Jesus and the victory of God

John Piper is rightly concerned to safeguard the great Christian truth that when someone is 'in Christ' God sees them, from that moment on, in the light of what is true of Christ. But, in line with some (though by no means all) of the Protestant Reformers and their successors, he insists on arriving at this conclusion by the route of supposing that the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ - his 'active obedience' as opposed to the 'passive obedience' of his death on the cross - is the ground of this security. Jesus has 'fulfilled the law', and thus amassed a treasury of law-based 'righteousness', which we sinners, having no 'righteousness' of our own, no store of legal merit, no treasury of good works, can shelter within. I want to say, as clearly as I can, to Piper and those who have followed him: this is, theologically and exegetically, a blind alley - but you can get the result you want by a genuinely Pauline route if you pay attention to what is happening here in Romans 6. Three points are vital here.

First, there is no suggestion that when Paul speaks of the 'obedience' of Jesus Christ he refers to his moral uprightness, still less, more specifically, his obedience to the Law of Moses. As we saw in Romans 5, the 'obedience' of Jesus (5.19, with cross-reference to Philippians 2.8) refers back, in line with the 'obedience' of the Isaianic servant, to the achievement of his death. The law arrives as an extra on the stage (5.20), adding a new spin to the whole process but not providing the foundation for a theology of Jesus' supposed righteousness-earning 'active obedience'.

Second, Paul's entire understanding of the Mosaic law is that it never was intended as a ladder of good works up which one might climb to earn the status of 'righteousness'. It was given, yes, as the way of life (7.10), but it was the way of life for a people already redeemed. Let's sharpen this up: God did not say to Israel in Egypt, 'Here is my Torah; if you keep it perfectly for a year or two, then I will liberate you from your slavery,' but 'I am liberating you now because I promised Abraham I would do so; when, and only when, I have done so, I will give you the way of life that you will need for when you come into your promised land.'

This narrative sequence is of enormous importance when we come, as we shortly will, to the outworking of justification in Romans 8. Yes, Israel several times wanted to go back to Egypt, because it was easier to live in slavery than to walk through the wilderness with God and his law. Yes, Israel's rebellion and idolatry in the wilderness did threaten to forfeit the promised inheritance - but God's grace (and Moses' prayers) overcame that as well. Yes, the Mosaic law continued (within the narrative of Scripture as it stands) to warn successive generations that they must make real for themselves that freedom from slavery and idolatry that was God's gift by grace in fulfillment of promise. And of course, later on, the worst that God could threaten was that Israel would lose the promised land, would be sent either back to Egypt or off to Babylon. But the fact remains that the Torah, the Mosaic law, was never given or intended as a means whereby either an individual or the nation as a whole might, through obedience, earn liberation from slavery, redemption, rescue, salvation, 'righteousness' or whatever else. The gift always preceded the obligation. That is how Israel's covenant theology worked.

It is therefore a straightforward category mistake, however venerable within some Reformed traditions including part of my own, to suppose that Jesus 'obeyed the law' and so obtained 'righteousness' which could be reckoned to those who believe in him. To think that way is to concede, after all, that 'legalism' was true after all - with Jesus as the ultimate legalist. At this point, Reformed theology lost its nerve. It should have continued the critique all the way through: 'legalism' itself was never the point, not for us, not for Israel, not for Jesus.

Third, have we thus abandoned the wonderful good news of the gospel? By no means. Paul has a different way, a far more biblical way, of arriving at the desired conclusion. It is not the 'righteousness' of Jesus Christ which is 'reckoned' to the believer. It is his death and resurrection. That is what Romans 6 is all about. Paul does not say, 'I am in Christ; Christ has obeyed the Torah; therefore God regards me as though I had obeyed the Torah.' He says: 'I am in Christ; Christ has died and been raised; therefore God regards me - and I must learn to regard myself - as someone who has died to sin and been raised to newness of life.'

The answer he gives to the opening question of chapter 6 is an answer about status. Jesus' death and resurrection is the great Passover (1 Corinthians 5.7), the moment when, and the means by which, we are set free from the slavery of sin once and for all. The challenge to the believer - indeed, one might almost say the challenge of learning to believe at all - is to 'reckon' that this is true, that one has indeed left behind the state of slavery, that one really has come now to stand on resurrection ground (6.6-11). All that the supposed doctrine of the 'imputed righteousness of Christ' has to offer is offered instead by Paul under this rubric, on these terms, and within this covenantal framework.

I cannot stress too strongly the point of principle. We must read Scripture in its own way and through its own lenses, instead of imposing on it a framework of doctrine, however pastorally helpful it may appear, which is derived from somewhere else. There are many things which are pastorally helpful in the short or medium term which are not in fact grounded on the deepest possible reading of Scripture. That is simply a testimony to the grace of God: we don't have to get everything right before anything can work! But if the church is to be built up and nurtured in Scripture it must be semper reformanda, submitting all its traditions to the word of God. And when we bring the doctrine of 'imputed righteousness' to Paul, we find that he achieves what the doctrine wants to achieve, but by a radically different route. In fact, he achieves more. To know that one has died and been raised is far, far more pastorally significant than to know that one has, vicariously, fulfilled the Torah.

- N.T. Wright, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision