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A couple year's back Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom co-authored a book with a spiffy little question for a title: Is the Reformation Over?: An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism . They marshalled evidence to suggest the Reformation had had a powerful impact and the Roman Catholic (evangelical types) and Protestant Evangelicals now had huge connections where there was once massive fissures.

If this sketch is accurate to what the Pope says, two questions: (1) is he old or new perspective? (2) is the Reformation over?

Now the Pope, Benedict XVI, has a book that illustrates this all the more: Saint Paul . I want to illustrate this connection by briefly sketching the Pope's view of justification, and his view reveals dramatic connections to the New Perspective as well as to classic (old perspective) Reformation teaching on justification. Now for the sketch, drawn from chp 13 of this fine introduction to Pauline theology:

1. The issues are framed in terms of individual (if not gender inclusive) salvation, as in the old perspective: "How does man become just in God's eyes?" (78).

2. Paul's conversion, as esp emphasized in the new perspective, reshaped his view of the relationship of an Israelite to the Torah. This Torah, as in new perspective, is the 5 books of Moses (and not the law principle). In light of Christ, there is an opposition of Law and Grace, as in the old perspective.

We finish this series on Tom Wright, in Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision . We will look into his treatment of Romans 6 and then offer his summary of what is being said:

"Paul does not, 'I am in Christ; Christ has obeyed the Torah; therefore God regards me as though I had obeyed the Torah.' He says: 'I am in Christ; Christ has died and been raised; therefore God regards me -- and I must learn to regard myself -- as someone who has died to sin and been raised to newness of life."

And: "To know that one has died and been raised is far, far more pastorally significant than than to know that one has, vicariously, fulfilled the Torah" (233).

Wright goes on about Romans 5--8 and then 9--11, and you can fill in those lines of thinking by reading his book -- but his major ideas are already on the table and have been emphasized often. With one exception: Wright's theology of Paul is robustly filled with the Spirit, and this is not always done in those who focus on justification. Wright gives plenty of space to the Spirit at work in us now.

The Story of the Bible is the Story of Jesus Christ. This Story goes through Abraham and into Jesus Christ and through the Spirit and for the whole of creation. The creator God called Abraham to bless the whole world and to do this by forgiving its sins and the curse of death and find blessing and the promise of life. The metaphor at work here is the law court and God has brought forward his judgment into history in Christ -- those in Christ are in the right. The sign here is faith.

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.)

One of the fiercest debates about the new perspective, from the old perspective angle, is the issue of double imputation and whether there are "two principles" at work in the human soul: the principle of works (self-merit) and the principle faith (no self-merit).

Tom Wright's Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision  next section (pp.210-216) takes both on through the lens of Romans 3:27-28. I'll quote that text, quote Wright, and then ask a question:

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle [Greek: nomos or Torah] ? On that of observing the law? No, but on that [nomos/Torah] of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

The translation of "nomos"/law with "principle" is a much-disputed translation, and one Wright does not agree with. Wright believes the people of God keep the Torah through faith vs. those who aren't who keep the Torah through works.

We are looking at the new perspective debate and to do that we are working our way through Tom Wright's Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision. 

Wright's argument is that one can't simply read 1:18 and then 3:19-20 and conclude that in between all Paul was saying was "So all are sinful and need saving" (202). Instead, Wright sees more of a theodicy at work: God is showing himself faithful to his covenant promises to redeem the world through Israel.

Romans 3:25-26 show that Paul is concerned with "God's own righteousness", and I quote from the ASV:

"whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in his blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present season: that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus."

Wright observes that the NIV's "justice" misjudges the evidence ... but there is no reason here to get into translations. The reason for Abraham is not illustrative but substantive: he emerges because of God's promises to Abraham, not simply because he proves that it is all by the individual's exercise of faith.

Reading Paul in the context of the Bible's Story, with the result that Paul sounds like he fits into the concerns of the Bible, has been the intent of both the new and old perspective. Reading Paul's version of...

One of the stickiest points in all of this new perspective vs. old perspective discussion is what to make of Romans 2:1-16, and Wright makes it clear that he thinks Paul means exactly what he says (Justification: God's Plan...

Tom Wright devotes no less than 70 pages to Romans in Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision, and... well ... it is hard to sum up the denseness of this stuff without doing disservice to you, our readers, and...

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...

The issue in the debate about the new perspective is how best to read the apostle Paul's theology in its historical context, and one of the more important debates is how to read Galatians ... and we finish the...

In the 5th chp of NT Wright's new book, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision , Wright explains the significance of Abraham in the middle of Galatians. Three issues emerge in chps three and four, and it gets to...

NT Wright's new book, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision , has a very interesting format (in the American version I'm using -- I had an English copy but gave it to my colleague): the first four chps are...

Kris and I leave South Africa today and ask for your prayers for our trip home -- a long one through Paris. But, the blog goes on!  We are working our way through Tom Wright's new book, Justification: God's Plan...

We are working our way through Tom Wright's new book, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision. The book purports to be a response to John Piper's The Future of Justification, but it is far more than that: it is...

We are working our way through Tom Wright's new book, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision, and how the new perspective (Tom Wright's version of it anyway) is playing out today.What about the Law then? How does Wright understand...

We are working our way through Tom Wright's new book, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision , and discussing the new perspective. Wright's a book is an apologetic for his views, and a response to the critique of his...

Tom Wright made a fascinating suggestion in chp two of his book, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision , that I did not mention in our previous summary. He suggested that Ephesians may have begun the new perspective.Until you know...

We are discussing Tom Wright's new book , a book that responds to John Piper's criticism of Wright and the New Perspective (Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision ). The 2d chp of this book deals with the rules of...

We are discussing Tom Wright's new book , a book that responds to John Piper's criticism of Wright and the New Perspective (Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision ) and we want to dip today into chp one and...

We are discussing Tom Wright's new book , a book that responds to John Piper's criticism of Wright and the New Perspective (Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision ). In the prologue to the book, Wright sketches out what is...

We begin today a new series about the new perspective, and we will be discussing Tom Wright's new book , a book that responds to John Piper's criticism of Wright and the New Perspective (Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision...