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Tag Archives: N.T. Wright
Another Silly Customer Story: Heaven
A customer was browsing our store recently and as she was passing by an end cap displaying Randy Alcorn’s book Heaven she said, “Ooh, another story of someone who went to Heaven?” as she took it off the shelf and began to read the back. “No”, I said. “It’s a book about heaven, but Alcorn has not gone there himself.” “Eww” she said as she promptly repositioned the book on the shelf. ”Why would anybody want to read a book about Heaven written by someone who hasn’t even been there?”
No joke. She actually did just say that.
Although her question was meant to be rhetorical, I decided to answer it anyways. “Well because in those other books people will tell you that they went to heaven, but in Alcorn’s book you will find out what the Bible actually says on the subject”.
“Oh“, she snarled, “there’s that.” Conversation ended.
Ya, there’s that. You know. This little thing we Protestants like to call sola scriptura. My concern – and desire – is not to pick on this one customer, but to observe a growing trend among conservative evangelicals. When books like 90 Minutes in Heaven and Heaven is For Real rise to the top of Bestseller charts in North America, and sustain their presence there, while those very same buyers avoid books like Alcorn’s Heaven or Wright’s Surprised by Hope, there’s a problem. A serious problem.
Tagged Heaven, Heaven is For Real, N.T. Wright, Randy Alcorn
Simply Jesus by N.T. Wright (In Review)
Simply Jesus: Who He Was, What He Did, Why It Matters
By N.T. Wright
4 Stars (out of 5)
I’ve read many books on the gospel recently and what makes this one unique is that it is a presentation of the gospel, and explanation of the gospel, without the word “gospel” in the title. It’s a book about the historical Jesus, and that’s just the point. It’s not a book about justification by faith, it’s not a book about the Roman’s Road to Salvation, it is a book about Jesus Messiah, and that is what makes it a book about the gospel.
Simply Jesus – a book with virtually no footnotes – is the sum of N.T. Wright’s mind on Jesus, who he was, what he did and why it matters, written with a broad evangelical audience in mind. It opens up by stating fairly early on a problem which Wright means to counter. He says that the church has:
“reduced the kingdom of God to private piety, the victory of the cross to comfort for the conscience, and Easter itself to a happy, escapist ending after a sad, dark tale. Piety, conscience, and ultimate happiness are important, but not nearly as important as Jesus himself.” (p.5)
Playing off of the “Perfect Storm” metaphor, the perfect storm which the Gospels tell about is the collision of the Western winds of empire, “that was the gale: the first element in the perfect storm at whose centre Jesus of Nazareth found himself”, colliding with the Eastern winds of “the story of Israel as Jesus’ contemporaries perceived it and believed themselves to be living in it” which together collided with the third element of the perfect storm, the hurricane, which is God himself who is the one unpredictable element of the Jewish story (on Palm Sunday, 2011, Wright delivered this main premise in a sermon at the University Chapel of St Salvator, St Andrews).
N.T. Wright says, “only when we reflect on that combination [empire, Israel and the Kingdom of God] do we begin to understand the meaning of Jesus’ death.” (p.39)
Some of the main points in this book are:
- The message of the gospel is primarily a message about the kingdom of God, Jesus’ primary message, not just in words but in his deeds also, was that – to use Wright’s terminology – “God is in charge now, and this is what it looks like”.
- This message was subversive and threatening to the political powers of the first century, “announcing that God was becoming king, they [Roman and Jewish authorities] would smell trouble at once” (p.69). “The book of Daniel [which Jesus alluded to in his own actions and message] was designed to be subversive, to act as ‘resistance literature’ to help Jews as they face persecution. Jesus seems to have designed his parables a bit like that too.” (p.92)
- This was a message about “creation and covenant”: that the creator God – Israel’ God – was finally delivering on his covenant promise by arriving to set up his kingdom (in an unpredictable way of course)
- The great Christian creeds – for all of their good – did us a terrible disservice. They read the Gospels in a way that suggested that their primary purpose was to prove the divinity of Jesus. This had the adverse effect of suppressing the primary message of Jesus – not just his death and resurrection, but his life and actions and what they meant – which was all about God’s kingdom.
- Throughout this book we see the usual emphasis of the exodus and exile motifs; “When he was talking about God taking charge, he was talking about a new Exodus (p.66)
- Jesus was the embodiment of the Temple, “Jesus seems to be claiming that God is doing, up close and personal through him, something that you’d normally expect to happen at the Temple. And the Temple – the successor to the tabernacle in the desert – was, as we saw, the place where heaven and earth met.” (p.79)
- Jesus is compared in his context to other would-be kings of Israel at that time (in the chapter titled “The Kingdom Present and Future”). In this context Jesus is shown to believe that “God’s kingdom was already a present reality and that it would be settled by a great event that would shortly happen.” (p.117)
- Of particular interest in this book is how N.T. Wright does not shy away from Jesus’ regular workings of miracles or his spiritual warfare. “Jesus defined the great coming battle, so that it would no longer be a military battle of us against them” (p.128) because “the battle Jesus was fighting was against the satan” (p.120). In this discussion he offers this much needed advice today: “As C.S. Lewis points out in the introduction to his famous Screwtape Letters, the modern world divides into those who are obsessed with demonic powers and those who mock them as outdated rubbish. Neither approach, Lewis insists, does justice to the reality. I’m with Lewis on this.” (p.121)
- Wright shows how Jesus redefined where God dwells in an interesting discussion on “Space, Time, and Matter”, and shows how all three converge on his very being. (p.132 ff.)
- The point of Jesus’ words, “It is finished” in John 19:30 is not to say that he has now rescued people from creation, rather it was to echo God’s sentiments at the end of day six of the creation account so as to mean, by “it is finished” that creation itself is rescued.
- The meaning of Easter is obvious: “This is the real beginning of the Kingdom”.
- Wright – not wanting to be accused of downplaying any significant parts of the Jesus Story – spends some time on what the ascension means (which is something Protestants are good at ignoring and the Orthodox are good at reminding us of that fact). “His ascension tells us that he is now running [the world]” (p.195). It is interesting how Luke tells the story of the ascension itself in a way as to be politically charged and explicitly anti-imperial (p.197).
- Wright also – of course – turns to a discussion on the second coming, and one of the first thing he says is: “don’t believe everything you read about the Rapture. In fact, don’t believe most of what you read about the Rapture.” (p.199) What Wright does not do however is outline a second coming theory at all.
- To round things out Wright answers the “now what?” question. Jesus is King, so what? Well, everything actually. In this final section he talks about what it means to evangelize. Why it matters to highlight Jesus’ life in our teaching and thinking about our faith. Our goal is not to get people to ask Jesus into their heart (a concept foreign to the scriptures), but to carry on Jesus’ exact message! That is, Jesus’ message – the gospel – was about the kingdom of God, and that is supposed to be our message too!
- We are delegates. This is an important part to understanding our vocation. In Genesis the means by which God chose to would rule the world was through humans, and according to Wright, that hasn’t changed. In fact, that is still the same today. When we ask in what way God wants to run the world the answer is “the delegation of God’s authority, of Jesus’ authority, to human beings”. (p.212).
If you ask me if this book is worth is, my answer: of course!
The quotable Wright:
“The disciples wanted a kingdom without a cross. Many would-be “orthodox” or “conservative” Christians in our world have wanted a cross without a kingdom, an abstract “atonement” that would have nothing to do with this world except to provide the means of escaping it.” ~ p.173.
“When he wanted fully to explain what his forthcoming death was all about, he didn’t give them a theory. He didn’t even give them a set of scriptural texts. He gave them a meal” ~ p.180
Tagged N.T. Wright, Simply Jesus
Mark 2: Heaven Meets Earth In “You Are Forgiven”
Mark 2 tells the story of Jesus preaching at his home to a packed out house when some people came carrying a crippled man to be healed. You know the story well. The men were unable to get the man in the room so they have to lower him through the roof. When Jesus saw him he said, “My son, your sins are forgiven” and this resulted in the sharp criticism by the scribes that “only God can forgive sins”.
Like you I have heard this passage preached on numerous occasions with all of the usual points drawn out appropriately (as Jesus goes on to heal the man, thus proving his authority to both heal and forgiven, et cetera).
But in reading Simply Jesus, N.T. Wright does what he does best by drawing out something significant and often overlooked from an all too familiar passage.
“We shouldn’t skip the stages in that implicit argument (that only God forgives sins). How does God normally forgive sins within Israel? Why, through the Temple and the sacrifices that take place there. Jesus seems to be claiming that God is doing, up close and personal through him, something that you’d normally expect to happen at the Temple. And the Temple – the successor to the tabernacle in the desert – was, as we saw, the place where heaven and earth met. It was the place where God lived. Or, more precisely, the place on earth where God’s presence intersected with human, this-worldly reality”. (p.80)
Tagged N.T. Wright, Simply Jesus
The Tension of God’s “In-Charge-Ness”
Wright believes that first century Jews held to the view that, yes, God is in charge, and yet in all sorts of ways God was not in charge.
“Yes, of course, in one sense the average first-century Jew did believe that Israel’s God was already in charge. But she or he also knew, with every bone and breath, that there were all sorts of ways in which God was not in charge – otherwise why was the world such a mess? Why were God’s people, the Jews, in such trouble? Why were ruthless, coarse, blaspheming foreigners running the show? Why were the Jewish leaders themselves such a corrupt lot? And why – in the middle of it all – is my child so sick? Why is my mother crippled? Why did the soldiers kill my son, my cousin, my husband?” (Simply Jesus, p.59)
I got into a discussion with someone the other day who was so confident that God is so universally in charge that we should take comfort in this fact no matter what. She said this is what she got from William Young’s “The Shack”. What she meant was this: if you are in a plane don’t worry, God is in charge. He will either 1) keep you safe to your destination or 2) take care of your family if you die in that plane. But I don’t know how this way of thinking about God’s “in-charge-ness” is supposed to bring comfort. So I pressed her on this thinking. When Nazi soldiers raped a little girl before gouging out her eyeballs and then leaving her on the ground for dead, all the while forcing her mother to watch, “was God in charge” of that situation?
Not surprisingly she didn’t understand my question.
See I hold with Wright this tension of God’s in-charge-ness. I hold that in some sense God is in charge. But I also believe that in all sorts of ways God is not in charge. I cannot for the life of me understand people who make the universal and unqualified statement that God is always in charge. If God is the God he says he is, then why is the world so messed up? No, we need to qualify God’s in-charge-ness. We need to be sure that we are not giving pad answers to tough questions. And if you don’t want to think about what it might look like to qualify God’s in-charge-ness, then we need to allow for the tension that while he is in charge in some sense, in all sorts of other ways he is not.
In fact, this is the point of Jesus’ central message. Announcing that “the Kingdom of God is at hand” is another way of saying, “God’s in-charge-ness is right around the corner”. To say that the Kingdom of God is at hand or to pray for that Kingdom to come or for God’s will to be done is Jesus’ clear rebuttal to our comfortable pad answer Christian notion that God is always in charge. If God is always and already in charge, why pray for that Kingdom to come? It would already be here. Why pray for God’s will to be done? Wouldn’t that be assumed?
Tagged N.T. Wright, Simply Jesus
N.T. Wright, Scot McKnight and the Gospel: Compared and Contrasted
At first glance it appears that Scot McKnight’s gospel proposal in his recent book, The King Jesus Gospel, is very much “Wrightian”. But the more I reflected on what McKnight had to say, and the more I perused much of what Wright says throughout his work, the wider a contrast between the two developed. These two scholars have many points of agreement though, and so much so that it may be suggested that McKnight’s gospel proposal was an outworking of Wright’s influence on his thinking. But Scot is a superb scholar in his own right, so it might simply be suggested that his understanding of the gospel developed independent of Wright, whom he sources simply as a scholar in agreement.
Areas of Agreement
1. What the Gospel Is Not
One of the premises of The King Jesus Gospel is that “We evangelicals (mistakenly) equate the word gospel with the word salvation… but these two words don’t mean the same thing” (p.29), he goes on to emphasize this distinction: “[T]his Plan of Salvation is not the gospel” (p.39). This is precisely the point N.T. Wright makes throughout much of his work. In What Saint Paul Really Said? Wright repeatedly makes this same point: “[the gospel] is not, then, a system of how people get saved” (p.10), “Paul’s gospel was not a doctrine of how to get saved” (p.90), “the gospel is not an account of how people get saved” (p.133).
Another thing that McKnight says the gospel is not is “justification by faith”. He examines John Piper’s question “Did Jesus preach Paul’s gospel?” and by that he says “Piper’s assumption is that justification is the gospel” and that Calvinist thinking among evangelicals “has defined the gospel in the short formula “justification by faith”. To this McKnight replies, “When we can find hardly any instances of our favorite theological category in the whole of the four Gospels, we need to be wary of how important our own interpretations and theological favorites are.” (p.25). But that is just about everything McKnight had to say about justification by faith not being the gospel. One page. In stark contrast but also in clear agreement, Wright says more or less the same thing, only to a much greater extent. Again in What Saint Paul Really Said? he writes, “For Paul, ‘the gospel’ creates the church; ‘justification’ defines it” (p.151), “I must stress again that the doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by ‘the gospel’” (p.132), “I have already indicated that [justification] cannot be put right at the centre, [of the gospel] since that place is already taken by the person of Jesus himself, and the gospel announcement of his sovereign kingship.” (p.114).
2. What the Gospel Is
After clearing the debris of what the gospel is not, these two scholars more or less also agree on what the gospel is (though, as we’ll see in a moment, McKnight’s understand of what the gospel is is minimalistic compared to Wright). To put it simply, McKnight says the gospel is “declaring the Story of Israel as resolved in the Story of Jesus” (p.79). Period. To further explain he writes, “[t]he gospel Story of Jesus Christ is a story about Jesus as Messiah, Jesus as Lord, Jesus as Savior, and Jesus as Son.” (p.55). “The gospel for the apostle Paul is the salvation-unleashing Story of Jesus, Messiah-Lord-Son, that brings to completion the Story of Israel as found in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. To ‘gospel’ is to declare this story, and it is a story that saves people from their sins. That story is the only framing story if we want to be apostolic in how we present the gospel. We can frame the ‘gospel’ with other stories or categories, but there is one holy and apostolic story, and it is the Story of Israel. That is the apostolic framing story of the gospel” (p.61). In What Saint Paul Really Said? Wright says that “[t]he gospel is, then, the announcement about Jesus” (p.157), “[the gospel is] the proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ” (p.133). “The gospel’ itself, strictly speaking, is the narrative proclamation of King Jesus” (p.45). “The good news [according to the prophets] would be the message that the long-awaited release from captivity was at hand” (p.43).
And both scholars emphasize our need to bring the resurrection in the gospel discussion, not just the crucifixion. McKnight writes, “The cross gospel requires a resurrection gospel…. Apart from resurrection the cross remains nothing more than an instrument of torture and suffering” (p.89) and “We need to recover more of that early, emboldened Christian resurrection gospel” (p.132).” In his recent book, Justification, Wright more or less makes the same point: “Paul does of course highlight the saving death of Jesus when he is giving his thumbnail sketch of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:5-8. But it is interesting that in the two crucial passages where he speaks of the faith of the Christian as embodying the faith spoken of in the Old Testament – Romans 4:23-25 and Romans 10:6-11 – it is the resurrection that takes center stage. This is not, of course, an either-or. The resurrection remains the resurrection of the crucified one, and its significance is not least that it signals that the cross was a victory, not a defeat (1 Corinthians 15:17)” (p.247).
And both scholars see 1 Corinthians 15 as a key summary text of the gospel (though, again as we’ll see in a moment, Scot takes a minimalistic approach here compared to Wright). McKnight writes: “The best place to begin is the one place in the entire New Testament where someone actually comes close to defining the word gospel. First Corinthians 15 is that place” (p.46, – emphasis mine). While per-capita it seems McKnight spends much more time in 1 Corinthians 15 as a gospel definition text than Wright, still Wright would agree that this passage is a summary gospel text. In Justification he refers to this text as “one of Paul’s summaries of the gospel (1 Corinthians 15:3)” (p.105 – notice Wright says “one of” in contrast to Scot’s “the one place”).
Areas of Disagreement
In the forward to McKnight’s book Wright says that McKnights proposal is so massive “that I doubt whether any of his colleagues, and certainly not this writer, will at once agree with every detail. We will want to nuance some things differently, to highlight other points, or to emphasize other angles” (p.12, italics mine). The following is where I believe Wright would do just that.
What Saint Paul Really Said? was published back in 1997, and in this controversial little piece of work Wright has a chapter titled “Herald of the King”. It is in the opening portions of this chapter that Scot McKnight quotes from at the start of his book. Ironically much of what Wright goes on to say in this chapter McKnight explicitly rejects in his book, and other things he says McKnight ignores. The first is the pagan context of the word “gospel” and the second is its exile motif. I’m going to put the exile motif aside for the time being because it could be argued that since the exile motif is a part of Israel’s Story, that it is implied in McKnight’s statement that the gospel “is the Story of Israel resolved in the Story of Jesus”. Because McKnight doesn’t draw any attention to this important theme as it relates to the gospel, it is difficult to tell if he rejects it or accepts it.
Wright points out that some scholars see “the gospel” strictly in terms of a Jewish or Israel (Isaiah prophecies) term while others see it as having a broader cultural connotation, and he says that this is based on false “either/or”. But McKnight falls into the category of the first. He doesn’t deny that ‘the gospel’ may have had political consequences, but he does reject the idea that Paul (or anyone else) used the term intentionally to be subversive. In other words, to Wright’s mind, Scot is one of those scholars to propagate the false antithesis.
Scot’s new book, The King Jesus Gospel, was published last month (September 2011) and it is a cool irony that Wrights new book, Simply Jesus, was published just last week (October 2011). It is before me while I type, and in it he affirms precisely the same point he made all those years ago:
“The message was carved in stone, on monuments and in inscriptions, around the known world: “Good news! We have an Emperor! Justice, Peace, Security, and Prosperity are ours forever! The Son of God has become King of the World!… ‘Augustus Tiberius Caesar, son of the Divine Augustus.’ On the reverse is a picture of Tiberius dressed as a priest, with the title pontifex maximus. It was a coin like this one that they showed to Jesus of Nazareth, a day or two after he had ridden into Jerusalem… After all, as the propaganda insisted, the rule of Caesar, the Roman ‘son of god,’ was the ‘good news’ that had brought blessings and benefits to the whole world.” (Simply Jesus, p.30)
For Wright, the only way to make sense of Jesus and his mission – i.e. ‘the gospel’ – is to reflect on the combination of “the cold might of empire and the overheated aspiration of Israel” (p.39).
Israel’s Story is important and Wright spends a lot of time in it, but it is not the only angle by which we look at the term “the gospel” in the first century and ask what was going on.
For McKnight, “No matter how much I’m personally inclined to want this set of ideas to be true, I’m not convinced the anti-imperial theme was as conscious to the apostles as some are suggesting. I would prefer to see the apostles just come out and say it… to proclaim the gospel entails that Caesar – in whatever guise such an autocrat presents himself – is not. But to claim the gospel was intentionally subversive stretches the evidence.” (p.144)
Another aspect of this discussion where it appears they disagree has to do with God himself. Again I believe this is where McKnight is being minimalistic. It’s not that McKnight outright rejects what I’m about to show you that Wright says about the gospel, rather it is that McKnight – because his view of ‘the gospel’ is so minimal, “Jesus’s Story as the fulfillment of Israel’s Story” and nothing more or less – doesn’t even address it. It is perhaps this very point – that McKnight makes the gospel a message about Jesus rather than a message about God – that he also misses the imperial connection as well.
“We have studied Paul’s ‘gospel’, and have seen that underneath his regular formulae (‘the Lord Jesus Christ’ and so on) there is a carefully worked out sequence of thought, an implicit story-line, which when properly understood reveals that he both remained totally rooted in his Jewish world and was aiming his message directly at the principalities and powers of the Roman world, from Caesar downwards. Ultimately, though, this message was not simply a message about Jesus. Everything he said about Jesus was, for him, a way of talking about God.” (What Saint Paul Really Said? p.57)
I’m inclined to agree with Wright that there are more things going on – and more things meant by ‘the gospel’ – then Scot allows for. Without minimizing the centrality of Jesus’ Story as the fulfillment of Israel’s Story it is imperative to note that Israel’s Story exists as an answer to Adam’s Story and that Story is really a Story about God and about creation and about a fall and about idolatry and about earthly rulers and political leaders and false god’s and the ‘good news’ proclaimed that these other rulers are the “son of god” who bring peace to the world and that through the meeting of the Isaiah prophecies of the “herald of good tidings” that the exile – not just Israel’s exile, but the Exile of humanity – was coming to an end, that this same herald of good tidings proclaimed by the apostles that “ultimately, for the Roman point of view, there was only one Lord of the world. According to Paul, he now had a rival” (What Saint Paul Really Said? p.56)
Church Diversity: Why Piper Does Not Go Far Enough
Christianity Today recently published an excerpt from John Piper’s forthcoming book, “Bloodlines”. The article was titled “John Piper: I Was Racist” and as near as I can tell, it is the book’s introduction. Now this is an important observation to make because most often when someone writes a book the question becomes, ‘what qualifies this person to write on this subject?’ To answer this question by way of introduction, Piper launches into his own biographical back-story of how he went from being a self-professed racist to, well, not being racist any more.
For the most part I found the article quite good. He shares how merely 90 years before his birth South Carolina had a population that was 60% black, almost all of which were slaves. He comments how the whites had justified the “noble spirit of Southern slaveholders by pointing to how nice they were to their slaves, and how deep the affections were, and how they even attended each other’s personal celebrations.” He explains how when he was a child how in South Carolina segregation was all but absolute and even the church he was raised in refused to allow blacks into its pews.
“In 1962 my home church voted not to allow blacks into the services. The rationale, as I remember, was that in the heated context of the civil rights era, the only reason blacks would want to be there would be political, which is not what church is for.”
So as the slaveholders came up with a rational for slavery, so Piper’s own church of his youth came up with a rational for segregation.
Today Piper frowns down on both rationales.
He describes the event in his senior year of Bible College where he experienced an “awakening from the sinful oblivion of racism”. It happened during a missionary conference in which the missionary Warren Webster was asked how he would feel if his daughter married a Pakistani. Webster replied in force: “Better a Christian Pakistani than a godless white American!” Up to this point Piper opposed racial-intermarriage.
With such assumptions now shattered Piper turned to the scriptures to see what they say about interracial marriage. In seminary he did research and wrote a paper concluding “the Bible does not oppose or forbid interracial marriages but sees them as a positive good for the glory of Christ.” Despite receiving an A- on the paper, his professor at the time wrote in the margins: “It is extremely hard to see the positive effect of specific interracial marriage.” To this Piper writes:
“His hesitancy to give a wholehearted affirmation to the goodness of interracial marriage was rooted in his desire not to minimize the struggle for the intrinsic worth of authentic black identity.”
To this reason too Piper frowns upon.
Pause and Notice a Pattern
Before we go further we need to observe a pattern implicit within Piper’s narrative. First observe how the slaveholders provided a justifiable reason for slavery and how that reason seems revolting to us today (the reason given: slaves and their masters had good relationships). Second observe how the church of Piper’s youth provided a justifiable reason for segregation and how that reason is a terrible reason, yet more “spiritual” than the first (the reason given: blacks attending predominantly white churches were making a political statement thus distracting the worship and hindering the body of Christ). Clearly that is a terrible reason, but it seems more spiritual than the first. Thirdly observe how Piper’s seminary professor has provided a justifiable reason for not wholeheartedly affirming interracial marriage that seems to be out of concern for the black community and how that reason still seems unjustifiable to us today (the reason given: interracial marriages “minimize” intrinsic worth of authentic black identity).
In other words, with each new era the justifiable reasons seem to get “better” and more “spiritual” while the offense is lessened.
Observe How Piper Perpetuates This Pattern
Now that we’ve made that observation, let’s move on. While a hundred and fifty years ago the issue was slavery, eighty years ago the issue was segregation, fourty years ago the issue was interracial marriage. Today’s issue – it seems from the article – is racial diversity within the body of Christ.
Sadly, this is where John Piper falls apart in this article (in my opinion). Because rather than advocating racial diversity within the body of Christ he seems to follow in the pattern set out in the article. That is, while the “offense” seems lessened (lack of diversity in Church today is certainly not as offensive as outright segregation or slavery!), the justifiable reason he gives seems more spiritual than all that have come before. He has justified his reasons for not advocating racial diversity by creating a false “either/or”. He has done this by staking out his position as the “gospel” position, while subjugating racial diversity in the body of Christ under the rubric of “worldly matters”.[1] (For an explanation of this observation, see the footnote.)
His reason for taking this route is because he has to admit that he has not been a “successful multiethnic leader” and then try and justify that fact in light of his writing of this new book. So to do this he has to convince his readers (most of whom will no doubt be convinced) that he has been given a “higher” calling; that his mission is not to be a “successful multiethnic leader” because he has been called to “writ[e] books [and] carr[y] on a wider speaking ministry”. And all of this is rooted in a particular understanding of the “gospel”; and Piper’s understanding of the gospel comes out clearest in his final paragraph:
“I believe that the gospel—the good news of Christ crucified in our place to remove the wrath of God and provide forgiveness of sins and power for sanctification—is our only hope for the kind of racial diversity and harmony that ultimately matters.”
Let me unpack that a little for you. For Piper the gospel amounts to Christ’ substitutionary atonement and our heavenly destiny. In other words, all of this – for Piper – amounts to personal salvation climaxing in our floating about in heaven in the sweet by and by where there will be peoples from every nation and tribe on earth (note his reference in that quote to “racial diversity and harmony that ultimately matters”). Racial diversity in this world doesn’t really – at least it doesn’t ultimately – matter. So aside from getting saved, what we do on this earth has no “ultimate” consequences.
Now for those of you who are aware of the controversy between Piper and Wright not long ago are all too aware of where this is going. N.T. Wright has been advocating a Gospel that is larger than you and I. He has been advocating a Christian ethic that opposes the false dichotomy between heaven and earth. He has been preaching a message that is world-changing. It starts here and now. It starts with your neighbor and your churches neighborhood. It’s a Gospel that says what you do in the here and now really does have eternal consequences. As the saying goes, “heaven is important, but it’s not the end of the world”.
Now Piper, in his next comment following the last quote, makes a startling turn:
“If we abandon the fullness of the gospel to make racial and ethnic diversity quicker or easier, we create a mere shadow of the kingdom, an imitation.”
But who’s advocating for an abandoning of the gospel “to make racial and ethnic diversity quicker and easier”? He has created a false dichotomy here and set up a strawman to do it.. It is not “either/or” but rather “both/and”. Piper’s idea of “the fullness of the gospel” boils down to personal salvation with a heavenly destiny. That’s not full. That is a rather impoverished view of the gospel. The Gospel of Jesus is much larger than that. The Gospel of Jesus Christ – in its fullness and glory – includes the breakdown of all racial and ethnic barriers in this world.[2]
If the Gospel is not having that kind of effect in our churches and communities, it is not the fullness of the Gospel.
In my opinion, John Piper has come a long way, but he has not gone far enough. Like those who opposed the abolition, like those who opposed integration, like those who oppose interracial marriage, so now with those who place on the back burner racial diversity in our churches, John Piper has come up with a “spiritual” justification for not going far enough.
[1] Piper’s concluding statement is a quote from Luke 9:25 except that he replaces the phrase “whole world” with “complete diversity”. The implication is clear. In the context of the article “complete diversity” means “racial diversity” of a local church that reflects its community. For Piper, vying for racial diversity in the church is tantamount to exchanging to gospel for the world.
[2] See Galatians 3:28 and Colossians 3:11
Tagged John Piper, N.T. Wright
The “Wright” Translation
By now word is getting around quick. I wanted to wait until after Easter to post on a non-Easter themed subject. I first read about this from Michael Bird’s blog who had heard about it from Mark Stevens.
Apparently N.T. Wright will be coming out with his own translation of the New Testament in November 2011. As Bird jokes, it’s not going to be called the N.T.W. Translation. According to the publisher, HarperOne, it is called “The Kings Version” (HT: Chorus of Echoes) which has an air of irony to it: Wright, an Anglican scholar from the people who brought us the King James Version; as if to say this translation is not dedicated to the King (or Queen) of England, but to the King of kings.
HarperOne’s discription of the new New Testament is as follows:
Most readers of the New Testament have grown overly familiar with the biblical text, losing sight of the wonder and breadth of its innovative ideas and world-changing teachings about the life and role of Jesus of Nazareth. Wright now offers an all-new English translation that allows us to encounter afresh these historic works. The original Greek text is vibrant, alive, and active, and Wright’s translation retains that spirit by providing a new English text for the twenty-first-century reader. At the same time, based on his work as a pioneering interpreter of the Bible, Wright also corrects other translations so as to provide more accurate representations of the original writers’ intent. (Here)
Wright has a commentary series called “For Everyone”. The layout is similar to many commentaries in that a portion of the biblical text is placed in the commentary followed by a commentary on that portion of the text. What makes Wright’s commentary unique (aside from the obvious that the the commentary is his commentary) is that the biblical text in Wright’s commentary is his own translation. So, of example, if you read Hebrews for Everyone you would get N.T. Wrights complete translation of the book of Hebrews within the commentary.
Using his commentaries they have put his translations into one volume and voilà, a New Testament.
As a side note: he’s also coming out with a new book on Jesus titled, Simply Jesus in September.
Tagged N.T. Wright
Jesus, Paul and the People of God (in Review) Part 1
Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue With N.T. Wright
Edited by Richard Hays & Picholas Perrin
4.5 Stars (out of 5)
Every year Wheaton College holds a theological conference usually consisting of several scholars on a particular – usually theologically “edgy” – topic. The papers presented at the conference are then typically published in a book the following year. Last year was the most attended conference to date and the reason for that is quite obvious and testifies to the extent of the influence of N.T. Wright.
The conference covered the span of two days and consisted of two topics respectively and thus the book was divided into two parts. For that reason this review will also be broken up into two parts. Today we will look at part 1 which is a critical assessment of N.T. Wright’s work on Jesus; tomorrow we’ll look at part 2, a critical assessment of Wright’s work on Paul.
Critiquing Wright’s Jesus:
Essay 1: Marianne Meye Thompson asks Tom why his opus magnum work on Jesus – Jesus and the Victory of God (JVG) – almost completely substantially ignores the Gospel of John.
Essay 2: Richard Hay’s asks a similar question as Thompson, but also focuses more specifically on another critique, namely, is Wright’s method of discovering the “real” Jesus – critical realism – really the way to go? Are Wright and Barth really that far apart in how the approach the historical Jesus?
Essay 3: Sylvia Keesmaat and Brian Walsh uniquely ask Wright if perhaps the historical Jesus has more to say about global economics then Wright allowed for in his previous work on Jesus.
Essay 4: Nicholas Perrin asks Wright if his emphasis of Jesus’ call of Israel to national repentance at the cost of under-emphasizing Jesus’ call for repentance from each and every person presents a proper balance of Jesus’ message?
Wright’s Response:
Wright calls Marianne’s paper “a quizzical piece” and disagrees with her assessment in many places. His portrayal of Jesus – relying mostly on the synoptic Gospels – is not that far from how John portrays Jesus. His reason for not using John’s Gospel as a primary source is because he had a particular liberal scholarship as his primary audience in mind.
“Had I brought John into the equation without comprehensive justification, my principal conversation partners would have ignored the book.” – p.63
To Richard Hays Wright defends his method of critical realism: “You have to read them [the Gospels] critically, but you have to be a realist as well. So: critical realism” [p.119] Wright does not want to find a Jesus “behind the Gospel”; his method takes the Gospel accounts seriously while rescuing Jesus from the ultra-conservatives who have invented a non-historical Jesus completely detached from his context and from the liberals whose approach to finding the “real Jesus” leads them to search for a Jesus “behind the Gospels” which results in a cut-and-paste approach to the scriptures.
To Keesmaat and Walsh Wright concedes the point about Jesus’ economics and how they might apply today. Jesus’ concern for the poor – as their primary example – is certainly a part of the Kingdom message which does not receive a prominent place in Wrights JVG in relation to our contemporary socio-economic world.
And finally, to Nicholas Perrin, Wright admits:
“I fully accept Nick’s point… I have been so used to seeing Jesus’ commands and warnings being reduced to the rather trivial moral challenges faced by young people in comfortable Western homes that I was determined, if I could, to draw out the much larger picture.” – p.113
Perrin’s critique was that Wright’s interpretation of “repentance” in the Gospel’s was of a national “meta-sin” involving the grand motifs of Exile and Restoration and mostly ignored the call for personal repentance. Wright agrees that “there was clearly plenty of ordinary, boring old sin going on too, and Jesus named and shamed it.”
Wright on Jesus:
Part one concludes with a fantastic essay by Wright on Jesus. If you are debating whether or not to get this book, this essay – as well as the last one on Paul in part two – make the book worth it’s dime!
The chapter is titled Whence and Whither Historical Jesus Studies in the Life of the Church? In this essay Wright moves from his typical “presentation mode” (where he presents his views and arguments) and beyond his recent defensive mode (having to defend his views against the neo-Reformed) and moves on the offensive.
“Rather than simply defending the project of the historical study of Jesus, I want to move on the attack.” – p.133
He “attacks” the de-historicizing of Jesus which has been pervasive throughout the history of the Church Tradition, focusing his attack on the emphasis in our Creeds on Jesus’ “Divinity and Humanity” at the expense of suppressing the central message of the Gospels (see here); and on the Churches separation of “Kingdom and Resurrection” and also on the Churches separation of “Kingdom and Cross”:
“With the apparent encouragement of the creeds, [many Christians] would be quite satisfied if Jesus of Nazareth had been born of a virgin and died on a cross and done nothing very much at all in between. That, they would assume, would be what canonical or traditional Christianity was all about. But the canon itself suggests otherwise.” – p.142
The problem is clear:
“Many kingdom theologies seem to have no place for the cross, and many atonement theologies, including “sound” evangelical ones, have no place for God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven.” – p.144
This is a big part of the problem. Wright’s “big picture” approach to Jesus brings balance to the Gospel message by attempting to tie all of the threads together to reveal the full tapestry of the Gospel story – not just this or that bit. He criticizes books like one written “two or three years ago” which attempted to explain what the Bible says about the atonement which had a lot of the Old Testament and a lot of Paul, “but almost nothing about the Gospels.” (I could be wrong, but I wonder if the book he is referring to is Packer’s and Dever’s In My Place Condemned He Stood which seemed to me to do just that.)
What makes this chapter particularly good is its autobiographical telling. In it Wright shares how he came to read the Gospels as he does and what points along the way most impacted him.
Tagged N.T. Wright
Reading the Psalms with Purpose: Two Scholars Point the Way (Brueggemann & Wright)
I have not read the Psalms through in quite some time and am rather glad. This is because I have always read the Psalms in an uncritical and purposeless fashion. For me reading the Psalms went something like this:
… Blah, blah, blah… the fool says in his heart there is no God… blah, blah, blah… My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?… blah, blah, blah… The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want… blah, blah, blah… The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it… blah, blah, blah… (Taken from Psalms 14, 22, 23, 24)
The “Blah, blah, blah” represent all the bits that didn’t compute with my concept of God or my theology, nor do they fit neatly in my high view of Scripture.
I think for example of Psalm 18:24:
The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness.
That sounds very Pelagian to me. Are not our righteousness like filthy rags? Isn’t there no one righteous, no not one? Or how about this one:
I hate those who cling to worthless idols. (Psalm 31:6)
What?! Are we not to “love the sinner but hate the sin”? This Psalm does not just tell us to hate the idol worshipping, but even the person performing the idolatrous act. Or how about this one:
You sold your people for a pittance, gaining nothing from their sale… All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant. (Psalm 44:12-17)
Here the Psalmist is blaming God acting unjustly, frivolously selling them for “pittance” all the while not only did they do nothing wrong to deserve such injustice, but in fact they went above and beyond by remaining faithful to God’s covenant! “Yet” the Psalmist continues, “for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughter” (Psalm 44:22). In other words, God! This is your fault because you are unjust!
Ya, I would have skipped over many, many of the Psalms in previous years. But two works of recent years have influenced my current readings of the Psalms, the first is The Message of the Psalms by Walter Brueggemann and the second is Paul: In Fresh Perspective by N.T. Wright.
Orientation to New Orientation – Brueggemann
Walter Brueggemann sees – broadly, he admits – a theological pattern which can be loosely traced throughout the Psalms which are reminiscent of that most famous Christological hymn of Philippians 2:5-11. He calls this pattern “Orientation”, “Disorientation” and “New Orientation”.
[Orientation] Human life consists in satisfied seasons of well-being that invoke gratitude for the consistency of blessing… [Disorientation] Human life consists in anguished seasons of hurt, alienation, suffering and death… [New Orientation] Human life consists in turns of surprise when we are overwhelmed with the new gifts of God, when Joy breaks through the despair. [The Message of the Psalms, p.19]
Consider how this plays out in the life of Christ in the classic Christian hymn of Philippians 2:5-11:
Orientation: “Though he was in the form of God…”
Disorientation: “[He] emptied himself.”
New Orientation: “Therefore God has highly exalted him…” [p.11]
The same pattern is emblematic of the larger biblical narrative, Creation, Fall, Recreation. Christians told this story in song, the Christ Hymn. This story may be seen in the Psalms as well.
Representative Psalms of Orientation are Psalm 2; Psalm 16; and Psalm 23.
Representative Psalms of Disorientation are Psalm 3; Psalm 6; Psalm 10; Psalm 26; and Psalm 44.
Representative Psalms of New Orientation are Psalm 18; Psalm 27; Psalm 31; Psalm 40 and Psalm 45.
Creation and Covenant – Wright
There is another theme, another story which the early Christians knew well because like the Psalms, the theology of early Christians was sung in another great Christological hymn, Colossians 1:15-20. The theology embedded in Christian song – and in Jewish song before it via the Psalms – is the theme of Creation and Covenant. Wright explains:
First the covenant is there to solve the problems within creation. God called Abraham to solve the problem of evil, the problem of Adam, and the problem of the world… But, second, creation is invoked to solve the problems within the covenant. When Israel is in trouble, and the covenant promises themselves seem to have come crashing to the ground, the people cry to the covenant of God precisely as the creator. – Paul: In Fresh Perspective, p. 24
Wright explains how Colossians 1:15-20 is more or less divided into two halves: verse 15-17 reminds the reader of God the creator all things “in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” through Jesus Christ who is the very image of the invisible God. But then (verse 18-20) the text turns and appeals to God the covenant maker: “He is the head of the body, the church… and through him to reconcile to himself all things…”
Psalms 19 is a perfect thematic example of how this same theology motif was embedded in the great songs (i.e. the Psalms) of Israel’s tradition. Psalm 19 is also more or less broken up into two halves. Psalm 19:1-6 reminds the reader from the start that God is the God Most High (not just another “god”): “The heavens declare the glory of God”. But then (Psalm 19:7-14) the Psalm turns and reminds the reader not just that God is “God Most High”, but more specifically that God Most High is in fact their God; he is the God who established a covenant relationship with Israel.
Other thematic examples of Psalms of “Covenant and Creation” aside from Psalm 19 (which may be the most convenient to point out) are Psalm 9; Psalm 24; Psalm 29; Psalm 33; and maybe Psalm 37.
I found the theological insights from these two scholars very helpful in guiding me to read the Psalms with purpose. To look for deep rooted theological themes embedded within Israel’s tradition which bleeds through their worship hymns.
[P.S. You'll notice that I did not source any Psalm above Psalm 45. That is because today's post was based on Days 39 & 40 of my 90 (or whatever) day challenge through the bible: Psalm 1-45].
Tagged N.T. Wright, Psalms, Walter Brueggemann
Wright is Wrong says Schreiner; Schreiner is Wrong says Me! (Part 2)
Thomas Schreiner
As I said in part 1, the word on the street was that Thomas Schreiner had got Tom Wright to change his mind during their debate on Justification (a greatly exaggerated word to be sure). At best Wright opted to use a different phrasology on a particular (and by comparision, a rather minor) point in order to clarify himself, but nothing of substance has changed.
When I came across Schreiner’s article, Wright is Wrong on Imputation, I had assumed that perhaps Schreiner got Wright to admit he was wrong on this central issue within the Justification debate. Nothing could be further from the truth. But not knowing that, I read Schreiner’s article expecting to read something convincing and devastating to Wright’s theology of the doctrine of Justification. This was not to be the case. It was in fact a rehashing of the same old (and unconvincing) points. I suppose the article was written to reaffirm “Imputation” among those who already hold to it, for surely it could not have been written to convince those who have been persuaded by Wright’s arguments!
Schreiner is Wrong on Imputation
In the article Schreiner summarizes Wright’s views and then launches on the offensive claiming “Wright’s interpretation is wrong and confusing on several levels”. I hear this all the time from Wright’s critics; that his interpretation is “confusing”. Well yeah, it would be to you because you disagree with him. But his view’s are not confusing to me because 1) I understand what he is saying and 2) I see it’s biblical foundation.
In any case, let’s look at Schreiner’s main points of contention one at a time:
1. Justification is a Legal Declaration
Schreiner writes:
Wright leads us astray when he says that justification is a legal declaration and hence it is not based on one’s moral character.
First Schreiner admits Wright’s point that justification is not based on our moral character quoting Romans 4:5 which says
To the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
But Schreiner believes that because Wright separates “moral character” entirely from the court-room metaphor, he fails to see the “role that Christ’s righteousness plays in imputation.” He quotes Deuteronomy 25:1 to back up (what he believes to be) the fact that in the Old Testament law court a judge rendered a verdict based on a persons moral character, otherwise the judge would be unjust (since he would be acquitting a guilty person). But the passage in Deuteronomy does not say that a person is acquited because he is morally righteous, but because he has been found “innocent” by the judge. This is an important distinction to be made because to be found “innocent” in a particular trial and having a righteous character are not the same thing.
For example, if a person is on trial for murder and the judge has found that person “innocent” or “not guity” it does not mean that the person on trial is righteous in his moral character in every aspect of his life. It only means that when all of the evidence is brought in, the judge has weighed it and has declared the man justified on that basis of that evidence in that particular case. The man may be found innocent of murder which the trial was about, but that does not mean the man is not a liar or a thief; it does not mean that the man – in order to be declared innocent in the murder trial – is a perfect and righteous man. It only means that the evidence found that he did not murder. The judge does not judge based on the man’s moral character, but on whether or not he committed the crime. And this brings me to my first contention to what I believe is missing in Schreiner’s interpretation of Justification:
The evidence that the Righteous Judge is looking for in the divine law court is not that a person has a righteous moral character, but that the person has faith in Jesus the Messiah.
I find it astounding that Schreiner (Piper, Sproul and the others) would miss the key role that faith plays in the Justification debate. All are guilty, no one is righteous (“no, not one!” – Romans 3:10). God’s not looking for righteous people because there are no righteous people. God is looking for unrighteous people (the only kind of people there is) who have faith in Jesus the Messiah, as Schreiner pointed out:
To the man who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. – Romans 4:5
The evidence which the Righteous Judge is looking for is faith.
2. The Unrighteous Are Clothed, Not Imputed
Next Schreiner correctly points out the rub of the issue: how God can declare sinners to be righteous? Wouldn’t that make God an unjust Judge?:
So how can God be righteous in declaring the wicked to be righteous? The answer of Scripture is that the Father, because of His great love, sent His Son, who willingly and gladly gave Himself for sinners, so that the wrath that sinners deserved was poured out upon the Son (Rom 3:24-26).
For Schreiner, it is clear that a persons moral character plays a “vital role in Justification”. So far so good because now we have come – at least in part – to the purpose of the sacrifice of Christ. But we need to remember that we have rejected Schreiner’s previous premise. God’s not looking for a righteous person, he’s looking for an unrighteous person who’ll have faith in the righteous Messiah. Christ paid the price for humanity (beyond a scriptural doubt) and God the Righteous Judge is looking for the evidence of “faith” by which he can declare a person justified or guilty. We should remember then that the vital point in the passage of Romans 3:24-26 is the role which faith plays in Justification, as the text makes abundantly clear: “As to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus”. God is just not by justifying the wicked or by justifying the righteous but by justifying those who have faith in the faithful Messiah.
The point Schreiner is drawing out is the substitutionary death of Jesus by quoting 2 Corinthians 5:21:
God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
And again in Philippians 3:9:
[That I may gain Christ] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
Now let’s put these two verses in the context of Schreiner’s overall argument. Schreiner opens up his post by stating that Wright believes that the doctrine of
imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer [is] an artificial construct, an idea from systematic theology that does not truly come from the Bible.
The entire article has been written to prove that the doctrine of imputation of Christ’s righteousness does in fact truly come from the Bible. Now we have come to the end of the article and I am still asking, Schreiner, where is it? Schreiner has assumed that if God declares a person righteous who is wicked that he must impute Christ’s righteousness on to that person, but that is an assumption, an “artificial construct, an idea from systematic theology”, but where is it in the Bible?
Schreiner rests his case on the two passages just listed, 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Philippians 3:9. And this brings me to my second contention to what I believe is missing in Schreiner’s interpretation of Justification:
Those who are declared righteous are done so because they are found “in Christ” by faith. When a person has faith they “clothe” themselves with Christ or “put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27; Romans 13:14; Colossians 3:3) so that when God sees them, he sees not them, but his righteous Son. It is not by “imputation” but by “participation”.
Again I find it absolutly astonishing that such revered biblical scholars as Schreiner, Sproul and Piper would cling so desperately to the theological construct of “imputation” rather then to reach for the precise biblical categories which Paul himself reaches for: the doctrine of “in Christ”.
In case you have any doubt, read 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Philippians 3:9 again. In 2 Corinthians 5:21 Paul writes that God made him who knew no sin to be sin so that “in Him” he might become the righteousness of God. In case you missed in: “IN HIM“. It’s that little phrase which all of Wright’s critics just keep on ignoring as they continue to reach for the sub-biblical category of “imputation”. In other words, Paul only becomes the righteousness of God when he is in Christ, the Righteous One. When Paul is in Christ God does not see Paul, He sees Christ because Paul has put on Christ (Galatians 3:27).
I’m afraid Philippians 3:9 fairs no better for Schreiner, Sproul or Piper because that nagging little biblical category is found there too: Paul writes that he might gain Christ and “be found in him” not having a righteousness of his own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
If Schreiner, Sproul, Piper and others in the Reformed tradition would begin to put the Scriptures first and reach for biblical categories rather then theological constructs of their tradition; if they would understand the vital role faith and participation share in the doctrine of Justification, they just may begin to get things right.
As Wright correctly points out:
For Paul, “justification” was something that happened “in the Messiah.” The status the Christian possesses is possessed because of that belongingness, that incorporation. This is the great Pauline truth to which the sub-Pauline idea of “the imputation of Christ’s righteousness” is truely pointing. – Justification p.142
[If you liked this article you'll love N.T. Wright, R.C. Sproul and the Scarecrow]
Tagged N.T. Wright, Thomas Schreiner
