Getting the Gospel Right | Cornelius Venema

Cornelius P. Venema. Getting the Gospel Right: Assessing the Reformation and New Perspectives on Paul. Banner of Truth, 2006. 92 pp.

A ‘New Perspective’ on Paul

The Reformation perspective on Paul’s doctrine of justification largely dominated Protestant biblical scholarship in the following centuries. However, the last two hundred years of critical biblical studies of the apostle Paul’s writings have witnessed a number of attempts to revisit the Reformation consensus. Within the orbit of the academic study of Paul, two particular questions have frequently surfaced in evaluating the Reformation view.

First, is the doctrine of justification as central a theme in Paul’s understanding of the gospel as the Reformation perspective suggests, or should a different theme be identified as the dominant feature of Paul’s preaching?

And second, was Paul’s relationship with his ancestral religion, Judaism, as uniformly negative as traditional Protestant theology supposed?

Each of these questions has profound implications for determining whether the Reformation perspective represents an accurate interpretation of Paul’s understanding of the gospel. . . .

While the new perspective encompasses a wide variety of viewpoints, there are especially three claims that recur throughout a great deal of the literature on the subject.

The first claim is that the Reformation view of justification was built upon the foundation of a false picture of Judaism at the time of the writing of Paul’s epistles.

The second claim is that the Reformation view of justification improperly identified the problem to which Paul’s doctrine of Justification was addressed, when it took his language about the ‘works of the law’ to refer to a kind of legalistic righteousness.

The third claim is that the language of ‘justification’ in Paul’s epistles does not primarily refer to the way guilty sinners find acceptance with God, but to the identification of who belongs to the covenant people of God.

In our treatment of these claims, we will illustrate how each of these themes has been advanced in the writings of three important architects of the new perspective on Paul.

A New View of Second-Temple Judaism: E. P. Sanders

Even though the new perspective has roots in Pauline studies that go back at least two centuries, the more immediate beginning of the story of this perspective starts with the influential work of E. P. Sanders.

In 1977, Sanders published a volume, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. This is now generally regarded as a classic presentation of the view of Second-Temple Judaism which is basic to the new perspective. . . .

In the first part of his study, Sanders provides a comprehensive survey of Jewish literature during the two centuries before and after the coming of Christ. On the basis of this survey, Sanders maintains that Second-Temple Judaism exhibits a pattern of religion best described as ‘covenantal nomism’. . . .

Whereas the traditional Protestant view claimed that Palestinian Judaism was legalistic, Sanders appeals to evidence in Jewish writings of the Second-Temple period to support the view that it was fundamentally a religion of grace. . . .

One of the immediate questions raised by Sanders’ new view of Judaism is: What explains the apostle Paul’s opposition to Judaism? If Judaism was not a legalistic religion, what are we to make of Paul’s vigorous arguments against claims to find favour with God on the basis of works? Is Paul combatting a kind of ’straw man’ in his letters (especially in Romans and Galatians), when he combats a righteousness that is by the ‘works of the law’? . . .

According to Sanders, the great problem with Judaism, so far as the apostle Paul was concerned, was not that it was legalistic. Paul’s principal objection to Judaism was that it rejected the new reality of God’s saving work through Christ. . . .

A New View of the ‘Works of the Law’: James D. G. Dunn

In addition to the claim that the Reformation perspective on Paul was mistakenly built upon a wrong view of Judaism, the new perspective also claims that it was built upon a misunderstanding of Paul’s view of the ‘works of the law’.

Among authors who advocate a new perspective on Paul, James D. G. Dunn, who teaches New Testament at the University of Durham, England, has particularly argued for this aspect of the new approach.

In spite of Sanders’ ground-breaking insights, Dunn claims that he failed to provide a coherent explanation of Paul’s relation to Judaism. . . .

If we approach the apostle Paul from the perspective of the new view of Judaism, we will discover, Dunn argues, that Paul was objecting to Jewish exclusivism and not legalism.

The problem with the use of the law among the Judaizers whom Paul opposed was not their attempt to find favour with God on the basis of their obedience to the law, but their use of the ‘works of the law’ to exclude Gentiles from membership in the covenant community.

The Judaizers were insisting upon certain ‘works of the law’ that served as ‘boundary-markers’ for inclusion or exclusion from the number of God’s people. The law functioned in their practice as a means of identifying who properly belongs to the community of faith. It was this social use of the law as a means of excluding Gentiles that receives Paul’s rebuke, not an alleged appeal to the law as a means of self-justification. . . .

A New View of ‘Justification’: N. T. Wright

The third claim of the new perspective — that we need to redefine what Paul understood by justification — is ably set forth in the writings of N. T. Wright, the Church of England’s Bishop of Durham.

Because the Reformation misunderstood the problem to which Paul was actually responding, it failed to grasp the real meaning of Paul’s teaching on justification by faith. . . .

Whereas the Reformation perspective understands the gospel in terms of the salvation of individual sinners, Wright maintains that Paul’s gospel has a different focus. According to Wright, the basic message of Paul’s gospel focuses upon the lordship of Jesus Christ. . . .

The great theme of the gospel is this message of Jesus’ lordship and its life- and world-transforming significance. Rather than the salvation of individual sinners, the theme of Christ’s lordship is the primary focus of Paul’s preaching.

In order to understand Wright’s interpretation of the doctrine of justification within the setting of this view of Paul’s gospel, we will consider briefly several of its distinct features: . . .

1. The ‘Righteousness of God’

The righteousness of God does not refer to God’s moral character, on account of which he punishes the unrighteous and rewards the righteous. . . . Rather, the righteousness of God is his covenantal faithfulness in action. . . .

2. What It Is to Be ‘Justified’

Justification is not basically about how guilty sinners, who are incapable of finding favour with God by their works of obedience to the law, can be made acceptable to God, but about who belongs to the number of God’s covenant people.

The primary location of Paul’s doctrine of justification, Wright insists, is not soteriology (how are sinners saved?) but ecclesiology (who belongs to the covenant family?). . . .

When God reveals his righteousness in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he demonstrates his covenant faithfulness by securing the inclusion of all members of the covenant community, namely, those who are baptized by the ‘badge’ of covenant membership, which is faith. . . .

3. Faith, the Badge of Covenant Membership

Wright interprets Paul’s insistence that justification is by faith and not by works, in a manner that is similar to Dunn’s approach. . . .

The ‘works of the law’ were those requirements of the law that served to distinguish Jews from Gentiles, and to exclude Gentiles from membership in the covenant community.

However, now that Christ has come to realize the covenant promise of God to Abraham, faith in Christ is the only badge of membership in God’s worldwide family, which is composed of Jews and Gentiles alike. . . .

4. Justification: Past, Present, and Future

One feature of the doctrine of justification that receives special emphasis in Wright’s understanding is its nature as an eschatological vindication of God’s people.

When God justifies or acknowledges those who are members of his covenant community, he does so in anticipation of their ‘final justification’ at the last judgment.

Justification occurs in three tenses or stages — past, present, and future. . . .

In the past event of Christ’s cross and resurrection, God has already accomplished in history what he will do at the end of history. . . .

This past event of Christ’s justification becomes a present reality through faith. All those who believe in Jesus as Messiah and Lord are justified, that is, acknowledged by God to be members of the one great family of faith composed of Jew and Gentile alike. . . .

Though justification has a past and present dimension, its principal focus lies in the future. At the final judgment or ‘justification’, God will declare in favour of his people, the covenant community promised to Abraham.

In this final justification, God’s vindication of his people will even include a ‘justification by works’. . . .

5. Justification and the Work of Christ

One final feature of Wright’s view of justification that remains unclear is his understanding of the work of Christ. Wright speaks of Christ’s cross as a ‘representative’ death, and of his resurrection as his vindication by God.

But Wright does not provide a complete account of Christ’s work of atonement in relation to the justification of believers. One point that emerges clearly in his limited treatment of this subject is that he has little sympathy for the historic view that Christ’s death involved his suffering the penalty and curse of the law on behalf of his sinful people, whether Jews or Gentiles. . . .

Though it is evident that he does not agree with the older, Reformation understanding of Christ’s saving work, what he is prepared to offer as an alternative remains rather obscure.

Christ’s death and resurrection are representative of Israel’s exile and restoration. They are the means whereby the promise of the covenant is now extended to the whole world-wide family of God.

Taken from pp. 23-57 of Getting the Gospel Right by Cornelis P. Venema. Copyright © 2006 by Cornelis P. Venema. Used by permission of The Banner of Truth Trust. All rights reserved.

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