Over the past few weeks, I have been exploring (here, here, here, and here) the subject of
the Christian gospel in the wake of Scot McKnight’s new book, The King Jesus Gospel.[i] Many Christians, especially those who
self-identify as “Evangelicals,” would be surprised to learn that there is
discussion, let alone dispute, about this apparently foundational issue. Indeed, as I have said, I was raised to think
of the gospel in terms of the salvation of the individual. It was, so I
thought, the combined teaching of the doctrines of penal substitution (“Christ”
died on the cross in my place, bearing the judgment I deserved for my sins) and
justification by faith (those who believe in Christ are “declared righteous” and
assured of “heaven” by virtue of what Christ did, even though I remain a sinner
as long as I live). Our investigations
of 1 Corinthians 15, however, pointed in another direction. Paul quotes the earliest confession about the
gospel in verses 3-5. From that
confession we concluded that the gospel is the
proclamation of the historical events of Jesus’
death and resurrection, interpreted in accord with the Old Testament scriptures
as the climactic saving acts of God for Israel and the world. In verses 20-28
the apostle interprets Jesus’ bodily resurrection against the horizon of God’s
ultimate plan for the denouement of salvation-history. Christ’s present reign
as resurrected Lord has as its goal the unchallenged, eternal rule of God. In other words, the gospel is ultimately
about the kingdom of God.
Today we turn to Paul’s most famous
letter, The Epistle to the Romans. The
fame of this letter is certainly deserved. It is not only the longest and most systematic
of the apostle’s extant writings, it has also been the most significant
historically, as anyone familiar with Augustine, Luther, Wesley, and Barth
knows well. Indeed, it is this letter, via Martin Luther’s “rediscovery” of the
gospel and reinterpretation of the phrase, “the righteousness of God,” that undergirds
the common Protestant association of the gospel with the doctrine of
justification.
Fortunately, we don’t have to search
long before we encounter mention of the gospel.
The first seven verses of the letter (Rom 1:1-7) constitute its
“prescript.” In typical Greco-Roman letters,
the prescript consisted of three elements: sender, recipient, and greeting.[ii] Paul, as one might expect, generally follows
the conventions of his time.
Nevertheless, he typically expands one or more of these elements for
rhetorical reasons. Such expansions
serve the hermeneutical purpose of providing a window through which to discern
the major concerns that will be addressed in the body of the letter.[iii] From the perspective of ancient rhetoric, it
is not insignificant to note that the opening of a letter corresponded in
function to the exordium of a speech,
both commending the author to the audience and summarizing the major points to
be discussed.[iv]
Here in Romans 1:1-7, Paul expands the
superscriptio, his description of
himself as the sender of the letter. He
does this by reflecting on his divinely commissioned task, as apostle to the
Gentiles, to proclaim the gospel among all
Gentiles, including those to whom he is writing in Rome. The focus of these reflections centers on two
related issues: his message (vv.2-4)
and his mission (vv. 5-6). After the completion of the body of the
letter, the apostle will finally get around to telling the Roman Christians the
pragmatic purpose of his letter, namely, that he is hoping to enlist their
support for a planned mission to Spain (15:22-29). To this end he must first win their trust and
sympathy. He attempts to accomplish this
via his recitation of the content of
the gospel, thus demonstrating their shared faith convictions.[v]
Romans 1:1-4 read as follows:
1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus,
called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— 2 the
gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3
regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, 4
and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by
his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. (NIV)
This text is exceedingly clear, and corresponds in
many respects to what Paul recorded earlier in 1 Corinthians 15. The first salient point, one which has a
direct parallel in the Corinthian correspondence, is the assertion that the gospel is the fulfillment of God’s promises
in the Old Testament prophetic scriptures (1:2).[vi] Paul doesn’t explicitly list any texts at
this point, so it is possible he is speaking generally, as in the earlier
formulation. Yet, as will be seen,
verses 3-4 quite clearly allude to 2 Samuel 7:12, 14 and Psalm 2:7. Moreover, Romans—more than any other Pauline
epistle—is laced through and through with both explicit Old Testament citations
and even more frequent “echoes” of scriptural texts that both carry the
letter’s argument forward and provide the lens through which to understand its
message.[vii] The gospel, as Paul understood it, thus
stands in historical continuity with God’s revelation to Israel. Indeed, his claim is, as we will see, an
outrageous one: the gospel message, far
from being the negation of God’s inscripturated promises to Israel, is instead
their fulfillment. What Paul is
saying is that God’s covenant promises to Israel, rightly understood, point to
the events narrated in the gospel message he quotes in verses 3-4.
The second salient point is likewise consistent with
what we found in 1 Corinthians 15. For
Paul (and the tradition he cites), the
gospel message concerns the Messianic career and resurrection of Jesus, God’s
“Son” (1:3-4). He articulates the
gospel in two parallel participial clauses:
1. toῦ
genomέnou toῦ ὁrisqέntoς
“who
was born”[viii] “who was appointed”
2. ἐk spέrmatoς
Dauὶd uἱoῦ qeoῦἐn dunάmei
“from
the seed of David” "Son of God in power
3. katὰ sάrka katὰ pneῦma ἁgiwsύnhς
“according to
the flesh” “according to the Spirit of holiness”
This formula, though memorable, is hardly
transparent in meaning. The difficulties
revolve primarily around three expressions[ix]
·
The
meaning of ὁrisqέntoς (“declared” or
“appointed”)
·
The
meaning of “Son of God”
·
The
meaning of the flesh/spirit contrast
In the history of interpretation, two primary explanations
have emerged. The traditional view is that the contrast is an ontological or
metaphysical one between two component “parts” or coexisting sides in the
constitution of Christ’s person.[x] According to this interpretation, Christ was
born from the seed of David as far as his human nature was concerned. By his
resurrection, however, his true identity was unveiled. In particular, Christ’s resurrection served
the noetic function of declaring him
to be what he eternally was, namely, the divine Son of God.
Despite its respectable pedigree, however, and
obvious agreement with historic, conciliar orthodoxy,[xi]
there are three insurmountable problems with this interpretation. First, the verb ὁrίzein simply
does not mean
“to declare what was true all along.” In
the New Testament it always means “to appoint, designate, establish, or fix”
(Acts 2:23; 10:42; 11:29; 17:26, 31; Heb 4:7).[xii] In other words, the verb clearly indicates,
as Jimmy Dunn writes, “that Paul saw in the resurrection of Jesus a ‘becoming’
of Jesus in status and role, not simply a ratification of a status and role
already enjoyed on earth or from the beginning of time.”[xiii]
The second insuperable difficulty faced by the
traditional interpretation is that Jesus’ resurrection is never used in the New Testament to predicate his deity. He is raised specifically as a human being, and the event is
significant theologically for that very reason. Indeed, as we saw in 1
Corinthians 15, Christ’s resurrection as Messiah and second Adam was the
inaugural event of the new creation and, as such, was the determinate harbinger
of the resurrection of all human beings
belonging to him.
The traditional view likewise suffers in regard to
its understanding of the flesh/spirit contrast. Paul nowhere uses the flesh/spirit contrast to
differentiate human and divine natures.
As is evident from his use of the antithesis in Romans 8:4-9, 13[xiv] ,
the “Spirit” refers to the Holy Spirit. Consequently,
the contrast is an “eschatological” one: the “flesh” (merely human
existence/nature) and the Spirit are the two determining “powers,” as it were,
of two successive “ages” in salvation-history.[xv] The resurrection, in other words, is
significant to the gospel precisely because of its salvation-historical, indeed
eschatological, significance.
The second view
holds that the contrast is a salvation-historical one between two successive
stages in the Messianic career of God’s “Son.”[xvi] According to this interpretation, both parts
of the contrast are governed by Paul’s introductory comment that the “gospel of
God” (1:1)[xvii]
concerns his “Son”[xviii] Accordingly, this text should be understood
in concert with other texts in Paul that speak of God “sending” his Son into
the world (Rom 8:3; Gal 4:4-5) and “giving” him over to death (Rom 8:32).[xix] The most natural reading of these texts
presupposes the so-called “preexistence” of Christ[xx]
and a corresponding emphasis on the intimacy of his relationship with the God
who sent him. This career of God’s Son—which
itself constitutes the “good news”— proceeds in two stages.
The first stage lasted from his birth until his
death, about which Paul will have much to say later in the letter. God’s Son, says Paul, was “born from David’s
seed according to the flesh.” This
statement is a clear allusion to 2
Samuel 7:12-13, where Nathan the prophet announces the covenantal promise
to David and his house:
12 When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. (NIV)
The point is as clear as can be. The gospel announces that Jesus is the “seed”
who, by birth, had the requisite bloodlines to fulfill the covenant promise God
made to David. Far from negating Jewish
Messianic hopes, the gospel affirms their realization in Jesus of Nazareth who,
the text says, was born for this very purpose.[xxi]
The second stage of Christ’s “career” is described
in verse 4: He was “appointed Son of God in power from the time of (ἐk) the
resurrection of the dead.” This statement
clearly reflects two Old Testament texts, 2
Samuel 7:14 and Psalm 2:7:
I will be his father, and he will be
my son.
I will proclaim the LORD’s decree:
He
said to me, “You are my son;
today I have become your father.
today I have become your father.
Psalm 2 is a royal coronation psalm. Verse 7
poetically celebrates the coronation of the king precisely as the enactment of
God’s covenantal promise for each successive dynastic generation. In this light, it is clear that the title “Son of God” in verse 4 must
be understood as a Messianic/royal designation rather than as a title
redolent of divine ontology.[xxii] If so, the prepositional phrase “in power”
should be understood as qualifying the title “Son of God,” thus helping
differentiate the Son’s status prior to the resurrection from that which to
which he was elevated at that time. Thus, whereas in his earthly career he was
the “Son of God in weakness,” since the resurrection he has reigned as “Son of
God in power.” In other words, he now exercises the full range of royal
prerogatives as the enthroned Lord in fulfillment of God’s covenant promise to
David.
Paul concludes his gospel summary by identifying, if
anyone needed to be so informed, who this reigning “Son of God” is. He is
“Jesus Christ our Lord.” The apostle thus
ties the gospel message to the very one who had been crucified as a Messianic
pretender by the Roman authorities, and designates him with the title that most
characterizes the early Christian understanding of the risen Jesus.[xxiii] As the resurrected and exalted Lord, Christ
the “Son” thus exercises God’s unique eschatological sovereignty over all
things.
It cannot be emphasized enough that this two-stage
summary of Christ’s Messianic career is the authoritative summary of the gospel
that Paul cites to commend himself to his readers. Thus N.T. Wright, in his comments on this
passage, says that the gospel, far from being a message about how people get
saved, is rather “an announcement about Jesus, the Messiah, the Lord.”[xxiv] In this
he is exactly right. Yet this has
not shielded him from criticism from would-be defenders of the Reformation
tradition.
J. Ligon Duncan, for example, in a lecture given at
Jackson, Mississippi, takes Wright to task for “mak[ing] the Gospel wholly
about the person of Christ and not about his work (‘the Gospel is “Jesus is
Lord and Messiah” not “Jesus died for your sins”’).”[xxv] He then suggests Wright needs to articulate
“how that is an identifiably evangelical view of the Gospel,” and argues, in
explicit criticism of Wright, that “the minute you accept that the Gospel is
not about justification … at the very least you have a huge hole in the
historic Protestant consensus on and articulation of the Gospel in relation to
human sin and divine justice.”[xxvi] Duncan, I dare say, is not alone in Reformed
circles, as I know from personal experience.
At one level, such criticisms are inexcusable in
their misrepresentation of Wright’s views, suggesting they either have not read
his works thoroughly or, which is more than likely the case, their own
entrenched theological worldview has blinded them from appreciating the nuances
of his position.[xxvii] It is indeed the case that, were Wright actually
to define the gospel in terms of Christ’s person
as over against his work (this
contrast itself is the product of the typical categorization of western
systematic theology), he would certainly
be open to criticism. But does Wright actually
deny that Christ’s death for our sins is part of the gospel?[xxviii] No.
Does he emphasize the person of Christ to the exclusion or even diminishing
of his work? No.[xxix] Does he, as Duncan charges, “[offer] a
diminished view of sin?”[xxx] No.[xxxi] Does Wright deny the doctrine of
justification by faith? No.[xxxii]
Now, Duncan et
al. are perfectly within their rights to disagree with how Wright
articulates the issues. Indeed, I don’t
agree in every detail myself. At times
he is manifests a less than ideal clarity. At other times, I would like to add more
precision to his articulation. Nevertheless, what such criticisms manifest
is a fundamental difference in how the gospel is framed. Duncan, for whom justification is part and
parcel of the gospel, frames the gospel (and the argument of Romans) in terms
of the salvation of the individual. To
use McKnight’s term, Duncan is an unabashed and unrepentant “soterian.” But the fact remains that Paul here uses a
definition of the gospel that is not framed “soteriologically.” This formula says nothing about Christ’s
atoning death, let alone anything about “justification by faith.” As one raised in the soterian tradition, I
can attest to confusion when I used to read this passage. In what sense can the gospel (as I understood
it) be connected with Jesus’ resurrection and status as Lord?
Wright doesn’t have the same problem, and his
shorthand definition of the gospel as “Jesus is Lord” fits this passage like a
glove. In this regard, he aligns his
understanding with that of McKnight, for whom, as we saw, understands the
gospel as the story of Jesus in that it completes and climaxes the biblical
story of Israel. For Wright, the gospel
as articulated in Romans 1 must be understood as the proclamation of the salvation-historical fulfillment of the Old
Testament promises of the kingdom of God and new creation. On this understanding, Christ’s resurrection
and current reign as Lord are good news, not simply because of what they say
about Christ’s person, but rather because they are specifically the means by
which God’s new creation has been inaugurated.
And this is precisely the
perspective of Paul here in Romans 1.
The gospel, as Paul describes it, is not a scheme of
individual salvation, even though individuals are “saved” by faith in the Jesus
announced therein. It is rather the
message of God’s Son, who has brought the Old Testament promises to fulfillment
by means of his Messianic life, death, and resurrection.
Still, one might ask why Jesus’
resurrection/exaltation and reign as Lord are singled out here in Romans 1 as
summarizing the gospel message. The
answer, I would suggest, is found in Psalm 2, the very text alluded to in
Romans 1:4. Immediately following the installment
of the Davidide on the throne in verse 7, the newly crowned king says:
Ask me,
and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession.
and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession.
The Davidic king of Israel, as YHWH’s vicegerent,
was (in his ultimate incarnation as the eschatological Messiah) by rights the
king of the entire world. As another
royal psalm states, “May his name endure forever;
may it continue as long as the sun. All nations will be blessed through him,
and they will call him blessed (Ps 72:17).”
The Davidic king, in the person of the Messiah, would thus be the means
by which God’s promise to Abraham of universal blessing (Gen 12:3) would be
fulfilled.
Consequently, the resurrection and present
reign of Christ are “good news” because they mark the fulfillment of these
promises and thus provide the warrant for
the inclusion of the Gentiles in the people of God. This is where Paul’s own commission as
apostle to the Gentiles becomes significant (Rom 1:5-6). The resurrection and Lordship of Christ, in
other words, are good news less for what they say about Christ’s person than
for what they entail for the fulfillment of both the Davidic and Abrahamic covenants.
That this is indeed Paul’s point is
confirmed in what has been termed the letter’s peroratio,[xxxiii]
Romans 15:7-13. Here the apostle
provides a catena of four Old Testament texts speaking of the eschatological
salvation of the Gentiles:
7Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. 8 For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed 9 and, moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written:
“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles;
I will sing the praises of your name.” [Ps 18:49; 2 Sam 22:50]
10Again, it says,“Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.” [Deut 32:43]
11 And again,“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles; [Ps 117:1]
let all the peoples extol him.”
12 And again, Isaiah says,“The Root of Jesse will spring up,
one who will arise to rule over the nations;
in him the Gentiles will hope.” [Isa 11:10]
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The gospel of God’s crucified and risen Son, Paul
argues, creates a people consisting of both
Jews and Gentiles.[xxxiv] And this is, as Paul argues, precisely how
God had planned and promised things to be.
[i] Scot
McKnight, The King Jesus Gospel: The
Original Good News Revisited (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011).
[iii] Cf. L. Ann
Jervis, The Purpose of Romans: A
Comparative Letter Structure Investigation (JSNTSup 55; Sheffield: JSOT,
1991) 42.
[iv] Neil Elliott, The Rhetoric of Romans: Argumentative
Constraint and Strategy and Paul’s Dialogue with Judaism (JSNTSup 45;
Sheffield: JSOT, 1990; Samuel Byrskog, “Epistolography, Rhetoric and Letter
Prescript: Romans 1.1-7 as a Test Case,” JSNT
65 (1997) 27-46).
[v] This is one of
multiple reasons why I think it likely that verses 3-4 are a (redacted?)
quotation of a pre-Pauline formulation of the gospel message.
[vi] On this subject,
see especially Christopher G. Whitsett, “Son of God, Seed of David: Paul’s
Messianic Exegesis in Romans 2 (sic!):3-4,”
JBL 119 (2000) 661-81. This claim anticipates Paul’s later comments
in 3:21, 31.
[vii] Dietrich-Alex
Koch, Die Schrift als Zeuge des
Evangeliums (BHT 69; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986) 21-24, lists 89
citations in the Pauline corpus, 51 of which are to be found in Romans. The
numbers would be higher were he not to count the catena in Rom 3:10-18 as one
citation. On scriptural “echoes” in
Romans, cf. the penetrating analysis of Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale, 1989)
34-83.
[viii]
The normal
way to express this would have been with the participle gennwmέnou.
The verb gίnomai
had,
however, assimilated to the verb gennάw (cf. BDAG,
197), so this might not be significant.
However, Doug Moo suggests—and he may be right—that the choice of verbs
was deliberate, and that Paul thereby hinted that Jesus’ birth entailed a
“becoming” or change of existence vis-à-vis
that in his eternal preexistence (Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [NICNT; Grand Rapids and Cambridge:
Eerdmans, 1996] 46).
[ix] Martin Luther
said concerning these verses, “As far as I know, this passage has not been
adequately interpreted by anyone” (Luther:
Lectures on Romans [ed. Wilhelm Pauck; LCC; Philadelphia: Westminster,
1961] 12). The situation, I believe, has
improved considerably. Despite some residual differences of opinion, a
reasonable consensus has emerged.
[x] Cf., e.g., Chrysostom,
The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom,
Archbishop of Constantinople, on the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the
Romans, Homily I (Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Series 1) 11:340; Luther,
Lectures, 12-13; John Calvin, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the
Romans and Thessalonians (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries; trans. Ross
MacKenzie; ed. D. W. Torrance amd T. F. Torrance; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960)
15-17; Charles Hodge, Romans (Edinburgh:
Banner of Truth, 1986 [1864]) 17-21; William Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the
Epistle to the Romans (5th ed.; ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,
1902) 7; B. B. Warfield, “The Christ That Paul Preached,” in Biblical Doctrines (Edinburgh: Banner of
Truth, 1988 [1929] 233-52. Many modern
translations appear hesitant to jettison this translation (e.g., NASB; NRSV;
ESV).
[xi] One might
suggest, with little hesitation, that the apparent “orthodoxy” of the view led
to its popularity, the Nicene and Chalcedonian formulae providing the lens
through which the text was read.
[xv] The standard
discussion remains that of Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (trans. John Richard DeWitt; Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975) 64-68.
[xvi] Cf., e.g.,
Ridderbos, 65-67; John Murray, The
Epistle to the Romans, 2 vols. (NICNT: Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959-65)
1:5-12; C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical
and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 2 vols. (ICC:
Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975-79) 1:57-64; Martin Hengel, The Son of God (trans. John Bowden;
London: SCM/Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976) 59-61; Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans (trans. G. W.
Bromiley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980) 11; Richard B. Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in
Paul’s Soteriology (Philipsburg, N.J.: P & R, 1987) 98-114; Dunn, Romans 1-8, 13; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1992)
233-37; Moo, 44-51; Brendan Byrne, Romans
(Sacra Pagina; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1996) 43-45; Thomas R.
Schreiner, Romans (BECNT; Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1998) 39-43; Larry W. Hurtado, “Jesus’ Divine Sonship in Paul’s
Epistle to the Romans,” in Romans and the
People of God: Essays in Honor of Gordon D. Fee on the Occasion of His 65th
Birthday (ed. Sven Soderlund and N. T. Wright; Grand Rapids and Cambridge:
Eerdmans, 1999) 217-33; J. R. Daniel Kirk, “Appointed Son(s): An Exegetical
Note on Romans 1:4 and 8:29,” BBR 14
(2004) 241-42.
[xvii]
Greek eὐaggέlion
qeoῦ.
Qeoῦ here should be
understood as a genitive of source. Cf.
Cranfield, 1:55.
[xix] On these (most
likely) inherited formulations, cf. Eduard Schweizer, “Zum
traditionsgeschichtlichen Hintergrund der ‘Sendungsformel’ Gal 4, 4. Rom 8, 3f.
Joh 3, 16f. 1 Joh 4,9,” ZNW 57 (1966)
199-210.
[xx] This is
acknowledged by almost all scholars, with the notable exception of James D. G.
Dunn, Christology in the Making (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1980) 33-46.
[xxi] The confession
states that Christ was born of David’s seed “according to the flesh.” Though
the term is often used in the New Testament in a negative sense of sinful human
existence outside of, and prior to Christ (so-called “ethical flesh;” cf. James
R. McGahey, “’No One Is Justified by Works of the Law [Gal 2:16a]: The Nature
and Rationale of Paul’s Polemic against ‘Works of the Law’ in the Epistle to
the Galatians,” Ph.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1996] 199-200, n.34),
that is certainly not applicable here.
It certainly is meant to designate Christ’s natural biological descent
from David (cf. Rom 9:3). But the
contrast is clearly an “aeonic” one, i.e., between two successive ages in the
outworking of God’s purposes. Thus
Christ’s birth as “Messiah designate” is portrayed as a perspective that will
be superseded in the next clause.
[xxii]
For the
same idea, cf. Acts 13:32-33; Hebrews 1:5; 5:5.
That the title “Son of God” was a current Messianic designation is clear
from the Dead Sea Scrolls (e.g., 4QFlor 1.10-13, 18-19; 4Q246 2.1; 1QSam
2.11-12). Cf. also Paul-Émile Langevin,
“Quel est le ‘fils de dieu’ de Romains 1”3-4?” Science et esprit 29 (1977) 145-77, who points to 1 Enoch 105:2 and
4 Ezra 7:28-29; 13:32, 37, 52; 14:9.
[xxiii]
Whereas
Paul refers to Jesus as the Son of God 17 times, he speaks of him as “Lord”
more than 260 times. Indeed, in Romans
10:9 he cites what is undoubtedly the earliest Christian confession (“Jesus is
Lord”), a confession likely derived from Jesus’ own use of Psalm 110:1 (Mark
12:36 et par.), another royal
psalm.
[xxiv]
N. T.
Wright, “The Letter to the Romans: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,”
in The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol.
10 (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002) 383-770.
Elsewhere he says, “‘[T]he gospel’ is a message primarily about Jesus,
and about what the one true God has done and is doing through him” (Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision
[London: SPCK, 2009] 156).
[xxv] J. Ligon Duncan,
“The Attractions of the New Perspective(s) on Paul,” @ http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/attractions-new-perspectives-paul/.
[xxvii]
Reformed
church historians are quick to denounce contemporary New Testament scholars like
Dunn and Wright for their portrayals of writers in the Reformation traditions. Cf. especially Carl Trueman’s 2000 lecture
delivered at Tyndale House, “A Man More Sinned against Than Sinning?” (http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/man-more-sinned-against-sinning-portrait-martin-lu/). Unfortunately, such church historians don’t
extend the same courtesy they demand to the writers they criticize. See Dunn’s
trenchant response to Trueman @ http://www.thepaulpage.com/a-man-more-sinned-against-than-sinning-a-response-to-carl-trueman/.
[xxix]
Cf. his
defense of the doctrine of penal substitution in relation to Jesus’ fulfillment
of the role of the Isaianic servant of YHWH, @ http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Servant_Jesus.htm. Likewise, note his definitive argument that
Paul’s expression, perὶ ἁmartίaς, in Romans 8:3
should be translated “sin offering” (The
Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology
[Philadelphia: Fortress, 1992] ch. 11).
Note, finally, Wright’s discussion of Romans 3:25-26 in his “Romans,”
472-77, where he interprets ἱlastήrion in verse 25 in
terms, not only of expiation, but of the
propitiation of God’s wrath against sinners.
[xxxi]
Cf., e.g.,
Justification, 175. Duncan claims that Wright, despite his
protestations to the contrary, de facto diminishes
sin when he defines justification in terms of ecclesiology (membership in the
covenant community) rather than soteriology (one’s relationship with God). This, frankly, is unfair. I would argue that Wright’s earlier
formulations, when he made that distinction, are imprecise (I would say justification
has both soteriological and ecclesiological dimensions). Nevertheless, Wright is explicit and clear
that one’s relationship with God is established via faith-union with Christ, which is logically prior to
justification, the latter of which is God’s declaration
that one is part of the sin-forgiven people of God.
[xxxii] Cf. his Justification. Of course, Wright draws the ire of Reformed writers
because of two matters: (1) his denial of the scholastic notion of double
imputation—in particular, of the notion that the basis of justification is the
imputation of Christ’s active obedience to the account of the believer; and (2)
his distinction between present and future justification, with the latter “on
the basis of,” or “in accordance with” works, based on Romans 2:16. Nevertheless, Wright strenuously affirms
justification by faith as a forensic, anticipatory declaration of a “right
status” that will be confirmed at the last judgment.
[xxxiv]
Hays, Echoes, 70-73, demonstrates how the
larger contexts of each of the texts cited picture Gentiles and the restored
Israel worshipping and glorifying God together.
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