Another debate in the new vs. old perspective on Paul debate is how to understand Romans 4 and Abraham. Is he an example of faith? Or, as Tom Wright, in Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision
, puts it: "Pull out Abraham, and you won't just pull out a single loose thread from the sweater. You will unravel the whole thing." For Wright, Abraham is not an example of faith so much as the substantive person in the original covenant itself. Abraham is part of the "who is the family of God" question. The issue is not about what Abraham found but whether we have found Abraham to be our father (218).
The promise to Abraham was that he would have a family as numerous as there are stars in the sky, and that through him the Gentiles would be blessed. The promise was not going to heaven when he died (220).
Wright's contention then is that chp 4 of Romans is not about how Abraham got saved by faith but about God's faithfulness to Abraham to bless the whole world through the one covenant and that through faith (not works that separate Gentiles from Israel). We see in this the dividing line between old and new: is the animating issue personal redemption from the works-principle of distorted humans or is it the one covenant with Israel to bless the world? (Not a simple dichotomy here, but an orienting perspective.)
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John (#9).
Wright makes much of the promise of 'land' to Abraham being reinterpreted by Paul as 'world', elsewhere than just here. I was making the point that Wright countenances such things. In this particular place (pp.193-4, GB), Wright makes much of the actual words to Abraham being about him having a family, in contrast with what he says the old perspective might 'imagine', that it was about his sins being forgiven. However, forgiveness of sins has a contextually correct place among what can be seen was being promised to Abraham, just as 'world' for 'land'.
A related point I would like to make is that Wright often says we must consider the whole text that Paul had in mind when we find him quoting things from the Old Testament. But, if you look at what Wright makes of this, as though no-one but himself has seen the revelatory difference it makes, time after time the fuller text has no surprises: if a text Paul quotes speaks of judgement, Wright looks it up and says 'wonder of wonders, the text goes on to say there is also mercy after judgement!'. But, of course! Every text you can come up with from the Old Testament speaks of judgement and mercy after judgement. Everybody knows, and it makes no difference to how other people than Wright are reading texts. Wright really does need to interact with other commentators, as they are doing with him, and he needs to look at their exegesis of texts instead of saying they only write about their doctrinal positions and don't go to the texts.
Romans 4.4 has the Greek word 'misthos', and it surely doesn't make any difference to the point here whether it is taken as 'wages' or 'reward' (KJV: 'Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt').
David (#12),
Again, I don't see how Paul's reference to Abraham has *anything* to do with forgiveness of sins. The David reference certainly might be more pertinent, but Abraham.
Misthos as you know is clearly an economic term for wages earned, not a reward graciously given. Neither Wright nor Paul states "that Jews under Torah were working for reward from God."
John (#13).
The promises to Abraham, which Abraham believed, were ultimately about putting creation right, which involves forgiveness of sins.
The point of the matter is that Jews were keeping the law for wages or reward (it makes no difference), not out of gratitude.
The general arch of Romans seems to leans in NTW's direction. While Romans does certainly talk about faith[fulness] (see the many uses of the word pistis/os) and how one is made right with God, this message is not large enough to make sense of the whole letter, particularly how ch. 9-11 and ch. 14-15 fit into Paul's tight knit argument.
Paul's letter seems to seek to answer the question, "Has God been faithful to his covenant that he made with his people since so many of them have not believed?" His answer to that question is ALL about Abraham. The large arch of the letter is about how God's plan all along was to work through the family of Abraham to bless all the families of the earth. He has been faithful to that covenant indeed. If the disbelief of many Jews meant salvation for the Gentiles, how much more blessing will there belief bring?
It is a bit of a false dichotomy to make an either/or distinction between Abraham as our example of faith[fulness] and Abraham as the thread that holds the whole Christian story together. However, the example theme is clearly a subcategory under Paul's main point about Abraham as the means blessing all the families of the earth.
Abraham's story is all about God's faithfulness. When you look at the actual narrative, Abraham's faith is pretty fickle:
1. Laughed at God's promise
2. Lied twice, passing Sarah off as simply his sister and not his wife
3. The Hagar incident
4. Suggested adopting Eliezer of Damascus as his son
In my reading, Abraham didn't demonstrate that he was really trusting God's promise. I opt for the "God's faithfulness" interpretation ahead of the "Abraham's faith in God's promise" interpretation.
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