Musings on Grace

A couple of days ago I posted a question, brought up during my preparation of a sermon on Deuteronomy 9. The question ‘compared and contrasted’ two statements about salvation, one from the Rt Revd Tom Wright, the other from the Thirty-nine Articles.

Wright says, in clarification of his position on final salvation,

... by the Spirit those who are already justified by faith have their lives transformed, and the final verdict will be in accordance with that transformation, imperfect though it remains.

Article XI, ‘Of the Justification of Man’, says,

We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings ...

Wright’s own position, as I understand it, depends a lot on Romans 2 — that and an understanding that ‘justification’ is focussed on ‘being’ rather than ‘becoming’ a member of the people of God.

As I’ve said, however, I was studying Deuteronomy 9, not Romans 2, and sometimes narrative sheds light on things when we are finding the ‘doctrinal’ passages more difficult — and not just for us but for the first protagonists.

Thus I believe that Paul’s theology of grace rested ultimately on his Damascus road experience, and no matter what other factors he took into account, he knew that he was shown mercy when he was actually in the middle of persecuting Christ. He was not a seeker, or a well-doer, but an enemy of God (albeit not in his own mind!). This, then, was the fundamental meaning of the ‘grace of God’ to him.

Similarly, though, Israel was often reminded of the encounter with God at Mt Sinai (indeed, this is the general subject of the opening chapters of Deuteronomy). But what happened there was also an illustration of grace, as Deuteronomy 9 shows.

Having been told that they are about to go in and possess the land, they receive this solemn reminder from Moses:

... do not say to yourself, “The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.” No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land ... (Dt 9:4-5)

The lesson would seem clear: Israel is being given the land “not for [her] own workings or deservings”.

But there is more — much more! For what is the condition of Israel at Sinai and since then?

In ‘Wrightian’ terms, I take it, Israel is ‘justified’ — this is ‘the people of God’, without a shadow of a doubt. When he talks to ‘his people’ he talks to them. But what are they like? In v 8, Moses tells them:

At Horeb you aroused the Lord’s wrath so that he was angry enough to destroy you.

And from vv 9-12, Moses reminds them why. Whilst he was up the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments, they were making the Golden Calf, committing the very sin that the whole encounter with God so far had warned them against (cf 4:12,15-18).

In response, God’s words to Moses could hardly be more stark:

I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked people indeed! Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. (Dt 9:13)

So this is the condition of the ‘justified’ people of God in Deuteronomy: resistant to correction (that is the meaning of ‘stiff-necked’), and worthy of utter and complete destruction (just like the nations who are being driven out because of their ‘wickedness’).

Israel’s lack of ‘righteousness’ (vv 4-5) is not a former condition which has changed now that they have been brought to God as Sinai. Nor is not something that lay outside the Covenant relationship. On the contrary, it persists even beyond Sinai. As Moses says in 9:22-24,

You also made the Lord angry at Taberah, at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah. ²³ And when the Lord sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, he said, “Go up and take possession of the land I have given you.” But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You did not trust him or obey him. ²⁴ You have been rebellious against the Lord ever since I have known you.

This is the constant condition of God’s covenant people. Moses tells them, they were worthy of destruction then and they are worthy of destruction now. Compare this with what an important Qur’anic verse says about ‘God’s people’:

You are the best of peoples [or the best nation] ever raised up for mankind. You enjoin what is right, forbid what is wrong, and believe in Allah [God]. (3:110)

That is surely the natural way to think about the people God would choose — not necessarily perfect, but certainly the best in the sense of ‘better than all the rest’.

But we must simply ask, is that the message Moses gives to Israel? The answer is surely a resounding ‘No’. To them, God says (via Moses), “You are worthy of destruction, like all the rest. Indeed you are if anything worse — a ‘stiff-necked’ people resistant to correction, who never change, despite what happens to you.”

Israel is, by nature, a ‘covenant breaking’ nation, hence the symbolism of the broken tablets (9:17)

So why does God not destroy them? Deuteronomy 9 gives four reasons.

First, there is an effective intercessor. Moses recounts how he prayed for the nation and for Aaron for “forty days and forty nights”, and how the Lord listened to him (9:18-10).

Secondly, sin is decisively dealt with. Moses took “that sinful thing of yours” and utterly destroyed it (v 21).

But it was not finished there.

Thirdly, Moses appealed to the Covenant with the Patriarchs: “Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (v 27).

Fourthly, he appealed to God’s own glory and honour:

Otherwise, the country from which you brought us will say, ‘Because the Lord was not able to take them into the land he had promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to put them to death in the desert.’ (v 28)

And hence he is able to say, finally,

But they are your people, your inheritance that you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm. (v 29)

This is the grace of God shown in Deuteronomy. In the nature of Old Testament narrative, it is laid out ‘sequentially’ and in detail so that we get the point. But the point is that this ‘wicked and evil’ people is God’s people, not because of their own ‘righteousness or uprightness of heart’ before or since the making of the Covenant, but purely because of God’s grace and the provision of an intercessor, the destruction of sin, the formation of a Covenant with others and the upholding of God’s own honour.

It is this people that God gave the land to possess.

All that remains to observe is that if that is the case with ‘God’s people’ then, it is surely the case with ‘God’s people’ now. God does not look for a righteousness or uprightness of heart in us as the basis of his giving us the kingdom. We too have an intercessor for sin: “Christ Jesus ... is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Rom 8:34). We too have had our sins dealt with decisively: “[Christ] cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us ... nailing it to the cross” (Col 2:14). We too receive God’s grace because of a Covenant with ‘another’: “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Lk 22:20). And in all this, God acts for his own honour and glory: “In love [God] predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace” (Eph 1:4-6).

Thus we must surely say to ourselves, as God said to Israel, “It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity”, either before or since we were made his Covenant people. On the contrary, we too are “a stiff-necked people”, not better than the rest of mankind.

Yet like Israel, it is also said of us:

... they are your people, your inheritance that you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.

Sola gratia, sola dei gloria — grace alone, and to the glory of God alone!

John Richardson
9 August 2011

(All quotations from The Holy Bible: New International Version 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) Grand Rapids: Zondervan)

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More on Tom Wright at ETS

Those who were following the discussion on Tom Wright's views (see here for the last and latest) may enjoy a snippet at Matt Reilly's blog about the meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society at which Wright spoke:

Wright surprised me as well. I somewhat expected him to dig his heels in and simply restate what he had said in the past; this, of course, is basically what he did in his last book on justification, which disappointed me. If one is going to take the time to write a book, then he ought to be sure to move the discussion forward. But Wright really answered some questions this time. Two particularly surprising moves were ...

... and you'll have to visit the blog to find out.


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Alister McGrath on the meaning of Justification

As this blog seems to have followed a line of discussion into 'New Perspective' issues and associated subject matter, I thought I'd post a paragraph from a book I read (or half-read!) almost eighteen years ago: Alister McGrath's Iustitia Dei. Be warned, though - the edition I have contains vast tracts of entirely untranslated Latin! At least with Google Translate, I now have the chance to go back over all the bits I previously had to skip.

I found his analysis of the origins of the terms used in biblical translation and Christian theology immensely helpful, especially the transition from ancient Hebrew to koine Greek to Vulgate Latin. I couldn't quite get all the transliteration he uses to work in HTML, but I've copied out a couple of paragraphs below in the hope they might be thought-provoking and useful.

Note especially his insistence that 'righteousness' must be understood within the framework of personal covenantal relationship. The bit that has consistently stuck with me, I have put in bold.

The oldest meaning of s^edāqâ, as judged by its use in the Song of Deborah (Judges 5.1-31), appears to be ‘victory’. [...] In this early passage ... God is understood to have demonstrated his ‘righteousness’ by defending Israel when her existence was threatened by an outside agency. Underlying this understanding of iustitia Dei is the conceptual framework of the covenant: when God and Israel mutually fulfil their covenant obligations to one another, a state of righteousness can be said to exist – i.e., things are saddîq, ‘as they should be’. Thus Israel’s triumphant victories over her enemies were seen as proofs of the sidqôt ’^adonay, the iustitiae Dei of the Vulgate. [...]

It is to the genius of [H] Cremer [Die paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre im Zusammenhang ihrer geschichtlichen Voraussetzungen (Guttersloh, 1899)] that we owe the fundamental insight that s^edāqâ, in its basic sense, refers to an actual relationship between two persons, and implies behaviour which corresponds to, or is consistent with, whatever claims may arise from or concerning either party to the relationship. The relationship in question is that presupposed by the covenant between God and Israel, which must be considered as the ultimate norm to which s^edāqâ must be referred. The Hebrew concept of s^edāqâ stands in a class of its own – a class which Cremer brilliantly characterised as iustitia salutifera [‘salvation righteousness’, as distinct from iustitia distributiva, ‘distributive righteousness/justice’, according to ‘dues’ or ‘merits’].

Alister E McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A history of the Christian doctrine of Justification, Vol 1, (Cambridge: University Press, 1986) 7-8

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A Clarification from Tom Wright

Tom Wright has sent the following, which he wanted to post as a comment, but which is too long. I commend it for people who have been following the debate here (Baffled by Wright - or maybe not!) and here (Clarifying Wright - maybe! - and can I just add I'm entirely with him on anonymous posting, please see the comments policy which appears at the bottom of every article here and still gets ignored!):

I'm glad to see that some clarification is coming. The confusion around the blessed word 'basis' is instructive. The word itself, of course, is not biblical. None the worse for that; as you say, the word 'Trinity' isn't, either, and I agree with those who say it's a fine and solid summary of things that are firmly there in scripture. That's not my problem. The problem is that words like 'basis' -- and other terms such as the 'heart' or 'centre' of Pauline theology, and so on -- can be far more slippery than they sound. I notice, John, that in your own original posting you say that I said something which meant that 'this transformation will be the basis of a 'final verdict' on their lives' -- whereas I had done my best to keep the word 'basis' out of it for the moment! It creeps back in. You likewise say in a later post something about present justification 'on the basis of faith' -- on which see below. Now I don't think that's a bad thing. The trouble is that clearly for some in the neo- or hyper-Reformed camp (I'm not sure how strictly Reformed they all are) the word carries far more freight than it has ever done, in my experience, for most English Reformed Christians. The strict (Piperesque?) interpretation seems to use it to mean 'the sole foundation upon which everything rests'. But that's tricky, isn't it? After all, even Paul could use 'foundation' in 1 Cor 3 to refer to Jesus Christ himself and in Eph 2 to refer to the apostles and prophets -- with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone holding them together. Why not shift metaphors if it helps? But there has crept in a kind of word-concept fallacy about slippery terms like 'basis' where it can only mean one thing. (One of your correspondents, trying to put me right, suggests that Piper and I are saying the same thing in different words. That is sometimes true -- and I have said so myself, quoting Newman about the difference between words and things-- and sometimes it is clearly, manifestly, not the case, for instance in the imputation question.)

When I used the word 'basis' (as I obviously did -- when I was preparing for the conference I was surrounded by unopened boxes and all the stuff of moving house, so couldn't check; and I knew I hadn't taken the theological position that the Piperites were accusing me of), I was not meaning it in that strict and narrow sense. I was using it in the way people speak of being justified in the present 'on the basis of faith'--which a lot of people do say without intending any heresy!, but which we know is shorthand for 'on the basis of God's action in Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection, and by the work of the Spirit through the proclamation of the gospel which leads to . . . faith'. Phew! In other words, I wasn't meaning 'this and only this, without reference to Jesus and the Spirit'. I was meaning -- as I make abundantly clear in several passages -- that Paul insists in Romans 2 and elsewhere that 'to those who by patience in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, he will give eternal life'. Again and again over decades I have stressed to students, readers, and anyone else who will listen, that this isn't a proposal for a Pelagian-style self-effort moralistic auto-justification, such as everyone from Augustine to Luther and beyond declared to be off limits. It's a way of saying -- which Paul then elaborates as the letter goes on -- that when the Spirit works in someone's life the transformation which is effected will show up in a changed direction, a different tenor of life, which, even though not perfect (Philippians 3.12-16), nevertheless indicates the work of the Spirit.

Part of the problem is that the debate has regularly been conducted at one or two removes from exegesis, and people have a truncated view of what Paul said as a result. Paul's exposition of justification in Romans doesn't stop with chapter 4 (still less with 3.28 as you might think from some!). Romans 8.31-39 is all about justification -- but you only get that glorious conclusion as a result of working through 8.1-30, with the bracing imperatives of 8.12-16 in particular: if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live! Pretty clear stuff, that. And it doesn't mean a smuggling in of 'works' by the back door; nor does it mean a diminution of the solid assurance given in justification by faith, as some have absurdly charged me with implying.

One of the great problems is that many on both sides of the Atlantic who have been taught 'justification by faith' in a simple (simplistic?) format have never spotted that in the NT there are three tenses of justification. I have highlighted present and future, and there is a major difference between them (present, as in Romans 3.21-26; future, as in Romans 2.1-16). Part of Paul's whole argument in Rom 1-8 hinges on the apparent tension between these, and how Paul resolves it so splendidly in 8.1, running on to 8.31-39. That is the arena in which debate should be held -- discussion of what Paul really meant -- rather than discussing whether this or that view is 'more properly reformed'.(By the way, you seem at one point in your post to identify 'Reformed' with Luther, which is surely precisely the wrong point -- Luther had a negative view of the Law, Calvin a positive one.) If you want to know my position on the Reformed doctrine, I think I agree with most of it (though I try to put it in a more biblical and less mediaeval framework) except 'imputed righteousness', which as I've argued in great detail is trying to do an important job but is doing it in a strictly less-then-fully-biblical way. But, as I said in Atlanta in the meeting which started all this (well, it didn't exactly start it, but in that loose sense it was ... shall we say, the 'basis' for it ...), this is a debate about scripture and tradition. Evangelicals have always said we must assess all traditions, including our own, in the light of scripture. That was Luther's and Calvin's principle, and it has been mine ever since I was old enough to understand these things.

I don't think, by the way, the parable of the sower is germane to this. It's about the way the Kingdom works... Nor is 1 Cor 3 strictly relevant, since it isn't about everybody's final judgment but about church leaders/teachers/apostles who are building on the foundation. Still, it could be thought to apply obliquely I suppose.

I was particularly struck (as in, surprised) by your formulation of 'salvation (how we are saved) and justification (that we are saved)'. At first I wondered whether you'd deliberately said that the wrong way round to see who was awake at the back of the class... Surely if we are to have a serious discussion one must be a bit more nuanced and sharp than that? Salvation means 'rescue', which in Paul means rescue from sin and death (as opposed to the Gnostics for whom it meant rescue from the material world/body). It therefore connotes resurrection, the new immortal body which will be incapable of both sin and death (and pain etc). Justification means 'the verdict "in the right" which is the precondition for that salvation. God utters that verdict "in the right" whenever someone believes that God raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 4.24f., 10.9-19). But that verdict, issued firmly and irrevocably in the present, will be reaffirmed in the future . . . when, however, the Spirit who (through the proclamation of the gospel) inspired that faith in the first place continues his work to produce the fruits of which Paul speaks again and again from Rom 2.25-9 through Rom 6 and 8 to Rom 12-15. And what will the Spirit actually do at that point? Why, raise us from the dead. So, in terms of final justification, the actual event in question will be the same event resurrection into the life of God's new world) as 'salvation', but the two will connote quite different thing. I agree with you, by the way, that baptism is the public event, corresponding to faith as the private event, which marks out God's people in the present. But, on final justification, as I said on someone else's blog, I wonder why nobody has mentioned Galatians 5.5f., where it's future justification on the basis of . . . whoops, I mean of course in accordance with ... 'faith working through love'. Has Paul thereby gone back on the great 'faith-alone' statements of Gal 2, 3 and 4? Of course not. They are about the present justification; this is about the future. The same Spirit who inspired faith will inspire such 'working through love' as will be the sign for the future.

I hope all this is reasonably clear. I didn't know whether to be amused or insulted by the chap on your blog who said I must be unclear because I'd never been a parish priest. (I suppose being Dean of a cathedral doesn't count either.) I would like to show him the files and files of letters, postcards, emails and so on from the Old Mrs Joneses of this world who have thanked me heartily for explaining things, in sermons and books, in a way they can understand and in a way that their own vicar had never made clear . . . But maybe he doesn't realise (some don't) that the NT Wright of the academic books is also the Tom Wright of the Everyone series...

I was also struck by the attempt by Ro Mody to systematize a Wright-says-this and Reformed-says-that view. It really doesn't work like that though I haven't got the time to explain why. But please be it noted: I have always, always, stressed penal substitution as being right at the heart of things, both for Jesus and for Paul. I do that in preaching and teaching as well as writing. It is one of the saddest slurs I encounter when people suggest I don't really believe or teach this. It's a way of saying 'we don't understand Tom Wright and he's saying things we didn't hear in Sunday School so he's probably a wicked liberal, and since wicked liberals don't believe in penal substitution he probably doesn't either.' In fact, chapter 12 of Jesus and the Victory of God is, I think I'm right in saying, the longest ever modern justification of seeing Isaiah 53 at the very centre of Jesus' own self-understanding -- which is at the very heart of everything else about the meaning of the cross. That is not to say, of course, that I agree with every way in which penal substitution is expressed. Like all doctrines, it's possible to state it in less than fully biblical ways, which then introduce their own new distortions. Put it back in its biblical context -- which includes Jesus' message about the kingdom of God, though you'd never know it from some evangelical writing -- and it makes glorious sense. Gospel sense.

Enough for now. Perhaps it's no bad thing for casual bloggers, slagging someone off cheerfully as some of your folks do, to know that the person concerned may actually read what they say from time to time... but then if they hide behind anonymous alias identities I suppose that makes it all right ...?

Greetings and good wishes, not least for Advent Sunday which is almost upon us,
reminding us of the great future in which all our past and present is finally resolved.

Tom Wright

N T Wright, St Andrews

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Clarifying Wright - maybe!

Further to my blog post about understanding Tom Wright, someone sent me a link to this clarification by Justin Taylor of What N.T. Wright Really Said. I think this is worth reading in full for those who are trying to get a handle on Wright, and especially the last section which I reproduce below.

What I would note is that it is not just conservatives who seem to think that Wright has said what he roundly asserts he is not saying, ie that what we do contributes, per se, to whether we are saved 'on the basis of good works'. I have certainly got the impression from others who thought they were 'following Wright' that this is what they understood him to be saying.

Furthermore, Wright has indeed used the 'B' word ('basis') in reference to final judgement:

And we now discover that this declaration, this vindication, occurs twice. It occurs in the future, as we have seen, on the basis of the entire life a person has led in the power of the Spirit — that is, it occurs on the basis of “works” in Paul’s redefined sense. And near the heart of Paul’s theology, it occurs in the present as an anticipation of that future verdict, when someone, responding in believing obedience to the “call” of the gospel, believes that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead. (N. T. Wright, “New Perspective on Paul,” in Justification in Perspective: Historical Developments and Contemporary Challenges, ed. Bruce L. McCormack (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006): 260)

It is the use of basis which seems to be at the heart of the confusion, not only amongst Wright's critics at this point, but some of his supporters. Works are the 'basis' of final justification (the declaration that one is a member of God's people) in the same way, we might say, that having a passport is the 'basis' on which one is allowed into the country of one's birth. And this, I would suggest, is no different from the classical Reformed position expressed in Article XII: "[Good works] do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith; insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit."

Here, then, is the final paragraph of the article in full.

4. What is the meaning and significance of Wright’s assertion at ETS that final justification is “in accordance with” and not “on the basis of” works?

We return now to our original question: has Wright changed his view by denying that final justification is “on the basis of” works?  In short, the answer is no. Nothing that he said indicated that he has changed his understanding of the meaning of “righteousness” language in Paul’s writings. Nothing that he said indicated that he has changed his understanding of the trial to which justification stands as a verdict. On the contrary, he reasserted his position on both of these points.

What then did the denial of “basis” as an appropriate way to talk about the relationship between final justification and Spirit-inspired works mean?  The most responsible reading of this statement is that Wright is denying the interpretation of his writings that insists that he equates the believer’s righteousness in final justification with Spirit-inspired works. I think that everyone in the room who has read his works carefully was probably stunned to hear him say that he did not remember using the language of “basis” in this way, but I think that his lapse in memory on this point demonstrates that the language of “basis” is so inessential to what Wright has always meant that he can dismiss it without realizing how frequently he has used it in the past. Basically, Wright’s shift in language simply means that he is using new wording to express what he has always been saying, but in a way that is less apt to be misunderstood than his previous statements. He still holds that Spirit-inspired works serve as the evidence that one is truly a member of God’s covenant people in final justification, and this corresponds to his understanding of the function of faith in present justification. He has not changed his view at all, but he has finally offered the clarification for which Piper hoped by denying that he understands works to be the “basis” of final justification in the way that Piper understands Christ’s righteousness to be the “basis” of final justification. One might wish that he had made this clarification clearer in his book-length reply to Piper (Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision), but we may all be grateful that he is now speaking in a way that perhaps fewer people will misunderstand. Also, perhaps the debate can now shift from this red-herring to the real points of disagreement: Wright’s understanding of the meaning of “righteousness” language and his construal of the question under consideration in the divine courtroom. On these points, Wright should be engaged and evaluated with an open mind, an open heart, and, not least, an open Bible. The discussion at ETS was a fine example of such engagement, and we should all be thankful to the panelists for modeling a charitable dialogue on this issue focused on the exegetical details from which the differences arise. May God give us wisdom as we continue to consider His Word together.

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Baffled by Wright - or maybe not!

Can anyone unpack this sentence by Tom Wright for me, which he posted as a ‘clarification’ in a blog discussion (adding that he doesn’t usually read or respond to blog posts)?

The point … is that by the Spirit those who are already justified by faith have their lives transformed, and the final verdict will be in accordance with that transformation, imperfect though it remains.

As it stands, Wright says that justification is, quite simply, “by faith”, that those who are so justified have their lives transformed by the Spirit, and that this transformation will be the basis of a “final verdict” on their lives.

Now I know that Wright wants to distinguish salvation (how we are saved) from justification (that we are saved). Nevertheless, he does not add a ‘plus’ to his statement about ‘justification by faith’, and I therefore take it he means justification is ‘by faith alone, through grace alone’. I may be wrong, but that is a legitimate inference from the sentence as it stands.

Allowing for the nuances between ‘salvation’ and ‘justification’, I cannot see how this differs from the classical Reformed position, even though Wright says this is based on a misunderstanding of Paul.

As to the ‘final verdict’, if one is justified (ie, in Wright’s terms, a member of the people of God), the content of this verdict can presumably only be with respect to how well, or badly, one has done in regard to living out one’s ‘calling’ into God’s people.

As Jesus taught in the parable of the sower, some will bear fruit thirty fold, some sixty fold and some a hundred fold. Or as Paul remarks in 1 Corinthians,

If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Cor 3:12-15)

According to this, then, the final verdict is on the quality of one’s Spirit-transformed life as a ‘justified’ member of the household of God.

Once again, however, I cannot see any tension between this and the classical Reformed position.

Is it just, then, that Wright and Luther reach the same position by (what Wright thinks ought to be) a different route?

I have a feeling I am missing something, but if Wright’s statement above is a summary of his actual position, I cannot work out what it is!

John Richardson
25 November 2010

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The Pharisee, the Tax Collector and the New Perspective on Paul

This morning's sermon to a local congregation on Luke 18:9-14

Introduction

Like a lot of the Bible, our parable from Luke’s gospel this morning is both simple and complicated.

The simple lesson is quite obvious — don’t be like the Pharisee, arrogant and proud and looking down on other people. Instead, be like the tax collector, humble before God because, as v 14 puts it,

... everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

And even this simple lesson is of profound significance. A society where the humility shown by the tax-collector prevails will be very different from a society where the attitude of the Pharisee prevails.

But the passage is also complicated because of its significance for modern theological debate, and this is something of which we also ought to be aware.

Theologians are rather like politicians. You might think you want nothing to do with them. But what they say and what they decide has a major impact on the rest of us. So long as there are politicians in the political field and theologians in the theological field, we have to endure a certain amount of disruption.

The ‘new perspective’

And this particular passage is significant for what it has to say about something theologians call the ‘new perspective on Paul’.

Now we have to say straight away that the term ‘new perspective’, singular, is misleading. There are actually several ‘new perspectives’ on Paul.

But the movement, as such, got under way in the 1970s and it has been gaining ground and adherents, not least in the Church of England, ever since. You may meet very few laity who have heard of it, but you will meet very few clergy who haven’t, and it affects how they treat you.

What these ‘new perspectives’ have in common is a conviction that the Reformation understanding of Paul — especially that which goes back to Martin Luther — was wrong.

Luther, they say, read into the New Testament his own personal concerns with Roman Catholicism, which he thought taught salvation by works.

Luther projected this onto New Testament Judaism, which he also saw as a religion based on salvation by works, and contrasted it with what he read — but misunderstood — in the Apostle Paul.

The problem is, according to the New Perspective, Judaism never was never a religion of works. Moreover Paul understood that.

The only difference between Paul and Judaism was over the importance of Christ and the need for Jewish rituals like circumcision and food laws. Paul’s argument with Judaism was that the boundary of God’s people was no longer marked by whether you were circumcised but whether you believed in Jesus.

Beyond that, however, there was complete agreement — both Paul and Judaism, according to the New Perspective, taught that faith is a response to God’s grace, issuing in a life of faithfulness, on the basis of which we will be judged as worthy or not of God’s kingdom.

Consequences

Now what are the consequences of this ‘new perspective’?

Well, the first, and most obvious, is that the Reformation got it wrong. It was wrong about Judaism. And therefore it was also wrong about Roman Catholicism.

Most importantly, though, it means the heirs of the Reformation are also wrong — and according to people like Bishop Tom Wright, the current Bishop of Durham who has written some outstanding books on Christianity, but is a strong advocate of his own version of the New Perspective evangelical Christians are the most wrong of all, especially in their understanding of salvation.

God and ‘Righteousness’

Now with all that in mind — but ‘on hold’, as it were — let’s have a look at the Bible passage for this morning. In Luke 18:9 we read this:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable ...

What is the problem here?

First and foremost, we’re told, Jesus spoke to people who were , ‘confident ... that they were righteous’. But this little word ‘righteous’ doesn’t quite mean ‘good’ or ‘blameless’, as we might assume.

Rather, it means ‘standing in a right relationship with God’.

The righteous person, then, didn’t necessarily have to be perfect. King David, for example, was an adulterer and a murderer. Yet in Psalm 51 he expresses absolute confidence in God’s righteousness and his own restoration.

There’s nothing wrong with thinking you’re forgiven and put right with God. We think we’re forgiven.

The problem is revealed as we read on: they were ‘confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else’. And what this means is brought out further in the parable.

Two Jews went up to the Temple

Two Jews went up to the temple to pray. What is the difference between them?

They are both Jews, they are both circumcised, they both know the law and respect it. But one is a godfearing and upright man, and the other is a traitor, and probably a cheat, who makes a living acting as an agent for the occupying Roman authorities.

Think ‘tax inspector for Hitler’ and you’re in the right sort of territory.

The Pharisee’s prayer

But there is another difference, and that is in the way they pray. The Pharisee prays like this (v 11-12):

God, I thank you that I am not like other men — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.

And everything he says is true. So what is he doing wrong? First, he is confident he has done nothing that would really be a barrier between him and God. He is not a robber, an evildoer or an adulterer. He cannot think of a reason why God would condemn him.

Secondly, he knows he is not like those who obviously do deserve God’s condemnation — like the tax-collector, for example.

And thirdly, he is diligent in observing the requirements of his religion, he fasts and observes the Sabbath (literally, he fasts ‘twice a Sabbath’), and he tithes. He can think of several reasons why God should accept him.

Undeserved forgiveness

Now look at the tax-collector and his prayer. We are told, v 13, he:

stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and prayed, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

And Jesus said,

I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.

And that word ‘justified’ means ‘counted as righteous’. At the end of the parable, he is what the Pharisee thought he was: in a right relationship with God.

So what has he done right? Has he said, “I will try to do better?” Has he said, “I will go home and live a life of faith in response to God’s grace, on the basis of which I will be adjudged worthy of God’s kingdom?”

No, it’s not that either. What has he done that puts him in a right relationship with God?

The answer is, nothing. Or rather, everything he has done put him in a right relationship with God. He was ‘justified’ when he stood afar off, not lifting his eyes up to heaven, but beating on his breast and saying “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

Justification and the new perspective

You see everything the Pharisee said about himself was true: he wasn’t a robber, or an evildoer or an adulterer. He wasn’t like the tax-collector and he was diligent in his religious observances.

But when he came to the Temple, what he should have done was stood afar off, beating on his breast and saying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

And the fact that he didn’t shows that although Judaism was a religion teaching grace and faith, what actually happened was that people looked to themselves for a positive assurance of their relationship with God, instead of looking to God.

And that is what human beings have always done — that is why we had to have the Reformation, and why it wasn’t a mistake. Because even Christians can forget they have nothing to bring to God, and can start relying on what they are like and what they are doing.

And from there it is a very short step to contempt for others and pride in ourselves.

The outcome

You see, I said at the beginning that if we live according to this parable it will have a profound affect on us and on society.

How will it affect us? For ourselves, it will keep us humble and thankful.

Do we come to Holy Communion, for example, aware of our unworthiness, as the Prayer of Humble Access encourages us to be, or trusting in our own righteousness — glad that we haven’t committed any obvious sins this week, and that we’ve generally done right and been good?

If we understand this parable correctly, we will always come to communion knowing that here God welcomes the tax-collector and the sinner — in fact he really welcomes to Communion the person who thinks they are not worthy to take Communion.

And it will affect society. What will a society be like that is run by people who are more confident about their relationship with God when they can see the fruits of that relationship in their own lives?

It will either produce people who are burdened with anxiety, like Luther was before his own flash of insight, or they will be moralistic, self-righteous and in the end merciless.

By contrast, a society where we all know that we all stand before God as undeserving sinners in need of undeserved forgiveness will be a society where we forgive others their sins as we have been forgiven ours. And I know where I would rather live.

So let us close by praying that God will help us understand this parable, and even more that he will help us apply it to our lives.

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Tom Wright's theology 'leading Protestants to Rome'

A correspondent sent me a link to this article from Christianity Today, headlined 'Not all Evangelicals and Catholics Together'. Bishop Tom Wright is expressing surprise at the thought that his theological views are influencing people in this way. Later in the article he is quoted as saying, "I am sorry to think that there are people out there whose Protestantism has been so barren that they never found out about sacraments, transformation, community, or eschatology." Nevertheless, something big is possibly going on 'across the pond' - and we know how those things seem to travel. JPR

An InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter can look very different in the fall than it did the previous spring. But the chapter at George Washington University (GWU) in the nation's capital is dealing with change of a more uncomfortable kind than absent graduates and incoming freshmen.

Shortly before students left for summer vacation, the D.C. chapter split when all ten student leaders resigned to form a new campus ministry called University Christian Fellowship. More than half of the chapter's roughly 100 students joined them. At issue was student leaders' worry that the national ministry confuses the gospel by cooperating with Roman Catholics, and has a mission statement that Catholics could sign without violating church teaching on the doctrine of justification—how sinners are declared righteous before God.

Over the past decade, justification has become one of the most hotly debated doctrines at conservative Protestant theology conferences and in the catalogs of highbrow Christian publishers. But it has almost entirely stayed in the academy and a handful of churches and denominations. The GWU clash suggests the debate may divide parachurch ministries and reshape evangelicals' relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.

Jolt of Intensity

The long debate over how Protestants should view the Roman Catholic Church has received several jolts of intensity in the past 15 years. The group Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) touted a 1994 statement, "The Gift of Salvation," in which several prominent Roman Catholics affirmed "justification by faith alone." The unofficial statement predated an official agreement between the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999, called "The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification." The church allowed that anathemas the Council of Trent delivered in the mid-1500s do not apply to Protestants who agree with the joint declaration.

But Protestants' internal disagreement over justification has complicated matters. A Presbyterian Church in America committee reported in 2007 that reformulations of justification (especially two views known as the Federal Vision and the New Perspective on Paul) fall outside the bounds of historic Presbyterian confessions.

The committee's study of the New Perspective focused largely on N.T. Wright, the Anglican bishop of Durham and a prolific biblical scholar. This year Wright published Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision. The book counters his critics, especially John Piper, who published The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright in 2007. (See "The Justification Debate: A Primer," CT, June 2009.)

Another bombshell hit in May 2007, when Francis Beckwith, then president of the Evangelical Theological Society, reverted to Catholicism. The Baylor University philosopher has since published an account of his journey, titled Return to Rome.

"I have no doubt that the New Perspective and Federal Vision have had an effect on the Protestant-Catholic debate," Beckwith told Christianity Today. "I have met several former evangelical Protestants who have told me that Wright's work in particular helped them to better appreciate the Catholic view of grace."

Taylor Marshall went even further. Now a Ph.D. philosophy student at the University of Dallas, he started reading Wright while attending Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He said Wright's work shifted his assumptions so he could understand the Council of Trent's position. Marshall does not believe Wright holds to the full Catholic view. But he said Wright's critique led him to conclude that the Reformers departed from Scripture by teaching "forensic justification through the imputed alien righteousness of Christ." Read more 

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Paul Helm on Tom Wright's "Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision"

There are four articles providing an extensive review of Tom Wright's new book on justification (which is bound to be important to Evangelicals) at Helm's Deep, the blog written by Paul Helm, Professor of Theology, Highland Theological College.

This gives a flavour of Helm's approach to Wright:

[According to Wright] Are believers justified now? Or are they only justified at the last, on the basis of a whole life? In the new book he writes that the 'future judgment.... corresponds to the present verdict which... is issued simply and solely on the basis of faith’ (165) See also 179, 207-12, 223. But it has to be admitted that Wright wobbles on this, as in 166-7 ‘the verdict on the last day will truly reflect what people have actually done’. The vagueness of the language irritates: 'corresponds to', 'anticipate', 'reflect'. How corresponds to, anticipates, reflects?, one vainly asks.

Nevertheless, despite the wobbles in stating his position, wobbles that could be given a good and a bad sense, this is a change from his Edinburgh paper on justification in which he was clearly striking a different note. There justification was reserved for the final judgement, giving his account a moralistic flavour, which invited one to draw a comparison with Richard Baxter. (See here) [And see also my own post here and the internal links] But this has to be said: the relation of faith to actions badly needs a clarificatory word from the Bishop’s cathedra to settle this vital question: are Spirit-imbued virtues a sign of faith (à la Epistle of James)? Or do they complete faith, supplement it, fulfil it? These questions cry out for an answer, but answer is there none. A clear sentence of two would have done it. It is this sort of gap that holds up the discussion and the meeting of minds. So where, according to the Bishop, (one is left to wonder) does Paul stand on this issue? And where does the Bishop himself stand?

The four articles are at these links:

Wright in General
Why Covenant Faithfulness is not Divine Righteousness (and cannot be)
Wright and Righteousness
Wright and the Reformation

Here is a quote from Helm's conclusion:

While holding to a law-court view of justification Wright has at the same time failed to recognize that the Reformed view of Christ’s alien righteousness is also a law-court view. Because of this his historical analysis, such as it is, is flawed, and his exegetical tour de force of Paul’s view of justification is largely beside the point, for the Reformed outlook expresses its main claims: the law-court point, the central position of the Abrahamic covenant, and the counting of the believer as righteous for Christ’s sake.

This is where Wright’s competitiveness, his insistence of always having the last word, and his failure to provide a clear theological framework, or even to write clearly, saying what he means and what he does not mean by certain terms such as ‘moral righteousness’, and ‘legalistic’ and ‘impart’ and ‘infuse’, prove to be so frustrating.

Ouch! But then his last words are these:

Were Wright to follow through the logic of his position then, I believe, it would approach even more closely to the classical Reformed view than it has already.

So there is hope of reconciliation! There's some heavy reading here, but (given the Evangelical divisions of the present) it is important to try to understand the issues involved.

John Richardson

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Liberals and Evangelicals: with friends like these ...?

The Modern Churchpeople's Union has published a lengthy critique of recent pronouncements by both Archbishop Rowan Williams and Bishop Tom Wright on the present position of The Episcopal Church.

In the light of the latest developments —or non-developments in the evangelical wing of the Church of England —it raises two interesting challenges.

The first is whether the apparent alliance between Williams and Wright is as ‘opportunistic’ as Stephen Kuhrt, a prominent Open Evangelical, suggested was the alliance between Conservative Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics in the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.

According to Kuhrt:

[...] FCAUK’s temporary ‘alliance’ with Forward in Faith suggests a willingness to combine with those with whom they have deep theological disagreements, so long as they have a current objection to authority.

According to MCU,

Both Williams and Wright show themselves to be dogmatic authoritarians. [...]

The current alliance between these two theologies cannot be stable: they disagree with each other about too much.

Of course, both Kuhrt and MCU may be right. It may be that neither the FCA nor the Williams-Wright alliance can survive. However, it is notable that MCU has itself joined an alliance which includes at least three evangelical groups with whom they would doubtless take issue over matters like the atonement, judgement, Christ’s physical return (or maybe even his physical resurrection) and so on. It is all very confusing.

The other challenge, however, is the clear perception within MCU that Open Evangelicalism belongs in the same camp as themselves —which may be why they have no embarrassment about their own alliances. Thus their critique of Williams and Wright continues,

Neither position is characteristic of Anglicanism. Other Anglicans, calling themselves open evangelicals, or liberal catholics, or broad church, or radicals, or liberals, have not been part of this programme to condemn the Americans and introduce an Anglican Covenant.

Now I am sure there will be many Open Evangelicals who would rightly reject this suggestion of comparability as far as they are themselves concerned. However, the perception must be regarded as significant. The problem is that Open Evangelicalism is, by its own definition, a diverse and diffuse movement, and it is clear that it contains —and more importantly is willing to contain —both those for whom the traditionalist view of sexuality is correct and those for whom it is not.

And the very fact that Open Evangelicalism is not split by contradictory views on human sexuality suggests that the MCU is right. The old ‘orthodoxy’ is now optional. There is therefore no reason to split with TEC over this issue, even whilst one may (as a private individual) hold opinions that disagree with the prevalent view within TEC.

I write this not to pick a fight with Open Evangelicals —there are enough of those going on already —but because I find it increasingly difficult to see how we can talk about one ‘Evangelicalism’ with two (or three) ‘aspects’: Conservative, Open and Charismatic. It all depends whether a particular understanding of sexuality is viewed as necessarily Evangelical. Fifty years ago, it would undoubtedly have been so. Today it is undoubtedly not —at least, not by all who regard themselves as ‘Evangelical’.

Yet when orthodox sexuality becomes optional, it is perhaps significant to note who emerges as one’s new bedfellows. Dr Williams is now clearly regarded by his erstwhile friends as little more than a traitor, whilst Dr Wright is described as being Puritan and Calvinist (but in a bad way). Open evangelicalism, however, is embraced as being true to the ‘inclusivity’ of real Anglicanism —along with TEC and so on.

If I were an Open Evangelical, I would be more worried about this than I was about the possible depredations of FCA. It is a fine mess to have been gotten into. The question is, how to get out of it.

John Richardson
21 August 2009

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A good article from Charles Raven

There is a very good article on his website by Revd Charles Raven, whom I would describe as an Anglican working outside the structures, on Bp Tom Wright's take on ABp Rowan Williams' 'Reflections'. I commend it for reading.

John Richardson

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A possible joint statement from the CofE?

OK, could the various bodies and personalities in the Traditionalist wing of the Church of England sign up to something like this?

1. We affirm our unity in the tradition of the Church of England expressed in Article XX, that Scripture is “God’s Word written”, that it is “not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written”, that it may not “so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another”, that “the Church be a witness and keeper of holy Writ” and that the Church “ought not to decree any thing against the same”.

2. We regret that the developing attitudes, decisions and actions of The Episcopal Church make it impossible for us to accept that it shares the same commitment to this tradition. On the contrary, they have stretched the fabric of the Anglican Communion to breaking point.

3. We believe it is time for decisive and united action to signal to The Episcopal Church that it can no longer depend on continuing fellowship with those within the Communion who continue in this tradition.

4. We therefore recognize the Anglican Church in North America as an inheritor of the Anglican tradition in the geographical area it shares with The Episcopal Church.

5. We call for a speedy conclusion to the Covenant process, but we believe that The Episcopal Church is already outside the framework of the Covenant and desire that the final form of the Covenant take account of this.

6. We commit ourselves to working together to ensure that the Church of England in the British Isles does not follow in the footsteps of The Episcopal Church in the United States and elsewhere.

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After B033, can English Evangelicals unite?

The Bishop of Willesden is not the only one, but given his remarks on the Fulcrum discussion forum, he is wearing his ‘Told You So’ tee-shirt in response to the decision by the General Convention of The Episcopal Church to rescind Resolution B033, which had established a moratorium on ordaining or consecrating people in active same-sex relationships.

“There’s no particular point in saying ‘we told you so’,” said Bishop Pete, whilst understandably doing just that, “but it does make the Windsor process look pretty unfit for purpose, as many of us suspected.”

Almost simultaneously, Bishop Tom Wright has written an article in The Times in which he acknowledges that the Bishops and deputies of TEC in favour of this move, “were formalising the schism they initiated six years ago when they consecrated as bishop a divorced man in an active same-sex relationship, against the Primates’ unanimous statement that this would ‘tear the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level’.”

And the leadership of Fulcrum itself has published a Press Statement in which they call for a formal expression of the distance TEC has now put between itself and the rest of the Anglican Communion, including the invocation of the Overseas Clergy Measure, whereby TEC clergy might be refused permission to function in this country.

The declamations by Bishop Wright and Fulcrum are truly to be welcomed for their clarity. And yet one cannot help, along with Bishop Broadbent, wondering why it took so long for the penny to drop.

Bishop Wright describes this as yet another phase in a ‘slow moving train crash’ which began, according to him, as long ago as 1996 “when a church court acquitted a bishop who had ordained active homosexuals.” He adds, “Many in TEC have long embraced a theology in which chastity, as universally understood by the wider Christian tradition, has been optional.”

Yet for someone who has been aware of ‘schismatic’ tendencies across the Atlantic for thirteen years, Bishop Wright has been slow to sound the alarm, and even slower to embrace those who have themselves been expressing such alarm for some considerable time.

As one of my personal correspondents put it, “I have not seen so much flak flying west from the CofE before.” Yet over against this we must still set Bishop Wright’s, and Fulcrum’s, attitude to the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, GAFCON and Anglican Mainstream. Thus at the end of his piece, Bishop Wright tartly observes,

Contrary to some who have recently adopted the phrase, there is already a “fellowship of confessing Anglicans”. It is called the Anglican Communion.

Yet everything he has written prior to that demonstrates this is not so. The Anglican Communion is not (certainly not as FCA understands it) a fellowship with a unifying confession. Rather, it has contained people (in Wright’s words, initiators of schism) who are willing to write their own ‘confession’ and to override the concerns of those committed to the original, and explicitly affirmed, confessional stance. As he continues, “The Episcopal Church is now distancing itself from that fellowship.” Yet, as he fails to acknowledge, it is still within it. True, he concludes,

Ways must be found for all in America who want to be loyal to it, and to scripture, tradition and Jesus, to have that loyalty recognised and affirmed at the highest level.

But it is not clear whether this a hint at the recognition of the Anglican Communion in North America, precisely at a point where clarity is needed. Similarly, Fulcrum, whilst adamant on the need to do something, is far from explicit in suggesting what should be done. Their press statement calls for,

A formal expression of distance, with consequent limiting of involvement in Communion counsels ...

And possibly,

... actions under the Overseas Clergy Measure and a decision that the Church of England not be represented at future TEC consecrations.

In the context of the Anglican Communion, however, where polite understatement has long been the order of the day, this amounts to little more than ‘harrumphing’ —the expression of annoyance without substance, and something which The Episcopal Church has been neatly sidestepping for years. As I wrote in my own ‘told you so’ moment back in March,

[The revisionists in North America] have called the bluff of the Communion as a whole, and they have simply by-passed the reconciling posture of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Knowing that, in the end, they can do what they like and get away with it they are, unsurprisingly, pressing ahead. (Suddenly it's over for the Anglican Communion)

It is a sad fact that throughout a period when Traditionalist Anglicans should have been united, they have been bitterly at loggerheads, sometimes over policies, but often, one suspects, over personalities. In this, we have seen the besetting sin of Evangelical fissiparity writ large. Thus Bishop Graham Kings has been able to put his hand to the Fulcrum statement calling for action whilst at the same time lambasting Canon Chris Sugden personally and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans generally for the actions they have taken. Opposition is allowable, it seems, so long as we ‘do it my way’:

I believe the way forward for the Church of England, and the Anglican Communion, is through the glacial gravity of the Anglican Covenant rather than through the setting up of opportunist, autonomous fellowships.

The mention of setting up ‘opportunist, autonomous’ fellowships, however, will be greeted with wry amusement (at best) by those who remember how Fulcrum itself was launched on an unsuspecting fourth National Evangelical Anglican Congress in 2003. (For Bishop Kings's own account of this, see here.)

However, at some stage bygones must be bygones. Now is the time to heed the words of another Evangelical Anglican Bishop, J C Ryle, written in a different age, but to similar problems of disunity:

If we would hold fast the truth, we must be ready to unite with all who hold the truth, and love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. We must he ready to lay aside all minor questions as things of subordinate importance. Establishment or no establishment, liturgy or no liturgy,—surplice or no surplice,—bishops or presbyters,—all these points of difference ... ought to be regarded as subordinate questions. [...] The Philistines are upon us. Can we make common cause against them, or can we not? ... Surely it is not right to say that we expect to spend eternity with men in heaven, and yet cannot work for a few years with them in this world.

Perhaps it is time for Bishops Kings and Wright to get on the phone, rather than the keyboard, and instead of lobbing more brickbats to speak to the organizers of FCA and ask, “Where do we go together from here?” He will be a truly great man who can do this.

Revd John P Richardson
15 July 2009

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GAFCON - Game Over or New Game?

One of the most interesting people I ever listened to was an advertising executive, talking to a class studying Fashion and Design with Marketing, back in the 1980s. This man had a better grasp of human motivation than anyone I’ve ever met, before or since.

The reason, however, was self-evident: his livelihood depended on understanding what made people tick. Hence he knew (for example) that because 80% of men’s underwear was bought by women, the advertising and packaging needed to be aimed at them.

Another social group with an excellent grasp of human nature is journalists, and for much the same reason: they need a nose for a story, without which they cannot sell the papers that pay their wages. And it is this light that we might interpret the absence of journalists at the recent GAFCON primates press conference.

Some have read this as indicating that GAFCON is washed up. Personally, I believe it is rather because the national press now recognize there is no story in the division of the Anglican Communion — not because the Communion has survived the pressures of recent years but because it quite evidently has not. As a headline, ‘Anglican Communion Faces Split’ is now entirely on a par with ‘Dog Bites Man’.

In fact, the lack of press interest was already evident at the Alexandria Primates’ Meeting in February this year where, according to the Changing Attitude Blog, there were only seven people in the press briefings (including the blogger himself).

This lack of interest from those whose job it is to sniff out what is interesting is as profound as the silence of a canary in a coalmine. It is a sure sign that something has already happened, even though many people may not have noticed.

In case there is any doubt about this, let us remind ourselves that following that meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed a group of Pastoral Visitors “commissioned by him to conduct personal and face to face conversations in order to assist in the clearest discernment of the ways forward in any given situation of tension”.

One of those situations of tension is, presumably, North America. What, then, have the Pastoral Visitors achieved so far in that area? Does anyone know? Or care? The question is not entirely rhetorical, but the answer for most of us is undoubtedly ‘No’ to both.And the point is, this applies to Communion Conservatives as much as to anyone. I doubt very much that, for example, Bishop Tom Wright has any confidence in the scheme, even if he knows much about its workings. And certainly no-one in the hierarchy of TEC gives a hoot.Which brings us to the Windsor Process. If ever there were an argument for mercy-killing, the prospect of putting a bullet in this sad saga must be the best. Chinese Communism used to refer to the West as a paper tiger. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence must see that the Anglican Covenant is not merely paper, but soggy paper. It is to church discipline what Eeyore’s balloon was to birthday celebrations: “You did say balloon? One of those big coloured things you blow up? Gaiety, song-and-dance, here we are and there we are?” Or in the case of the Covenant, one of those things that is going to set boundaries, and define the faith and the faithful?

Those who believe the Windsor ‘Process’ is going to deliver what the Primates’ were demanding four years ago are fooling no one but themselves. Indeed, it cannot deliver, since the Anglican Communion as it was in 1998 is no more. In a few years time, that will be recognized as the date of the last true Lambeth Conference of the old, Empire based, gathering of global Anglican bodies. 2008 was not the year of the breakup, but it was the year in which the breakup could no longer be denied.

The old game is over, and that is sad (in my view). But the new game is beginning. We must look to the future. And it is not ‘Windsor shaped’. The journalists who stayed away from the GAFCON meeting knew this. They will not, I suspect, be there in droves when the Covenant is finally launched either.

The reality is that Anglicanism is now a mixed economy: Canterbury, GAFCON, the FCA, TEC, the ACNA will all vie for position, and it will be the economics of church growth, not reports and formal processes, which will decide the outcome. Our Lord Jesus Christ said that he would build his church. Time will now tell which that is.

Revd John P Richardson
21 April 2009

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Good Friday: The Transforming Cross (3)

The transformation of judgement

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴ having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Col 2:13-15)

The cross must be understood not as a momentary event, but a way of life. Furthermore, it is not just an event which happened to Christ, but an event which involves us. According to the New Testament, we are not merely passive onlookers, gazing on the cross of Christ, but active participants in the crucifixion. And this is not just, as preachers and hymnwriters have pointed out, a participation in having him crucified but a participation in being crucified with him.

The doctrine of penal substitution rightly emphasises that Christ bore the punishment for our sins. When Peter wrote of the crucified Christ, “by his wounds you have been healed”, he was alluding to the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53:5, whom the onlookers there considered, “stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted”. But he goes on to say, “he was was pierced for our transgressions,” and “was crushed for our iniquities.” The natural interpretation of the Servant’s suffering is that he bears God’s punishment for sin. The hidden truth, though, is that it is our sins, not his, for which he is being punished.

This doctrine of penal substitution, then, is not some novel reading of post-Reformation Evangelicalism, as some like to imply (though as eminent a theologian as Tom Wright denies). It is the heart and soul of the Bible, beginning with God’s warning to Adam in the Garden not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for, “in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.”

This death is not an effect of the fruit but a punishment of God. To the serpent, God said after the Fall, “Cursed are you”; to the woman, “I will multiply your pains”; to Adam “dust you are and to dust you will return.”

And when God showed his glory to Moses, it was the glory of a God who is merciful precisely because he turns away his own wrath:

“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, ⁷ maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.”

That God punishes sin — indeed the least sin — is surely one of the clearest lessons of the Old Testament, not least because it is one of the most difficult.

And we cannot comprehend the New Testament unless we understand how God can forgive sin without simply ignoring sin — how God can remain true to his character as Judge as well as Deliverer.

The penalty aspect of penal substitution is something which we must never let go of. Yet in holding onto this understanding, we sometimes over-stress the element of substitution, forgetting that in the New Testament we are caught up in the death of Christ on the cross. Yes, Christ died for our sins, but, Paul asks, “don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” When he was crucified, we were crucified. And as he died for our sins, we died as sinners with him.

The Christian life, then, is not simply a life lived knowing that Christ died for us, but knowing that we died with Christ. And this has radical consequences.

The familiar lesson is that we should not go on sinning because we have died to sin. And this is true, but even this has major implications, for the Apostle’s approach is not to threaten Christians with the consequences of the Law, but to appeal to their understanding of their new life in Christ.

And this is quite different from the world’s approach (indeed, it must be said it is quite different from what is often the Church’s approach). For the world always does (and always must) rely on the law and the Church has often kept the law in its back pocket for use if the gospel appears to have failed. So the world will always be moralistic in its attitude and legalistic in its solutions. The only difference between the world’s morality and that of, say, the Pharisees, is a disagreement over what constitutes moral behaviour. The world’s understanding of this may shift this way and that. But both the world and the Pharisee agree that the right answer lies in the details — indeed, the minutiae — of the law, which must control and tame the human subject, under (of course) the supervision of the experts in the law who will mould the rest of us into the pattern of living they themselves approve.

The gospel, however, has nothing with which to ‘control’ the human subject — nothing, that is, other than the word of God. And so, confronted with the less-than-desirable behaviour of the Christian (and our behaviour is always less than desirable in some regards) — the Apostle’s ultimate sanction is the appeal and the warning. On the one hand, “I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God,” (Romans 12:1). On the other hand, “I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Gal 4:21). But there is no new set of Christian rules, no new list of Christian sanctions.

Yet that is not all it means for us to have died with Christ. We are dead to the Law so that we might live for God (Gal 2:19)

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)

And if we are dead to the law, we are dead to the prescriptions of the law. On the one hand, this is a liberty anyone would welcome. We are free, for example, from the obligations to observe rituals and regulations.

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

We might even add, we are free from the obligation of Good Friday, or Easter Sunday, for the person who observes these days and the person who does not are the same in God’s eyes, provided they have died with Christ and live by faith in him.

On the other hand, our freedom from the law means there is no limit to our obligations to others:

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbour as yourself.”

The lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?” hoping to tie it down. Jesus replied, “Who was neighbour to the man who fell among robbers? Go and do the same.”

But even then there is more to the life of the cross. For on the cross, our sinful self is crucified for its sins. The accusation nailed above Jesus’ head was, “King of the Jews.” The accusation nailed above our sinful selves on the cross with Christ is every sin we have ever committed (or will commit). And so we are set free not just from the penalty of sin, and not just from the power of sin, but from the condemnation of sin: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1).

The life of the cross is not a life weighed down by an awareness of guilt and sin but of the “glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom 8:21). We are aware of our sin, and we are aware of our guilt, but we are aware of them in the way that a person whose debt has been cancelled might be aware of their debt, or as someone whose headache has gone might be aware of their headache, or as someone who thought they’d lost their wallet might be aware of their anxiety when they discover it in their coat.

Our God is a God of judgement. Let us never forget. But the cross transforms judgement. No longer does it hang over our heads, not because there is nothing to judge, but because it has been hung over our heads on the cross itself, when we were crucified with Christ.

John Richardson
10 April 2009

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Evangelicalism, crucifixion and resurrection. Where is the centre of our theology?

In the piece I was invited to write for The Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ section, I suggested that, as the first distinguishing mark of evangelicalism, “It is the death of Christ for sins which informs and shapes all other theology, ecclesiology, missiology and so on,” quoting in support what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:3, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures ...”

This has been queried by a couple of commentators on this blog (who are not the first to raise the point with me). John Barnett asked, “What about [Christ’s] Resurrection , particularly in view of Paul's comment in 1 Cor 15.14?” Simon Morden was more blunt: “The message of 1Cor15 (and the constant theme of Paul) is not just that Christ died for our sins, but that he rose from the dead: it is the hope we have in the risen Jesus should shape ‘all other theology, ecclesiology, missiology and so on.’”

The first point I should make in reply is that I was not, strictly speaking, arguing for the comprehensiveness, or even the accuracy, of evangelical theology. I was asked to answer a question, “What should evangelicals believe?”, and I felt the best use of my 500 word limit was to try to identify what has generated, and therefore would continue to generate, a sense of evangelical ‘identity’. I might have done the same for Anglo-Catholics, even though I am not one!

However, I would still argue that the focus I suggested is, in fact, an evangelical ‘distinctive’ (even though I expressed the wish earlier in the same article, that there should be no such thing). Simon suggests “we are an Easter people - not a Good Friday people.” I am not sure, however, that the ‘we’ here would apply to evangelicals as they have been historically.

In evangelicalism, the resurrection has not, in fact, been the primary focus either of theology generally or evangelism specifically. Evangelicals have been, in fact, a Good Friday people, not an Easter people, and in support of this I would point to Tom Wright’s recent Surprised by Hope.

Wright correctly identifies the weakness that has grown up in much traditional Christian understanding surrounding the resurrection of Jesus and its implications for both the present and the future. Too often, the resurrection has been taken to imply “a glorious, blissful world beyond this one” (p 303), rather than the biblical hope of a new heavens and a new earth. The emphasis in this ‘hope’ is on what happens to the individual, not what happens to creation.

Wright’s work also suggests that this is, if anything, a bigger problem for those who believe Christ rose bodily than it is for those who have ‘demythologized’ his resurrection into a survival of his message. At the end of the book he presents two caricature clergy — the ‘evangelical’ and the ‘liberal’ — each holding forth about the implications of the Easter message and each, in their own way, wrong: the evangelical in his application and the liberal in his reasoning.

There is much truth in what Wright says, but my point is that this confusion about the resurrection — the next part of the tradition Paul handed on — has hardly impinged at all on evangelical identity. Nor, despite what Wright argues, would the necessary corrections here make much difference at all to evangelical proclamation. Or rather, if it did, that proclamation would cease to be what has previously been regarded as evangelical.

In my own case, for example, I came to the realization long ago that the Christian hope was not of ‘you going to heaven when you die’, but of ‘heaven joining with earth at Christ’s return’. It did not, however, change my evangelism one iota, nor did it make me feel I was at odds with evangelical tradition. Wright does argue for such a transformed agenda (p 218, et seq), but I did not find myself persuaded that this was necessary from the valid points he makes about our hope.

This is not, however, simply a matter of how we do evangelism or mission. It concerns the fundamental shape of our theology, and the question of how that relates to the crucifixion and resurrection. I am not, of course, denying the latter. Nor am I saying that the economy of salvation finished at the cross. We must include the ascension, heavenly session and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as well as Christ’s final return in judgement, to get the whole picture (cf 1 Cor 15:24-28).

But there is an important question about the ‘centre of gravity’ of the work of salvation. There is a proportionality and logical relationship to be established between the various parts, and in this regard I think Paul does indeed set the crucifixion at the centre of his soteriology, with the other parts of his theology arranged around, and deriving from, that.

The chief reason for this, I would hold, is that Paul’s theology of salvation is Christocentric. That is to say, it is shaped by understanding who Christ is and what Christ has done. As a Pharisee, Paul already believed in the resurrection of the dead (and indeed the new heavens and the new earth, see Acts 23:6 where he uses this to divide his opponents). The transformation in his theology was in seeing that the crucified Jesus was the Christ. It was thus his understanding of the crucifixion that changed the way he thought about everything else.

Consequently I am entirely with Martin Luther at this point: Crux sola est nostra theologia — the cross alone is our theology (WA 5.176.32-3).

There are, however, some subsidiary points to note. First, the crucifixion and the resurrection must be distinguished within the economic Trinity as works of the incarnate Son and works of God the Father. The emphasis throughout the New Testament is that Christ died and that God raised him from the dead. This entails, I think, a logical relationship between the parts of the process of salvation which again makes the cross central to both the old and the new creations.

It is Christ through whom and for whom the world was made (Col 1:16), and it is the blood of Christ — his death on the cross — which redeems creation: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth,” (Revelation 5:9-10). Christ’s resurrection, and ours, is the fruit of that ‘scroll opening’ by his blood (cf Rev 5:5-6).

Secondly, the repeated sacramental action of the church ‘proclaims the Lord’s death until he comes’ (1 Cor 11:26). Here, I found Wright’s presentation unfortunately weak. The way he presents it in Surprised by Hope, for Wright, the chief significance of the eucharist is that, “It is the future coming to meet us in the present” (p 287). That is a significance, however, which I must say is very hard to find in either the New Testament or the liturgies of the Church (especially the Church of England). Wright’s argument is about how Jesus is present in the eucharist, but it avoids both the Roman Catholic and the Anglican understandings — the former that he is present in the ‘host’ as victim, the latter that he is present ‘by faith’ in the heart of the believer (“feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving”, BCP).

The resurrection per se does not feature highly in our eucharistic liturgies for the precise reason that it does not feature in the New Testament accounts (cf 1 Cor 11:22-26). Wright’s account of the eucharist is thus, I think, tendentious.

There is more, undoubtedly, that could be said, but time and space preclude it at this moment. I hope this may make clear, however, why I take it that we are, indeed, an ‘Easter people’ (though I heartily dislike the association with the pagan ‘Eostre’ — which may itself be another argument about the balance!) because we are a Good Friday — a paschal — people first.

John Richardson
9 December 2008

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