Some Christians have used terms like 'justification' and 'salvation' as though they were almost interchangeable, but this is clearly untrue to Scripture itself. 'Justification' is the act of God by which people are 'declared to be in the right' before him: so say the great Reformation theologians, John Piper included. Yes, indeed. Of course. But what does that declaration involve? How does it come about? Piper insists that 'justification' means the 'imputation' of the 'righteousness' - the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ - to the sinner, clothing him or her with that status from the first moment of faith to the final arrival in heaven. I understand the force of that proposal, and the sense of assurance which it gives. What's more, I agree that this sense of assurance is indeed offered by the doctrine of justification as Paul expounds it. But as I argue in this book, Paul's way of doing it is not Piper's. Paul's doctrine of justification is the place where four themes meet, which Piper, and others like him, have managed to ignore or sideline.
First, Paul's doctrine of justification is about the work of Jesus the Messiah of Israel. You cannot understand what Paul says about Jesus, and about the significance of his death for our justification and salvation, unless you see Jesus as the one in whom 'all the promises of God find their Yes' (2 Corinthians 1.20). For many writers, of whom Piper is not untypical, the long story of Israel seems to function merely as a backdrop, a source of proof-texts and types, rather than as itself the story of God's saving purposes. Piper and others like him have accused me of downplaying the significance of the saving, indeed substitutionary, death of Jesus within Paul's doctrine of justification. I hope this book will put such suggestions to rest - while reminding my critics of how that part of Paul's theology actually works.
Second, Paul's doctrine of justification is therefore about what we may call the covenant - the covenant God made with Abraham, the covenant whose purpose was from the beginning the saving call of a worldwide family through whom God's saving purposes for the world were to be realised. For Piper, and many like him, the very idea of a 'covenant' of this kind remains strangely foreign and alien. He and others have accused me of inventing the idea of Israel's story as an ongoing narrative in which the 'exile' in Babylon was 'extended' by hundreds of years so that Jews in Paul's day were still waiting for the 'end of exile', the true fulfillment of the covenant promises. Despite the strong covenantal theology of John Calvin himself, and his positive reading of the story of Israel as fulfilled in Jesus Christ, many who claim Calvinist or 'Reformed' heritage today resist applying it in the way that, as I argue in this book, Paul himself does, in line with the solid biblical foundations for the 'continuing exile' theme.
Third, Paul's doctrine of justification is focused on the divine lawcourt. God, as judge, 'finds in favour of', and hence acquits from their sin, those who believe in Jesus Christ. The word 'justify' has this lawcourt as its metaphorical home base. For John Piper and others who share his perspective, the lawcourt imagery is read differently, with attention shifting rather to the supposed moral achievement of Jesus in gaining, through his perfect obedience, a 'righteousness' which can then be passed across to his faithful people. Piper and others have accused me of superimposing this 'lawcourt' framework on Paul; I argue that it is Paul himself who insists on it.
Fourth, Paul's doctrine of justification is bound up with eschatology, that is, his vision of God's future for the whole world and for his people. Right through Paul's writings, but once more especially in Romans, he envisages two moments, the final justification when God puts the whole world right and raises his people from the dead, and the present justification in which that moment is anticipated. For John Piper and the school of thought he represents, present justification appears to take the full weight. Piper and others have then accused me of encouraging people to think of their own moral effort as contributing to their final justification, and hence of compromising the gospel itself. I insist that I am simply trying to do justice to what Paul actually says, and that when we factor in the Spirit to the whole picture we see that the charge is groundless.
- N.T. Wright, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision
No comments:
Post a Comment