I purchased a copy of What Saint Paul Really Said? so that N.T. Wright could autograph it since it was the first book on Paul by him I read.

If memory serves it was Edith Humphrey who brought up and challenged Wright’s interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:21.

For N.T. Wright, if you are discussing Justification using the law-court metaphor (which has been the case since Calvin or before) it makes no sense at all to say that God’s righteousness is “imputed” on the believer. God as judge simply judges justly thus making him a “righteous Judge”. But when putting the subject of the believers Justification aside and asking the question on its own – giving full weight to the Old Testament use of “righteousness” – N.T. Wright believes that the phrase, “Gods Righteousness” is actually short hand for “the covenant faithfulness of God”. In both cases God’s righteousness is his own, it is not something he gives to anyone else.

If his interpretation is correct then what about 2 Corinthians 5:21 in which the text explicitly reads that “we have become the righteousness of God”?

N.T. Wright believes (as he says very clearly in both What Saint Paul Really Said? and in Justification) that this passage is so contextualized that we must read it as Paul talking about his own Apostolic Ministry and not about believers everywhere being imputed God’s righteousness.

Keep in mind that God’s righteousness is a reference to his faithfulness to his covenant, a faithfulness which came to fruition in the “faithful obedience of Jesus Christ on the cross” (Galatians 2:16, Philippians 2:5-11). So if the message of the Gospel – the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-5) is the message of God’s covenant faithfulness then, says Wright, when Paul and the Apostles preached that message they actually embodied that message. In that sense they literally became “the righteousness of God”. This, says Wright, is the whole context of 5:11-20 and even going back to chapter 3 and 4.

But I was not satisfied with this interpretation because it seemed to limit the scope of the biblical text. I tried to dance – ever so delicately – the line between the “old” view and the “new” (i.e. Wright’s) view believing that this passage does teach that believers “take on” God’s righteousness as it were, but through the Union With Christ (“In Him” it says) rather than “imputation”. In short, I leaned toward Edith’s understanding of this passage.

In Wright’s response to Edith Humphrey my anxieties were relieved. Wright, in explaining this text at the conference, seemed to go further with it then I think he does in his books. Keeping all of his premises in tact he expanded his interpretation of this passage to include all believers and their mission.

The righteousness of God does in fact refer to God’s faithfulness to his covenant expressed fully in the life, death and resurrection of Christ (i.e. the Gospel). Furthermore, Paul in 2 Corinthians is talking – in context – specifically about his own ministry and that of the other Apostles. But – and this I think is the touch Wright adds which he does not make clear in his previous writings – we believers have a job to do in proclaiming the Kingdom Message of the Gospel to the world and when we do that then we too become, i.e. embody, the Righteousness of God.

And that is how N.T. Wright interprets 2 Corinthians 5:21, it is an interpretation I can live with though I myself need to tease it out a bit more.

N.T. Wright maintains a distinction between “God’s righteousness” and “our justification” and we should not confuse the two.

The phrase “God’s righteousness” is God’s own righteousness as the Judge. The Judge is a “just” Judge not because he is morally perfect (though obviously God is), but because He judges Rightly, i.e. He is a righteous Judge. So God’s righteousness is his own ability to judge rightly, and in that sense it would be silly to suggest that the Judge (i.e. God) could impute, impart, bequeath et cetera his own “righteousness” onto the defendant.

The phrase “to be justified” is a declaration from the Righteous Judge (assuming He judges rightly). It is not a declaration that someone is morally perfect (“no one is righteous, no not one”), rather the Judge finds the defendant, based on the case and evidence at hand, to be justified. The evidence in a believer’s case that God looks for is whether or not he/she is a follower of Jesus the Messiah.

So God’s righteousness is His own as Judge and refers to His judging rightly. The defendants “justification” is a declaration made by the just Judge that he is acquitted of the crime of which he is accused of in that particular case. So the Judges “righteousness” is distinguished from the defendants “justification”.

So what about 2 Corinthians 5:21 which Paul distinctly writes that in Christ we become the “righteousness of God”. How can the defendant become the Judges own righteousness?

Cannot and does not this text support the traditional view that the believe becomes (i.e. is imputed) God’s own righteousness? I struggled with Wrights interpretation of this text (see my struggle here and read under the heading, “What About God’s Righteous Judgment”) and my struggle came into focus after Wright was challenged on this point and before he responded. I remember talking with a friend after the challenge was made and we bantered around ideas and wondered how Wright will respond.

It is his answer to that challenge which will be the focus of the next post.

CAN YOU GUESS WHERE DEREK IS SITTING IN RELATION TO WHERE N.T WRIGHT IS SITTING?

But as the post takes flight the blogger focuses all of his energy on being made righteous by having faith in Jesus. In other words, there is subtle move from understanding being justified as a matter of “Incorporation/Participation” (being in Christ) to being imputed righteousness by having faith in Christ (believing in Christ).

I think this shift happens without thought and I think it is a mistake. I believe we are not made righteous by having faith in Jesus (that is how we are saved – Eph 2:8-9). But we are made righteous by Jesus’ own faithfulness!

Consider Romans 3:22:

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. – NIV

Notice the NIV reads, “faith in Jesus Christ”. But the Greek reads, “faith of Jesus Christ” (look it up). And since the Greek word for faith can at the same time be translated “faithfulness”, I think the passage should be rendered, “faithfulness of Jesus Christ”.

Think about it for a moment. The passage makes no sense at all if it says “faith in” because Paul would be exercising his right to redundancy: “Through faith [believing] in Jesus Christ to all who believe” – obviously Paul, why add, “to all who believe” if you already said, “through faith [believing]“?

I think the passage makes better sense this way: “Righteousness of God comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to all who believe”. Now doesn’t that make more sense?

When we believe we become participators in Christ, taking on his righteousness, a righteousness he claims by way of his faithfulness to God by being obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-11).

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God – 2 Corinthians 5:21

The doctrine of imputation is always talked about a part from the doctrine of participation. I think this is a mistake.

The doctrine of imputation should never be talked about a part from the doctrine of participation.

(Note: the article I referenced above is otherwise a great post!)

When they chose new gods, war came to the city gates, and not a shield or spear was seen among forty thousand in Israel.

My heart is with Israel’s princes, with the willing volunteers among the people.

Praise the Lord!

You who ride on white donkeys, sitting on your saddle blankets, and you who walk along the road consider the voice of the singers at the watering places.

They recite the righteous acts of the Lord, the righteous acts of his warriors in Israel – Deborah (Judges 5:8-11).

You may already have seen this logo as my Gravatar when I have added comments in the past, and recently you have probably noticed this little logo up in the address bar in your browser (Favicon).

But today I make it official.

Covenant of Love presents:

Drum roll please…

Nice eh? (Yah that’s right. I’m Canadian)

What’s That All About?

So what’s the deal? How does this logo represent Covenant of Love? Let me explain.

(Be warned, this might get a bit technical.)

The covenant which God established with Abraham was both unconditional – that is, through Abraham God will, he is driven to, set things right(!) – and it is conditional – that is, while God’s plan is to redeem creation including all mankind, through Israel, through those who are in Abraham, the question becomes, who is in Abraham (Israel)?

These two aspects of the same covenant are clearly paralleled in Gen 15 and Gen 17. In the first passage God himself passes through the blood of mutilated animals declaring to Abraham that God will stake his own life on the line! ‘If what I promise does not come to pass’, God says, ‘may what happened to these animals happen to me’; this is essentially what was communicated in that morbid event. (The irony is that, in order for God to keep his promise, what happened to those animals had to happen to him.[1])

Yet in chapter 17, when the covenant with Abraham is confirmed a conditional element enters the scene:  “you are to undergo circumcision, and it is to be the sign of the covenant between me and you”. God tells Abraham and his family that they must be circumcised as a “sign”, that is, an outward symbol of an inward event! Circumcision of the flesh was to symbolize a circumcised heart, or rather, faith![2] And anyone who does not undergo this circumcision will be “cut off” from the people of God (Genesis 17:14). So from the very beginning God has set a plan in motion to redeem creation through one man and through his family; yet those who are in that family, who partake in the covenant, are not only those who are born of the flesh, but of the heart, of faith!

The word “covenant” in the New Testament is transliterated something like this: diatheke, and its majority of occurrences are either quotations from or allusions to the Old Testament.[3] In Hebrew the verb form of covenant means “to cut”, to shed blood. So when a covenant (which is a relationship) between God and man is made it is, and was quite literally, “cut” – “without the shedding of blood there’s no forgiveness of sins”[4].

The word “Love” in the Greek is transliterated something like this: agapao, and is used by the New Testament writers to describe the relationship between a husband and his wife[5] and, most importantly, of God’s undeserved love for mankind.[6] Love (agapao) in the scripture is not simply an aspect of Gods character, like God’s sovereignty or holiness or righteousness. The scriptures begin a definition of love not with what God has, but with whom God is; God himself is Love itself. God is love says 1 John 4:8.

The logo for Covenant of Love utilizes the first letter in the Greek word for “covenant” – the delta, and the first letter in the Greek word for “love” – the alpha. Together the delta and the alpha form an abbrevation for “Covenant of Love”!

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. – 1 John 4:10

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. – 1 John 2:2

[2] Cf. Deuteronomy 10:16

[3] Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, p.143

[4] Hebrews 9:22

[5] Cf. Ephesians 5:25

[6] John 3:16; 1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:9-10