In a remarkable piece of insight, Tom Wright once asked what Pauline theology would look like if we began with Ephesians and Colossians instead of Romans, and in just a few pages (168-175) in Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision
, he discusses the vision of Ephesians. (By the way, it could make a huge difference.)Notice these words: "And of course it is in Ephesians that the two 'halves' of the Pauline gospel emphasis are laid out side by side. Ephesians 2:1-10 is the old perspective: sinners saved by grace through faith. Ephesians 2:11-22 is the new perspective: Jews and Gentiles coming together in Christ." And, he continues: "they belong intimately together" (168).
Here is the temptation: the old perspective can downplay the second as central; the new perspective can downplay the first as central. Is this the central theological difference: seeing Paul through the personal salvation mode or seeing Paul through the union of Jews and Gentiles mode?
This incipient (universal) ecclesiology, Wright observes, merely "a pleasing decoration, a side-comment on what a fine thing the gospel is" (168). This whole Jew-Gentile thing "is part of the reality of the gospel" (169).
Ecclesiology, so devalued into a voluntary society for low church evangelicals, is at the heart of the Pauline gospel.
From Eph 2:9-10 Wright distinguishes salvation from justification: "justification is God's declaration that someone is in the right, a member of the sin-forgiven covenant family, while salvation is the actual rescue from death and sin" (170).
And saved not by works but for works, the standard Protestant approach, is not far from what the new perspective actually teaches (here, here). Wright thinks the point of "good works" is an ecclesial face of the presence of God's redemptive work in the Messiah (171). So, he wants "good works" to be a little more robust, and not just individuals doing virtuous things.
And the destruction of the dividing wall, if anywhere, shows that Torah is understood very close the boundary markers that Jimmy Dunn has so emphasized: Christ destroyed what separated Jews from Gentiles. We are staring here then at Galatians 3:28-29: we are one in Christ -- and that is what the gospel does! This is the mystery of the gospel (Eph 3:1-7). This union is the sign to the principalities and powers that the time is up (173).
He brings it back: low ecclesiology works against these texts in promoting too radical of an individualism.
Maybe more of us need to teach Paul's theology through the lens of Ephesians. Any takers?
From Eph 2:9-10 Wright distinguishes salvation from justification: "justification is God's declaration that someone is in the right, a member of the sin-forgiven covenant family, while salvation is the actual rescue from death and sin" (170).
And saved not by works but for works, the standard Protestant approach, is not far from what the new perspective actually teaches (here, here). Wright thinks the point of "good works" is an ecclesial face of the presence of God's redemptive work in the Messiah (171). So, he wants "good works" to be a little more robust, and not just individuals doing virtuous things.
And the destruction of the dividing wall, if anywhere, shows that Torah is understood very close the boundary markers that Jimmy Dunn has so emphasized: Christ destroyed what separated Jews from Gentiles. We are staring here then at Galatians 3:28-29: we are one in Christ -- and that is what the gospel does! This is the mystery of the gospel (Eph 3:1-7). This union is the sign to the principalities and powers that the time is up (173).
He brings it back: low ecclesiology works against these texts in promoting too radical of an individualism.
Maybe more of us need to teach Paul's theology through the lens of Ephesians. Any takers?
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Not sure if "low church" ecclesiology is to blame here, as Anabaptists seem to have both a low church and yet a quite profound ecclesiology. And my guess would be they would side with Wright in this particular discussion. (Cf. John Howard Yoder's work on the Jew/Gentile relationship in the early church, which anticipates the New Perspective.)
Appreciate Cramer #21, as the issue doesn't seem to be low or high church. I think historically those terms refer more to worship practices, view of sacraments, priesthood, etc. American primitivism or restoration movements like Churches of Christ (Campbellites) and Missionary Baptists have a low church practice, but a high, almost Roman Catholic view of themselves as the true Bride of Christ.
I think there is a huge HERMENEUTICAL issue here. What are Paul's letters? What is Romans? We evangelicals have tended to read them as if they were abstract theological documents, from which we could mine our doctrinal ore, and then put the ore into piles called soteriology or ecclesiology or . . . Or we read them as if they were written to provide individual devotional fodder.
I'm learning to read them as church-strengthening, community-establishing documents from perhaps the greatest church planter in our history. Which means that by their very nature they are ecclesial, while their content addresses the gamut of individual and corporate issues related to Paul's gospel. At least that's how I'm seeing it nowadays.
DC Cramer @ 21 and Dru @ 22,
Ok, maybe it's not low church theology in the historical sense, and I agree about the Anabaptists, but in my experience most evangelicals have almost no ecclesiology at all. The church is just what we call the aggregate mass of saved individual Christians. Or maybe the local body, but even then the individual is primary, the church body tertiary at best.
Just to be clear, I believe that the recovery of a Jewish Jesus as Messiah, the new perspective on (Jewish) Paul's conversion, and all that follows are great gifts to our reading of the Bible and receipt of the Gospel. We have needed these correctives.
I fear, however, that Tom is so concerned still to push against the alternatives that he sometimes pushes too hard--whether in stridency or in metaphor or in other problems as noted here (and in classes of mine at Regent in which his books have been discussed).
So I'm grateful, as I say, for the Sanders-Dunn-Hurtado-Wright work--of course I am! I want to build on it--and, lest I be accused of false modesty--correcting it to some extent by reframing the issues (again) in the full context of the Bible's story that does not start with Abraham and does not end with Israel or the Church or both. It starts with God, humanity, and the rest of creation, and that's how it ends, too. And I think that distinction is a fruitful one some of us, at least (including me), have not yet fully internalized
I find it very helpful to ask what Pauline theology might be like if we were to begin with Col/Eph. No, it is not an either/or as has been stressed in several comments. At the same time, the temptation (that you express so well) is a reality. That temptation, because of our history of individualism is probably going to be strong in one direction (at least right now).
So--I do find this helpful. Each post has been helpful in not only grasping Wright but in reflecting on how I read the NT.
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