is pretty shaky.
Dana