The New Perspective on Paul: Evaluation and Critique

1. The New Perspective on Paul: Evaluation and Critique

2. What is the New Perspective? • History of the NPP: the writers and their writings • Beliefs of the NPP • What is the Old Perspective? • Essential beliefs • Responses of the Old Perspective to the NPP • What can we learn from this discussion?

3. What can we learn from this discussion? • Positive Results of the NPP • Research in the beliefs of 2nd temple Judaism helps us to realize that this Judaism was not monolithic (with a heavy orientation towards works righteousness) and that there was a belief in grace in Judaism.

4. What can we learn from this discussion? • Positive Results of the NPP • The inclusion of peoples of every race, culture, and economic strata into the church by virtue of union with Christ is a healthy reminder.

5. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to exchange background concerns with foreground emphases • While there was, indeed, a stress upon the grace of God in Israel’s covenantal status as demonstrated by 2nd temple texts, the Bible indicates that this belief in grace was trumped by a merit theology that permeated Jewish actions generally.

6. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to exchange background concerns with foreground emphases • While the Gospel is for Jews and Gentiles, i.e., it does have an ethnocentric aspect, it is primarily for the individual, i.e., it has an anthropocentric reality. This is seen in Rom 1:16, and the foreground emphasis of the Gospel is individual human beings.

7. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to make the horizontal superior to the vertical • Seen in the understanding of justification as more ecclesiological (i.e., concerned with covenant membership and social/ethnic concerns) than soteriological (i.e., concerned with righteous standing before God).

8. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to make the horizontal superior to the vertical • Note again the words of Wright (What Paul Said, 119): “In standard Christian theological language, it [Pauline justification] wasn’t so much about soteriology as about ecclesiology; not so much about salvation as about the church.”

9. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to confuse the effects of something with its actual meaning • Justification: while membership in the covenant family is an effect of being justified, this is not its actual meaning, which is the declaration of righteousness before God.

10. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to confuse the effects of something with its actual meaning • The righteousness of God: while covenant faithfulness is what God’s righteousness does, faithfulness to uphold the glory of God’s name is what God’s righteousness is.

11. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary • Douglas Moo, “Israel and the Law in Romans 5-11,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism 2: The Paradoxes of Paul, ed Carson et al (Baker, 2004), 188: “My quarrel with new perspective advocates is often not so much over what they say but about what they do not say.”

12. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary 1. The Gospel is about the salvation of sinners – while much is said about the good news of God’s gathering together the covenant family by means of Christ’s death and resurrection, i.e., he is Lord of the covenant, very little is said about sin.

13. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary • This lack of emphasis on man’s sin has two damaging potentialities: 1. Man is perceived as basically good. 2. God’s holiness and wrath are minimized.

14. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary 2. The imputation of Christ’s righteousness to sinners is pushed aside in favor of the believer’s union with Christ as the mechanism by which one is finally justified.

15. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary • This tends to suggest that there is some good moral quality in man which allows him entrance into the covenant family (or into Christ). • This adds merit to the actions of humans in that God finally justifies on the basis of both Christ’s and man’s righteousness.

16. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary • This suggests that God’s holiness and wrath are not as significant as they should be based on the importance given to the obedient life of the Christian evaluated at the final judgment (apart from the imputation of Christ’s righteousness).

17. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary 3. Being declared “in the covenant” rather than “righteous” in one’s justification delimits God’s holiness and wrath and obscures the forensic scene assumed in the declaration itself.

18. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary • In the courtroom we see the sentence of death resting on the condemned sinner due to the fact that our holy God’s wrath is resting on his head (Rom 1:18). Our Judge would send us to hell, but because of his great grace, he has chosen to declare us

19. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary “not guilty.” He does this not because of any goodness in us (2 Tim 1:9) but because he imputes to us the righteousness of Christ (2 Cor 5:21). Thus clothed in Christ’s righteousness, we sinners are seen as pure. God’s wrath is propitiated; God’s righteousness and holiness are vindicated.

20. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary • In the lunchroom where table fellowship is enjoyed, the NPP views justification as the realization that everyone should be able to eat at the same table of Christian fellowship. Before justification, Jews had isolated themselves from Gentiles,

21. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary believing that their food laws, calendar days, and practices like circumcision were sufficient to enjoy fellowship with God. But they were wrong. They needed to realize that union with Christ means acceptance of everyone regardless of appearance,

22. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary practice, race, or religion. This is justification when people come to the realization that we can all eat at the same table, when we are all declared to be the same people of God.

23. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary • What is the emphasis? Is it, “I am a sinner in need of forgiveness?” or is it, “I am an exclusivist (or an excluded one) in need of openness (or acceptance into the club)”? • When we think of justification, should we conceive of the courtroom or the lunchroom? Which is of primary importance?

24. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary • The delimitation of God’s holiness and wrath: The covenantal (lunchroom) model of justification tends to place the emphasis on covenantal inclusion through the faithfulness of Christ (as Christians are united with him) rather than upon the holiness and wrath of God against sin

25. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • A tendency to de-emphasize the significant while exalting the secondary pictured in the forensic setting where the “declaration” of righteousness (covenant inclusion?) takes place.

26. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP • NPP will undoubtedly be disappointed with this assessment of foreground/ background, horizontal/vertical, effects/essence, and de-emphasis concerns that I have raised. But try as they may to suggest that they are not being represented fairly, this fourfold negative assessment is the reality based

27. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP upon the evidence of what the NPP writers are saying. Sometimes they come out directly and argue for ecclesiological primacy over soteriology or for ethnocentric readings as superior to anthropocentric readings or for union with Christ rather than imputation. These statements and their existence

28. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP cannot be denied or at least they have not been. • In other cases, try as they might, the evidence continues to point toward the accuracy of these negative statements. This is due to the observation of three significant points:

29. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP 1. Emphasis is demonstrated by the amount of space dedicated to the defense of the NPP and a correspondingly small amount of space to the affirmation of Old Perspective views.

30. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP 2. Emphasis is demonstrated by the proactive nature of the advancement of these arguments. Obviously there is a desire to publish “new” ideas. Yet, the fact that publication is being pursued proves where the emphasis is being placed.

31. What can we learn from this discussion? • Points of Concern with the NPP 3. Emphasis is demonstrated by the attitude of the defense.